HQ Player

[Solstice380]

Hi. Miska

I quite don't understand technically. Could you please see my photos attached. After checked auto rate family, it's fine when i played flac 16/44.1 and DSD64. All were up to DSD128 as i wanted them to but it still stopped working when playing back Hires flac and there was a flashing dialog box occured ( in the picture no"2)

 

That happens when your DAC does not support the sampling rate of the source file (or upsampled multiple of it). Standard DSD64 is 2.8 MHz and is an integer multiple of 44 kHz CD rate. If your source file is 48, 96 or 192 kHz that would be 3.1 MHz DSD64 or 6.1 MHz DSD128.

 

What is the sampling rate of your source file?

What does the manufacturer of your DAC say about the sampling rates it will play?

[Solstice380]

Warrior, is it possible the volume dial is turned to 0?

 

About HQP sound, I had very good quality sound direct from a MacMini but it had the full LPS and Uptone Audio's MMK fan kit (big help). The I moved to a new i7-6700K CPU based PC, and it was very good, also. Now I have the MacMini as NAA and it is awesome!

 

I have 2 DACs and each one needs different modulator and filter to sound their best. The general consensus is that the better sounding players like HQP, BugHead Emperor or XXHighEnd do require finding the sweet spot for your DAC, but once found I haven't heard of many going back.

 

If you share some screen shots of your Settings page and main screen others can help more, also.

[Solstice380]

Any chance we could do that?

 

Currently, not with HQPlayer itself. See the last few posts. There may be some software out there that will capture the USB out, but not sure if you would be able to manipulate it back to a playable or analyze-able format.

[Solstice380]

HQP 3.14.0 requires NAA 3.40, correct? Thanks in advance!

[Solstice380]

Downloaded latest version of HQPLAYER Audio Dameon for my Nuc.Do you have to leave computer on all the time or is there a way to start this on computer on start up ?

 

You can add a shortcut to the Startup folder, or Win10 has a Startup page in Task Manager. Works on my headless Win10 NAA. The ASIO driver also loaded in Startup so it starts on boot. Perfect!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Solstice380]

Yes uninstalled old version before installing new version.

 

You might try uninstall/reinstall the current version. I've never had that issue with HQP, but have with other programs.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Solstice380]

Good luck, I just noticed you said roon works fine on its own so that means the driver is probably ok. Worth a shot tho. 2 weeks ago I had some issues in my playback chain (dropouts) and ended up doing a clean install of windows, HQP, Roon and audio fidelizer and all drivers. That solved the dropout issues.

 

Ouch! I feel your pain on that one.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Solstice380]

Hi Miska,

 

When I upsample my music at 24576000 to my T+A DAC8 DSD, (auto rate family unchecked, pipeline SDM checked, CUDA offload checked, direct SDM unchecked, filter：poly-sinc-2s)

 

Modulator AMSDM7 512+FS gives tiny pop noise from time to time while the other modulator doesn't have any problem, DSD7, ASDM7 both work fine.

 

My PC setup:

CPU: I7 3770 (35% load)

GPU: gtx 780 (30% load)

 

Any idea of the problem of this modulator?

 

I think it is the computer, not HQP's filter.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Solstice380]

I, of course, can't answer for the future features. I'm guessing you are on a OS X so doesn't XLD keep your metadata if you convert to AIFF and maybe even FLAC? Somebody here will know for sure. Been a while since I've messed with music on OS X.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Solstice380]

Sorry 'bout that. I'm not sure what will convert ALAC but pretty sure there is a way to keep your metadata intact. Which program do you use to rip?

 

I use dbPoweramp and I think it will do it fine. And, I quickly found this link that says it keeps id3 tags.

 

http://www.hootech.com/formats/flac/convert-alac-to-flac.htm

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Solstice380]

Having just received a Lampi Atlantic for evaluation with 22 and 24 MHz I thought I would try some "cross-rate" upsampling. I have a 6700K / GeForce 970 /Asus Z170 mobo OC'd to 4.16 GHz with DDR4 2400 memory, but little OS optimization. Poly-sinc-short-mp with 512+Fs and CUDA doing 44 to 22 takes about 25 seconds to load up and runs the CPU at ~22%. I tried 44 to 24 without success. It takes about the same time to load at 100% CPU but then HQP just stops and doesn't play.

 

Then I tried DSD64 2.8 MHz (44 base) to 24MHz using poly-short-mp / fast-mp / IIR and it only took a few seconds to load and runs fine at about 25% CPU.

 

I'm still using 3.14.4 and NAA 3.40 until the dust settles!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Solstice380]

Please send log data by email. Takes up too much column space, and quoting it just doubles the stuff. Thanks!

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Computer Audiophile

[Solstice380]

Has anyone found the latest version 3.15.1 HQplayer sound very weird? Or just me?

 

The sound is quite digital for me and makes my ear fatigue quickly.

 

Another obvious difference is that running the same filter and sampling rate needs much less CPU load. Wondering whether it is the reason causing this problem.

 

I listened last night for about 5 hours so about 6 different CDs and didn't hear anything like that. I'm on Win 10 server and Win 10 NAA. Any possibility it was just a bad time for you to listen? Are you using a NAA or direct connection to DAC? No info in your post.

[Solstice380]

I agree, 3.15.1 at DSD512 sounds great here. I also reinstalled 3.15, but it didn't stay in very long.

 

I went from 3.14.4 to 3.15.1 so don't have 3.15.0 to try! I have noticed some weird CPU behavior now but don't know how far back it goes. Sometimes HQP will jump 3-5 seconds at a time, or just run some seconds quickly then wait then run some seconds quickly, again. I can stop/start play and get exact same result or it will change to normal speed running. Music speed is not affected, but maybe the sound quality is?

