HQ Player

[Miska]

6 hours ago, copy_of_a said:

with 44.1kHz sources ps-mqa (mp) starts to roll off somewhere at around 14kHz or 15kHz or so ... so possibly not the best choice here.

 

At 44.1 kHz, slow roll-off begins at 16 kHz and roughly follows shape of the increasing noise floor of undecoded MQA. So with something like HQPlayer Embedded, it is also good choice for things like 128 kbps MP3 files/internet streams, since MP3 encoders at 128 kbps regularly cut off at 16 kHz.

 

It is also good choice for decoded (unfolded) MQA at 88.2/96 kHz, because it starts rolling off much later than MQA's own upsampling (rendering) filters that begin rolling off already around 25 - 30 kHz. While preserving very short impulse response in the spirit of MQA.

 

And as you said, it goes nice generally with hires. So I'd call it "filter for HiRes and MQA".

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

At 44.1 kHz, slow roll-off begins at 16 kHz and roughly follows shape of the increasing noise floor of undecoded MQA. So with something like HQPlayer Embedded, it is also good choice for things like 128 kbps MP3 files/internet streams, since MP3 encoders at 128 kbps regularly cut off at 16 kHz.

 

It is also good choice for decoded (unfolded) MQA at 88.2/96 kHz, because it starts rolling off much later than MQA's own upsampling (rendering) filters that begin rolling off already around 25 - 30 kHz. While preserving very short impulse response in the spirit of MQA.

 

And as you said, it goes nice generally with hires. So I'd call it "filter for HiRes and MQA".

 

guess there's no way no use it with 96 & 192 with TEAC 501 and that i should upgrade at least to TEAC 503?

[arglebargle]

I don’t have time to listen yet but adding my report of specs and success at various rates...my lowly 4790k with a $100 GTX1050 can easily do 16M from red book -> DSD256. 40%-ish on CUDA*, 90-100 (out of 400%) on CPU.

 

Based on reports I was skeptical but CUDA offload is so optimized with closed-form, it is not much more taxed than the previous version. 

 

*: Less than 40% really, it jumps around but that is the max 

[Miska]

21 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

guess there's no way no use it with 96 & 192 with TEAC 501 and that i should upgrade at least to TEAC 503?

 

Next version will allow rate conversions to a different DSD rate family from those rates (new HQPlayer Embedded 4.3.0 already does that). TEAC 503 won't help on that either, it doesn't accept DSD data at 48k-base DSD rates either.

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

13 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Next version will allow rate conversions to a different DSD rate family from those rates (new HQPlayer Embedded 4.3.0 already does that). TEAC 503 won't help on that either, it doesn't accept DSD data at 48k-base DSD rates either.

 

?Great news!

[arglebargle]

@Le Concombre Masqué I also prefer the dsd5v2 modulator (256+ version) with my iDAC2. ASDM7 sounds more hifi—sparkle and stage width—but what I hear as the bass and sub-bass focus/speed of dsd5v2 wins out.

[arglebargle]

@Le Concombre Masqué I also prefer the dsd5v2 modulator (256+ version) with my iDAC2. ASDM7 sounds more hifi—sparkle and stage width—but what I hear as the bass and sub-bass focus/speed of dsd5v2 wins out.

[Miska]

Note, I also did some re-tuning of DSD5 modulator somewhat recently, worth checking out again if you like DSD5v2.

[Allan F]

Is there a way to set "Rpt" and "Remain" as defaults so they don't have to be selected each time you reboot?

[sixman]

1 hour ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

?Great news!

I concur! 

Is something like hqp embedded ever likely to be possible in windows?

Also, any chance of making it easier to switch matrix pipeline filters with something like presets?

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, sixman said:

Is something like hqp embedded ever likely to be possible in windows?

 

To limited extent, you can run HQPlayer Embedded on Windows using WSL supplied with latest versions of Win10. But some of the current functionality doesn't work, and many of the upcoming functionality are not going to work either.

 

6 minutes ago, sixman said:

Also, any chance of making it easier to switch matrix pipeline filters with something like presets?

 

Yes, that is a planned feature...

 

[shadowlight]

1 hour ago, sixman said:

I concur! 

Is something like hqp embedded ever likely to be possible in windows?

Also, any chance of making it easier to switch matrix pipeline filters with something like presets?

