HQ Player

[Yviena]

21 minutes ago, bunno77 said:

 

 

So I have kept playing around today. Have been deleting anything hq related, reinstall etc and even disabling antivirus. Nothing has worked. I did a search and found a program called Dependancy Walker that apparently if you drop in the .exe it will tell what is wrong if there is problems. Here is a screenshot of what it showed after I dropped in hq .exe.

Not sure if this is relevant and I don't know if it helps but here it is. Some weird older dates there too

 

 

 

Have you tried DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth in cmd? 

 

This usually fixes corrupt/missing os files.

[bunno77]

37 minutes ago, Yviena said:

 

Have you tried DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth in cmd? 

 

This usually fixes corrupt/missing os files.

 

 

Nope but I will Google what they are and do it now. Thanks for the advice

[bunno77]

1 hour ago, Yviena said:

 

Have you tried DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth in cmd? 

 

This usually fixes corrupt/missing os files.

 

Keeps failing saying it can't locate source files and to use 'source' option. Trying to work that out now

 

[bunno77]

I set a new inbound rule of windows firewall to allow windows update but it didn't seem to work

[Miska]

3 hours ago, bunno77 said:

So I have kept playing around today. Have been deleting anything hq related, reinstall etc and even disabling antivirus. Nothing has worked. I did a search and found a program called Dependancy Walker that apparently if you drop in the .exe it will tell what is wrong if there is problems. Here is a screenshot of what it showed after I dropped in hq .exe.

Not sure if this is relevant and I don't know if it helps but here it is. Some weird older dates there too

 

 

 

I assume you have seen the notice on my web page and have this installed:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2999226/update-for-universal-c-runtime-in-windows

 

You can also try to install the x64 version Visual Studio 2017 runtime from here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

for 64-bit version of HQPlayer. But this shouldn't be necessary.

[bunno77]

9 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

I assume you have seen the notice on my web page and have this installed:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2999226/update-for-universal-c-runtime-in-windows

 

You can also try to install the x64 version Visual Studio 2017 runtime from here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads

for 64-bit version of HQPlayer. But this shouldn't be necessary.

 

The first update was already installed. Did Visual C but still no luck either

 

Thank you so much for your time. 

[asdf1000]

27 minutes ago, bunno77 said:

 

The first update was already installed. Did Visual C but still no luck either

 

Thank you so much for your time. 

 

Is your Roon Core on the same machine you're trying to setup HQPlayer with?

 

Or 2 separate machines?

 

If separate machines, I would highly recommended the trial of HQPlayer Embedded, using Jussi's USB bootable image (burn to USB flash drive using etcher). See the last section "Downloading and configuring bootable image" here:

 

https://www.signalyst.com/embedded-install.html?

 

It boots from USB, so leaves your Windows install intact. Just remove the USB flash drive on next boot and Windows boots normally.

 

Once you go Embedded, there's no going back to Desktop version.

 

[bunno77]

2 hours ago, Em2016 said:

 

Is your Roon Core on the same machine you're trying to setup HQPlayer with?

 

Or 2 separate machines?

 

If separate machines, I would highly recommended the trial of HQPlayer Embedded, using Jussi's USB bootable image (burn to USB flash drive using etcher). See the last section "Downloading and configuring bootable image" here:

 

https://www.signalyst.com/embedded-install.html?

 

It boots from USB, so leaves your Windows install intact. Just remove the USB flash drive on next boot and Windows boots normally.

 

Once you go Embedded, there's no going back to Desktop version.

 

 

Hi mate, how are you?

 

Nah core and HQ on same machine at the mo but that's some great info thank you. Glad to see you are such a pro with it now. 

 

 

[Yviena]

@Miska Is it actually bad to run only 384khz with FIR2 disabled, or does it depend on if other equipment is sensitive to ultra sonic frequencies?

 

Another thing im wondering is the xtr filter a apodizing one, there is some conflicting information here some says it's apodizing while others say it's not.

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, Yviena said:

@Miska Is it actually bad to run only 384khz with FIR2 disabled, or does it depend on if other equipment is sensitive to ultra sonic frequencies?

 

Not necessarily, just depends on the analog filter and other things. If you want to compare against something that has FIR1 + FIR2, then it is more logical to have HQPlayer + FIR2 instead of HQPlayer replacing FIR1 and go without FIR2.

