HQ Player

[AnotherSpin]

18 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Maybe that's the text underneath changing size, so you likely get same result also with mouse. I need to play with size policy of vertical size of the text widget... All numbers should be equally tall, but looks like it is not the case...

 

 

Yes, it correlates with text underneath... Not a big deal, but slightly irritating)

[StreamFidelity]

The new version HQPlayer 4.03 works very well.

 

The displayed information is more detailed:
- Fashion, filters and shapers
- Volume in db

(see below: Windows Task-Manager) 😉

 

The problem of not fully recognizable settings on small screens has been fixed by scroll bars.

 

Thank you Miska

 

P. S. I have a small wish. Would it be possible as in HQPlayer 3 under Tools again to offer the ASIO control panel?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

4 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

What is No Closed Form 16M?

Closed Form 16M is not included in Embedded

BTW I tried 4 on macOS and it certainly improved over 3 on that OS

 

@Miska : how about my issue with login /password in embedded ? can't authenticate with hqplayer/password and when I painfully typed hqplayerd -s password with my old eyes and azerty keyboard I got a address already in use message...

 

Anyway I'm stuck with the MBP limitation at 2 usb ports. I took 2 SD cards, one wouldn't write as soon as the flash image stage and the other flashed OK but then it loops forever at booting

 

is there a command line to look for my wifi network and connect to it ? (would free a usb port + I would get rid of the ethernet cable 

 

[PPk]

19 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

Closed Form 16M is not included in Embedded

BTW I tried 4 on macOS and it certainly improved over 3 on that OS

 

@Miska : how about my issue with login /password in embedded ? can't authenticate with hqplayer/password and when I painfully typed hqplayerd -s password with my old eyes and azerty keyboard I got a address already in use message...

 

Anyway I'm stuck with the MBP limitation at 2 usb ports. I took 2 SD cards, one wouldn't write as soon as the flash image stage and the other flashed OK but then it loops forever at booting

 

is there a command line to look for my wifi network and connect to it ? (would free a usb port + I would get rid of the ethernet cable 

 

What kind of improvement u have on 4 on macos? 

[lucretius]

3 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

The new version HQPlayer 4.03 works very well.

 

P. S. I have a small wish. Would it be possible as in HQPlayer 3 under Tools again to offer the ASIO control panel?

 

I would also find this useful.

[tobes]

On 5/16/2019 at 4:33 PM, Miska said:

 

OK, strange, rendering those SVG buttons is failing for some reason... I'll check it out if I can reproduce the problem.

 

 

Those buttons (long press on album tiles in Client) are now fixed for me with 4.03 under OSX Mojave - thanks @Miska.

Nice feature too!

[tobes]

@Miska the auto switching between PCM and DSD material with the 'source' setting now works fine with HQP4 - thanks!

Just a niggle.

When looking in the Client the 'Mode' correctly says 'source' but the Filter and Shaper settings are blank.

 

In the Player app these are listed properly - and 'Mode' shows whether PCM or DSD (rather than source) which is ok.

Would be nice if the Filter/Shaper settings were copied across to the Client. Mac OSX Mojave in my case. 

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, tobes said:

@Miska the auto switching between PCM and DSD material with the 'source' setting now works fine with HQP4 - thanks!

Just a niggle.

When looking in the Client the 'Mode' correctly says 'source' but the Filter and Shaper settings are blank.

 

In the Player app these are listed properly - and 'Mode' shows whether PCM or DSD (rather than source) which is ok.

Would be nice if the Filter/Shaper settings were copied across to the Client. Mac OSX Mojave in my case. 

 

 

Use of "[source]" is a bit unusual curiosity and generally not recommended. But it should show the active settings there. It has been showing to me during my testing, but it could have some timing issue with messages, I'll look into this.

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

P. S. I have a small wish. Would it be possible as in HQPlayer 3 under Tools again to offer the ASIO control panel?

 

That was really ugly hack in HQPlayer 3 and with addition of input support it became too bad to maintain. And it doesn't work over to the Client anyway. So I took it out. Architecturally there really shouldn't be such link between driver/audio backend and GUI layer.

 

[rando]

9 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

The problem of not fully recognizable settings on small screens has been fixed by scroll bars.

 

Much appreciated fix. 

 

After playing around with Client a bit more I can see how it upset a few trained to expect having more robust programming per the full cadre of management features not related to filters/SQ.  Editing in the Desktop Library spreadsheet can be a little tedious at times.  Say hunting down (nonfunctional) $jU784fhU.m3u8 in 10TB spread across a few drives.  When all you really want to do is remove the file after discovering it inside Client.  By locating the root folder/subfolder on disk or from being logged into the Library.  😵

[Miska]

7 hours ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

Closed Form 16M is not included in Embedded

 

Hmmh, it certainly is:

 

7 hours ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

@Miska : how about my issue with login /password in embedded ? can't authenticate with hqplayer/password and when I painfully typed hqplayerd -s password with my old eyes and azerty keyboard I got a address already in use message...

