HQ Player

[kelvinwsy]

19 hours ago, Miska said:

 

What effects? The non-beauty part is that there's no connection between individual fans and motherboard temperature sensors, unlike when you let the motherboard fan controller firmware run the fans. I don't see a problem with PWM fan speed adjustments, because all the motherboard voltages are controlled in similar way (CPU, etc) using PWM switching regulators. Fans are really low power and non-problematic devices compared to the low voltage high current things.

 

You have a point.. But I still prefer to move as many fans and the SSD's off the MB power supply. SQ is improved or so according to my ears😁

[Miska]

5 hours ago, kelvinwsy said:

You have a point.. But I still prefer to move as many fans and the SSD's off the MB power supply. SQ is improved or so according to my ears😁

 

Where do you get power from for those fans/SSD's etc? MB designer has created a separate controllable power supply for each fan and doing that taking into account what kind of load and noise it imposes on the particular firmware controlled PSU (because they know it will have a fan connected to it). In the cases I have, the MB designer has also designed a special PSU for the USB connectors used to connect DACs.

 

I personally want each fan to be driven only as fast as necessary to cool the needed part. On hot days it can be a bit faster than on cool winter days.

 

[Miska]

8 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

@Miska sorry my lack of knowledge here is showing, re expand HF. I sampled using mic at 48khz. Then sent files to @mitchcohe created full set of files from 44.1-384khz. (Using Acourate). I’ve uploaded the 384khz to Convolution menu. 
 

Not sure if relevant but sample rate was from 10hz-24khz. 
 

based on info above should I tick the expand HF?

 

If he ticked the "Brick" box in Acourate when creating the filter, you can use 352.8k or 384k filter and forget about rest of the filter files.

 

If he didn't do that, please ask him to recreate the filters with the brickwall extension enabled.  It does same thing as HQPlayer's HF Expand feature, so you don't then need it at HQPlayer side.

 

[jriver]

On 8/3/2020 at 11:25 AM, UELong said:

The owner of JRiver loosely said that he couldn't care less if his program was accessible to all.

Sorry if you interpreted something that way.  I don't believe I've said that.  I'm jimh at jriver if you want to check again.

[UELong]

1 hour ago, jriver said:

Sorry if you interpreted something that way.  I don't believe I've said that.  I'm jimh at jriver if you want to check again.

I sent you an email, quite a few years ago.  I've found that it is assumed that most blind guys use MP3 files.  It must be obvious, since we don't have access to superior players.  Like Hornsby said:  That's just the way it is; some things will never change.  I've just given up on people in general.

[StreamFidelity]

10 hours ago, Miska said:

If he ticked the "Brick" box in Acourate when creating the filter, you can use 352.8k or 384k filter and forget about rest of the filter files.

 

I also use Acourate. The Brick switch is located in the center right of the picture. The result is just great!

 

 

[Hammer]

On 7/7/2020 at 9:05 AM, Miska said:

 

Which OS and what kind of error?

 

I'm on Windows 10 playing to a RopieeeXL NAA.

[Miska]

3 hours ago, Hammer said:

I'm on Windows 10 playing to a RopieeeXL NAA.

 

RasPi4? Can you try with my NAA image?

 

[austinpop]

@Miska

 

Hi Jussi,

 

I am really enjoying playing with HQPlayer 4 Desktop. Could you please clarify a few more things for me?

1. I discovered albums from the label TRPTK in 32-bit floating point DXD format. Let's call it 32f/352.8. When I do PCM to PCM upsampling using sinc-M/LNS15/768 max, does HQPlayer output 32 bit floating as well? I see this:
   
   Since the output is not 32f but 32, does that mean the upsampled output is 32-bit integer? From an SQ perspective, I feel like bit-perfect 32f sounds better with my DAC (DAVE). DAVE can natively handle 32f, according to Chord.
2. Speaking of bit-perfect, is there an easy way in HQPlayer to toggle between bit-perfect (pass though source to output) and upsampled for PCM input? I guess something like a "PCM Direct" flag analogous to "SDM Direct?"
3. More generally, is it possible to change filter and shaper on the fly, without having to open "Settings?"