As Miska, mentioned you can run Embedded under WSL.  The last time I had tried to run I was successfully able to make it work as part of the Alchemy/Muso and Geofffrey Armstrong was also successful in making it work with Roon.  The one thing that I was hoping to achieve was to make it work as UPnP renderer which did not work due to WSL not supporting some of the functionality needed for Rygel/libupnp.

[asdf1000]

Hi @Miska

 

I saw this pic on your FB page. How are you playing from the Tidal desktop app to NAA here?

 

[louisxiawei]

10 hours ago, Miska said:

Next version will allow rate conversions to a different DSD rate family from those rates (new HQPlayer Embedded 4.3.0 already does that). TEAC 503 won't help on that either, it doesn't accept DSD data at 48k-base DSD rates either.

@Miska I'm a little confused about this because I find HQplayer Embedded 4.3.0 configuration page remains pretty much the same.

What does "Allowing rate conversions to a different DSD rate family" mean? Does it mean we can set separate rate target from certain rate of files? 

 

e.g. 44.1/16 to 22.6MHz and DSF to 24.6MHz? 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, louisxiawei said:

@Miska I'm a little confused about this because I find HQplayer Embedded 4.3.0 configuration page remains pretty much the same.

What does "Allowing rate conversions to a different DSD rate family" mean? Does it mean we can set separate rate target from certain rate of files? 

 

e.g. 44.1/16 to 22.6MHz and DSF to 24.6MHz? 

 

It is not related to the configuration page. Each filter has rule set of allowed conversion ratios. For poly-sinc-mqa I changed the rule set from allowing only simple integer multiples to allow also complex ratios as long as the conversion factor is at least 8x.

 

So now you can use it to convert for example 96 kHz hires to 11.2 MHz DSD, which helps on DACs like TEAC that don't support 48k-base DSD rates. Since factor from 96k to 352.8k is less than 8, it cannot be used to do that conversion for PCM. But it is much less problem for that case anyway because the DACs usually support 384k (except few rare ones like Resonessence Labs HERUS and maybe some other Resonessence Labs DACs).

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Em2016 said:

I saw this pic on your FB page. How are you playing from the Tidal desktop app to NAA here?

 

 

Not to a NAA, but to HQPlayer Embedded. This is done using the input feature of HQPlayer Embedded. I have HQPlayer Embedded running on a machine much like sonicTransporter that has suitable input card (RME HDSPe AIO). Tidal desktop application is running on my Mac Mini (running macOS), which in turn is connected to the HQPE machine using AES/EBU. So sound output from any application, like Tidal or Spotify goes to the HQPE for upsampling.

 

I also have Google's Chromecast Audio dongle connected using Toslink to optical input of the same card, allowing me to play Tidal, Spotify, etc directly from my phone or tablet to the HQPE machine using Chromecast support.

 

[asdf1000]

23 minutes ago, Miska said:

Tidal desktop application is running on my Mac Mini (running macOS), which in turn is connected to the HQPE machine using AES/EBU. So sound output from any application, like Tidal or Spotify goes to the HQPE for upsampling.

 

I also have Google's Chromecast Audio dongle connected using Toslink to optical input of the same card, allowing me to play Tidal, Spotify, etc directly from my phone or tablet to the HQPE machine using Chromecast support.

 

 

That's cool !

 

With Chromecast Audio you can basically cast from the native mobile/tablet apps of ALL (except Apple Music) streaming services.

 

I just revisited the thread about the sonicTransporter as an 'audio hub' with HQPe.

 

Does that only work with the sonicTransporter hardware? Or can I buy the same miniDSP USBStreamer (TOSlink-to-USB converter) to use with my own HQPe hardware build?

 

[sixman]

Can HQPE run off a USB stick?

[Miska]

14 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

Does that only work with the sonicTransporter hardware? Or can I buy the same miniDSP USBStreamer (USB-to-TOSlink converter) to use with my own HQPe build?

 

If your own HQPe build has a PCIe slot available, then you can fit the HDSPe card.

 

You can also use the USBStreamer (I use it with another Chromecast dongle), but then you don't get automatic input rate switching at the moment since USB Audio Class has a stupid way to handle sampling rates. So you will need to manually change the input sampling rate from HQPe side. This is less of a problem if you play something like Spotify or similar that always uses single sampling rate.

