HQ Player

[shadowlight]

On 8/29/2018 at 2:51 AM, Em2016 said:

 

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?

 

 

You should be able to make it work with SonicTransporter and USBStreamer.  Information on the configuration steps listed in the embedded thread page. 33.  Having a hard time quoting the exact post here.

[asdf1000]

19 minutes ago, shadowlight said:

 

You should be able to make it work with SonicTransporter and USBStreamer.  Information on the configuration steps listed in the embedded thread page. 33.  Having a hard time quoting the exact post here.

 

Thanks! I am aware of this but had reservations adding TOslink into the chain, that right now is entirely ethernet and just USB at the endpoint.

 

Jussi explained things though, so I may revisit this idea.

 

[Kugel]

I'm going to try it

 

some recommended configuration for Ayre QB9 DSD

[Miska]

4 hours ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

Do you expect it to sound a bit less good ?

 

No, I'm not talking about sound quality, but about CPU load. All the integrators should be consuming roughly same amount of CPU resources. I just need to massage the code a bit if CIC is consuming clearly more than the others...

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

No, I'm not talking about sound quality, but about CPU load. All the integrators should be consuming roughly same amount of CPU resources. I just need to massage the code a bit if CIC is consuming clearly more than the others...

 

excellent ; thank you. However it's not "clearly"consuming more, at least as defined by % I can read

[Geoffrey Armstrong]

 

 

Which filter and shaper (Ditherer/Modulator) to apply in different situations is an interesting topic by itself.

 

I can understand Miska being reluctant to be too specific in his recommendations, because it is highly dependant on your DAC/System and also highly subjective.

 

There seems to be some kind of consensus emerging though, in terms of filters that work well for Redbook, High Rez and MQA, as well as some suggestions for which combinations may work best based on the type of music.

 

My J River to HQPlayer script will allow you to experiment by easily associating different filter/shaper combinations to different music. This works by creating custom tags in J River, which must be named as follows:

 

‘HQPlayer Filter’

 

‘HQPlayer Shaper’

 

When you set up these custom “library fields” (in J River terminology) they appear as new tags which may be set to any of their values, in the same way that you apply any meta-data tag within J River’s views in your music library.

 

This is made easier, because when you set-up these two “library fields” in J River, you can apply a list of the allowed values. If you wanted that list to include all the available filters, the string you’d use for the allowed values, would be as follows:

 

Allowed values for ‘HQPlayer Filter’:

 

none;IIR;FIR;asymFIR;minphaseFIR;FFT;poly-sinc;poly-sinc-mp;poly-sinc-short;poly-sinc-short-mp;poly-sinc-hb;poly-sinc-ext;poly-sinc-mqa;poly-sinc-mqa-mp;poly-sinc-xtr;poly-sinc-xtr-mp;sinc;polynomial-1;polynomial-2;minringFIR;minringFIR-mp;closed-form;closed-form-fast;closed-form-M

 

The values must be separated by a semi-colon.

 

This somewhat cryptic string results in a nice, neat, drop down menu when it appears as a tag that you can apply to any of your music files.

 

You don’t have to include all possible HQPlayer filters in this string.

 

For ‘HQPlayer Shaper’ the full list of the allowed values is:

 

none;NS1;NS4;NS5;NS9;RPDF;TPDF;Gauss1;shaped;DSD5;DSD5v2;ASDM5;DSD7;ASDM7;DSD5v2 256+fs;DSD7 256+fs;AMSDM7 512+fs

 

Again, I have included all possible values here. My J River to HQPlayer script will, together with HQPlayer itself, make sure you cannot apply a combination which is not applicable to the mode you’re using (PCM or SDM (DSD)).

 

If you try to apply a non-applicable value there will be no change to the filter/shaper within HQPlayer.

 

As long as the filter/shaper combination is valid it will be applied at the time ‘J River to HQPlayer’ loads the music files to HQPlayer which you’ve tagged in J River with that particular filter/shaper.

 

This should work just fine as Miska introduces new filters/shapers in the future as I just check to see what’s available. The new ‘Closed Form M’ filter introduced with version 3.23 works, for example, without me having to change any code.

 

You will have to modify the strings above in J River’s library fields to add any new filters/shapers.

 

You may also apply an HQPlayer Type tag to associate either AUTO, PCM or SDM (DSD) modes to the music files where you’ve applied this tag.

