HQPlayer kick start guide & feature requests

[Maldur]

Amanero Combo384 USB, DSD Only. With 10.6.8 (64Bit) - nothing. GUI is mainly emty. Sound Devices don't exist at all. Maybe in Snow Leopard HQPlayer not intended to work...

10.9.3 - something better now. Sound is in one channel, mixed with some distorted noise. No matter what settings is used. One interesting observation - if hit play and music is played and after that hit stop, HQPLayer looses audio devices and refuses playing anything.

In same time A+ and even VLC with DoP-PCM files plays finely. When I select in A+ the initial dCS mode for DSD, I get similar observation - sound is from one channel but now clear, no noises mixed.

Maybe this helps somehow.

 

Regards,

Maldur

[Miska]

USB. Any chance you could post the settings you are using with your Mytek?

 

Here are the settings I use for Mytek with Firewire. Note that PCM output doesn't work correctly with these settings (Mytek doesn't support dual-wire protocol for PCM).

 

[Miska]

Amanero Combo384 USB, DSD Only. With 10.6.8 (64Bit) - nothing. GUI is mainly emty. Sound Devices don't exist at all. Maybe in Snow Leopard HQPlayer not intended to work...

 

Based on Apple's documentation it should work on 10.6 upwards, but I don't have anything older than 10.8 to test with.

 

10.9.3 - something better now. Sound is in one channel, mixed with some distorted noise. No matter what settings is used. One interesting observation - if hit play and music is played and after that hit stop, HQPLayer looses audio devices and refuses playing anything.

 

Do you possibly have some other software trying to use the same audio device? If you use USB audio, it is good idea to keep OS X notification sounds going to the built-in audio.

 

In same time A+ and even VLC with DoP-PCM files plays finely. When I select in A+ the initial dCS mode for DSD, I get similar observation - sound is from one channel but now clear, no noises mixed.

 

DoP-PCM files don't like processing. Don't use such with HQPlayer...

[ctle]

Here are the settings I use for Mytek with Firewire. Note that PCM output doesn't work correctly with these settings (Mytek doesn't support dual-wire protocol for PCM).

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13354[/ATTACH]

 

Hi Miska,

I also have Mytek/Firewire setup but can play only DSD64. Perhaps you used the latest version which has the filter & modulator not in the beta version "HQPlayerDesktop3-mac-340beta1" downloaded from the link on Post#1

 

Cheers

[kennyb123]

Here are the settings I use for Mytek with Firewire. Note that PCM output doesn't work correctly with these settings (Mytek doesn't support dual-wire protocol for PCM).

 

Thanks for posting these. I will try these tonight (but reduce the sample rate limit for PCM).

 

I don't see anything that's far off from my current settings that would cause sound to only come out the left channel.

[Geoffrey Armstrong]

Miska, I have a question regarding up sampling of native DSD. When using asio, it works fine; but using a DAC that requires DOP I haven't been able to get native DSD to up-sample. DSD64 is the only option for a DSD64 file.

 

Curiously this limitation doesn't apply when I convert rebook to DSD over DOP. This is allowing me to up-sample to the highest DSD rate the DAC is capable of.

 

I made sure Direct SDM is turned off under DSD settings. Is this a limitation of DOP? Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

geoff

[Miska]

Miska, I have a question regarding up sampling of native DSD. When using asio, it works fine; but using a DAC that requires DOP I haven't been able to get native DSD to up-sample. DSD64 is the only option for a DSD64 file.

 

You need to select some non "-2s" filter. There is a check that disables conversion ratios below 8x when 2s filter is selected.

[joelha]

Miska,

 

I've been playing with Daphile which is a very user friendly and very light-weight Linux distro.

 

But, because it's closed, I can't try HQPlayer on it.

 

Is there a Linux distro that you recommend which is very user-friendly as well as light-weight (I think Daphie is only about 300MB's in total)?

 

I'd like to try HQPlayer on Linux but don't know which path to take.

 

Thanks,

 

Joel

[Geoffrey Armstrong]

You need to select some non "-2s" filter. There is a check that disables conversion ratios below 8x when 2s filter is selected.

Thanks so much Miska.

[Miska]

Is there a Linux distro that you recommend which is very user-friendly as well as light-weight (I think Daphie is only about 300MB's in total)?

 

I am currently offering builds for Ubuntu (LTS versions), there is the standard Desktop version, plus number of variants built on the same base system. Lubuntu is one of the light weight variants. And then there's Ubuntu Studio which is optimized for multimedia production and playback.

[nodolby]

With Mac's hard to find better today love this player.-

[bibo01]

I am currently offering builds for Ubuntu (LTS versions), there is the standard Desktop version, plus number of variants built on the same base system. Lubuntu is one of the light weight variants. And then there's Ubuntu Studio which is optimized for multimedia production and playback.

Just to add to the above...

 

If one uses Archlinux, an Italian user has made a AUR package for HQPlayer and for the network daemon as well

[wisnon]

With Mac's hard to find better today love this player.-

 

The Beta mac OSX software version?

