HQ Player

[AnotherSpin]

9 minutes ago, LoryWiv said:

The currently available information on Signalyst site about HQPlayer 4 Pro notes it's use as a mastering, post-production tool. Is it aexpected to also confer advantages over HQPlayer Desktop for more common consumer use as a multi-format, high quality, upsampling audio file player?

 

+1. I would like to know also - is there an intention to continue HQ Player 3? Thanks.

[Bob Stern]

19 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

I would like to know also - is there an intention to continue HQ Player 3?

 

Or will there be a consumer version, either 3 or 4, that omits the Pro features of file conversion and recording but includes the new feature of an audio device as a source.  This would facilitate use of a virtual audio device to route output from any streaming service to HQP.

[zerung]

What a wonderful value HQ Player has provided.

Year after year.

Updates for free.

 

I feel (Will) I should give back ($), for the extra services that has been provided without expectation.

I would love to hear more people's views on this?

 

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

Or will there be a consumer version, either 3 or 4, that omits the Pro features of file conversion and recording but includes the new feature of an audio device as a source.  This would facilitate use of a virtual audio device to route output from any streaming service to HQP.

 

Intention is to have the current three products, Desktop, Pro and Embedded.

 

Embedded is already exactly the way you are asking by having support for realtime audio inputs, but without file output. Virtual audio device driver is outside of my scope, but there are other offerings for that can be used for the purpose. Similar feature could be added to Desktop in future too (I have not decided yet). UPnP feature the way it is implemented now in Embedded is not feasible for Desktop.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, LoryWiv said:

The currently available information on Signalyst site about HQPlayer 4 Pro notes it's use as a mastering, post-production tool. Is it aexpected to also confer advantages over HQPlayer Desktop for more common consumer use as a multi-format, high quality, upsampling audio file player?

 

Desktop and Embedded are the ones intended for player use, while Pro is more like file output and recorder... So three products targeting different use cases.

[Miska]

7 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

Can HQP 4 Pro on a Mac capture audio from another application such as a web browser or the app from a streaming service such as Idagio or Qobuz?

 

I realize this can be accomplished using Soundflower to create a virtual audio device interposed between the source app and HQP, but Soundflower has been unstable on Macs for the last several versions of OS X.

 

Maybe with something like Soundflower yes. Or alternatively using for example S/PDIF loopback on the same computer or to another computer.

 

But the intention is more like recording from ADC, with something like RME ADI-2 Pro that can be used to record up to 768k PCM and DSD256, which also has digital inputs (optical and coaxial S/PDIF plus AES/EBU).

 

[Bob Stern]

14 minutes ago, Miska said:

Embedded is already exactly the way you are asking by having support for realtime audio inputs, but without file output. Virtual audio device driver is outside of my scope, but there are other offerings for that can be used for the purpose. Similar feature could be added to Desktop in future too (I have not decided yet).

 

I can’t use Embedded because my exaSound DAC has no Linux driver, so it would be wonderful if you decide to add to Desktop the realtime audio input of Pro.

[Miska]

58 minutes ago, Bob Stern said:

I can’t use Embedded because my exaSound DAC has no Linux driver, so it would be wonderful if you decide to add to Desktop the realtime audio input of Pro.

 

Note that on Windows there's extra pain that ASIO API doesn't support more than one driver/interface per application. So you cannot use ASIO for both input and output simultaneously (since in this case they would be running at different rate).

 

Theoretically it could be done in a hackish way by bypassing the official API and hoping that two drivers don't mess up each other, but still not with same driver for two different devices. But a bit risky to attempt such, could lead to all kinds of unexpected behavior.

 

WASAPI + ASIO works fine though.

[Geoffrey Armstrong]

Miska, Before I try the pro 4 beta, can 3.x HQPlayer Desktop be installed side by side with pro 4 or must I uninstall 3.x before installing pro 4?

 

Thanks

 

Geoff

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

Miska, Before I try the pro 4 beta, can 3.x HQPlayer Desktop be installed side by side with pro 4 or must I uninstall 3.x before installing pro 4?

