HQ Player

[Jud]

Do you mean restarting?

Should I do with the MBP on, or turn it off and wait for the R-Pi to be ready?

I can give it a try.

 

Cheers,

R

 

With MBP on.

[Jud]

Contemplating reinstalling HQP (Linux) this w/e.

 

What's current thinking about best distro for HQP (not NAA)? I used to use Mint which was easy at least, recommendation is Ubuntu studio, but other than coming with loads of applications I don't need, not sure why this is "optimised" for HQP? Or how about a minimalist Debian install?

 

If an Ubuntu flavor more toward the minimalist side appeals, you may want to have a look at Lubuntu. Or just go with Debian if that's what you like. I think the Studio recommendation may have to do with a low latency kernel, which of course you can install yourself in whatever distro you choose.

 

 

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[Jud]

I think I have a problem with HQ Player Preferences. I can no longer up sample on my w4s dac 2 to 192K. I have unchecked the auto rate family but i only get a choice of 88 or 176 in the drop down menu? Have quit and restarted HQ Player but this does not help. I also tried with my Schitt Bifrost DAC and still the same. 44.1K will only upsample to 88 or 176k while 48k and 96k can upsample to 192K. Seems that the checking or unchecking the auto rate family has no effect as it is stuck on the auto rate family.

 

could my preference file be corrupt if so where is it located?

 

 

What filter are you using?

[Jud]

Miska, you've mentioned a few times that different filters suit different types of music. Is there a way to change filters automatically based on what's being played, maybe from a genre tag?

Miska has mentioned the modulators beginning with "A" have some adaptive qualities. Whether this extends to working well for different genres I don't know.

[Jud]

I tried TrueOS (FreeBSD-CURRENT dressed up) the other day, and remembered why I stopped using it: It doesn't have drivers for my DAC.

 

In the process, I changed my Linux install from a Xubuntu-Lubuntu hybrid to a fresh install of Lubuntu. Interesting that now playing via NAA, with which I used to get infrequent but annoying stuttering, works seamlessly so far. Perhaps fewer processes running on the OS, perhaps just luck.

[Jud]

Jud, are you running Lubuntu on the machine hosting NAA or the upsampling machine or both?

 

Lubuntu on the upsampling machine (self built 2010 vintage desktop in upstairs office). NAA is a Cubox-TV downstairs running Miska's Cubox image.

[Jud]

I've managed to solve this and get HQPlayer working.

 

The problem appears to be that these are described as transitional dummy packages for the Qt 5 Qt Quick 2 QML module, and appear to have been removed in Ubuntu 16.10, though they are available for 16.10 on the Launchpad website. I installed these and all was well, but I guess in the future you need to remove them from your package and just reference the actual required dependencies that are part of the current version of the distribution.

 

- Richard.

 

In at least some OSs I'm familiar with, app developers are not given the responsibility for ensuring packages include all dependencies for specific versions.

 

This isn't to say it wouldn't be more convenient for us rather than doing the Launchpad workaround, for example, but it all comes down to choices. This isn't Miska's day job, so would he prefer to spend his time tracking versions of various distros, or developing more fundamental aspects of the player? I know which one I prefer.

 

Also note Miska specifically refers to the 16.04 version of Ubuntu at his download site.

 

None of this is to say you're wrong for wanting greater convenience, just mentioning some of the other considerations that go into deciding whether or not to track different distro versions.

[Jud]

Is it really possible to create a filter that has the advantages of both linear and minimum phase and no disadvantages?

I found a old article https://mrapodizer.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/introducing-a-new-up-sample-filter/

he says that he has actually created a filter like that or is it bs?

 

 

He obviously created a filter he liked that could run on Meridian hardware.

 

Regarding "no disadvantages," well, a perfect filter is mathematically impossible. Also, on his website I count 15 versions. Perhaps they are all the same filter, perhaps not.