[EuroDriver]

Geoff and I do not have sufficient information to give a good answer, but I offer the following tips and observations

 

i5 and i7 are not helpful characterization of processor power, what's important is the number of physical cores and less so the clock speed of the processor. there are dual core and quad core i5's, i7's come in quad core, hex core and eight core, there is an area of overlap between i5 and i7.

 

We have yet to see a Duo Core PC or Mac be very capable of PCM to DSD conversion beyond DSD 64. DSD 64 Playback on my Exasound is unexciting to put it mildly. Antelope Zodiac Platinum can upsample DSD 64 to DSD 256 internally, and then conversion sounds fantastic. So unless you have a Lampi or a AZP you really need a quad core PC or MAC

 

A quad core playing HQP's more computationaly intensive filter, Polysinc, is not guaranteed to be succesful. My T1 with a quad core i5 (bench mark 6000) can not handle it, but Geoff Mac Pro with a quad core P8600 and a higher clock speed (benchmark 9000) can handle Polysinc with no problem. I have not heard Polysinc, but Geoff says its noticeably even better than Polysinc-2s !

 

On a Windows machine whether Hyperthreading helps or not is unknown, but on MAC Hyperthreading is very difficult to turn off

 

Hope the above is helpful to figure out things on the computer hardware side

[EuroDriver]

Geoff Mac Pro with a quad core P8600 and a higher clock speed (benchmark 9000)

 

Mac Pro has a quad core E5 not a P8600 !

[Miska]

We have yet to see a Duo Core PC or Mac be very capable of PCM to DSD conversion beyond DSD 64.

 

I am using latest dual-core 2.5 GHz i5 Mac Mini running Windows 8.1 and 64-bit player version. It has no problems upsampling to DSD128. But I primarily use poly-sinc-short-mp and DSD5v2 (aka DSD5.1).

 

Core i7 4770K has been able to do pretty much anything I've asked, but now there's also 4790K which is even faster (I don't have it yet).

 

There are couple of items that have impact on the performance, in rough order of importance:

- RAM speed

- CPU clock speed

- amount of CPU cache

- number of cores

- support for AVX extensions (64-bit Windows version is best utilizing this)

 

Number of cores has much higher importance if you do things like digital room correction and/or multichannel playback.

 

Even if older and newer CPU models have seemingly same clock speed, the newer model is usually much faster overall.

 

P.S. AMD CPUs manage to get playback started much faster, but are not as fast during playback time...

[EuroDriver]

Many Thanks Miska for the info. It's very helpful

 

We had trouble with Polysinc-2s on a 2010 Duo core Mac mini trying to do Redbook to DSD128

 

One observation we had today was processing a WAV file was significantly more CPU intensive than processing the FLAC file of the same content, so suggest to carry out format conversions on compressed files and not WAV

[richard kimber]

I thought I would evaluate HQPlayer, but am having problems setting up the library.

 

All my music is in a directory structure on HD and I would want it displayed and played in the order that it would normally be listed in by the computer. E.g.

Beethoven

>Fidelio

>>CD_1

>>>01-Overture

>>>02-etc

>>CD_2

>>>01-etc

 

But I cannot seem to get it listed in this order. Is this possible? It all seems to be geared to playing pop music tracks by 'Artists' rather than long classical works where the tracks must be played as a block in a certain order. I'd appreciate some guidance.

 

I'm using the Ubuntu 12.04 version on Ubuntu 14.10 (AMD64). My current method of playing is using minidlna -> Pioneer N-50 where I navigate to a directory using the Android app and select the first item in the directory. It then plays all the items in that directory in the listed order.

 

- Richard.

[Miska]

All my music is in a directory structure on HD and I would want it displayed and played in the order that it would normally be listed in by the computer. E.g.

Beethoven

>Fidelio

>>CD_1

>>>01-Overture

>>>02-etc

>>CD_2

>>>01-etc

 

If you like, you can also just drag-and-drop content, including entire folders, from the Finder/Windows Explorer on the player window to add it to the playlist.

 

But I cannot seem to get it listed in this order. Is this possible? It all seems to be geared to playing pop music tracks by 'Artists' rather than long classical works where the tracks must be played as a block in a certain order. I'd appreciate some guidance.

 

There is specific support for classical music. Content is structured in a tree model Artist / Performer / Album (work) / Track. Artist being the same as composer. If the contained metadata is correct, it is displayed this way. Double-clicking an album selects the entire album (work) to be played in album mode. The playlist mode is more geared towards pop music playback.

[richard kimber]

There is specific support for classical music. Content is structured in a tree model Artist / Performer / Album (work) / Track. Artist being the same as composer. If the contained metadata is correct, it is displayed this way. Double-clicking an album selects the entire album (work) to be played in album mode. The playlist mode is more geared towards pop music playback.

 

Thanks for your response. I guess the metadata in my files doesn't always meet your standards

 

- Richard.

