Spotify through HQPlayer?

[miguelito]

Is it possible to route Spotify native app on mac to HQPlayer just like Roon does it?

[miguelito]

Is it possible to route Spotify native app on mac to HQPlayer just like Roon does it?

And more specifically wondering if it's possible to use something like Soundflower or similar to stream to an IP address (which is how Roon and HQP communicate).

[Miska]

If Soundflower would like to start supporting HQPlayer, it should be doable. I guess nobody has asked Rogue Amoeba about it, but I have some doubts how much they are willing to invest time and effort on such feature. Of course how much effort it would take largely depends on their internal architecture. In best case it could be even easy.

[miguelito]

If Soundflower would like to start supporting HQPlayer, it should be doable. I guess nobody has asked Rogue Amoeba about it, but I have some doubts how much they are willing to invest time and effort on such feature. Of course how much effort it would take largely depends on their internal architecture. In best case it could be even easy.

As you say, this would allow for HQPlayer to effectively present itself as a sound output device (through Soundflower).

 

Soundflower is now supported again: https://rogueamoeba.com/freebies/soundflower/

 

I'll try and contact them to ask.

 

Miguel

[Miska]

Could be more in-scope for their Loopback product. But anyway, largely about the same stuff I guess.

[miguelito]

Could be more in-scope for their Loopback product. But anyway, largely about the same stuff I guess.

I guess. Loopback looks like a beefed up Soundflower. Is there any way one would be able to use this with HQPlayer without any changes?

 

I assume the http API you use with Roon is very specific (at a minimum it is talking back to Roon to tell it the output mode and upsampling algo). I initially thought if Loopback could send a PCM stream to an http address/port maybe this would work, but I have no idea other than speculation that HQP would be listening.

[miguelito]

Could be more in-scope for their Loopback product. But anyway, largely about the same stuff I guess.

Adding this feature to Loopback could increase its sales - I'd pay $99 for this feature alone (that's Loopback's price).

 

I sent a feature request to rogueameba.com.

[miguelito]

I'll harp on this again...

 

@Miska: Any chance you might consider implementing a Soundflower-like input mechanism for HQPlayer? Please?

[Newson]

Very good the HQplayer. I agree with the focus on improving filters over the interface.

For this I have Tidal + Roon's signature seemed perfect options ...

 

But....
I use more and more Spotify and it comes from day to day showing itself better than Tidal. Only those who listen to music on both days can measure the improvement in quality and the abyss in relation to the playlist, new songs and the smaller Tidal collection.

Unfortunately there is no way to merge the spoofing and Upsampling of HQplayer ...

 

So I doubt it and I have not yet signed HQplayer.
Roon already decided: I just made an annual subscription .... and I have already posted a complaint / notice that I will not renew it if it does not include Spotify.
 

[Miska]

I'm playing Spotify through HQPlayer Embedded. Solution is to use for example Google Chromecast Audio, or any Spotify Connect compliant device that has digital output connected through digital interface (Toslink/Coax S/PDIF or alternatively AES) to the computer running HQPlayer Embedded. I like Chromecast Audio because it is inexpensive and works straight from just about any mobile device and service so no need for extra computers.

 

[4est]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

I'm playing Spotify through HQPlayer Embedded. Solution is to use for example Google Chromecast Audio, or any Spotify Connect compliant device that has digital output connected through digital interface (Toslink/Coax S/PDIF or alternatively AES) to the computer running HQPlayer Embedded. I like Chromecast Audio because it is inexpensive and works straight from just about any mobile device and service so no need for extra computers.

 

Please excuse my ignorance Jussi, but how does this work exactly? If there is a link to a discussion as a primer, I'd be happy to read up on this. I've loved your program, and have used it for years. At present I am stuck with Roon/Tidal for streaming, but would love to switch back to Muso or something else if I can maintain use of your conversion to SD/DSD into my DSC1 type DAC.