 

Yes they can be installed at the same time, they install to a different folder.

 

[Geoffrey Armstrong]

Great, thanks!

[louisxiawei]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Desktop and Embedded are the ones intended for player use, while Pro is more like file output and recorder... So three products targeting different use cases.

Is remote control from network disabled on HQplayer pro? I don't see the button on the toolbar on HQ pro. But the "2.12 section: allow remote control from network" is still written in the manual. 

 

Can HQplayer pro be used with Roon, upsampling Tidal stream and output to audio device or even output to files? 

 

 

 

[Miska]

12 minutes ago, louisxiawei said:

Is remote control from network disabled on HQplayer pro? I don't see the button on the toolbar on HQ pro. But the "2.12 section: allow remote control from network" is still written in the manual. 

 

Remote control doesn't exist in Pro. I've somehow forgotten to remove it from the manual when I was reworking the manual for Pro.

 

13 minutes ago, louisxiawei said:

Can HQplayer pro be used with Roon, upsampling Tidal stream and output to audio device or even output to files?

 

No, on purpose that is prohibited. It doesn't fit purpose of the application... I have hard time believing any studio or record label would want to do that.

 

[LoryWiv]

9 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Desktop and Embedded are the ones intended for player use, while Pro is more like file output and recorder... So three products targeting different use cases.

 

Thank you for a clear answer, and I am excited that HQPlayer Desktop will continue to be offered and (based on your incredible track record of making improvements), remain best of breed for it's intended purpose.  Thanks, Miska!

[alec_eiffel]

11 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

 

I can’t use Embedded because my exaSound DAC has no Linux driver, so it would be wonderful if you decide to add to Desktop the realtime audio input of Pro.

You could still run Embedded on a Linux machine and NAA on your Windows or Mac computer with the Exasound drivers. Actually that's my plan with my "new" Exasound E28 . 

 

[Miska]

Or exaSound PlayPoint as NAA...

[Bob Stern]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

exaSound PlayPoint as NAA

 

I certainly don’t want to spend another $2000.

 

3 hours ago, alec_eiffel said:

You could still run Embedded on a Linux machine and NAA on your Windows or Mac computer with the Exasound drivers. Actually that's my plan with my "new" Exasound E28

 

Thanks, but would either of the above solutions enable me to use the Idagio classical streaming service, either from a web browser or the Idagio app?  Both solutions seem to receive audio only from a streaming server, whereas both the Idagio app and a web browser embedded media player can only output to a physical or virtual audio device.

[Miska]

10 minutes ago, Bob Stern said:

Thanks, but would either of the above solutions enable me to use the Idagio classical streaming service, either from a web browser or the Idagio app?  Both solutions seem to receive audio only from a streaming server, whereas both the Idagio app and a web browser embedded media player can only output to a physical or virtual audio device.

 

Embedded can accept inputs from physical devices... And actually if your service plays audio through web browser it should also work on Linux, which would mean you could use virtual device to route the audio back from the browser within same computer. Takes a bit of effort to set up all this though. (same way one can use Shairport or similar for inputs too)

 

That of course doesn't solve the exaSound with Linux problem though. There are just many ways to get input to HQPlayer Embedded. But you could keep the exaSound connected to the current computer. You'd need another one to run HQPlayer though.

[Bob Stern]

Jussi, thanks very much for your help!

 

The bad news is that I was in error about running Idagio from a web browser.  To get lossless audio from Idagio I'd have to use their Mac or Windows app.  (Idagio offers no Linux app.)

 

The good news is that an inexpensive app called AirFoil (from Rogue Amoeba) can capture (hijack) the audio output of any Mac or Windows app, such as Idagio, and transmit it to an AirPlay or Google Cast client, such as HQP Embedded.

 

I assume the required routing would be:  Idagio on Mac >> HQP Embedded on Linux >> NAA on Mac >> exaSound Mac driver.  (Windows could replace any of the Macs.)

 

Considering that HQP Embedded is the most CPU-intensive process, could I run it in a Parallels or VMware virtual Linux machine on the same Mac Mini (2012 i7) used for Idagio and the NAA?

