HQ Player

[il Carletto]

57 minutes ago, Miska said:

Is your NAA running my NAA OS or HQPlayer OS image?

 

I have 4 different Naa:

 

1) Allo Usbridge. I tried Dietpi, Gentooplayer and now I'm using Ropieee. 

 

2) Beaglebone Black. I tried your image and PureDSD.

 

3) Mac Mini with Networkaudiod

 

4) Rpi 3...

 

Server is running MacOS Catalina, Windows 10, Ubuntu Studio and Embedded via usb, no one is flawless.

Motherboard is Gigabyte Z490 Vision D, two lan ports (Intel I219-v and 215). 

 

As I wrote, it doesn't matter direct connection server-naa or local lan. I still got dropouts.

 

Is there any setting to check?

 

 

[bogi]

4 hours ago, Miska said:

 

You can click Plot button for different pipelines without closing the plot window to plot multiple responses.

 

Got it, thanks! :)

[toddrhodes]

Is it normal to see only 4-5% usage on the GPU when using CUDA offload (checked, not grayed)? And for some reason, if I check "Multicore DSP," performance gets worse. If I leave it grayed, I can play 128/48 ASDM7EC, for example. But if I check it, that same combination can't go more than a few seconds without pauses. 

 

Just trying to make sure all is right with my setup. I've verified I have plenty of Ethernet bandwidth available on my NAA. Pi4, iperf3 reports 500 Mbit bandwidth between my Roon/HQP PC and the NAA. I also tried USB direct from PC to DAC (Ares II) and it didn't really change much. It's just weird - it seems like there are plenty of resources available, but they're just not being used.

[toddrhodes]

Edit to that last post - I'm still playing around, but now seeing that depending on the filter used, CUDA usage can get pretty high. So, per usual - PEBKAC. As you were :)

[toddrhodes]

 

Hasn't been my night, I'll say that. I keep getting things like the above. It's intermittent - music plays and plays and then out of nowhere, I get a dropout. So far I can see that my CPU usage drops substantially (more apparent when using intense DSD filters) but also, Ethernet out from my Roon/HQP PC drops to nothing during the gap. I've seen this happen on DSD128 > ASDM7 which I know my current PC can handle without much trouble. The above screenshot was at PCM 1.5k. It's usually been after a couple of songs? NAA is a new Pi4 with USB out to an Ares II DAC.

I saw where there were earlier threads, one involving a SOTM NAA where the low MTU of these little devices was considered a liability, that overtime we just end up overflowing a hardware buffer and it eventually causes a loss of packets. Not sure if that's the same thing I'm seeing? Either way, I'm wondering if a comically long USB cable out to my DAC, and just bypass the NAA altogether might be the answer.

[toddrhodes]

Looks like I'm out of the edit window on the above post, but since putting a pretty long - 25' maybe? - USB cable between my PC and the Ares II, I've not had one of those odd, intermittent dropouts. Currently checking out DSD1024 with Sinc-S and AMSDM71 512+fs. Sounds really good. I think I like it even better than DSD128/AMSDM7EC. In any case, it *seems* my issue is down to the Pi4 just not liking a steady diet of DSD512 or DSD256 or the highest PCM rates.

[mikel]

16 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Please check that you don't have convolution engine or something like that enabled that is not actually used. Also try with the default overlap-add and without Expand HF to see if this makes difference.

 

It should work if the plot is working. You could email me your log file from a playback attempt with this setup.

 

I wonder why there is 20 dB cut for 20 kHz here. Is there some strong metal dome resonance?

 

Update regarding the playback problem:

It plays now... but when I change the pipeline, I usually have to start playing a song. Then Stop and then play another one.

Only then for me the playback starts.

That means:

When I start for the fist time, there is a loud click and then playback with no sound.

Then hitting stop and play again it works.

 

A couple of other points:

Please also have a look at the following pipeline screenshot... just to validate if it generally makes sense.

The audio files are convolution files from a HRTF measurement at 30° and 330°

The EQ applied in the last 2 lines shall make the sound fuller. 