 

The string of allowed values for the ‘HQPlayer Type’ tag is:

 

Auto;PCM;SDM (DSD)

 

I don’t want to sound like I’m blowing my trumpet for J RIver to HQPlayer. As far as I’m aware though, this is the only solution that allows you to associate different filter/shaper combinations to different music files in your library. It makes comparisons and experimentation very easy.

 

You could for example create a smart playlist in J River for all your high-rez files, then select them all and apply a particular filter/combination to all of them.

 

Obviously this only applies to those of you who are running or willing to run J River on Windows, only and for HQPlayer Desktop.

 

The thread I started about this is here:

 

 

Here's the entire J River to HQPlayer package for anyone who wants to try it.

 

Geoff

 

 

J River - HQPlayer.zip

[Hammer]

Hi, I am using the x86-64 NAA image on a NUC like PC that is connected to my USB DAC.  Also connected to the DAC is a chromecast Audio device via optical input.  I find that when I switch from USB input to optical and then back that my NAA connection to the DAC is lost and I need to reboot my NUC.  

 

Is is there a way to reset the USB connection without rebooting the NUC? 

 

Thanks.  Also, the reason my I am also attaching the Chromecast Audio device is so I can use Spotify which is not supported in Roon (my front end for HQPlayer).  I know DietPi supports both NAA and can serve as a Spotify endpoint, but for some reason, Dietpit does not recognize my XMOS based DAC (Auralic Vega).

 

Any suggestions on how I can combine Roon, HQPlayer and Spotify?  Thanks 

 

Hammer

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Hammer said:

Hi, I am using the x86-64 NAA image on a NUC like PC that is connected to my USB DAC.  Also connected to the DAC is a chromecast Audio device via optical input.  I find that when I switch from USB input to optical and then back that my NAA connection to the DAC is lost and I need to reboot my NUC.  

 

Unfortunately some DACs do this and disappear from the USB bus when input is switched. HQPlayer should reconnect to the NAA next time playback is started if the DAC is available at that time again. However, something funny can happen if you switch input while HQPlayer is playing. It is equivalent to the case of pulling out the USB cable while playback is ongoing.

 

2 hours ago, Hammer said:

Thanks.  Also, the reason my I am also attaching the Chromecast Audio device is so I can use Spotify which is not supported in Roon (my front end for HQPlayer).  I know DietPi supports both NAA and can serve as a Spotify endpoint, but for some reason, Dietpit does not recognize my XMOS based DAC (Auralic Vega).

 

Any suggestions on how I can combine Roon, HQPlayer and Spotify?

 

With HQPlayer Embedded, you can connect Chromecast Audio to optical input of machine running HQPlayer Embedded and then route the audio through HQPlayer. You get all the upsampling etc for Spotify and other services that support Chromecast Audio.

[sgr]

Hi Miska,

I’m fortunate to own two great dacs. I’m using a micro Rendu and ultra Rendu as bass for both. One DAC is connected to my Preamp and front end and the other DAC is the Legacy Wavelet which is at the other end of the room by the amps and it is a digital DAC, Crossover, DSP, and preamp. 

 

I’d like to switch between them which would be no trouble if i just used ROON but with HQPlayer it will only connect to one DAC and naa at a time I believe. 

 

Is there a way to run two sessions of HQPlayer at a time and switch between them or any other method available? I know I could change the settings each time but my Lampizator likes one group of settings and the Wavelet another. (Wouldn’t you know?)

 

Of course if anyone else has figured a way to do this your input is welcome also. 

 

Thanks in advance. 

 

Steven

 

[soares]

Where to start? I am so tired... For the last perhaps 2 months I've been using my STi5 + uR feeding my Qutest with HQPe. As some of you might have read in these thread or others I used to have a white noise coming randomly from just one channel when upsampling to DSD 256 and PCM768. Recently I discovered how to get rid of it just by checking the auto rate family box. And as it was suggest by me and others it was not related to the FMCs I use