[Miska]

4 hours ago, 4est said:

Please excuse my ignorance Jussi, but how does this work exactly? If there is a link to a discussion as a primer, I'd be happy to read up on this. I've loved your program, and have used it for years. At present I am stuck with Roon/Tidal for streaming, but would love to switch back to Muso or something else if I can maintain use of your conversion to SD/DSD into my DSC1 type DAC.

 

You tell HQPlayer to read input from interface A and output to interface B at rate Y. Interface A can be analog input (PCM/DSD ADC) or digital input (S/PDIF, AES/EBU, I2S, etc). And interface B can be anything suitable just like before.

 

So instead of  source being a file or stream (Tidal/Roon), it can be physical input interface. So the source options are A) physical input, B) streams like from Roon, C) UPnP Renderer.

[4est]

Hmm. I guess I'll have to experiment then. Thank you!

[gvl]

I asked a related question in the main HQP thread about this but perhaps this is a more appropriate discussion. Can HQPE read from USB audio interfaces such as those used for recording music (some have digital inputs)? I'd really like to avoid using a bigger format factor PC for HQPE duty, but if nothing else perhaps you can recommend a PCI sound card with optical input that's known to work with HQPE?

 

As for Spotify, perhaps we can hope for a custom librespot build with HQPE backend?

[Miska]

11 minutes ago, gvl said:

I asked a related question in the main HQP thread about this but perhaps this is a more appropriate discussion. Can HQPE read from USB audio interfaces such as those used for recording music (some have digital inputs)? I'd really like to avoid using a bigger format factor PC for HQPE duty, but if nothing else perhaps you can recommend a PCI sound card with optical input that's known to work with HQPE?

 

Pretty much any interface that works with ALSA will work somehow. It then depends on your expectations whether it is functionally sufficient. Some care is needed to avoid interfaces with ASRC though.

 

[gvl]

1 minute ago, Miska said:

 

Pretty much any interface that works with ALSA will work somehow. It then depends on your expectations whether it is functionally sufficient. Some care is needed to avoid interfaces with ASRC though.

 

 

Given I'm looking to get just a basic relay of a 16/44.1 SPDIF stream over to USB, what can be missing in terms of functionality? Hopefully cheap USB interfaces do not include ASRC.

[Miska]

14 hours ago, gvl said:

Given I'm looking to get just a basic relay of a 16/44.1 SPDIF stream over to USB, what can be missing in terms of functionality? Hopefully cheap USB interfaces do not include ASRC.

 

For that purpose, likely most interfaces work, if you are fine to manually select input rate. If you want HQPlayer to automatically follow input rate changes then more attention is needed. Some may have ASRC, but likely most of the cheapest ones don't.

 

[gvl]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

For that purpose, likely most interfaces work, if you are fine to manually select input rate. If you want HQPlayer to automatically follow input rate changes then more attention is needed. Some may have ASRC, but likely most of the cheapest ones don't.

 

 

I don't anticipate I'll need a different rate as Spotify is 16/44.1, same applies to Tidal unless they allow Masters to CCA which seems unlikely. I'll try to find some time to experiment and will report back. Thanks.

[Miska]

22 minutes ago, gvl said:

 

I don't anticipate I'll need a different rate as Spotify is 16/44.1, same applies to Tidal unless they allow Masters to CCA which seems unlikely. I'll try to find some time to experiment and will report back. Thanks.

 

For Spotify there's no problem, it is constant rate. And also for anything through Apple AirPlay the same thing. But Tidal has both 44.1k and 48k content, so it is not as straightforward, although majority is 44.1k.

 

[gvl]

6 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

For Spotify there's no problem, it is constant rate. And also for anything through Apple AirPlay the same thing. But Tidal has both 44.1k and 48k content, so it is not as straightforward, although majority is 44.1k.

 

 

Isn't 48k only used for MQA/Masters? Have you ever seen 48k coming out from the CCA? I suppose it can happen if you choose a "Masters" album as iirc an MQA file is compatible with non-MQA DACs.

[BrownMagic]

With the arrival of Spotify HiFi, @Miska is there any way for us to get HQplayer to upsample Spotify HiFi via Spotify Connect on a Mac Mini M1?