 

4 minutes ago, Yviena said:

Another thing im wondering is the xtr filter a apodizing one, there is some conflicting information here some says it's apodizing while others say it's not.

 

It is somewhat on the edge of being or not being. For practical purposes I'm still putting it under apodizing category because design specs are such.

 

ext2 is clearly apodizing one, but in many ways similar.

[asdf1000]

8 hours ago, bunno77 said:

Nah core and HQ on same machine at the mo but that's some great info thank you. Glad to see you are such a pro with it now.

 

All good.

 

Definitely not a pro. The Embedded USB bootable method above is way way simpler, for simple minds like mine, ha.

 

The Embedded license is more expensive than Desktop but to me it's so worth it.  But the 30 day trial is free of course, to see/try for yourself.

[clang]

After many trials, and errors, I managed to install and run HQPlayer Desktop v.3.25.3 under Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS. However, DSD files are not upsampled and PCM files are upsampled but not to DSD. In Settings, the Bit Rate box only shows options up to 48k x 1024. What have I done wrong?

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, clang said:

After many trials, and errors, I managed to install and run HQPlayer Desktop v.3.25.3 under Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS. However, DSD files are not upsampled and PCM files are upsampled but not to DSD. In Settings, the Bit Rate box only shows options up to 48k x 1024. What have I done wrong?

 

What settings do you have in main window? Things in Settings dialog are only default values for main window.

 

[clang]

Sorry, forgot to attach the pictures. Here they are.

[Miska]

6 hours ago, clang said:

Sorry, forgot to attach the pictures. Here they are.

 

Now I see the problem. In main window you have output mode set to "Auto", meaning HQPlayer will try to play PCM -> PCM, DSD -> DSD, but not convert between the two. For DSD upsampling, you need to select "SDM (DSD)" as output mode...

 

To allow DSD to DSD rate conversions, you need to uncheck "Direct SDM" under "DSDIFF/DSF Settings" dialog.

 

[Quadman]

On 3/25/2019 at 11:19 AM, clang said:

In Settings, the Bit Rate box only shows options up to 48k x 1024. What have I done wrong?

 

On the main setting dialog box as show in your pictures change SDM pack from DoP to SDM.  For Bit rate limit you need to lower that to to 48k x 256 or possibly 44K x256(which is DSD256 and I think the dacs limit, this dac can't handle DSD512 much less DSD1024 which you have selected).  Then in main HQP screen under the round volume knob make sure you select SDM there, not auto.  And as Jussi says under DSDIFF/DSF settings make sure Direct SDM is unchecked.

[clang]

Thank you,Jussi and Quadman. Now I have everything upsampled to 6.144m. I wonder what that is.

One other thing. When I clicked on Help and then Register,  I got a directory list instead of a page that I can make payment to get a licence.

[Miska]

8 hours ago, clang said:

Thank you,Jussi and Quadman. Now I have everything upsampled to 6.144m. I wonder what that is.

One other thing. When I clicked on Help and then Register,  I got a directory list instead of a page that I can make payment to get a licence.

 

Is your DAC Brooklyn DAC or Brookly DAC+? It goes to 44.1k x256, so you can set that as a limit. IIRC, that 6.144M (48k x128) works, but the 256 multiple of 48k doesn't.

 

You can get to the web shop here. From there you can get a license key file that can be then installed through Help / Register menu option.

[AnotherSpin]

On 1/11/2016 at 7:03 PM, Miska said:

 

Remember that you must set "DAC Bits" to 20 for Yggdrasil in HQPlayer settings? Otherwise the noise shaping goes completely wasted, because Yggdrasil is 20-bit DAC and any extra bits will just get thrown away (as a result any noise shaping).

 

I recommend also trying all poly-sinc filter variants to 192 (-ext to 176.4 in case of RedBook) as well as closed-form. For starters, just make sure DAC bits is set to 20 for Y and set dither to TPDF. Once you have found best filter, you can experiment with NS9 and Gauss1.

 

For Gungnir DAC bits must be set to 18 and for Bifrost MB it must be set to 16. Otherwise you get incorrect and suboptimal results.

 

Miska, is there any update to you recommendation of DAC bits (and filters) settings for Gungnir since 2016? As I understand new multibit Gungnir has some new features since that time? Thank you.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, AnotherSpin said:

Miska, is there any update to you recommendation of DAC bits (and filters) settings for Gungnir since 2016? As I understand new multibit Gungnir has some new features since that time? Thank you.