There still seems something off.... The sound is a bit metallic, like a phase effect applied. It can be heard especially in the vocals.

 

Regarding the EQ in the pipeline:

I wanted to use a convolution files for that as well. What happens then is that the result is 2 echos.....

My understand is that somehow it would be great to apply first HRTF and the EQ convolution in a serial way... but with the echos that seems not to happen.

How could I create a serialised signal path so first the HRTF is done and then AFTER that the EQ convolution is applied?

 

 

[ambre]

On 12/13/2020 at 3:52 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

I also did it with 192 material   

Hallo Chris and others,

 

what was your fanspeed respectively noise doing ASDM7EC on Mac Book m1? Or Mac Mini M1?

 

On 12/13/2020 at 3:52 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

I also did it with 192 material   

 

I own a Mac Mini 2018 I7; 6 cores; 32gb. With Multi DSP greyed I am able to do ASDM7EC and lower DSD5EC, ASD5EC . 
 

But with ASDM7EC my fanspeed becomes 3300-3700 rpm. Sounds like a little hairdryer ! 
I normaly used ASDM7 with default fanspeed / idle approx. 1650-1700 rpm. No noise at all.

 

DSD5EC increases fanspeed with 500-700 rpm etc. Maybe i  can add additional cooling (pad ) for my Mac Mini etc?

 

Besides that I am listening to what is really better. Order of merit of ASDM7 versus EC ? 
But the fan noise i really dislike.🥸 What is your opinion resp. experience?

 

Ps. Jussy has really improved HQ4 significantly. A few months ago version 4.6 ?stuttered  immediately at first playback. A great performance boost. Chapeau 😇

 

Very best regards, Andreas

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, ambre said:

Hallo Chris and others,

 

what was your fanspeed respectively noise doing ASDM7EC on Mac Book m1? Or Mac Mini M1?

 

 

I own a Mac Mini 2018 I7; 6 cores; 32gb. With Multi DSP greyed I am able to do ASDM7EC and lower DSD5EC, ASD5EC . 
 

But with ASDM7EC my fanspeed becomes 3300-3700 rpm. Sounds like a little hairdryer ! 
I normaly used ASDM7 with default fanspeed / idle approx. 1650-1700 rpm. No noise at all.

 

DSD5EC increases fanspeed with 500-700 rpm etc. Maybe i  can add additional cooling (pad ) for my Mac Mini etc?

 

Besides that I am listening to what is really better. Order of merit of ASDM7 versus EC ? 
But the fan noise i really dislike.🥸 What is your opinion resp. experience?

 

Ps. Jussy has really improved HQ4 significantly. A few months ago version 4.6 ?stuttered  immediately at first playback. A great performance boost. Chapeau 😇

 

Very best regards, Andreas

I only ran the test for a little while but didn’t even notice the fan running at all. 

[ambre]

20 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I only ran the test for a little while but didn’t even notice the fan running at all. 

Your wife needed the laptop or am I wrong?

[Miska]

On 12/20/2020 at 12:00 AM, il Carletto said:

I have 4 different Naa:

 

1) Allo Usbridge. I tried Dietpi, Gentooplayer and now I'm using Ropieee. 

 

2) Beaglebone Black. I tried your image and PureDSD.

 

3) Mac Mini with Networkaudiod

 

4) Rpi 3...

 

Server is running MacOS Catalina, Windows 10, Ubuntu Studio and Embedded via usb, no one is flawless.

Motherboard is Gigabyte Z490 Vision D, two lan ports (Intel I219-v and 215). 

 

As I wrote, it doesn't matter direct connection server-naa or local lan. I still got dropouts.

 

Is there any setting to check?

 

And you are using regulard CAT6 U/UTP cable and no "audiophile cables or gadgets"?

 

Source is local file player by HQPlayer?

 

You could post a screenshot of your settings, it is easier that way.

 

[Miska]

On 12/20/2020 at 1:07 PM, mikel said:

Update regarding the playback problem:

It plays now... but when I change the pipeline, I usually have to start playing a song. Then Stop and then play another one.