[Miska]

Thanks for your response. I guess the metadata in my files doesn't always meet your standards

 

Player software cannot do much about the metadata contained in files, but HQPlayer has possibility of non-destructive metadata editing. You can edit stored metadata by double-clicking a cell in Library dialog and modifying the data and then press OK to store the changes. This won't change anything in the original files, only modifies the data stored in HQPlayer's library.

 

Another possibility is to use some other utility such as Finder to browse the library and use drag-and-drop support to queue files or directories for playback.

 

There is also option to construct metadata from directory structure when importing content, but this uses only two top layers for "Artist" and "Album".

[EuroDriver]

Geoff and I do not have sufficient information to give a good answer, but I offer the following tips and observations

 

i5 and i7 are not helpful characterization of processor power, what's important is the number of physical cores and less so the clock speed of the processor. there are dual core and quad core i5's, i7's come in quad core, hex core and eight core, there is an area of overlap between i5 and i7.

 

We have yet to see a Duo Core PC or Mac be very capable of PCM to DSD conversion beyond DSD 64. DSD 64 Playback on my Exasound is unexciting to put it mildly. Antelope Zodiac Platinum can upsample DSD 64 to DSD 256 internally, and then conversion sounds fantastic. So unless you have a Lampi or a AZP you really need a quad core PC or MAC

 

A quad core playing HQP's more computationaly intensive filter, Polysinc, is not guaranteed to be succesful. My T1 with a quad core i5 (bench mark 6000) can not handle it, but Geoff Mac Pro with a quad core P8600 and a higher clock speed (benchmark 9000) can handle Polysinc with no problem. I have not heard Polysinc, but Geoff says its noticeably even better than Polysinc-2s !

 

On a Windows machine whether Hyperthreading helps or not is unknown, but on MAC Hyperthreading is very difficult to turn off

 

Hope the above is helpful to figure out things on the computer hardware side

 

Turns out my i5 BIOS was setup with a fixed clock speed of 2.4 GHz. Setting the clock speed to auto allows the i5-3470 to idle at 1.8 GHz and speed up to 3.2 Ghz as needed. This particular CPU has no additional i/o registers for hyperthreading, so hyperthreading is always off

 

There is quite a bit more heat, but it is easily handled by a Noctura CPU heat sink with the MOBO sitting in a Fractal Design Node 304 case. 140 mm fan at lowest speed setting is completely in-audible

 

The good news is the PC can convert 24/192 PCM to DSD 256 using Polysinc and DSD7 with a CPU load of a bit less than 50% at 3.2 GHz clock speed without missing a beat

 

HQ player is using less than 1 GB of RAM

 

The sound of DSD256 is simply engaging and exquiste, cymbals never sounded so good !

[Geoffrey Armstrong]

Miska,

 

I just want to add a couple more requests.

 

With J River it is possible to specify another player to be used as an external player. You can even cause this to happen automatically by file type. So for example, I could say I want all my wav's sent to HQPlayer in future.

 

This is great because it allows people to use J River for library management and send files to their player of choice for actual playback, without having to build and export playlists.

 

When trying to do this with HQPlayer I ran into the following 2 problems.

 

1/ Playback doesn't start automatically.

2/ Each separate track from an album or playlist causes a separate instance of HQPlayer to be launched with just that track in its transport area.

 

It would be great if these two issues could be made to work as they do when Foobar is used as an external player.

 

In that case the entire album of playlist goes into Foobar's playlist area and playback begins automatically.

 

Will be very grateful if you can take a look into this.

 

Thanks,

 

Geoff

[4est]

That would be lovely....

Miska,

 

I just want to add a couple more requests.

 

With J River it is possible to specify another player to be used as an external player. You can even cause this to happen automatically by file type. So for example, I could say I want all my wav's sent to HQPlayer in future.

 

This is great because it allows people to use J River for library management and send files to their player of choice for actual playback, without having to build and export playlists.

 

When trying to do this with HQPlayer I ran into the following 2 problems.

 

1/ Playback doesn't start automatically.

2/ Each separate track from an album or playlist causes a separate instance of HQPlayer to be launched with just that track in its transport area.

 

It would be great if these two issues could be made to work as they do when Foobar is used as an external player.

 

In that case the entire album of playlist goes into Foobar's playlist area and playback begins automatically.

 

Will be very grateful if you can take a look into this.

 

Thanks,

 

Geoff

[Geoffrey Armstrong]

That would be lovely....

 

Loverly indeed

 

One thing I forgot to mention: On windows HQPlayer shows up as 3 different versions: 1. For use with an NAA, 2. For use with ASIO devices, 3. For use with WASAPI devices.

 

As an upshot of this only the last one, which is named HQPlayer Desktop can be selected from within J River to use as an external player and gets launched. I want the ASIO version to be launched as an external player because I'm using the exasound, which has native ASIO drivers.

 

Really there should be just one version, which remembers your settings, whether ASIO or otherwise. This seems to be the way it's implemented on the Mac beta version.

 

I find it very confusing in Windows to have these 3 separate versions, which don't appear to really be separate programs at all; but just a way of organising different usages of HQPlayer depending on the endpoint device.