... Today and because I have decided to send my OPPO 205 to Korea for an hardware upgrade I did the USB Dac upgrade to the last version (0118) in order to benefit from the full decoding and rendering MQA. How I was happy. After listening for the first time to some very good MQA files, I decided to revert to Roon upsampling DSD. White noise from the 2 channels. What??? Yes it was true. After a couple of experiences I discovered that only DSD DoP was now accepted. Before, DSD native was running ok even if it was not feasable at 512 with my ST5. I tried 64, 128 and 256. No luck, white noise always without checking DoP. I turned to HQPe. Imediately the white noise started. So I checked the DoP. And I tried a couple of more tracks. Some were working others not. It turned out that every MQA track when upsampling to DSD was not working at all. No sound at all. What was really strange is that I could see that in Roon was showing  DSD output but in my TV was just showing LPCM 768. Every non-MQA track was working fine if DoP was checked. Turning again to Roon DSP and upsampling. When playing MQA tracks with DSD256 enabled and DoP I just had the normal MQA rendering and decoding without any upsampling to DSD... On the contrary, the non-MQA files were upsampled to DSD256. I am posting here because over the last 2 months there was also a couple of upgrades not just the one from HQPe from last week but also some related to the OS from STi5 and uR if I am not mistaken. So because I just switchon today my Oppo 205 for the USB Dac firmware upgrade I can't know for sure if it is related to this upgrade or the STi5 or uR upgrades. Any help would be much appreciated. I am going to post my commentson other related fora. Thank you.

[Miska]

On 9/3/2018 at 5:28 AM, soares said:

Where to start? I am so tired... For the last perhaps 2 months I've been using my STi5 + uR feeding my Qutest with HQPe. As some of you might have read in these thread or others I used to have a white noise coming randomly from just one channel when upsampling to DSD 256 and PCM768. Recently I discovered how to get rid of it just by checking the auto rate family box.

 

That's a Chord-effect, my Mojo gives me white noise after couple of minutes listening, even when playing from iPhone 7 through Camera Connection Kit straight to the Mojo. Or on Windows PC playing Spotify straight to the Mojo. I've never been able to play anything through the Mojo without sooner or later getting just white noise.

 

Auto rate family doesn't fix this, but may work around around it. But such work around may stop working at any point in time, so it depends mostly on luck.

 

On 9/3/2018 at 5:28 AM, soares said:

Today and because I have decided to send my OPPO 205 to Korea for an hardware upgrade I did the USB Dac upgrade to the last version (0118) in order to benefit from the full decoding and rendering MQA. How I was happy. After listening for the first time to some very good MQA files, I decided to revert to Roon upsampling DSD. White noise from the 2 channels.

 

This is a different problem, likely caused by change in the USB firmware which in turn broke the driver. As I've said before, this is likely fixable by modifying the OS driver, but only device vendor can provide you a new Linux kernel. But the "full MQA decoding and rendering" in itself is kind of unnecessary thing. Roon can fully decode MQA, the only extra you gain from Oppo is upsampling with MQA's filters (something they call "rendering").

 

[asdf1000]

On 6/20/2018 at 5:56 PM, Miska said:

In listening room and office, I have two mains filters, both connected to the same power feed. In listening room, one used for all equipment with SMPSU's and the other one for the ones with LPSU's (few DACs plus amps). In the office, one used for computers (UPS) and one for audio equipment (DACs, headphone amps, etc).

 

Quoting an old post here, but just going through this thread. Which mains filters do you use?

 

[soares]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

 

That's a Chord-effect, my Mojo gives me white noise after couple of minutes listening, even when playing from iPhone 7 through Camera Connection Kit straight to the Mojo. Or on Windows PC playing Spotify straight to the Mojo. I've never been able to play anything through the Mojo without sooner or later getting just white noise.

 

Auto rate family doesn't fix this, but may work around around it. But such work around may stop working at any point in time, so it depends mostly on luck.

 

 

This is a different problem, likely caused by change in the USB firmware which in turn broke the driver. As I've said before, this is likely fixable by modifying the OS driver, but only device vendor can provide you a new Linux kernel. But the "full MQA decoding and rendering" in itself is kind of unnecessary thing. Roon can fully decode MQA, the only extra you gain from Oppo is upsampling with MQA's filters (something they call "rendering").

 

Thank you Jussi. I saw your answer in the other thread. My apologies for multiple posts. Let's see if they could do that.

 

Shall I contact them directly or do you think they noticed your request?

 

As you might have seen in my post, regarding MQA if I have multiple play lists (MQA and non-MQA) I need to change the configurations in order to get the sound right. This is not feasable as I need interrupting the music.

 

Also DSD DoP does not allow DSD512...

 

[Miska]

17 hours ago, soares said:

Shall I contact them directly or do you think they noticed your request?

 

It may be better if you contact them directly.

 

17 hours ago, soares said:

As you might have seen in my post, regarding MQA if I have multiple play lists (MQA and non-MQA) I need to change the configurations in order to get the sound right. This is not feasable as I need interrupting the music.

 

I'm not sure what exactly is the problem with MQA? If you play MQA decoded by Roon, it looks the same as regular 88.2/96 kHz hires from HQPlayer point of view. But overall, it is best to avoid MQA if possible.