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, austinpop said:

1. I discovered albums from the label TRPTK in 32-bit floating point DXD format. Let's call it 32f/352.8. When I do PCM to PCM upsampling using sinc-M/LNS15/768 max, does HQPlayer output 32 bit floating as well? I see this:
   
   Since the output is not 32f but 32, does that mean the upsampled output is 32-bit integer?

 

Yes, DACs cannot deal with floating point data formats. HQPlayer detects that the DAC supports 32-bit integer input so that's what it gets.

 

4 hours ago, austinpop said:

From an SQ perspective, I feel like bit-perfect 32f sounds better with my DAC (DAVE). DAVE can natively handle 32f, according to Chord.

 

Now I'm curious how do you get "bit-perfect 32-bit floating point" to DAVE, because USB Audio Class and S/PDIF support only integer PCM.

 

4 hours ago, austinpop said:

Speaking of bit-perfect, is there an easy way in HQPlayer to toggle between bit-perfect (pass though source to output) and upsampled for PCM input? I guess something like a "PCM Direct" flag analogous to "SDM Direct?"

 

No, because that is not what HQPlayer is for.

 

4 hours ago, austinpop said:

More generally, is it possible to change filter and shaper on the fly, without having to open "Settings?"

 

Of course, from the client used for playback control. For example from HQPlayer Client or any other client that support this (Roon doesn't, but it's their choice). On the fly meaning that the player needs to be in stopped playback state first, but otherwise on the fly.

 

[Miska]

On 8/3/2020 at 7:25 PM, UELong said:

W10.  I found the problem in sound preferences, allowing exclusive use, which I unchecked.  I can now read the main screen from HQ. 

 

This means the audio goes through OS mixer and rate conversion, so the benefits of HQPlayer are lost. I would recommend to use something like built-in audio device for screen reader and DAC only (exclusively) for HQPlayer output. There is no way to make both work on the same audio device properly.

 

So you would need a second small and cheap set of speakers (likely active ones) for speech output.

 

[craighartley]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, DACs cannot deal with floating point data formats. HQPlayer detects that the DAC supports 32-bit integer input so that's what it gets.

 

[craighartley]

1 minute ago, craighartley said:

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, DACs cannot deal with floating point data formats. HQPlayer detects that the DAC supports 32-bit integer input so that's what it gets.

 

so this is wrong/misleading?
https://trptk.com/blog/32bit-floating-point-dxd-compatible-dacs/

[craighartley]

10 minutes ago, craighartley said:

so this is wrong/misleading?
https://trptk.com/blog/32bit-floating-point-dxd-compatible-dacs/

And also

https://trptk.com/blog/a-new-chapter-32bit-floating-point-dxd/

[UELong]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

This means the audio goes through OS mixer and rate conversion, so the benefits of HQPlayer are lost. I would recommend to use something like built-in audio device for screen reader and DAC only (exclusively) for HQPlayer output. There is no way to make both work on the same audio device properly.

 

So you would need a second small and cheap set of speakers (likely active ones) for speech output.

 

Thanks.  I'm a headphone listener with Hugo2..  Speakers mainly for screenreader and low-fi stuff like movies and books.  I just need to figure a way for HQ to stop silencing my JAWS program.  By the way, how long is the trial period before I have to take the chance?

[Miska]

3 hours ago, craighartley said:

so this is wrong/misleading?
https://trptk.com/blog/32bit-floating-point-dxd-compatible-dacs/

 

That likely just lists DACs that can do 352.8k sampling rate, but nothing about floating point. I have many of those DACs can can assure you that they don't understand anything about floating point formats. For one reason because for example ESS Sabre DAC chip (or any other DAC chip I'm aware of) doesn't support floating point data. Same applies to the XMOS USB interface used in many of those. One reason is that the I2S interface used between USB interface and the DAC chip is integer-only, max 32-bit.