 

For multibit version DAC bits must be set to 18 (or less), since the AD5781 DAC chip is 18-bit. For the SDM version with AK4399 chip you can leave DAC bits at Default.

 

For more accurate setting, linearity measurement would be good. Yggrasil seems to be linear to 16-bit, so Gungnir may be more around around 14-bit. Although the USB input has limited rate capability, NS9 still gives some possibilities to linearize output at 14-bit without parctical loss in dynamic range. This is quite easy to check by listening comparison.

 

[Yviena]

39 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

For multibit version DAC bits must be set to 18 (or less), since the AD5781 DAC chip is 18-bit. For the SDM version with AK4399 chip you can leave DAC bits at Default.

 

For more accurate setting, linearity measurement would be good. Yggrasil seems to be linear to 16-bit, so Gungnir may be more around around 14-bit. Although the USB input has limited rate capability, NS9 still gives some possibilities to linearize output at 14-bit without parctical loss in dynamic range. This is quite easy to check by listening comparison.

 

Actually it seems yggdrasil a2 is linear to around 19 bits according to this measurement https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/yggdrasil-a2-measurements-deconstructing-asr-amirs-hack-job.6442/#post-211061

So gungnir will probably be around 17 bits.

[Miska]

41 minutes ago, Yviena said:

Actually it seems yggdrasil a2 is linear to around 19 bits according to this measurement https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/yggdrasil-a2-measurements-deconstructing-asr-amirs-hack-job.6442/#post-211061

So gungnir will probably be around 17 bits.

 

The SE output seems to be pretty much -96 dB (16-bit), balanced output somewhere around -106 (17/18-bit). Amir's result is IIRC +-0.5 dB deviation. But depends where you want to put the deviation limit...

 

If you can use enough sampling rate, there's no need to try to optimize too much but instead of you can opt on the lower number of bits for safety. Schiit is a bit more tricky because it can accept only up to 192k sampling rate.

 

For example with Spring 2, there's no SNR difference whether you use 24, 20 or 16-bit output. With least aggressive NS5, noise floor begins to increase from analog background up above 60 kHz.

[Yviena]

2 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

The SE output seems to be pretty much -96 dB (16-bit), balanced output somewhere around -106 (17/18-bit). Amir's result is IIRC +-0.5 dB deviation. But depends where you want to put the deviation limit...

True but purrin in that post did say that he managed to get even better linearity, the post with the updated linearity measurement is probably buried somewhere in that thread.

[AnotherSpin]

11 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

The SE output seems to be pretty much -96 dB (16-bit), balanced output somewhere around -106 (17/18-bit). Amir's result is IIRC +-0.5 dB deviation. But depends where you want to put the deviation limit...

 

If you can use enough sampling rate, there's no need to try to optimize too much but instead of you can opt on the lower number of bits for safety. Schiit is a bit more tricky because it can accept only up to 192k sampling rate.

 

For example with Spring 2, there's no SNR difference whether you use 24, 20 or 16-bit output. With least aggressive NS5, noise floor begins to increase from analog background up above 60 kHz.

 

Do I read you correct - for Gungnir it is 16 bit (17/18 bit for balanced)? What about dither?

 

Thank you.

[Miska]

22 minutes ago, Yviena said:

True but purrin in that post did say that he managed to get even better linearity, the post with the updated linearity measurement is probably buried somewhere in that thread.

 

I wonder how much there are unit variations. Also zoom-in plots would be useful to better see where the deviation begins.

 

14 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

Do I read you correct - for Gungnir it is 16 bit (17/18 bit for balanced)? What about dither?

 

I have no seen anybody measuring Gungnir, but the DAC chip itself is 18-bit part. How linear it is, is another question, possibly somewhat less, but hard to say how much. You can try different settings from 18-bit down to 14-bit with NS9 dither/noise-shaping. With 18/17-bit and likely even with 16-bit you are also fine with TPDF or Gauss1 dither.

 

Really quiet portions of music are good for testing this. As long as you don't start hearing background hiss you are good.

 

You can also emphasize the differences with normal loud material by turning down digital volume from HQPlayer to -40 dB for example and then turning up volume from amp. Just be careful when doing such test not to accidentally blast at loud volume! So music playback is better started first, then carefully increase volume from amp and turn it back down before touching the playback or settings again.