 

17 hours ago, soares said:

Also DSD DoP does not allow DSD512...

 

That depends entirely on DAC. HQPlayer does support sending DSD512 using DoP, but DAC would need to support 1.4/1.5 MHz PCM input for that.

 

[soares]

16 hours ago, Miska said:

 

It may be better if you contact them directly.

 

 

I'm not sure what exactly is the problem with MQA? If you play MQA decoded by Roon, it looks the same as regular 88.2/96 kHz hires from HQPlayer point of view. But overall, it is best to avoid MQA if possible.

 

 

That depends entirely on DAC. HQPlayer does support sending DSD512 using DoP, but DAC would need to support 1.4/1.5 MHz PCM input for that.

 

Thank you Jussi. I will contact them directly.

I do not have the computing power to do  it nor the Oppo 205 can support it. I am not aware of many dacs that also acept that kind of resolution....The issue here is that Oppo 205 accepted  natively DSD up to 512. And now just DoP up to DSD 256.

[soares]

3 minutes ago, soares said:

Thank you Jussi. I will contact them directly.

I do not have the computing power to do  it nor the Oppo 205 can support it. I am not aware of many dacs that also acept that kind of resolution....The issue here is that Oppo 205 accepted  natively DSD up to 512. And now just DoP up to DSD 256.

Sorry I forgot to reiterate the problem with MQA files. I am quoting my post:

With HQPe:

" I turned to HQPe. Imediately the white noise started. So I checked the DoP. And I tried a couple of more tracks. Some were working others not. It turned out that every MQA track when upsampling to DSD was not working at all. No sound at all. What was really strange is that I could see that in Roon was showing  DSD output but in my TV was just showing LPCM 768. Every non-MQA track was working fine if DoP was checked. "

Previously I never had problems with this.

With Roon upsampling:

"Turning again to Roon DSP and upsampling. When playingMQA tracks with DSD256 enabled and DoP I just had the normal MQA rendering and decoding without any upsampling to DSD... On the contrary, the non-MQA files were upsampled to DSD256."

So despite the fact that the DSP option is on and the Roon upsampling to DSD256 is checked, there's no upsampling with MQA files. It's really very strange. 

I hope I was sufficiently clear. My apologies for my English.

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, soares said:

So despite the fact that the DSP option is on and the Roon upsampling to DSD256 is checked, there's no upsampling with MQA files. It's really very strange. 

 

Hi soares

 

Actually this observation here is normal. You can't have MQA rendering/decoding working together with Roon DSD-sampling.

 

If you change your device settings to 'No MQA support' in Roon, then you can have the 1st unfold up-sampled by either Roon or HQPlayer.

 

Can you give that a try and report back?

 

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, soares said:

" I turned to HQPe. Imediately the white noise started. So I checked the DoP. And I tried a couple of more tracks. Some were working others not. It turned out that every MQA track when upsampling to DSD was not working at all. No sound at all. What was really strange is that I could see that in Roon was showing  DSD output but in my TV was just showing LPCM 768. Every non-MQA track was working fine if DoP was checked. "

Previously I never had problems with this.

 

This is the firmware + driver problem... Not related to HQPlayer.

 

Your DAC doesn't seem to support 48k-base DSD rates. It is not related to MQA, but to source sampling rate. Same thing happens with non-MQA 96k files and such. You can tell HQPlayer to use max 44.1k x256 output rate and turn off "auto rate family".

 

6 hours ago, soares said:

With Roon upsampling:

"Turning again to Roon DSP and upsampling. When playingMQA tracks with DSD256 enabled and DoP I just had the normal MQA rendering and decoding without any upsampling to DSD... On the contrary, the non-MQA files were upsampled to DSD256."

So despite the fact that the DSP option is on and the Roon upsampling to DSD256 is checked, there's no upsampling with MQA files. It's really very strange.

 

I cannot comment about Roon upsampling, I have never tried it. I just always make sure Roon's DSP engine is disabled.

 

[rickca]

@Miska have you read this iFi paper regarding their new GTO filter?  I'd love to hear your comments about it.  

https://ifi-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/iFi-audio-Tech-Note-GTO-filter-FINAL.pdf

 

I would also like to invite comments from @PeterSt and @mansr.  I will fall off my chair if you guys agree on anything. ?

 

This filter will be available initially on the iFi Pro iDSD, but ...