 

(This certainly seems complex compared to adding audio device input to HQP Desktop.)

[Miska]

6 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

I assume the required routing would be:  Idagio on Mac >> HQP Embedded on Linux >> NAA on Mac >> exaSound Mac driver.  (Windows could replace any of the Macs.)

 

Considering that HQP Embedded is the most CPU-intensive process, could I run it in a Parallels or VMware virtual Linux machine on the same Mac Mini (2012 i7) used for Idagio and the NAA?

 

(This certainly seems complex compared to adding audio device input to HQP Desktop.)

 

Virtual machines are horribly bad for any realtime task and especially bad on audio I/O, so I'd say it is not worth trying...

 

What makes this complicated is the exaSound driver. In normal case it would look line Mac >> HQPE in a headless box >> DAC. Not so different (apart from processing capabilities and features) from using something like dCS Upsampler or Chord M Scaler.

 

Believe me adding audio device input to HQPlayer Desktop is not so simple...

At least I need to rethink the GUI in this respect to keep it sensible and simple enough.

[Hammer]

Hi, knowing that running HQPlayer in a virtual machine is not ideal, does that fact that the output is sent to NAA help and hopefully correct the issue?  For various reasons, I am not able to dedicate an individual machine for HQPlayer.   There are no stuttering issues so just question on sound quality.  Thanks!

[Miska]

53 minutes ago, Hammer said:

Hi, knowing that running HQPlayer in a virtual machine is not ideal, does that fact that the output is sent to NAA help and hopefully correct the issue?  For various reasons, I am not able to dedicate an individual machine for HQPlayer.   There are no stuttering issues so just question on sound quality.  Thanks!

 

If the input is from a file and output to a NAA, it is less problematic because NAA is handling the actual audio I/O with a large FIFO buffer.

 

From sound quality point of view it doesn't matter, unless you are getting drop-outs or other glitches. But it just makes things quite a bit less efficient, running an OS on top of another OS.

 

But why use virtual machine instead of running HQPlayer on the host OS?

 

[ericuco]

On 12/19/2018 at 1:36 AM, zerung said:

What a wonderful value HQ Player has provided.

Year after year.

Updates for free.

 

I feel (Will) I should give back ($), for the extra services that has been provided without expectation.

I would love to hear more people's views on this?

 

 

 

In the past, some us here on CA have done this (send $$ to developers like Miska) in appreciation of their continued development, support, contribution and advancement of our hobby.

 

Guessing, PayPal is probably the easiest way to contribute using [email protected] email address. Miska can correct this if needed.

[Geoffrey Armstrong]

Miska,

 

HQP Pro: Is there a way to get a license to lift the timing restrictions for beta testing?

 

When using HQPlayer Pro to record an upsampled/Converted file with the settings for my T+A DAC 8 DSD, I quit HQP Pro once the file had been created and launched HQPlayer Desktop to play it back over the same DAC. Unfortunately Desktop would no longer show the T+A settings without a reboot. Is there any way to avoid this  in the future?

 

Thanks

 

Geoff

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

HQP Pro: Is there a way to get a license to lift the timing restrictions for beta testing?

 

I'll send you email...

 

1 hour ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

When using HQPlayer Pro to record an upsampled/Converted file with the settings for my T+A DAC 8 DSD, I quit HQP Pro once the file had been created and launched HQPlayer Desktop to play it back over the same DAC. Unfortunately Desktop would no longer show the T+A settings without a reboot. Is there any way to avoid this  in the future?

 

You mean Desktop couldn't access the DAC? Probably there was something left running of Pro to keep the DAC busy. You could check task manager if the exe is still shown running and kill it if it is hanging there for some reason. They share the same configuration, but the configuration is cross-compatible. I do the same thing quite a lot myself all the time.

 

If you just want to convert file, use the Null Output mode instead (PCM N/O or SDM N/O). This will leave the DAC alone when operating, and then you are not bound anymore by the formats supported by DAC.