HQ Player

[craighartley]

34 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

Agree, it take some time to discover HQPlayer. However, I was never able to dig much from the manual, most probably because of my own failure to comprehend specialist's lingo. 

The manual is very clear on how to choose filters. 

[CheapSplurge]

8 hours ago, Solstice380 said:

They are in drop-down menus in the PCM Defaults section of Settings that @AnotherSpin indicated.  If you use the HQP Client after starting HQP there are the same menus so you can quickly change them.  Scan your library from HQP using File/Library menu once before starting Client.  Then you can select your music from cover flow or album list in Client.  

Change all to sinc l filter. 

I'm new to this and to audio relatively, the manual was super confusing to me. Just want to try this software out and then buy it. 

Once I set it once with your instructions I'll be done. 

I'm too new and timid with this stuff to tinker too much. Just don't know what would be good for me tt2? 

 

I change all to sinc l in the drop down menus? 

[Ultrarunner]

I’m trying trying to get HQPlayer working through my opticalRendu without dropouts. From what I’m reading on various threads, the problem is lack of “Flow Control” on the network. Am I correct in assuming both the opticalRendu and EtherRegen do not have flow control? If that is correct, why doesn’t HQPlayer see that the EtherRegen is limited to 100M and send the data accordingly, so it doesn’t overwhelm the system?

[Account Closed]

40 minutes ago, Ultrarunner said:

I’m trying trying to get HQPlayer working through my opticalRendu without dropouts. From what I’m reading on various threads, the problem is lack of “Flow Control” on the network. Am I correct in assuming both the opticalRendu and EtherRegen do not have flow control? If that is correct, why doesn’t HQPlayer see that the EtherRegen is limited to 100M and send the data accordingly, so it doesn’t overwhelm the system?

The OR and the ER both have Flow Control enable by default. You may need it enabled upstream as well.

[AnotherSpin]

5 hours ago, craighartley said:

The manual is very clear on how to choose filters. 

 

How to change filters is quite obvious without manual, imo. I was speaking about the way the manual explains the difference between filters, for example.

[craighartley]

21 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

How to change filters is quite obvious without manual, imo. I was speaking about the way the manual explains the difference between filters, for example.

It wasn’t obvious to the person posting the question. Hence the suggestion to look in the manual. 

[Account Closed]

3 hours ago, CheapSplurge said:

Change all to sinc l filter. 

I'm new to this and to audio relatively, the manual was super confusing to me. Just want to try this software out and then buy it. 

Once I set it once with your instructions I'll be done. 

I'm too new and timid with this stuff to tinker too much. Just don't know what would be good for me tt2? 

 

I change all to sinc l in the drop down menus? 

Do we have anyone here running HQP to a Chord Hugo TT? If so maybe you could help this guy get up and running. I have never had any experience with Chord products so I don't know what to recommend. He seems to be in a fog of fear and confusion as to how to proceed.

 

@miska, can you help here?

[CheapSplurge]

21 minutes ago, bobflood said:

Do we have anyone here running HQP to a Chord Hugo TT? If so maybe you could help this guy get up and running. I have never had any experience with Chord products so I don't know what to recommend. He seems to be in a fog of fear and confusion as to how to proceed.

 

@miska, can you help here?

Thank you so much. 

I changed all I could as instructed but the other stuff seems complex.. Like dither? Change that to what? 

[austinpop]

32 minutes ago, CheapSplurge said:

Thank you so much. 

I changed all I could as instructed but the other stuff seems complex.. Like dither? Change that to what? 

 

Cheap Splurge,

 

You're asking for help, but are you actually listening to the answers being given? I pointed you to an article a few posts back. Did you actually look? If you had, you would have seen that the author has posted his HQPlayer settings for DAVE in 2 screenshots, that I will replicate below to make it easier for you:

  

 

These same settings should be a great starting point for the TT2. Why not start here, and then once you've gotten more familiar, tweak further? 

 

Be aware — there is no single MAGIC setting for anything. Everyone has different ears, and they find their own favorites by tweaking.

[CheapSplurge]

3 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Cheap Splurge,

 

You're asking for help, but are you actually listening to the answers being given? I pointed you to an article a few posts back. Did you actually look? If you had, you would have seen that the author has posted his HQPlayer settings for DAVE in 2 screenshots, that I will replicate below to make it easier for you:

  

 

These same settings should be a great starting point for the TT2. Why not start here, and then once you've gotten more familiar, tweak further? 

 

Be aware — there is no single MAGIC setting for anything. Everyone has different ears, and they find their own favorites by tweaking.

Sir, I promise I did read, I missed this image I'm so mad at myself. 

OK doing that now and will tweak things as I go... I guess what's the worst that can happen..! 

Some of the settings in the above image differs to what others have said to do. But I guess it's like you said. Each has different ears. 