 

 

You can see the sinusoidal CPU behavior. It is hard to see unless you change Task Manager Performance graph Update Speed to Fast (default Normal smooths the response too much). If you split it to show all 8 cores you can see that CPU Utilization hits 100% sometimes for some cores. I don't think this can be good. So, watch out about CPU Utilization if you get dropouts. Maybe some cores are hitting 100%. Note, my music flow has not been affected (no dropouts in any PCM to DSD or DSD to DSD upsampling).

[Solstice380]

Do you have CUDA offload enabled?

 

Tested with and without CUDA and have seen it either way. Doesn't happen all the time but it does happen often. I can't determine what causes it. I think I have only seen it with NAA not direct connection, but haven't done direct connection for a long time.

[Solstice380]

Tried to install 3.16 and got errors. I kept inputting ignore and now I have a 3.16 Manual and an About indicator of 3.5. I did uninstall 3.15 before trying to install 3.16.

 

What OS? I did a Win10 3.15.1 uninstall / 3.16 install this morning. No problem.

 

Do you reboot after uninstall? Usually a good idea.

[Solstice380]

Miska, thanks for the explanation of auto setting.

 

I found that both slider and seconds in the time counter may flow unevenly.

Maybe it has some relation to more pulsing processor utilization since 3.15.

 

I have had the uneven time counter since at least 3.14 something. It is what led me to correlate it to the sinusoidal CPU usage in the the screenshot I posted. I have played with buffer settings both in HQP and in an ASIO control panel (McIntosh) with no consistent change in the timer behavior. Some times it is relatively stable and others it runs fast for up to 4-5 seconds and then waits. Network activity correlates with this also. Using a Lampi with Amanero USB it still occurs, no control panel for this ASIO.

 

I don't remember this ever happening back when I used a direct PC-DAC connection so I wondered if it was NAA network related. That was also many HQP versions back. I also wonder if it may be when you have a lot of headroom in the CPU/GPU and the processing happens quickly enough that there are slack periods? Using poly-sinc-shrt-mp and ADSDM512+ the CPU runs ~21% for 44.1>DSD512 and ~28% for DSD64>DSD512. As us Z170 mono, i7 6700K, GTX970, 16GB G. Skill DDR4 2400 15 latency. Win 10 not slimmed very much to ~50 processes.

 

BTW, 3.16 sounds really good at DSD512 through a Lampi chipless DAC.

[Solstice380]

Are you talking specifically about Red Book? Higher 44.1x rates (e.g. DXD) to 24.576 MHz DSD stutter badly with -2s on my 6700k + 1080GTX. (Using HQP 3.16)

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Computer Audiophile

 

My i7 6700K with GTX970 can do 44.1 to 48K x512 no problem with poly-sinc-2s. CPU ~22%. HQP just stops after trying to initialize with non -2s. I'll try some 88 and 176 source files later to see what happens.

[Solstice380]

16 minutes ago, DSD256 said:

 

Funny ... it seems everyone else must have tomatoes on their ears. Besides, Miska keeps his DAC for the best in the business ... funny, really funny.

 

Ha ha ha.... we think you are the funny one.   And you persist!   You aren't helping yourself.   Seriously.  

[Solstice380]

I just tested turning off / on my new Lampi Golden Atlantic (woohoo!) with Amanero USB / Combo 384 1.0.57 / ASIO64 1.0.3 driver.  I use a USB cable that does not have 5V lead and it worked fine.  (I even pulled the USB cable while the DAC was off)  

[Solstice380]

What level should be set when using a chip-less DAC (like DSC-1) for DSD playback?

[Solstice380]

23 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Same as for other cases. Overdriving DSD doesn't improve anything...

 

Thanks.  I've been running at -5.  I'll try bogi's -10 and see if my DAC likes it.  ?

[Solstice380]

11 minutes ago, Dr Tone said:

 

@Miska

If HQPlayer could somehow alleviate the popping caused by crappy Windows drivers that would be sweet!  If I pause the track before changing to another track it isn't an issue.  Stopping completely causes it.  Roon direct also pops when completely stopping.  That last part might not be avoidable.

 

McIntosh tried a few times to fix it for the D150 and never completely succeeded.  Now, cuts that start with a strong intro are missing the start and there is a small tick after a a playlist is done or stopping a track.  We've raked them over a lot about it but no final fix!

[Solstice380]

59 minutes ago, mooflotic said:

To give you an idea of my settings. Notice on the open rate list no DSD rates...

sorry for the huge images, I'm on an iPad Pro...

 

 

Why do you have 32k x 512 set as the Max Rate.  Shouldn't that be 44.1 k or 48k?

[Solstice380]

24 minutes ago, wolft said:

 

I think you must do your job and patching the HQPlayer Desktop 3 (3.16.1). MS doesn't say not to force updating to the creators update. MS offers an app ('Windows10Upgrade.exe') so you can update to Windows 15.063.xxx, if windows 10 update doesn't offer the creators update. please stop bashing MS, it's not an MS problem it's an HQPlayer problem. It's not a good sign that your developer maschine's didn't run the latest windows 10 builds. So hurry up.

 

Best regards

wolft

 

(sry for my bad school english, it's 50 years ago I learned in school)

 

I think you must chill out.  And maybe go back 50 years and learn some manners.  MS sux, and breaks all kinds of programs not just HQP.  Not much computer experience, it seems.