 

You can't make a perfect filter; you can make a damned good filter, though. If you have a Meridian unit and want to give this fellow 399 Euros to find out if he has made a damned good filter, go ahead, and please let us know how it works out (preferably in another thread you have created for the purpose - this is really off-topic here, I think).

[Jud]

@Miska,

 

If you are using Linux as your primary setup can you run hqplayer with out any of the window management/x11 server setup straight from command line, especially if a user is planning to use one of the other options for GUI (Roon, Muso, etc). If not, what is the bare minium packages needed, tried to build one with xfce4 yesterday but installing xfce4 installs a lot of crap at the same time.

 

I guess I am looking for something along the lines of hqplayerd and roon setup. Currently, using hqplayerd with BubbleUpnp. Hopefully that would be an option for future release :-)

 

I recently switched from Xubuntu to Lubuntu, as xfce4 was getting a little heavy for me as well. It actually stopped entirely occasional HQP stuttering I'd had with Xubuntu. But if you want something without x11 at all and not hqplayerd, then Miska (or someone else who knows) will need to answer.

[Jud]

Ubuntu Studio uses XFCE and low latency kernel (which you can install also to other variants).

 

Have you made sure your user id is member of "audio" group? Once you have modified the group membership it is necessary to re-login for it to take effect.

 

Sorry Miska if I was not clear. Lubuntu with low latency kernel works beautifully. I used to get a little stutter from time to time with Xubuntu, but with Lubuntu there is no stuttering at all.

 

 

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[Jud]

It shouldn't make difference if your userid group membership is correct...

Can you check with "grep audio /etc/group"? In case you don't have your userid listed in the result, you can add it with "sudo usermod -G audio -a youruserid". (pay attention that you include the "-a" option to indicate that you are appending memberships, not replacing!)

My userid wasn't part of the audio group in Lubuntu. I appended it. Things are fine, but I didn't expect any different, as they were fine before.

 

If someone is having occasional stuttering (as I was, perhaps once in 5 or 10 songs, in Xubuntu), can simply appending the userid to the audio group help to correct that?

[Jud]

If I'm going to do this for awhile I'll need a separate Windows license for HQPlayer...

 

Could dual-boot Linux (e.g., Lubuntu) - would give you an OS that's pretty well optimized out of the box, and you can use your Mac license.

[Jud]

For anyone wanting to DIY a computer to run HQPlayer (and/or other players or computing-intensive tasks) - Newegg has the i7-6700K on sale for $324.99 through January 4th.

[Jud]

Do you recommend it, sound wise, over OSX ?

 

I was only responding to jabbr's remark that his son's current setup stutters occasionally. If there aren't those sorts of plainly audible problems, then as far as I know there is nothing to fix.

 

 

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[Jud]

 

Someone managed to overclock 7700K to 7 GHz using liquid nitrogen cooling....

 

Ah, an opportunity for you to branch out into server hardware!

 

 

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[Jud]

Nice. Actually once I get this ARM-FPGA thingie working

 

Is that the Solid Run piece you ordered or something else?

 

 

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[Jud]

Style sheets, eh? I wouldn't know how to work with one, but I've been out on Håkon Wium Lie's boat. (He and Bert Bos invented style sheets.). Nice guy. IIRC, he is an Emacs rather than a vi person.

 

 

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[Jud]

Ahhh....the good old Editor War

 

Vi and Emacs were both written in 1976. I guess I'm a bit younger than you....I started using vi in 1982. My vi muscle memory is well trained as well LOL. While I once thought of switching, I find the vim/tmux combination to be too compelling these days.

 

I played with Emacs as a browser, news group reader, editor, etc., in the olden days. I never bothered to learn vim - elementary OS-included editors were OK for what little I needed.

 

Have to admit I never heard of tmux - looks damned useful.

 

 

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[Jud]

Pandora and Napster are rumored to be ready to go this year. BTW, supposedly MQA is not just about hi-res files in compressed format, but also jitter elimination with their encoding process and thereby eliminating "smearing" of the digital data. Notice I said supposedly!

