HQ Player

[freesteve]

any plan for a system optimizer function on 4.0 for Mac?  Thanks again for everything...

[LoryWiv]

3 hours ago, jimdukey said:

I'm surprised there are MQA Filters on HQ, considering how much negative publicity MQA has garnered.

 

I am far from an expert but I believe that in addition to MQA track playback there are other situations where use of these filters may be worthwhile. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than I can elaborate.

[chriss0212]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Here selected input and output devices are still the same:

  2019/05/01 12:21:45 CoreAudio input device: Orpheus (1461) (64) - Prism Media 
Products

 2019/05/01 12:21:45 CoreAudio input selected device: 64

 

  2019/05/01 12:21:56 CoreAudio output device: Orpheus (1461) (64) - Prism Media
 Products

  2019/05/01 12:21:56 CoreAudio output selected device: 64
 

Another problem:

  2019/05/01 12:21:56 Output set channels: 8 (8)

  2019/05/01 12:21:56 CoreAudio output number of streams: 6

 

And actually format listings show only stereo streams.

 

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Hi Miska

 

I have switched between the input devices several time... so i don't know what else i can do. I have switched between Default, BuiltIn(Mic) and PrismSound

"  2019/05/01 12:21:56 CoreAudio output number of streams: 6"

What does it mean to me?

I have configure 8 output channels what you can see in the log and my device has 8 output channels.

Same config is running um HQP3 as 7.1 configuration

I have a 4 way acive crossover setup! So signal feeded is 2 Channel but separated to 8 channels in total.Low, LowMid, MidHigh,High

The wav file i am using for convolving are the same on HQP3 and HQP4

Greetings
Christian
 

[rickca]

@Miska re inputs supported in HQPlayer Desktop 4 ... use of HQPlayer as a DLNA renderer is still limited to HQPlayer embedded, is that right?  I don't really understand what you mean by support for inputs.  Can you give a couple of examples, please?

[chriss0212]

4 minutes ago, chriss0212 said:

 

Hi Miska

 

I have switched between the input devices several time... so i don't know what else i can do. I have switched between Default, BuiltIn(Mic) and PrismSound

"  2019/05/01 12:21:56 CoreAudio output number of streams: 6"

What does it mean to me?

I have configure 8 output channels what you can see in the log and my device has 8 output channels.

Same config is running um HQP3 as 7.1 configuration

I have a 4 way acive crossover setup! So signal feeded is 2 Channel but separated to 8 channels in total.Low, LowMid, MidHigh,High

The wav file i am using for convolving are the same on HQP3 and HQP4

Greetings
Christian
 

Attached the two parts out of the log for my convolution setup:

 

  2019/05/01 12:20:51 Impulse response read from file /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Acourate/MidDip_HT-2dB/Cor2R88.wav for channel 3 = -319.004 dB
  2019/05/01 12:20:51 Impulse response read from file /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Acourate/MidDip_HT-2dB/Cor2L88.wav for channel 2 = nan dB
  2019/05/01 12:20:51 Impulse response read from file /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Acourate/MidDip_HT-2dB/Cor1R88.wav for channel 1 = -282.786 dB
  2019/05/01 12:20:51 Impulse response read from file /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Acourate/MidDip_HT-2dB/Cor1L88.wav for channel 0 = nan dB
  2019/05/01 12:20:51 Impulse response read from file /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Acourate/MidDip_HT-2dB/Cor3R88.wav for channel 5 = -337.154 dB
  2019/05/01 12:20:51 Impulse response read from file /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Acourate/MidDip_HT-2dB/Cor4L88.wav for channel 6 = -302.834 dB
  2019/05/01 12:20:51 Impulse response read from file /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Acourate/MidDip_HT-2dB/Cor3L88.wav for channel 4 = nan dB
  2019/05/01 12:20:51 Impulse response read from file /Volumes/BOOTCAMP/Acourate/MidDip_HT-2dB/Cor4R88.wav for channel 7 = -291.857 dB
  2019/05/01 12:20:52 Impulse response resampled with ratio: 0.5

 

here i don't understand the nan on channel 0,2,4

 

  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 0: 0 -> 0 0/1
  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 1: 1 -> 1 0/1
  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 2: 0 -> 2 0/1
  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 3: 1 -> 3 0/1
  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 4: 0 -> 4 0/1
  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 5: 1 -> 5 0/1
  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 6: 0 -> 6 0/1
  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 7: 1 -> 7 0/1

 

here i don't understand the meaning og 0/1 at the end.