 

So you need to rely player software to properly dither 32-bit floating point to 32-bit integer during playback on those DACs.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, craighartley said:

And also

https://trptk.com/blog/a-new-chapter-32bit-floating-point-dxd/

 

That only talks about 32-bit floating point stored in DXD WAVs. Nothing new or special about that. They could as well use 64-bit floating point instead. HQPlayer supports both 32-bit and 64-bit floating point WAVs.

 

[craighartley]

5 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

That only talks about 32-bit floating point stored in DXD WAVs. Nothing new or special about that. They could as well use 64-bit floating point instead. HQPlayer supports both 32-bit and 64-bit floating point WAVs.

 

I understand and share your view, but the point of that link was just to show you the claim in relation to DACs handling floating point files:

‘If a DAC with a DSP with an internal (32bit) floating-point architecture (which, again, applies to most DACs) receives a 32bit floating-point signal, it doesn’t have to convert anything at all, right until the moment it’s converted into the analog domain.’

[Miska]

56 minutes ago, craighartley said:

I understand and share your view, but the point of that link was just to show you the claim in relation to DACs handling floating point files:

‘If a DAC with a DSP with an internal (32bit) floating-point architecture (which, again, applies to most DACs) receives a 32bit floating-point signal, it doesn’t have to convert anything at all, right until the moment it’s converted into the analog domain.’

 

Most DACs have a 32-bit fixed point (integer) DSP. And as stated earlier, cannot receive 32-bit floating point data in first place.

 

In the original question's case, HQPlayer DSP uses 64-bit floating point for most parts and 80-bit floating point where necessary. Then the output resolution is limited to 32-bit integer using LNS15 noise shaper. This has better SNR than undithered 32-bit floating point.

 

[craighartley]

40 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Most DACs have a 32-bit fixed point (integer) DSP. And as stated earlier, cannot receive 32-bit floating point data in first place.

 

In the original question's case, HQPlayer DSP uses 64-bit floating point for most parts and 80-bit floating point where necessary. Then the output resolution is limited to 32-bit integer using LNS15 noise shaper. This has better SNR than undithered 32-bit floating point.

 

Understood. So there’s no point in acquiring such files to feed straight to the DAC. But does HQP benefit from receiving 32-bit floating point DXD files to process, rather than 24 bit? (Specifically for DSD output to T+A DAC 8 DSD)

[austinpop]

8 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, DACs cannot deal with floating point data formats. HQPlayer detects that the DAC supports 32-bit integer input so that's what it gets.

 

Someone else on another forum checked with Chord, and was told the DAVE (and other Chord DACs) can handle 32-bit floating point natively. Whatever that means. See  https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/taiko-audio-sgm-extreme-the-crème-de-la-crème.27433/post-665576

 

8 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Now I'm curious how do you get "bit-perfect 32-bit floating point" to DAVE, because USB Audio Class and S/PDIF support only integer PCM.

 

I don't know either. The supposed 32f/352.8 DXD music files were delivered by the label as WAV files. I also got the 24i/352.8 files (delivered as FLAC) for reference. What I called bit-perfect playback was using Roon to send the files directly to the Chord ASIO driver. At least as far as Roon was concerned, it did not show any conversions in its status. Now, I have no tools or forensics here, so I don't really know what implicit conversions are going on.

 

What my ears told me in terms of SQ is that:

• the 24/352.8 files benefited from the Roon > HQPlayer upsampling to 32/705.6 using sinc-M/LNS15 > Chord ASIO path, while
• the 32f/352.8 files sounded better with the Roon > Chord ASIO path.

I really did not want to get into a debate, as I defer to your knowledge of the internals here. Rather, the point I want to focus on is that sometimes you want to change settings on the fly (OK - in paused state), or even pass-through.

 

8 hours ago, Miska said:

 

No, because that is not what HQPlayer is for.

 

This may not have been your intent, but I actually find HQPlayer standalone sounds better than Roon > HQPlayer!