 

[Miska]

12 minutes ago, sixman said:

Can HQPE run off a USB stick?

 

Yes, certainly! That's the way I test the bootable image I provide.

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, shadowlight said:

As Miska, mentioned you can run Embedded under WSL.  The last time I had tried to run I was successfully able to make it work as part of the Alchemy/Muso and Geofffrey Armstrong was also successful in making it work with Roon.  The one thing that I was hoping to achieve was to make it work as UPnP renderer which did not work due to WSL not supporting some of the functionality needed for Rygel/libupnp.

 

As time goes on, Microsoft keeps improving WSL in each major Win10 upgrade. So over time the UPnP functionality may start working. But I doubt that for example ALSA things would start working any time soon. So things that use "generic unix" are more likely to become available and things that use hardware interfaces (sound, graphics) are less likely to become available soon.

 

[asdf1000]

6 minutes ago, Miska said:

You can also use the USBStreamer (I use it with another Chromecast dongle), but then you don't get automatic input rate switching at the moment since USB Audio Class has a stupid way to handle sampling rates. So you will need to manually change the input sampling rate from HQPe side. This is less of a problem if you play something like Spotify or similar that always uses single sampling rate.

 

 

That would be ok. 99% of the audio that ever comes out of my Mac will be 44kHz

 

The only stuff 48khz and higher for me is via Roon, which is via USBridge NAA anyway.

 

 

 

[asdf1000]

20 minutes ago, Miska said:

but then you don't get automatic input rate switching at the moment since USB Audio Class has a stupid way to handle sampling rates.

 

When you say 'at the moment', do you anticipate you'll be able to update it in the near future?

 

So what's the instructions with the miniDSP USBStreamer - just update to latest firmware and plug and play after that?

 

I saw for sonicTransporter, there is some command line stuff required.

 

But with my own HQPe hardware build, no command line required?

 

[HardrockInMiniMac]

@Miska: I find it very interesting and cool that a lot of people change filters per type or style of music.

 

I am using Roon as a frontend and going into HQP because I find it more appealing and comfortable just by its secondary features. I know from testing in my setup that HQ Player standalone sounds better to me.

 

Either way, I have to logon to my Windows 2016 machine from MS Remote desktop to change settings. No issue with that as long as I find one setting for all - which I learn from this thread is a compromise. In particular because I listen to all kinds of music from Metal to Classic.

 

Having said that and given the tendency of people around here to adjust settings to musical styles, would it be possible to implement a tag/setting per album or even per song that would tell HQP which filter to choose on the fly?

 

That would be a nice feature. Don't know if it has been mentioned or discussed before and sorry if so.

 

Chris

[Miska]

27 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

When you say 'at the moment', do you anticipate you'll be able to update it in the near future?

 

For some devices at least, but it will likely need some ALSA driver/library work...

 

28 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

So what's the instructions with the miniDSP USBStreamer - just update to latest firmware and plug and play after that?

 

I saw for sonicTransporter, there is some command line stuff required.

 

But with my own HQPe hardware build, no command line required?

 

The <input> lines need to be manually added to the configuration file, but when the device is known, it is easy. There's no web config for this stuff because it is a bit too complex to do it in a sane way. It is kind of stuff that I'd expect hardware vendor to do.

 

For USBStreamer, you need to add these lines under <engine> element in /etc/hqplayer/hqplayerd.xml:

<input channels="2" device="hw:CARD=USBStreamer,DEV=0" name="USBStreamer @44.1k" period_time="100" samplerate="44100"/>
<input channels="2" device="hw:CARD=USBStreamer,DEV=0" name="USBStreamer @48k" period_time="100" samplerate="48000"/>
<input channels="2" device="hw:CARD=USBStreamer,DEV=0" name="USBStreamer @88.2k" period_time="100" samplerate="88200"/>
<input channels="2" device="hw:CARD=USBStreamer,DEV=0" name="USBStreamer @96k" period_time="100" samplerate="96000"/>
<input channels="2" device="hw:CARD=USBStreamer,DEV=0" name="USBStreamer @176.4k" period_time="100" samplerate="176400"/>
<input channels="2" device="hw:CARD=USBStreamer,DEV=0" name="USBStreamer @192k" period_time="100" samplerate="192000"/>

This allows you to select it as input at any of those sampling rates.