Only then for me the playback starts.

That means:

When I start for the fist time, there is a loud click and then playback with no sound.

Then hitting stop and play again it works.

 

A couple of other points:

Please also have a look at the following pipeline screenshot... just to validate if it generally makes sense.

The audio files are convolution files from a HRTF measurement at 30° and 330°

The EQ applied in the last 2 lines shall make the sound fuller. 

There still seems something off.... The sound is a bit metallic, like a phase effect applied. It can be heard especially in the vocals.

 

Regarding the EQ in the pipeline:

I wanted to use a convolution files for that as well. What happens then is that the result is 2 echos.....

My understand is that somehow it would be great to apply first HRTF and the EQ convolution in a serial way... but with the echos that seems not to happen.

How could I create a serialised signal path so first the HRTF is done and then AFTER that the EQ convolution is applied?

 

 

 

When you start HQPlayer, you get currently saved default pipeline loaded. You can then change it to something else. When you do "Load" and "OK".

 

Setup in the picture doesn't likely do what you want. You have HRTF pipelines and then you have a separate Eq pipeline that bypasses the HRTF and then gets mixed with the HRTF outputs.

 

On 12/20/2020 at 1:07 PM, mikel said:

How could I create a serialised signal path so first the HRTF is done and then AFTER that the EQ convolution is applied?

 

You just comma-separate all serialized items on the same pipeline.

 

[Miska]

On 12/20/2020 at 5:46 AM, toddrhodes said:

 

Hasn't been my night, I'll say that. I keep getting things like the above. It's intermittent - music plays and plays and then out of nowhere, I get a dropout. So far I can see that my CPU usage drops substantially (more apparent when using intense DSD filters) but also, Ethernet out from my Roon/HQP PC drops to nothing during the gap. I've seen this happen on DSD128 > ASDM7 which I know my current PC can handle without much trouble. The above screenshot was at PCM 1.5k. It's usually been after a couple of songs? NAA is a new Pi4 with USB out to an Ares II DAC.

 

Is the Ethernet falling down to 100 Mbps mode instead of 1 Gbps?

 

[il Carletto]

41 minutes ago, Miska said:

And you are using regulard CAT6 U/UTP cable and no "audiophile cables or gadgets"?

 

Source is local file player by HQPlayer?

 

You could post a screenshot of your settings, it is easier that way.

 

I tried cat6/7/8 cables, UTP and STP. No audiophile gadgets in my setup.

 

Source is local file mostly, and Tidal, by Roon. If I use HQP library I notice dropouts too.

 

I suppose there's a packet loss in my network, due to a z490 chipset and Intel 225-v lan port malfunction.

I made a ping test from my iMac (0 packet loss) and from my HQP server (0.7% packet loss) to Naa.

 

I'm waiting for a Thunderbolt-Ethernet adapter. 

 

Can you suggest some further test?

[toddrhodes]

Don't give up on the old 6700k! I had mine just sitting around so I threw something together today (literally) and with a bare bones W10 install, and only HQPlayer running/installed beyond the basic necessary drivers, I can run DSD256/48 on ASDM7EC using poly-sinc-xtr-mp-2s. Multicore is grayed, CUDA is unchecked (no GPU), auto rate family is checked.

 

So now I've at least achieved a PC that runs Roon server and manages the DB, HQP on a separate PC and it's directly connected to my Ares II with a simple, short USB cable. 

 

I plan on making that HQP machine a bit nicer in terms of an LPS and dedicated USB card (or PF i2S since my forthcoming DAC can do i2S) but so far, at least it works. That's literally all I was going for.

[toddrhodes]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Is the Ethernet falling down to 100 Mbps mode instead of 1 Gbps?

 

 

Hi Miska - at one point I was having an issue with this new PC setting Ethernet to 100/100, but that was fixed by replacing a cable I dug out of a junk drawer, with a known good one. I never quite got to the bottom of my Ethernet troubles, but have a better solution in place now, as far as I feel.

 

Thank you for the help!!

