HQ Player

[Miska]

26 minutes ago, KCJay said:

Hi Jussi,

 

Long-time 3.XX user and trying the trial of 4.  

 

I have Windows 10 PC with Mytek Liberty DAC and Roon.  I have been running 3.00, but need some help setting up 4.00 so I can evaluate and possibly purchase.  So far, I cannot seem to get Roon and HQ Player 4 working together.  I am not getting sound at all.  Here are the relevant screenshots:

 

 

 

At least one problem I'm immediately spotting is channel offset set to 4. This would leave four first channels silent. Since Liberty is only a two channel DAC, channel offset should be set to 0.

 

Otherwise seems correct at quick glance.

 

[JTS]

On 11/4/2019 at 5:35 PM, Miska said:

....very small USB memory sticks that barely even come out of the port.

 

 

I have the UpBoard Gateway running with the Meanwell medical power supply in my home system (thank-you @Miska, for the information!) (W10 ROON/HQPlayer>LAN>UpBoard Gateway>USB>Intona>SU-1>I2S>Holo Spring>stuff and speakers and headphones)

 

I initially tried DietPI on it as I wanted to have access to it as a Roon Endpoint and as an HQPlayer NAA. It seems that Roon and HQPlayer don't much like to share, though. I found I needed to reboot the Gateway in order to switch in between using it as an HQP NAA and a Roon Endpoint. I have decided to use the NAA Image from the Signalyst website as a result as it seems pretty bulletproof.

 

I do wish my server box would run the EC moodulators beyond DSD128, but it's long in the tooth at this point and has a GTX980 in it. I could have sworn that I had it running with EC7 256 and Short-MP a while ago, but no dice now. It will run ADSM7 up to 512 with some of the lighter filters no problem.

 

I had a couple of questions:

 

If I wanted to do an HQPlayer passthrough of Roon/Tidal material (no upsampling), what would be the best settings for this?

 

The second question (and I know that I will need to do my own tests), is how are people feeling about the EC Modulators at lower rates (IE DSD128) vs ADSM7 at DSD512?

[Miska]

6 hours ago, JTS said:

I do wish my server box would run the EC moodulators beyond DSD128, but it's long in the tooth at this point and has a GTX980 in it. I could have sworn that I had it running with EC7 256 and Short-MP a while ago, but no dice now. It will run ADSM7 up to 512 with some of the lighter filters no problem.

 

You have multicore DSP set to grayed and latest version of HQPlayer?

 

6 hours ago, JTS said:

If I wanted to do an HQPlayer passthrough of Roon/Tidal material (no upsampling), what would be the best settings for this?

 

You can set filter to "none" from HQPlayer Client. For DSD material you can use "Direct SDM", but that needs to be done from HQPlayer server side.

 

[JTS]

9 hours ago, Miska said:

 

You have multicore DSP set to grayed and latest version of HQPlayer?

 

 Yes and yes. Looking through my notes, I was able to run the 7EC with DSD 256 with the original release of 4. I know you improved the efficiency of the modulators, but I cannot get them up to DSD256 on my server any longer. I do have a workstation here and can run them there if I'm in a DSD256 mood, though I wish I could sort the server out.

[Miska]

1 hour ago, JTS said:

 Yes and yes. Looking through my notes, I was able to run the 7EC with DSD 256 with the original release of 4. I know you improved the efficiency of the modulators, but I cannot get them up to DSD256 on my server any longer. I do have a workstation here and can run them there if I'm in a DSD256 mood, though I wish I could sort the server out.

 

Just curious what kind of CPU do you have?

 

[JTS]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Just curious what kind of CPU do you have?

 

My server is an old HP Z420 with a older E5-1620, 64GB ram and a GTX980. It's my old editing workstation. When HQP 4.0 came out, I believe I was still able to get DSD 256 EC7 with Minring Fir or -2s filters. It runs Polysinc Short MP at 512 with ADSM7 just fine.

 

My current workstation is an i9-9900K and it runs everything.