[Le Concombre Masqué]

On 4/28/2019 at 1:19 PM, Bob Stern said:

 

To receive input from a virtual (or physical) audio device, I discovered there is a 2nd step required:

 

Step 1:  Select the desired input device in Settings.  

 

Step 2:  In the main screen of of HQP4Desktop, there is a text field labeled "Content source URI" immediately below the elapsed time progress bar and above the playlist.  Click the popup arrow at the right end of that text field and select the entry corresponding to the sample rate of the source, e.g., "audio:default/44100/2".  (You can type it in, but the popup obviously is easier.)

 

(Step 2 implies that, like HQP Embedded, HQP4Desktop does not automatically adapt to different source sample rates.  You must change this manually.)

 

Step 3:  Click the Play button.

 

Step 2 alternatively can be performed using the popup menu in the upper right corner of the Play view of the Client program.  Of course, Step 3 also can be performed in the Client.

 

To stop playback, I find you must use the Stop button, not Pause.

 

(I only tried this on a Mac.)

On Mojave, I installed Soundflower thanks to you ; I can pick soundflower 2ch in the input device popup but it keeps evading (if I close/open settings it isn't there any longer) + only cd: is offered in the content source URI popup.

 

Before I eventually buy 4 and a ADC for vinyl I was just trying to process/output a radio accessed via web browser .

 

Obviously I'm doing something wrong or have wrong expectations. Can you please help further?

[tedevang]

@Miska I'm running Roon > HQPlayer4 on Mac OS (both on same Mac). Can I use HQPlayer Client on another laptop to control Mode/Filter/Shaper/Rate on a Roon source or will it only work if tracks are loaded directly in HQPlayer?

[Miska]

36 minutes ago, rickca said:

@Miska re inputs supported in HQPlayer Desktop 4 ... use of HQPlayer as a DLNA renderer is still limited to HQPlayer embedded, is that right?  I don't really understand what you mean by support for inputs.  Can you give a couple of examples, please?

 

Yes, that is true. Generally input means something the OS exposes as "audio input device".

 

I use primarily RME ADI-2 Pro as audio input device. It has 768/32 PCM and DSD256 capable ADC, plus it has optical and coaxial S/PDIF and AES/EBU inputs. So one can cannot various kinds of things to it.

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

3 hours ago, ted_b said:

Some candidates include:

* more efficient code

* less code

* better noise isolation (i.e same filters just better)

* better use of each OS

* magic

on Windows Server 2012 : it certainly sounds different, cleaner,  and probably better as if benefiting from better noise isolation (the kind of difference to my ears ; how it would relate to "same filters just better" evades me)

 

With Pop PCM MCH sources pipelined/convolved/turned SDM Stereo I miss some of the bass/drum articulation I enjoy so much with 3.x and globally 4 sounds flatter to me but maybe it's a consequence of being cleaner and i need to adjust.

 

 As Another Spin stressed, 4 offers better focus and it was not subtle with the first SACD I tried (Pollini/Stravinsky and Prokofiev  on Esoteric) where more beautiful better defined piano tones are much appreciated ; the soundstage seemed to have turned into a source point as if Mono but the larger soundstage with 3;x sounded gross in comparison as its less defined transients. 

 

the upgrade price being stiff for me at the moment my bias would be towards dismissing benefits from 4 but I'm afraid I'll end up acknowledging that Miska did a great job as usual and that the SQ has improved. 

 

Hear the SQ difference for yourselves; I dare say it exists.