Here is what I want to build a solution.

 

Mac Mini M1 Running HQ Player Upsamples Spotify HiFi and then Dirac applies Room correction and then Feeds it to my Dac. I should be able to control songs using my phone's spotify connect? 

Sorry if this has been asked before but cant seem to find it. Can the above solution be done in one box? Any has done it before?

[Miska]

6 hours ago, BrownMagic said:

Mac Mini M1 Running HQ Player Upsamples Spotify HiFi and then Dirac applies Room correction and then Feeds it to my Dac. I should be able to control songs using my phone's spotify connect? 

 

You can try with a loopback driver. But Dirac will cause more problems as there shouldn't be anything between HQPlayer and the DAC.

 

[all300b]

I have this working on my macmni M1. Spotify outputs to Black Hole and HQ player picks up that stream.

 

However, the switch between other sources (Roon) and the Black Hole stream (Spotify) in HQ player is not seamless. Have to click on the input stream of HQ player a few times, open the HQ player client, close the client... some HQ player crashes... But it does eventually work and once connected works fine (until you want to switch again).

 

 

 

 

 

[Bob Stern]

On 6/16/2021 at 12:02 PM, all300b said:

I have this working on my macmni M1. Spotify outputs to Black Hole and HQ player picks up that stream.

However, the switch between other sources (Roon) and the Black Hole stream (Spotify) in HQ player is not seamless. Have to click on the input stream of HQ player a few times, open the HQ player client, close the client... some HQ player crashes... But it does eventually work and once connected works fine (until you want to switch again).

 

Instead of using HQP Client to switch HQP Desktop's input to streaming from BlackHole, you might try a shell script.  I use the following AppleScript, which simply runs a shell script. 

 

(10.0.x.x is the IP address of the computer running HQP Desktop, or else localhost if Desktop and the AppleScript are running on the same Mac.  Take care to append a space to the IP address.)

 

use scripting additions

set shellCmd to "/Applications/HQPlayer4Client.app/Contents/MacOS/hqp-control2 10.0.x.x "

set shellCmd to shellCmd & "--set-transport 5 'audio:default/44100/2'"

do shell script shellCmd

 

 

[jvvita]

for the brave ones, I am using th following method to play spotify through hqplayer desktop on Ubuntu. It goes with alsa loopback module, combined with librespot. You will be able to play using your spotify app to librespot, and route the audio through hqplayer, as long as you use a NAA as output.

 

the steps are:

1) install librespot. Key here is to compile the app using alsa for audio playback. 

sudo apt update

sudo apt install build-essential cargo libasound2-dev git

git clone https://github.com/librespot-org/librespot.git

cd librespot

cargo build --release --no-default-features --features alsa-backend

 

The path to librespot will be ~/librespot/target/release, and you can add it as a system wide path including it in /etc/environment

 

2) load alsa loopback module

sudo su

echo 'snd-aloop' >> etc/modules

reboot now

once rebooted, check if loopback is loaded, and note the card number (in my case, it is card 0)

aplay -l

 

you will see two cards for loopback, One is the output, the other is the input

 

3) play music

go to hqplayer settings. In input, select alsa, then select the second loopback option (the first wll be used by librespot)

 

load librespot. This is the command line I am using. Substitute for the first zero of the hw option, should your loppback not be card zero

~/librespot/target/release/librespot --device hw:0,0,0 --disable-audio-cache --initial-volume=100 --bitrate 320

 

you spotify app should be able to see librespot and stream to it. begin playing a song for test purposes

 

go back to hqplayer main window. I the dropbox, select audio:default/44100/2. click on the transpot window, so the stream gets activated. click play on hqplayer. you should get the output from your NAA

 

Here I found a minor glitch in hqplayer. should 44100 already be selected on the dropbox, you wont get activated on the trasnport window. you will have to select another sample rate (48000 for example) and then go back to 44100 (maybe @Miska can help here). A bit annoying, but it will work.

 

Later on, I am going to experiment with embedded through ubuntu server.

 

Any feedbacks are welcome.