I'm looking for highest detail/transparency 

But the filter names and all that is jiberish to me. I wish someone had what I have so I could copy. 

[ray-dude]

It can be hard to get started on HQP, just because all the choices can seem so overwhelming.  Once you have a working setup that you like, much easier to tweak up different filters and settings to tune to your ear.

 

As Rajiv and others have mentioned, with TT2 you want to target 16fs (768kHz for PCM, 44.1*256 for DSD).  sinc-M + LNS15 will give you a sound profile closest to Hugo mScaler.  Setting Vol Min and Vol Max to -3dB will force all volume control to be with your TT2, and give headroom for the upsampling so you don't get clipping.

 

A lot of the rest of the parameters are dependent on your streamer and preference.

 

There are MANY other Filter and Dither combinations to try.  Once you get sinc-M going, try sinc-L and sinc-S (I find sinc-L to be quite nice)

 

Once you start finding a preference, it gets easier because you can start exploring other filters within a family (MP vs LP filters, etc).  I happen to be a hard core LP guy, but others really enjoy what MP brings to the party.  

 

I've found that the more your ear gets accustomed to what HQP is doing, it becomes a lot easier to dial it in to your taste and your equipment (alas, there is no optimum configuration, which is why there are so many options!)

[The Computer Audiophile]

7 minutes ago, ray-dude said:

It can be hard to get started on HQP, just because all the choices can seem so overwhelming.  Once you have a working setup that you like, much easier to tweak up different filters and settings to tune to your ear.

 

As Rajiv and others have mentioned, with TT2 you want to target 16fs (768kHz for PCM, 44.1*256 for DSD).  sinc-M + LNS15 will give you a sound profile closest to Hugo mScaler.  Setting Vol Min and Vol Max to -3dB will force all volume control to be with your TT2, and give headroom for the upsampling so you don't get clipping.

 

A lot of the rest of the parameters are dependent on your streamer and preference.

 

There are MANY other Filter and Dither combinations to try.  Once you get sinc-M going, try sinc-L and sinc-S (I find sinc-L to be quite nice)

 

Once you start finding a preference, it gets easier because you can start exploring other filters within a family (MP vs LP filters, etc).  I happen to be a hard core LP guy, but others really enjoy what MP brings to the party.  

 

I've found that the more your ear gets accustomed to what HQP is doing, it becomes a lot easier to dial it in to your taste and your equipment (alas, there is no optimum configuration, which is why there are so many options!)

Excellent advice. 

[Ultrarunner]

Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps it’s the router. That’s the only thing upstream. Although I did connect the server directly to the EtherRegen to bypass the router, and still had dropouts. I’ll continue to experiment. I’ve never had an issue with Roon Sample Rate Conversion, so I wasn’t expecting this to be such a battle.  

[Account Closed]

3 minutes ago, Ultrarunner said:

Thanks for clarifying. Perhaps it’s the router. That’s the only thing upstream. Although I did connect the server directly to the EtherRegen to bypass the router, and still had dropouts. I’ll continue to experiment. I’ve never had an issue with Roon Sample Rate Conversion, so I wasn’t expecting this to be such a battle.  

Routers generally do not have Flow Control. A few do but most consumer level ones do not. I was thinking more about the server end. For example if your server is on a Win 10 machine it likely has Flow Control enabled by default but I still checked mine in the network settings to be sure. I don't know about Apple or Linux. 

 

I would take this to the Uptone forum and ask Alex. I have seen this question come up before. If you ask Jesus at Sonore he will tell you that the OR was designed by John Swenson with a switch chip built in and Flow Control enabled on it by default to prevent this. Ask Alex and he can get John involved if necessary.

[Ultrarunner]

Thanks again. That explains why I couldn’t find anything in my router (AMPLIFI) settings just now. The server is a SonicTransporter I5 using HQPlayer Embedded. However, I also tried HQPlayer Desktop on my iMac Pro and had the same results. I’ll try the EtherRegen forum. 

[Account Closed]

4 minutes ago, Ultrarunner said:

Thanks again. That explains why I couldn’t find anything in my router (AMPLIFI) settings just now. The server is a SonicTransporter I5 using HQPlayer Embedded. However, I also tried HQPlayer Desktop on my iMac Pro and had the same results. I’ll try the EtherRegen forum. 

You did not mention what level you were trying to achieve but FYI the ST i5 will only go to DSD128. It should do any PCM rate. As to the iMac I don't know but try dialing down to DSD 64 on both and see if that changes things to a stable state. If it does, then try DSD 128 and see, then DSD256 and see. It takes much more of a computer to do DSD 256 using EC modulators than you might think. The ST i9 was designed for this. Keep in mind that when using EC modulators DSD 256 is the max. If you want higher then you must use the non-EC modulators. There is no hardware right now (and may never be any) that can run run two cores at at steady 8 Ghz (the chip would melt) which is what DSD 512 EC would require.