[stefano_mbp]

On 12/19/2020 at 11:00 PM, il Carletto said:

 

I have 4 different Naa:

 

1) Allo Usbridge. I tried Dietpi, Gentooplayer and now I'm using Ropieee. 

 

2) Beaglebone Black. I tried your image and PureDSD.

 

3) Mac Mini with Networkaudiod

 

4) Rpi 3...

 

Server is running MacOS Catalina, Windows 10, Ubuntu Studio and Embedded via usb, no one is flawless.

Motherboard is Gigabyte Z490 Vision D, two lan ports (Intel I219-v and 215). 

 

As I wrote, it doesn't matter direct connection server-naa or local lan. I still got dropouts.

 

Is there any setting to check?

 

 

Searching for a solution to my SoTM sMS 200 Neo pops and crackles issue I found this thread

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/hqplayer-naa-and-sotm-problem-solved/107999

where the solution suggested is effective, setting the NAA buffer time to 10ms solves the issue.

It could solve your issue too, it's worth a try.

@Miska ... still waiting for some suggestions about gapless issue

... thank you 

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, stefano_mbp said:

Searching for a solution to my SoTM sMS 200 Neo pops and crackles issue I found this thread

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/hqplayer-naa-and-sotm-problem-solved/107999

where the solution suggested is effective, setting the NAA buffer time to 10ms solves the issue.

It could solve your issue too, it's worth a try.

 

This is indication that flow control is not properly functional.

 

2 hours ago, stefano_mbp said:

still waiting for some suggestions about gapless issue

 

The same cases that work without NAA using direct connection should also work with NAA.

 

Anyway, best solution is to use HQPlayer's library and forget UPnP.

 

[stefano_mbp]

21 minutes ago, Miska said:

The same cases that work without NAA using direct connection should also work with NAA.

 

Anyway, best solution is to use HQPlayer's library and forget UPnP.

This is really the worst answer I should ever expected.

so are you claiming this statement is false?

[stefano_mbp]

then I must consider hqplayerd nothing but a real mess, a colander ...

[Miska]

31 minutes ago, stefano_mbp said:

This is really the worst answer I should ever expected.

so are you claiming this statement is false?

 

No, the functionality is there and it works.

 

Quote

then I must consider hqplayerd nothing but a real mess, a colander ...

 

UPnP is a real mess. So many implementations.

 

And those are out of my control.

 

[stefano_mbp]

1 minute ago, Miska said:

 

No, the functionality is there and it works.

 

It doesn’t work as gapless is not functional, be consistent please

[Miska]

5 minutes ago, stefano_mbp said:

It doesn’t work as gapless is not functional, be consistent please

 

Where does it mention gapless there? And I have told various conditions where it is gapless. But UPnP never guarantees you gapless in all cases. The whole gapless stuff in UPnP is optional extra feature. Even HQPlayer library is not guaranteed gapless in all cases because DACs are not able to do such.

 

This thing doesn't work the way that you first create setup that has various problems and then insist that it should work without changes.

 

[stefano_mbp]

it seems your software works only if  .... it doesn’t rain, there is a full moon ... it is not rock solid at all, too many variables to consider to have it working ... as you thought ... not as it should

... upnp and gapless work flawlessly using Minimserver, MPD/upnp ...

and even JRiver works as a real upnp renderer whithout issues using Minimserver with gapless working as it should

and more ... your approach is always to throw the ball into the opponent's court without considering that the problem may be a defect of your sw .... as it is

[stefano_mbp]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

that has various problems and then insist that it should work without changes

Actually not clear ... gapless issues using NAA and Minimserver (an upnp renderer must work with a upnp server .... afaik, otherwise it wouldn't be an upnp renderer )

you asked to try without NAA and still gapless issues in two cases.

you didn’t suggested any other change except to not use Minimserver.... but minimserver is a must .... then you say that upnp and gapless do not work ... 

to sum up ... you declare a functionality that doesn’t work and when I report issues you declare that the functionality is not reliable at all ... 

this is not a serious attitude on your part