[Miska]

6 hours ago, JTS said:

My server is an old HP Z420 with a older E5-1620, 64GB ram and a GTX980.

 

I have Z440 with newer E5v3 1620 and RTX 2080... And it doesn't run DSD256 with EC7 either, never has. Now I'm looking into newer Z4 with W2145 CPU, not sure if it would either. But at least I would get some more grunt. From Z6 only potentially feasible CPU would be W-3225, but I doubt it would have much benefit over the W2145...

[Ipoci]

I've a DSC2.5.2 dsd only dac

Is there a way with HQP (3.25.4) to stream my preferred internet radio station (Radio Paradise) directly into the dac?

They stream AAC, AAC+, FLAC, MP3, Real

 

[jimdukey]

I listen to Internet radio with a PCM Dac.

Don't know if it's possible to get it through a DSD Dac.

[PieterP]

I use the app  xiialife and bubbleupnp om my android phone/tablets to stream radiostations to hqplayer and then to my adi-2 dac (dsd or pcm possible) . You can also save playlist radiostations in bubbleupnp. 

[pcmchild]

I am on trial period with HQP since 3 days, and I am liking it well so far. I read many people complaining about the server (desktop) UI, but I am liking it, It is simple as I like it. I didn't even need to try the Client.

Is anyone able to help me with this: is it possible to connect HQP input to the output of some video player, as VLC and MPC-BE? If not is there any other way to use HQP with audio from video file playback? I have many concerts I would like HQP to process.

[Yviena]

@Miska is it maybe possible add a option for manually inputting NAA, as for some reason when running NAA locally via 2 NICs one for internet other for NAA, HQp doesn't detect the NAA unless I plug in the Ethernet cable from the router  into the switch, select the NAA then unplug, and connect to second NIC again.

[Miska]

Just now, Yviena said:

@Miska is it maybe possible add a option for manually inputting NAA, as for some reason when running NAA locally via 2 NICs one for internet other for NAA, HQp doesn't detect the NAA unless I plug in the Ethernet cable from the router  into the switch, select the NAA then unplug, and connect to second NIC again.

 

Very frequently asked, but no...

 

Don't do that. There's no reason to use two NICs. Connect NAA and HQPlayer computers to the switch, and router to the switch.

 

[Yviena]

11 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Very frequently asked, but no...

 

Don't do that. There's no reason to use two NICs. Connect NAA and HQPlayer computers to the switch, and router to the switch.

 

Idk but internet download speeds seem.more stable this way, when doing speedtests I usually get around 500-550mbps, but with HQp sending on the same NIC speeds frequently drop to 300mbps even when 1gbit full duplex is used.

[Miska]

15 minutes ago, Yviena said:

Idk but internet download speeds seem.more stable this way, when doing speedtests I usually get around 500-550mbps, but with HQp sending on the same NIC speeds frequently drop to 300mbps even when 1gbit full duplex is used.

 

If you are using Linux and a smart switch, you can bond two NICs into aggregate device and use port trunking at the switch side. Then you have two ports operating as 2 Gbps device... If you setup load balancing based on MAC address, likely your internet download and NAA even end up on different links.

 

[Yviena]

54 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

If you are using Linux and a smart switch, you can bond two NICs into aggregate device and use port trunking at the switch side. Then you have two ports operating as 2 Gbps device... If you setup load balancing based on MAC address, likely your internet download and NAA even end up on different links.

 

I don't think my switch has this capability it's just a unmanaged one.

[randytsuch]

2 hours ago, pcmchild said:

I am on trial period with HQP since 3 days, and I am liking it well so far. I read many people complaining about the server (desktop) UI, but I am liking it, It is simple as I like it. I didn't even need to try the Client.

Is anyone able to help me with this: is it possible to connect HQP input to the output of some video player, as VLC and MPC-BE? If not is there any other way to use HQP with audio from video file playback? I have many concerts I would like HQP to process.

If you run hqp embedded, it supports upnp/dlna.  I think vlc also supports upnp also, so something might be possible.  I use mconnect as my upnp client app, but I only play audio files through it, never tried video.