[Rafi]

I am not sure why but I am missing search in HQPlayer Desktop. I want to search for some tracks but there is no search option.

[Ultrarunner]

The SonicTransporter cores were at 40%, outputting DSD128 (the highest my DAC can do). But I tried lower sample rates, PCM and DSD. No difference. Meanwhile Roon outputting DSD128, using the same hardware, works perfectly. 

[AnotherSpin]

6 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Cheap Splurge,

 

You're asking for help, but are you actually listening to the answers being given? I pointed you to an article a few posts back. Did you actually look? If you had, you would have seen that the author has posted his HQPlayer settings for DAVE in 2 screenshots, that I will replicate below to make it easier for you:

  

 

These same settings should be a great starting point for the TT2. Why not start here, and then once you've gotten more familiar, tweak further? 

 

Be aware — there is no single MAGIC setting for anything. Everyone has different ears, and they find their own favorites by tweaking.

 

I would change Input Backend from [none] to what is default in Windows and Default Output Mode to PCM.

[Account Closed]

6 hours ago, Ultrarunner said:

The SonicTransporter cores were at 40%, outputting DSD128 (the highest my DAC can do). But I tried lower sample rates, PCM and DSD. No difference. Meanwhile Roon outputting DSD128, using the same hardware, works perfectly. 

Email Andrew at SGC

[Solstice380]

6 hours ago, Ultrarunner said:

The SonicTransporter cores were at 40%, outputting DSD128 (the highest my DAC can do). But I tried lower sample rates, PCM and DSD. No difference. Meanwhile Roon outputting DSD128, using the same hardware, works perfectly. 

I think the HQP filters and modulators require more computing power than the one in Roon.  This could be the cause of the dropouts.  Did you try running the -2s filters or...?

[Gavin1977]

It is my understanding that the Closed Form filter was implemented by Jussi to be a close match for Robs WTA filter.  I have both a Hugo TT and T+A DAC 8 DSD in my home at the moment.  I preferred the Hugo TT until I started using the T+A DAC 8 DSD using the Close Form filter... to me it sounds very 'Chord' like and it was a bit of a revelation (I obviously have a preference for this).

 

The Closed Form filter is probably more realistic, as the bass has firmed up and has more transient 'snap' now.  However, it would be nice to be able to allow the bass to bloom a bit more, as I find this warms up the tone throughout the frequency range... any ideas? 

 

The Hugo TT sounds considerably less controlled and wooly in the bass in comparision, and whilst this is a downgrade I suspect this bass bleed is one reason why it has a warmer sound signature.  So would like to know if there is any setting in HQPlayer that might allow some adjustment towards this.

 

I will also try Sync-M settings over the next couple of days as per AustinPops post.

[AnotherSpin]

2 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

It is my understanding that the Closed Form filter was implemented by Jussi to be a close match for Robs WTA filter.  I have both a Hugo TT and T+A DAC 8 DSD in my home at the moment.  I preferred the Hugo TT until I started using the T+A DAC 8 DSD using the Close Form filter... to me it sounds very 'Chord' like and it was a bit of a revelation (I obviously have a preference for this).

 

The Closed Form filter is probably more realistic, as the bass has firmed up and has more transient 'snap' now.  However, it would be nice to be able to allow the bass to bloom a bit more, as I find this warms up the tone throughout the frequency range... any ideas? 

 

The Hugo TT sounds considerably less controlled and wooly in the bass in comparision, and whilst this is a downgrade I suspect this bass bleed is one reason why it has a warmer sound signature.  So would like to know if there is any setting in HQPlayer that might allow some adjustment towards this.

 

I will also try Sync-M settings over the next couple of days as per AustinPops post.

 

In addition to Sync-M it would be useful to try newest Sync-L. And Sync-S, which is quite different from the first two, because it is apodizing filter what can have an advantage when listening to some old recordings, such as rock from 70s - 80s. 

[Miska]

14 hours ago, bobflood said:

Routers generally do not have Flow Control. A few do but most consumer level ones do not. I was thinking more about the server end. For example if your server is on a Win 10 machine it likely has Flow Control enabled by default but I still checked mine in the network settings to be sure. I don't know about Apple or Linux. 

 

At least my iMacs use flow control by default if the switch supports it. Linux computers too, as long as the hardware supports it.

 

[Miska]

12 hours ago, Rafi said:

I am not sure why but I am missing search in HQPlayer Desktop. I want to search for some tracks but there is no search option.

 

It is all in HQPlayer Client. HQPlayer Desktop side is the server with bare minimal UI, playback is controlled from the Client.