 

8 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Of course, from the client used for playback control. For example from HQPlayer Client or any other client that support this (Roon doesn't, but it's their choice). On the fly meaning that the player needs to be in stopped playback state first, but otherwise on the fly.

 

 

OK this is good to know, that the pull downs are available on the client. I went looking, and tried two clients:

1. HQPDControl on iPadOS: I cannot find these pull downs anywhere on this client. It's possible I'm just not navigating correctly. Can someone point me to them?
2. HQPlayer4Client on MacOS: OK, here I found the settings. But... the pull downs are all blank except the Source. The following view was taken after playback was started from the Client, then paused.
   

Both the Client on MacOS and HQPlayer 4 Desktop on W10 are v4.60. 

 

Please advise. For now, it looks like I have to rely on the Settings... menu.

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, austinpop said:

I don't know either. The supposed 32f/352.8 DXD music files were delivered by the label as WAV files. I also got the 24i/352.8 files (delivered as FLAC) for reference. What I called bit-perfect playback was using Roon to send the files directly to the Chord ASIO driver. At least as far as Roon was concerned, it did not show any conversions in its status. Now, I have no tools or forensics here, so I don't really know what implicit conversions are going on.

 

ASIO driver, by design, takes only one single format in. ASIO driver tells application it wants application to provide data in one certain format. Only exception to this is possibility to switch between PCM and DSD, where it then tells in which kind of PCM or DSD format it wants the data. The Chord ASIO drivers I've seen take 32-bit integer in. So technically you cannot send bit-perfect integer and floating-point to an ASIO driver. If Roon signal path is not displaying the format conversion, then it is fooling you.

 

5 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Someone else on another forum checked with Chord, and was told the DAVE (and other Chord DACs) can handle 32-bit floating point natively.

 

I have Mojo and I can tell it certainly cannot. Really strange statement from Chord. Probably some support person who doesn't really know how the thing works inside.

 

6 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Rather, the point I want to focus on is that sometimes you want to change settings on the fly (OK - in paused state), or even pass-through.

 

In paused state it is not possible, only in stopped state.

 

7 minutes ago, austinpop said:

This may not have been your intent, but I actually find HQPlayer standalone sounds better than Roon > HQPlayer!

 

That is certainly my intent though...

 

8 minutes ago, austinpop said:

HQPDControl on iPadOS: I cannot find these pull downs anywhere on this client. It's possible I'm just not navigating correctly. Can someone point me to them?

 

Maybe HQPDcontrol doesn't implement this functionality.

 

9 minutes ago, austinpop said:

HQPlayer4Client on MacOS: OK, here I found the settings. But... the pull downs are all blank except the Source. The following view was taken after playback was started from the Client, then paused.

 

You need to select either PCM or SDM (DSD) output format. "[source]" should be rarely, if ever used, it makes sense only for NOS DACs that actually have two separate DACs built in, like Holo Audio or Denafrips. With Chord DACs it should be "PCM" always. This is something that should be changed in HQPlayer Settings so that it defaults to a reasonable value.

 

Otherwise you have two alternative setting sets, and such cannot be displayed here, that's why the selections and blank.

 

[austinpop]

13 minutes ago, Miska said:

In paused state it is not possible, only in stopped state.

 

...

 

You need to select either PCM or SDM (DSD) output format.

 

Thanks for these tips, Jussi! Indeed once I select PCM as the output format, the fields populate. I will play with this.

 

New question: Any time I open and then close the Settings... or DSD Source Settings... menu, even if I don't make any changes, the HQPlayer 4 Desktop application hangs (Windows says "not responding" on the title bar). I've found that if I wait about 45 seconds, it finally returns, and all is good.

 

Is this a known problem? Is there anything I can do to improve? Waiting 45 seconds is not the end of the world, but curious what could be the reason.

[austinpop]

13 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Is this a known problem? Is there anything I can do to improve? Waiting 45 seconds is not the end of the world, but curious what could be the reason.

 

Please ignore. User error.

[Miska]

 

...