 

Are you on the image? Default username is "hqplayer" and password is "password". You can then change it later. Either from the web interface, or alternatively from the command line with "hqplayer -s username password".

 

8 hours ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

is there a command line to look for my wifi network and connect to it ? (would free a usb port + I would get rid of the ethernet cable

 

You can look for instructions how to configure wpa_supplicant and enable it for systemd-networkd, but since it is a little bit of command line magic to do, I don't advertise it much... Wired is simple plug-and-play.

There are many places with instructions, such as:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WPA_supplicant

 

[StreamFidelity]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

That was really ugly hack in HQPlayer 3 and with addition of input support it became too bad to maintain. And it doesn't work over to the Client anyway. So I took it out. Architecturally there really shouldn't be such link between driver/audio backend and GUI layer.

 

Ugly hack 

Funny 😂

 

But do we mean the same? When I click on "ASIO Control Panel" in HQPlayer 3, the original HoloAudio Control Panel appears.

[Le Concombre Masqué]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Hmmh, it certainly is:

 

 

Are you on the image? Default username is "hqplayer" and password is "password". You can then change it later. Either from the web interface, or alternatively from the command line with "hqplayer -s username password".

 

 

You can look for instructions how to configure wpa_supplicant and enable it for systemd-networkd, but since it is a little bit of command line magic to do, I don't advertise it much... Wired is simple plug-and-play.

There are many places with instructions, such as:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/WPA_supplicant

 

thank you, seems I played with a pre 16M image ; I go download the latest

issue with wired is that the ethernet adaptor eats one of my 2 usb ports and if embedded is on a flash drive (that works) I can't plug the DAC!

I successfully flashed another SD card. However I still get a looping "Timeout writing for hardware"

the wpa supplicant route doesn't look simple ; is there a way to get the SD card solution work?

[Le Concombre Masqué]

8 hours ago, PPk said:

What kind of improvement u have on 4 on macos? 

In a word: clarity. 4 brings more micro-details 

[Miska]

26 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

thank you, seems I played with a pre 16M image ; I go download the latest

 

4.9.0 is latest at the moment...

 

27 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

issue with wired is that the ethernet adaptor eats one of my 2 usb ports and if embedded is on a flash drive (that works) I can't plug the DAC!

I successfully flashed another SD card. However I still get a looping "Timeout writing for hardware"

the wpa supplicant route doesn't look simple ; is there a way to get the SD card solution work?

 

What kind of hardware are you using if it doesn't have built-in ethernet? If you are on Apple hardware, it usually has some peculiarities that may make some things not quite work. Many times SD cards do work though. I'm not sure if the Apple's Thunderbolt-to-Ethernet adapter would work, I have not looked into that, but it could be one possibility.

[Account Closed]

Just a FYI for those running HQPlayer on Win 10. I updated to Win 10 1903 today and there are no issues. HQP 4.0.3 is running just fine.

 

I have Roon on the same machine and they play together well. I found that a buffer of 10ms is the best. Larger buffers created skips and so did 5ms but less frequently. I do not use the client at all. I use the server as a straight back-end to Roon through network control. The endpoint is a uRendu on the network.

[evkatz]

Hi there.  Just installed HQPlayer 4, and I'm trying not to lose my mind by fiddling with the settings.  The "Ordinary Person's" Guide is a couple of years old, so I'd love some advice for my set up.  My DAC is a DCS Paganini.  Max 192 sample rate, I think.

 

1.  Which is preferred - outputting to PCM or DSD?

2.  I listen to mostly studio recorded rock/pop.   Have a powerful CPU.  What are your filter and dither/modulator suggestions?

3.  What should I set my bit rate at, on the SDM/DSD side?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  

[lucretius]

48 minutes ago, evkatz said:

Hi there.  Just installed HQPlayer 4, and I'm trying not to lose my mind by fiddling with the settings.  The "Ordinary Person's" Guide is a couple of years old, so I'd love some advice for my set up.  My DAC is a DCS Paganini.  Max 192 sample rate, I think.

 

1.  Which is preferred - outputting to PCM or DSD?

2.  I listen to mostly studio recorded rock/pop.   Have a powerful CPU.  What are your filter and dither/modulator suggestions?

3.  What should I set my bit rate at, on the SDM/DSD side?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  

 

1. I see your DAC does DSD64 via DoP.  I'm not sure what will be better, 24/192 vs DSD64. Try both and see what you like better.

2. Use a minimum phase filter (abbreviated mp). For PCM I use poly-sinc-short-mp and for DSD I use  poly-sinc-short-mp-2s.  For modulator I use TPDF for PCM and ASDM7 for DSD.

