HQ Player

[Miska]

7 hours ago, tboooe said:

Alright guys, I am finally going to build an actively cooled server PC so I can try CUDA.  I am hoping that using some of the more computational heavy filters in HQP will result in better sound to me.  My intent is to buy some mini-itx Asus mobo and the Streacom DA-2 case (https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/clinical/precision-medicine.html).  

 

Anyway, I would really appreciate some advice on what GPU to consider.  I have never bought a GPU before so I have no idea what to look for or consider.  Thank you in advance!

 

Good starting point are cards based on Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 (Ti). Note that more and bigger fans the card has, quieter it usually is. For example ASUS Strix-series cards have three large fans and are pretty quiet/silent. But the card is huge, so one needs to make sure it actually fits in the case! You also need to have 8-pin aux power connector(s) for the GPU!

https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/ROG-STRIX-RTX2080-8G-GAMING/

(it now has even switch to keep it in "quiet mode")

 

You still need fairly fast CPU for the tasks that cannot run on the GPU, but then you can focus more on the CPU clock speeds and less on the core count. For example I have i7-7700K + RTX2080 and it is quite nice combo. CPU cooler I have is quiet Noctua NH-D15 which is also huge!

 

Another aspect is that bigger the case, easier it is to cool using large slowly rotating fans, meaning it is quieter. Smaller the case, smaller the fans, less space for heat and because the fans run faster they make more noise. Also some cases have sound proofing material in them. Like for example Fractal Design Define R cases I use.

 

You also need quite big PSU for the GPU too. But you may still get away with fanless PSU like this:

https://seasonic.com/prime-titanium-fanless

Or a semi-fanless like this:

https://seasonic.com/prime-ultra-titanium

 

I have a bit older totally fanless Seasonic PSU on the machine where I have 7700K+RTX2080.

 

For lot of info and other examples, please take a look at the thread dedicated to these things:

 

[luisma]

9 hours ago, tboooe said:

Alright guys, I am finally going to build an actively cooled server PC so I can try CUDA.  I am hoping that using some of the more computational heavy filters in HQP will result in better sound to me.  My intent is to buy some mini-itx Asus mobo and the Streacom DA-2 case (https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/clinical/precision-medicine.html).  

 

Anyway, I would really appreciate some advice on what GPU to consider.  I have never bought a GPU before so I have no idea what to look for or consider.  Thank you in advance!

Check gigabyte as well, for gaming Asus is great for audio I believe gigabyte surpasses it in shielding, not gen8 Intel support yet on gigabyte though 

[tboooe]

19 hours ago, luisma said:

Check gigabyte as well, for gaming Asus is great for audio I believe gigabyte surpasses it in shielding, not gen8 Intel support yet on gigabyte though 

Yeah I actually have a Gigabyte Z2670MX Gaming 5 mobo but as you said, it doesnt yet support Intel Gen 8 CPUs.  I was thinking that as part of this build I could also upgrade the CPU but I suppose if I am going to be adding a GPU then my i7-6700 should be ok with non -2s filters.  I guess I will just give it a try.

[Miska]

6 minutes ago, tboooe said:

Yeah I actually have a Gigabyte Z2670MX Gaming 5 mobo but as you said, it doesnt yet support Intel Gen 8 CPUs.  I was thinking that as part of this build I could also upgrade the CPU but I suppose if I am going to be adding a GPU then my i7-6700 should be ok with non -2s filters.  I guess I will just give it a try.

 

No need to rush with that part too much if you have a GPU. If you can have 7700K you get pretty far already. I was thinking to buy 6700K for one of my servers to replace 6600T., because there are still some in stock at very reasonable prices.

 

[tboooe]

16 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

No need to rush with that part too much if you have a GPU. If you can have 7700K you get pretty far already. I was thinking to buy 6700K for one of my servers to replace 6600T., because there are still some in stock at very reasonable prices.

 

Yeah good idea....I will look for an i7-7700K.  For a case, I will probably get the Fractal Design Define Mini C.

[Miska]

2 hours ago, tboooe said:

Yeah good idea....I will look for an i7-7700K.  For a case, I will probably get the Fractal Design Define Mini C.

 

Not that cases are expensive, but just remember to check out all the measures that things actually fit in! I already needed to upgrade once to Define R because of that!

 

[cat6man]

On 1/31/2019 at 5:49 PM, Miska said:

 

No, if some album appears in a different place, it is considered a new one. Currently unavailable items are not removed. They could be from offline storage such as USB disk that is not at the moment plugged in, or NAS that is not at the moment accessible or mounted (typical laptop use cases; travel vs home).

 

You need to manually remove the old entries if you want to make them disappear from the library data. This is quite simple since the library view is sorted by path, so things are grouped together based on storage structure.