 

This took some extra work, and some fine-tuning of resource allocation, however with the version 5.3C of our XMOS firmware we now offer this new, Global Transient Optimised digital filter to all our customers, including just about all our legacy products, as an alternate option to the filters implemented in the DAC chip that apply for version 5.30 and before.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, rickca said:

@Miska have you read this iFi paper regarding their new GTO filter?  I'd love to hear your comments about it.  

https://ifi-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/iFi-audio-Tech-Note-GTO-filter-FINAL.pdf

 

Seems to be yet another very short (and leaky filter) filter similar to the MQA's ones. Too bad it is yet another story with time domain plot of the filter's impulse response, but without frequency domain plots. Since it has only very few taps they are able to run it on the XMOS MCU's very limited computing resources, like MQA too.

[PeterSt]

2 hours ago, rickca said:

I would also like to invite comments from @PeterSt and @mansr.  I will fall off my chair if you guys agree on anything. ?

 

Rick, you can relax and sit back. 

 

These days I tend to change my stance or technical merit (would I ba capable anyway), and I think I am not alone on this :

 

As you may know o.a. I use the non-ringing Arc Prediction as part of the filter as a whole, or stand alone (as how the original Arc Prediction has been set up). What happens in practice with this, is this and I try to be as objective as possible because I can be regarded a consumer of "a" product, which is only coincidentally my own :

 

Frequently I engage one of the filters which imply a better frequency domain (less distortion there) which I can do for two separate reasons (separate because on-day-this and the-other-day-that) :

1. I have the hunch to desire for more high frequency (less roll off, depending on the filter chosen);

2. I might have the idea that the zero-ringing filter (Arc Prediction) sounds too harsh.

 

Ad 2.

I already know that this is only because I know how the filter behaves and the higher the frequency (audible spectrum) the more THD. So this is theory.

 

Ad 1.

That too is theory, although it usually audible helps right away.

This is dangerous because the now less rolling off part is in a such high frequency reange that I am sure that I am not able to receive it anyway. However, this is merely about the square response of lower frequencies, like my these days some times mentioned "electric butterfly" sounds (could be SandyK's moths).

 

I think since the G3 incarnation of our DAC this never ever holds any more. It is 100% always right at the next day's listening session that from the ever so slightly more ringing filter, I perceive sheer distortion. It is only that I can't determine what distortion that exactly is, but it should be about the mixing of again the higher frequencies because of ringing (it's actually smearing). So I put back native Arc Prediction (totally zero ringing and still only 0.00063% THD+N at 1KHz for 24 bits - don't ask about 20KHz ;-)) and all is super (really super) smooth right away.

Directly or more indirectly the iFi guy tells similar (I think).

 

Notice that a difference will be that I don't apply "just less filtering of less taps etc." but that the filtering means is different to begin with because Interpolative. That next whatever masking could be in order because of higher frequency THD of that, would be something for blahblah commercial stories I can't make up (but which could exist and be true). My personal commercial story could be : ringing can't be masked and the "THD" coming from that has to be of another kind (it buzzes to begin with).

 

Any other story for mine !

 

 

 

[mansr]

2 hours ago, rickca said:

@Miska have you read this iFi paper regarding their new GTO filter?  I'd love to hear your comments about it.  

https://ifi-audio.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/iFi-audio-Tech-Note-GTO-filter-FINAL.pdf

 

I would also like to invite comments from @PeterSt and @mansr.  I will fall off my chair if you guys agree on anything. ?

That's nine pages of utter bullshit.

[asdf1000]

I chuckled when it ended with "We must make clear that GTO is not directly related to filter types used by MQA, it is not “MQA through the backdoor” because that's exactly what I was thinking it was, throughout the entire read.

 

Love my iFi DAC by the way - I just prefer Jussi's digital filters with the DAC in bit perfect mode.

 

[jimdukey]

What is the difference between the DSD5 Modulator, and ASDM7?

I gather Jussi has tweaked the DSD 5 just recently.

TIA!

[Miska]

3 hours ago, jimdukey said:

What is the difference between the DSD5 Modulator, and ASDM7?

I gather Jussi has tweaked the DSD 5 just recently.

TIA!

 

They are very different. DSD5 is fifth order and can adapt some of the parameters, but otherwise it is fairly static one. It is in a way closer to a traditional modulator. ASDM7 is seventh order and more adaptive in various ways, I'd call it more modern. ASDM5 is similar to ASDM7 but fifth order. Fifth order modulators are slightly less demanding for DAC's DSD noise filter, while seventh order ones are otherwise better.