 

sidenote : I'm only using Desktop, can't get Client to work but don't need it, can't drag & drop either and have to "browse" (and that can not be done if music is played) can't see either which filters are on but guess I have to trust that what I chose in settings is applied

 

 

[Miska]

19 minutes ago, tedevang said:

@Miska I'm running Roon > HQPlayer4 on Mac OS (both on same Mac). Can I use HQPlayer Client on another laptop to control Mode/Filter/Shaper/Rate on a Roon source or will it only work if tracks are loaded directly in HQPlayer?

 

Yes you can do that with client. But wait for the upcoming update, there are some settings synchronization issues I've fixed for the 4.0.2 release.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, chriss0212 said:

  2019/05/01 12:20:46 Matrix pipeline 7: 1 -> 7 0/1

 

here i don't understand the meaning og 0/1 at the end.

 

It is source_channel -> mix_channel  gain_in_db/linear_gain

 

So in this case 0 dBFS / 1.0

 

Quote

I have switched between the input devices several time... so i don't know what else i can do. I have switched between Default, BuiltIn(Mic) and PrismSound

 

In this case, HQPlayer doesn't get any available formats for output, but it gets some for inputs. I don't know why that happens, I need to find a device that behaves similarly.

 

For some reason it gets formats for inputs, but not for outputs, and the ones it gets are all stereo. You can see that the "CoreAudio output virtual formats" list is empty while the corresponding list for inputs has bunch of stereo formats.

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, Confused said:

This I do not understand!  I am using SOtM's Eunhasu and feeding a sMS-200Ultra.  So I presume I cannot set active rate request to "auto" from HQPlayer Client?  If I can, I have no idea how to do this?  To be honest, this is not really and issue.  Now I understand the impact of the "auto" setting in the old  main window, I can get everything set up and working as I want anyway.

 

In Client, there's the three-lines button at the button bar that will pop up dialog having similar controls like Desktop 3 main window and Embedded 4 front page. It just seems to behave a bit awkward now until I get next update out...

 

Today I did some changes to the settings dialog that  hopefully helps getting around these kind of issues.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, jimdukey said:

I'm surprised there are MQA Filters on HQ,

considering how much negative publicity MQA has garnered.

 

They are also in 3.x and are not linked to MQA company in any way, but primarily geared towards playback of MQA encoded content either raw folded, or unfolded form. They are also useful "slow roll-off" filters that in some cases suit normal hires content playback as well. So if you play primarily Tidal through Roon, you can for example set 1x filter to poly-sinc-ext2 and Nx filter to poly-sinc-mqa-mp and this way you get the filter switched when Tidal playback is switching between 44.1/16 and Masters content (assuming the Masters in question is >= 88.2k).

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, freesteve said:

any plan for a system optimizer function on 4.0 for Mac?  Thanks again for everything...

 

I don't really like such... The application is optimized to work well on each respective OS as is.

 

For me, the system optimizer is the HQPlayer OS image that includes HQPlayer Embedded and NAA. Full custom optimized OS tailored only for one purpose - running HQPlayer.

 

[fred_com]

Hi @Miska, I've upgraded almost right away, like many others here. Was somewhat confused by missing library, but now getting used to using the Client instead of RDP'ed HQPlayer 3. 

 

There are a couple of bugs that I've noticed, which are not critical, but rather annoying:

1. When adding new album in Client app by double-clicking on the album title, the tracks are added to the queue, but the playback somehow starts from the last track.

2. I just love the different filters selection for 1x and Nx oversampling, but it seems that Client app is confused by it. For example, if I select xtr-mp filter for Nx oversampling in the desktop settings, client shows poly-sinc-lp-2s filter in the settings.

 

Other than that, works fine. 

 

Thanks for the good work!

[freesteve]

9 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

I don't really like such... The application is optimized to work well on each respective OS as is.

 

For me, the system optimizer is the HQPlayer OS image that includes HQPlayer Embedded and NAA. Full custom optimized OS tailored only for one purpose - running HQPlayer.

 

We are good, thank you once more.

[freesteve]

Why is the buffer greyed out?

[Miska]

27 minutes ago, freesteve said:

Why is the buffer greyed out?