 

Hi Miska,

 

No, it is really not simple if you have a lot of albums to move.

Each one that is moved, you have to remember and then manually delete which is a big burden if you move 10-20 albums.

I currently have about 100 albums in my new music-to be moved directory and I might move (or delete if I find I don't like the album) them around  after listening to them one or more times.  It is easy to cut and paste albums to move them around and it is a burden to have to manually remove items, particularly if you run on headless linux.

 

Could I please suggest a HQPlayer setting (on/off) that would enable removing unavailable items?

Perhaps a backed up last version of library.xml could be automatically saved as library.xml.last?

[bibo01]

@Miska Hi,

A little while ago there was talk about bench-marking. I hope you don't mind me bringing it back and going straight to the point.

Would you be able to implement a "benchmark mode" in HQPlayer?

I could setup a public Google database for test results. A simple excel file where to gradually add results and system specs would do. 

Benchmarks could be for different filter configuration - e.g. 2ch-DSD128, 2ch-DSD256, 2ch-DSD512, 8ch-DSD256, ...

Together with a final figure, there should be filter configuration and system setup (cpu, gpu,...) to be entered in the public database. Possibly it can be saved to a file, perhaps with tester's nick. People could send me such file and I would personally add it to the database, perhaps with the help of someone else. 

 

Furthermore, it would be good if for each arbitrary benchmark figure there was a corresponding color - e.g. red, pink, green zone (not acceptable, barely acceptable but perhaps unstable, good) - for each result.

 

Such public database could quickly become a reference for HQPlayer users all over 

[Luca72c]

Hello, i'm a newbie here, thanks to everyone!

I would like to know if it would be possible - and how - in hqplayer to crossover a stereo signal to 8 channels and then to send 4 of these channels to a NetworkaudioD (or ASIO) device and the remaining 4 channels to another NetworkaudioD (or ASIO) device, so to work around the limitations on sending 8 channels of DSD to a multichannel dac.

Sending 4 channels of DSD256 to a single receiving device (BBB, multichannel XMOS, etc...) + 4 channels to another separate receiving device, then sending all 8 channels to the dac, should work, if possible... or not?

Is there any other working way to send DSD256 8 channel flow to a multichannel dac?

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Luca72c said:

Sending 4 channels of DSD256 to a single receiving device (BBB, multichannel XMOS, etc...) + 4 channels to another separate receiving device, then sending all 8 channels to the dac, should work, if possible... or not?

 

No, that won't work...

 

2 hours ago, Luca72c said:

Is there any other working way to send DSD256 8 channel flow to a multichannel dac?

 

Yes, should work fine for example with exaSound and Merging. With Merging it should be possible to do also more than just 8 channels.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, bibo01 said:

@Miska Hi,

A little while ago there was talk about bench-marking. I hope you don't mind me bringing it back and going straight to the point.

Would you be able to implement a "benchmark mode" in HQPlayer?

I could setup a public Google database for test results. A simple excel file where to gradually add results and system specs would do. 

Benchmarks could be for different filter configuration - e.g. 2ch-DSD128, 2ch-DSD256, 2ch-DSD512, 8ch-DSD256, ...

Together with a final figure, there should be filter configuration and system setup (cpu, gpu,...) to be entered in the public database. Possibly it can be saved to a file, perhaps with tester's nick. People could send me such file and I would personally add it to the database, perhaps with the help of someone else. 

 

Furthermore, it would be good if for each arbitrary benchmark figure there was a corresponding color - e.g. red, pink, green zone (not acceptable, barely acceptable but perhaps unstable, good) - for each result.

 

Such public database could quickly become a reference for HQPlayer users all over 

 

You can sort of do that with HQPlayer Pro, but you need to do the timing manually right now. I can later look into adding conversion time timing there too. Trial mode is enough for that purpose...

 

[tboooe]

On 1/31/2019 at 3:18 PM, Miska said:

CPU cooler I have is quiet Noctua NH-D15 which is also huge!

@Miska which mobo do you use with this cooler?  I remember reading that you use Gigabyte gaming?  From what I understand this cooler doesn't work with the Gigabyte micro atx  mobos which I have.  If this is the case I was going to get the NH-D15s instead.

[Miska]

30 minutes ago, tboooe said:

@Miska which mobo do you use with this cooler?  I remember reading that you use Gigabyte gaming?  From what I understand this cooler doesn't work with the Gigabyte micro atx  mobos which I have.  If this is the case I was going to get the NH-D15s instead.

 

I have two with the NH-D15. The i7-6950X is on Gigabyte GA-X99-M-Gaming5. And i7-7700K is on GA-Z170X-UD5-TH.

 

Note that there's now a "high-compatibility" model, NH-D15S too. But I have the regular one.