 

Eliminating "time smear" and jitter reduction are two quite different things.

 

Apologies for the OT - all of this belongs in an MQA thread.

 

 

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[Jud]

Ok, I understand. So anyone using poly-sinc-mqa with Roon/Tidal on Windows with the iFi driver should be aware it won't work. I changed my entire lossless library from ALAC to FLAC just to accommodate HQPlayer. I suppose I could install Linux along side Windows (dual boot) to further accommodate. I have lots of uses for Linux in a VM and use it a lot. But for "big iron" PCs, Linux doesn't have a lot of utility (games, etc.).

Buy a CuBox-TV for around $96, install Miska's NAA image (Linux based) on it, and Robert's your mom's bro! (A/k/a, Bob's your uncle!) It should also help isolate your DAC from any computer-based noise.

[Jud]

tempting, but the DAC needs to be Linux friendly. Does not seem to be the case of my TEAC UD 501.

 

Does the UD501 need drivers for OS X?

 

Edit- never mind, I see Miska has answered.

 

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[Jud]

Does this include Amanero support that would allow DSD512 with my T+A DAC8 DSD?

 

- Richard.

@lmitche was playing DSD512 through a DAC8. I know he did it with Windows, thought he did with Linux as well, but not completely certain about that.

 

 

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[Jud]

I have a dual boot setup. Can I use my Linux licence in Windows 10 when I want DSD512?

 

Contact Miska at Signalyst. Linux and Mac are the same license; I believe with that license, one for Windows is available at a discount.

 

 

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[Jud]

I tried to ask for this kind of info in a previous post and got just one reply. It would be really helpful if folks would post their favourite tracks and HQPlayer filter set up with a description of what's better.

@Miska Do you have some test tracks & settings you try with each new release to check for a certain SQ?

 

Thanks

 

 

I think Miska has actually (either here or in the HQPlayer manual) mentioned which filters he considers most advantageous for which types of music. I haven't looked to see whether the new manual says anything about the xtr filters in that regard.

 

 

 

The big problem is that this is very system dependent. For example, because of the way my speakers are designed and built, I think they image best with linear phase filters. I believe Miska may tend to like minimum phase better, but he does a lot of listening through headphones. So it is very much different strokes for different folks, for reasons that may apply to others but not to you.

[Jud]

Jud, I am interested in your comments about linear filters. I have Vandersteen speakers and have long found that minimum phase filters cause the image to smear significantly vs linear. Basically I can't listen that way. It may be because of my speakers and/or because imaging is important to my listening. I was initially captivated by xtr filters but over time found that the music was missing something compared to poly sinc short and am now happily back there. Do you have any insights in that regard with your setup?

 

 

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Hi Peter, here is what I conjecture may be going on. (As usual I welcome correction from folks who know better.)

 

 

As you know, Vandersteen speakers are "time and phase aligned." This is shorthand for the following setup: (1) The drivers are physically aligned so the timing of various frequencies (which travel through air at slightly different speeds) as captured in the recording remains intact on arrival at the listener's ears, when the speakers are positioned as directed by the very complete instructions in the owner's manual; (2) the crossovers are linear phase.

 

 

The significance of #2 is that a linear phase crossover is not "dispersive." In a filter (which a crossover is one type of), "dispersion" means that how quickly a signal moves through the filter is frequency-dependent. (You may also see this subject discussed in terms of "group delay." Linear phase filters have equal group delay across frequencies; minimum phase filters have minimum but unequal group delay across frequencies.) So because a linear phase crossover does not have dispersion, all frequencies it handles move through it in an equal period of time, and the presentation of all frequencies at the listener's ear with the same timing captured in the recording remains intact.

 

 

 

Though I understand Miska has designed his minimum phase algorithms to have as little dispersion as possible, I do not think it is possible for a minimum phase filter to be completely non-dispersive. Thus the various frequencies of the instruments and vocals (fundamental and harmonics) no longer arrive at the listener's ear with the same timing captured in the recording, affecting imaging.