 

It has always been on CoreAudio, because the OS wants to deal with such things by itself. And is actually doing pretty good job at it as well.

 

[Miska]

37 minutes ago, fred_com said:

1. When adding new album in Client app by double-clicking on the album title, the tracks are added to the queue, but the playback somehow starts from the last track.

 

I'll check this once more...

 

37 minutes ago, fred_com said:

2. I just love the different filters selection for 1x and Nx oversampling, but it seems that Client app is confused by it. For example, if I select xtr-mp filter for Nx oversampling in the desktop settings, client shows poly-sinc-lp-2s filter in the settings.

 

I've already fixed this for the upcoming release...

[trcns]

I am trying to upgrade my license from HQdesktop 3 to 4 and I am getting an error "std::exception" when I try to upload the key and click on apply. Do you know why?

[Bob Stern]

5 hours ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

On Mojave, I installed Soundflower thanks to you ...

 

I have no idea whether your problem is caused by Soundflower being flaky or a bug in HQP.  In my suggestion to try Soundflower, I warned that Soundflower might be flaky for you, so I also suggested the commercial program Rogue Amoeba Loopback as an alternative.  I use Loopback myself.

 

Soundflower has not been updated since 12/2014.  Many people find it works in Mojave, and Geoff Armstrong told me he used Soundflower successfully with the scheme I posted in a separate topic for streaming to HQP before Jussi introduced Desktop 4.  However, there are reports of Soundflower being flaky even on older versions of MacOS.

 

Loopback has an unlimited free trial in which it works for 30 minutes at a time.  I suggest you try that.  If it works, then try doing the same thing in Soundflower.

 

Also, it might be prudent to quit HQP Desktop 4 before you make configuration changes in either Loopback or Soundflower because the audio device ID numbers assigned by Core Audio might change.

[tboooe]

On 4/28/2019 at 4:43 AM, Hammer said:

 

Upon further testing, I find that I can stream Roon to different installation of HQPlayer 4 Desktop installed on a Windows 10 machine.  so my problem is streaming to the HQPlayer 4 Desktop running on Server 2016.  But again, Roon to HQPlayer 3 works on the same Server 2016 machine.  Hopefully, the log (in prior posting) will shed some light!  thank you.

Are you still having these issues?  I too use Server 2016, HQP, and Roon.

[chriss0212]

4 hours ago, trcns said:

I am trying to upgrade my license from HQdesktop 3 to 4 and I am getting an error "std::exception" when I try to upload the key and click on apply. Do you know why?

 

I had this problem if I try to upload a lic file with *.txt extension but works with a file with *.xml extension

[lucretius]

23 hours ago, Miska said:

Is it possible to just start some playback from ASIO4ALL and then do the configuration through system tray applet if it would then remember that later?

 

I tried it in Sound Forge. If the changes made in the system tray applet result in a valid input device and a valid output device, then the changes are "remembered".  Otherwise, when reopening Sound Forge, it will just check all input devices and output devices attached to ASIO4ALL.

 

The good thing is that the settings are unique to the host software (player/recorder/DAW), so that way a different set of inputs/outputs can be specified for each.

 

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

7 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

 

I have no idea whether your problem is caused by Soundflower being flaky or a bug in HQP.  In my suggestion to try Soundflower, I warned that Soundflower might be flaky for you, so I also suggested the commercial program Rogue Amoeba Loopback as an alternative.  I use Loopback myself.

 

Soundflower has not been updated since 12/2014.  Many people find it works in Mojave, and Geoff Armstrong told me he used Soundflower successfully with the scheme I posted in a separate topic for streaming to HQP before Jussi introduced Desktop 4.  However, there are reports of Soundflower being flaky even on older versions of MacOS.

 

Loopback has an unlimited free trial in which it works for 30 minutes at a time.  I suggest you try that.  If it works, then try doing the same thing in Soundflower.

 

Also, it might be prudent to quit HQP Desktop 4 before you make configuration changes in either Loopback or Soundflower because the audio device ID numbers assigned by Core Audio might change.

Thank you, I'll look for the scheme you posted and will trial Loopback