[Luca72c]

6 hours ago, Miska said:

Yes, should work fine for example with exaSound and Merging. With Merging it should be possible to do also more than just 8 channels.

 

Uhmmm. Is there a DIY way? I don't want to buy a commercial dac...

[Miska]

4 hours ago, Luca72c said:

Uhmmm. Is there a DIY way? I don't want to buy a commercial dac...

 

Certainly there's always a DIY way, it is only about how much effort you are ready to throw in...

 

One is to implement your own USB interface. Or alternatively use suitable SoC where you can get out serial data streams you can reshuffle as necessary using FPGA or CPLD and then use/write suitable ALSA driver to expose that to networkaudiod. Personally I would avoid USB to the maximum extent possible and go latter way and skip USB altogether and go straight from Ethernet to DSD pins (or via 4x I2S).

 

Long ago I did similar for high speed ADC's, using PCI to local-bus interface and custom Linux drivers. Worked actually very nicely.

 

[Luca72c]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Certainly there's always a DIY way, it is only about how much effort you are ready to throw in...

 

One is to implement your own USB interface. Or alternatively use suitable SoC where you can get out serial data streams you can reshuffle as necessary using FPGA or CPLD and then use/write suitable ALSA driver to expose that to networkaudiod. Personally I would avoid USB to the maximum extent possible and go latter way and skip USB altogether and go straight from Ethernet to DSD pins (or via 4x I2S).

 

Long ago I did similar for high speed ADC's, using PCI to local-bus interface and custom Linux drivers. Worked actually very nicely.

 

I agree on avoiding usb, in facts i am going for a bbb i2s input in my 9038 dac. But as now, it's locked to 192khz pcm for 8 channels. 

I'm not able to do any proper alsa driver or kernel design and i think that's not such an easy thing to do, considering not even  people like Miero or Acko managed to issue an 8 channel dsd capable bbb software... 

Something like that would very welcome and not only by me! 

[Miska]

49 minutes ago, Luca72c said:

I'm not able to do any proper alsa driver or kernel design and i think that's not such an easy thing to do, considering not even  people like Miero or Acko managed to issue an 8 channel dsd capable bbb software... 

Something like that would very welcome and not only by me! 

 

BBB is getting very old hardware already...

 

For 8-channels DSD all you need is 8-bit parallel bus that can be slave-clocked at DSD rate. Each bit of a byte is single channel and then you run the bus at the DSD rate. That is not even very fast...

 

[luisma]

On 3/8/2017 at 1:39 AM, bogi said:

Xenial for sure, according to OS.

 

I tried that, but no change for IPv4 only. HQPlayer Desktop sees no device when NetworkAudioAdapter backend is selected.

 

Did you ever try direct cable config?

Old and off topic for this thread but @bogi I have the exact same issue, did you ever found out why the NAA could not get out of the loop?

[DancingSea]

Jussi (or anyone),

 

Does the Convolution Engine EQ settings work on DSD?

 

Thx

[Miska]

3 hours ago, DancingSea said:

Does the Convolution Engine EQ settings work on DSD?

 

Yes, all HQPlayer processing features are available for both PCM and DSD.

 

[DancingSea]

41 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, all HQPlayer processing features are available for both PCM and DSD.

 

 

I tried it with DSD, and at the bottom of the screen it says convolution has been disabled, even though I have it active.  

 

I quit and relaunched HQP, and now it appears to be working.  Ideas?

 

Also, how does one create EQ convolution files for HQP?  I have some a kind CA member gave me, but it would be fun to create my own.

[deneb]

Hello,

I would like to know if it is possible to use vst plug-ins in hqplayer,

Thanks

[bibo01]

1 hour ago, deneb said:

Hello,

I would like to know if it is possible to use vst plug-ins in hqplayer,

Thanks

No, because they are limited and they do not support DSD.

[Miska]

6 hours ago, DancingSea said:

I tried it with DSD, and at the bottom of the screen it says convolution has been disabled, even though I have it active.  

 

I quit and relaunched HQP, and now it appears to be working.  Ideas?

 

Also, how does one create EQ convolution files for HQP?  I have some a kind CA member gave me, but it would be fun to create my own.

 

It says CUDA offload for convolution is enabled/disabled...

 

There are multiple options for creating EQ filters, such as Acourate, REW and Audiolense.

[tboooe]

Guys, I know this is purely subjective but I am interested to hear people's thoughts on if getting a GPU to run the more complicated HQP filters has been worth the extra cost versus just running the -2S filters?  I finally made the decision to move my fanless server out of my music room so that I can get a more powerful CPU with active cooling.  Since the server will be far away I dont care about noise anymore so I am seriously thinking about getting  a GPU for CUDA offload.