3. 44.1k x64

 

[PPk]

6 hours ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

In a word: clarity. 4 brings more micro-details 

serious? gonna give it a try this weekend...

[tobes]

7 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Use of "[source]" is a bit unusual curiosity and generally not recommended. But it should show the active settings there. It has been showing to me during my testing, but it could have some timing issue with messages, I'll look into this.

 

 

Yes, I realise most are using powerful computers and converting everything to high rate DSD - but that doesn't suit my equipment. 

My Benchmark DAC3 only does DSD64 and I prefer the clarity and SQ of the DAC3 with just upscaled PCM and native DSD64.

My 2012 i7 Mac mini can do DSD128/256 - which I've tried with a low cost Topping D50 DAC - but I prefer the SQ of the Benchmark (maybe that's due to having balanced outs and the gain structure of the DAC3 matching my Benchmark amp setup). In any case the fan on the Mini kicks in at higher DSD rates - which I don't like, so would probably need to change my whole setup to go down that path. 

But everything is sounding great so not much motivation.

I don't think conversion to DSD is a panacea - call me crazy, but I don't find anything wrong with good PCM.😉

   

[tobes]

10 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Use of "[source]" is a bit unusual curiosity and generally not recommended. But it should show the active settings there. It has been showing to me during my testing, but it could have some timing issue with messages, I'll look into this.

 

 

BTW, it's the same for PCM source material.

It's not a big deal for me, since I can see the settings in the player app anyway.

I'm just happy the auto source switching is working.👍

[Le Concombre Masqué]

4 hours ago, evkatz said:

Hi there.  Just installed HQPlayer 4, and I'm trying not to lose my mind by fiddling with the settings.  The "Ordinary Person's" Guide is a couple of years old, so I'd love some advice for my set up.  My DAC is a DCS Paganini.  Max 192 sample rate, I think.

 

1.  Which is preferred - outputting to PCM or DSD?

2.  I listen to mostly studio recorded rock/pop.   Have a powerful CPU.  What are your filter and dither/modulator suggestions?

3.  What should I set my bit rate at, on the SDM/DSD side?

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  

The idea is to best the DACs, their modulators, filters, processing power,  etc, by better ones provided by HQP and better run by a powerful computer ; however due to the prestige of dCS, I'd be interested to know what your ears prefer

 

I would let DSD 64 be DSD 64 and check Direct in DSD settings (but if you use convolution filters)

 

I would upsample all PCM to 192 with Closed Form and shaped dithering ; I'd try none too and play with the dCS filters

 

(nowadays) I don't like mp filters

 

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, tobes said:

 

Yes, I realise most are using powerful computers and converting everything to high rate DSD - but that doesn't suit my equipment. 

My Benchmark DAC3 only does DSD64 and I prefer the clarity and SQ of the DAC3 with just upscaled PCM and native DSD64.

My 2012 i7 Mac mini can do DSD128/256 - which I've tried with a low cost Topping D50 DAC - but I prefer the SQ of the Benchmark (maybe that's due to having balanced outs and the gain structure of the DAC3 matching my Benchmark amp setup). In any case the fan on the Mini kicks in at higher DSD rates - which I don't like, so would probably need to change my whole setup to go down that path. 

But everything is sounding great so not much motivation.

I don't think conversion to DSD is a panacea - call me crazy, but I don't find anything wrong with good PCM.😉

   

 

Nice looking setup! I'm also planning to get a HPA4 for my headphone listening while working.

 

OK, I see. Usually DACs give best performance at a certain input format and that could be used for everything. But the option to use "[source]" is there when needed/wanted. First rate conversion step from RedBook material is anyway the most critical.

 

Couple of reasons for using DSD is that it allows higher rate conversion factors with digital filters, and many times replacing on-chip modulators with more direct path to the D/A conversion stage. But DSD128+ would be preferred for that.

 

28 minutes ago, tobes said:

BTW, it's the same for PCM source material.

 

Yes, I think in your case the display gets updated before filter lists from the server arrive. I've hopefully already fixed this for the next release.

 

[tobes]

11 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

(nowadays) I don't like mp filters

 

+1, mp filters sound fake to me, like using over sharpening on a video screen.

 

[Miska]

My theory (and ears) tell that filter choice tends to depend on source material.

 

Technically, especially newer source material needs apodizing filters to clean up some of the mess created by half-band digital decimation filters used in ADCs and some production software.

 

Other than that, subjectively I find minimum-phase filters sound good with things like older prog-rock (Pink Floyd etc) recordings and other such multi-track mix studio productions, also with some modern pop tracks. These don't contain any real acoustics at all, only little bit of artificial reverb. (curiously iPhone seems to use minimum phase filters for the headphone output)

 

While I find linear phase subjectively good sounding on recordings made with few microphones in real acoustic spaces.

 

Other than that, recently my preference has been poly-sinc-ext2 which is a linear-phase apodizing filter.