You can make a usb stick with hqp embedded and try it out.  Make a bootable stick, then boot from the stick and you'll have hqp embedded running.

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, Yviena said:

I don't think my switch has this capability it's just a unmanaged one.

 

Yes, unmanaged ones don't have it.

 

Alternative possibility is to bridge the two ethernet interfaces on the computer so they become part of the same network and computer becomes a two port switch. Windows also supports this (based on Wikipedia, latest Windows Server has also bonding support for link aggregation so it may also work with switches that support port trunking).

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, pcmchild said:

I am on trial period with HQP since 3 days, and I am liking it well so far. I read many people complaining about the server (desktop) UI, but I am liking it, It is simple as I like it. I didn't even need to try the Client.

Is anyone able to help me with this: is it possible to connect HQP input to the output of some video player, as VLC and MPC-BE? If not is there any other way to use HQP with audio from video file playback? I have many concerts I would like HQP to process.

 

Some loopback software may work with the input feature. Another alternative is to use two computers or multiple audio interfaces and use the same input feature, but through S/PDIF.

 

HQPlayer has large buffers, so there is lot of delay. But it should be able to adjust lipsync delay enough in VLC. HQPlayer is not really designed for video use cases, so YMMV...

 

[Yviena]

Interesting RME has released a new revision of the RME ADI-2 DAC featuring a AKM4493, and i believe a modified analog output stage, seems like availability will be around December.

[Miska]

16 minutes ago, Yviena said:

Interesting RME has released a new revision of the RME ADI-2 DAC featuring a AKM4493, and i believe a modified analog output stage, seems like availability will be around December.

 

Same chip the EVGA NU Audio card has. So I'm expecting pretty good performance from the RME implementation as well!

 

I wonder if they also update ADI-2 Pro... But I may get the new ADI-2 DAC version though, since I already have two Pro's that I use now mostly for input tasks.

 

[JTS]

15 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I have Z440 with newer E5v3 1620 and RTX 2080... And it doesn't run DSD256 with EC7 either, never has.

 

Ah, Well thanks for the feedback. I must have been mistaken about it running the EC modulators at DSD256. If I'm in an EC mood, I'll send it from my it from my workstation.

[JTS]

4 hours ago, Yviena said:

@Miska is it maybe possible add a option for manually inputting NAA, as for some reason when running NAA locally via 2 NICs one for internet other for NAA, HQp doesn't detect the NAA unless I plug in the Ethernet cable from the router  into the switch, select the NAA then unplug, and connect to second NIC again.

 

I run 2 nics on my workstation - one for 10GigE SPF+ and one for plain old gigabit lan. I had an issue with that machine picking up the NAA. I resolved it by changing the Interface Metric in Windows (this also resolved some issues with my render managers, too, but that's another story).

 

Go to Control Panels>Network and Sharing>click the interface you want to use with the NAA>Properties>Internet Protocol Version 4>Advanced>Interface Metric - enter 0 (zero). To be on the safe side, do this process again with your other NIC and give it a higher value (IE 5).

 

Your machine will prioritize the lower numbered interface. NB: If you have complex network stuff going on, it might mess things up for you.

 

This worked like a charm here.

 

- J

[Miska]

7 hours ago, JTS said:

Your machine will prioritize the lower numbered interface. NB: If you have complex network stuff going on, it might mess things up for you.

 

Issue is multicast routing and discovery. This is used for finding NAA as well as ZeroConf/Bonjour/Avahi to find Chromecast, AirPlay, UPnP, IPP (printer) devices etc. That way on a multihomed host multicasts move from one interface to another, meaning that things start working on one and stop working on the other...

 

When things operate as a single network, it is not an issue because multicasts then go everywhere.

 

[Ipoci]

15 hours ago, jimdukey said:

I listen to Internet radio with a PCM Dac.

Yep, with a PCM DAC it's ok.

I would like to  find a way to use RadioParadise FLAC streaming with HQP "conversion"engine to DSD and the stream to DSD dac the flow.

I don't know if HQP Desktop or Embedded 4.x can do the job.