HQPlayer Linux Desktop and HQplayer embedded

[arglebargle]

Network on a11 working fine for me. I don't use auto so not sure on that note. But no more "no suitable output for 44100" errors. I have some other issues with embedded I'm trying to run down (Roon playlists stall on sample rate changes) so if anyone else happens to experience that, I would be keen to hear about it.

[arglebargle]

Regarding filters it looks like you've perhaps conflated the variables "oversampling" (applies to SDM) and "filter" (applies to PCM). I did the same getting set up.

 

/usr/share/doc/hqplayerd/readme.txt.gz should explain all.

 

Basically, according to the screenshot you've set SDM oversampling to Extended Polyphase (oversampling="11") and PCM filter to "Fast roll-off minimum-phase polyphase" (filter="7"). Setting oversampling to 7 would be poly-sinc-mp-2s for SDM.

 

BTW my issues with track advance aside, Auto SDM works a treat in a11.

 

Looking forward to the results of the tests, @shadowlight !

[arglebargle]

For some context, in the short time I've been playing with HQPlayer Embedded I've experimented with the following setups:

 

1) Local playback using minimserver and UPPlay (a bare bones UPNP/OpenHome control point for the linux desktop) .. Doesn't really have a big advantage over running HQPlayer Desktop... but it proved the possibility so I kept trying various approaches

 

2) Emulating OpenHome with BubbleUp Server on Linux (+ minimserver, Embedded and Rygel) . This worked beautifully upsampling Tidal with the Lumin app. I should have stopped there but I can't help myself. Local playback was too glitchy.

 

3) HQPlayer Embedded + Rygel with BubbleUPnP control point. Besides Roon, this was the closest thing to a truly workable setup ... but I cheaped out on the Android tablet and it wasn't up to the task. I may revisit this one. With the cost of Roon I could have justified a much bigger expenditure on the tablet, but the fancy interface and metadata seduced me. (And I already own an Air 2 which makes for a quite slick experience in Roon.)

 

4) Roon + HQPlayer Embedded. This is what I'm using now and is the closest to the perfcet combination of a polished UI + pure audio nerdery that HQPlayer offers.

 

I also did a bit of experimentation with JRiver because their remote is still one of the best thought out offerings, and I include Roon in that. I got as far as being able to trigger playback of HQPlayer embedded through JRiver's DLNA system, but any further interaction was impossible. Based on some of the leads I'm seeing here I may revisit that too.

[arglebargle]

What was the issue that you ran into with JRiver DLNA setup so I can be on the look out for the same issues.

I don't currently have Rygel and the associated stuff set up as I'm using Roon, but I may revisit and report back in more detail.

 

Basically with minimserver as my library in JRiver and a generic UpNP / DLNA setup, I was able to trigger playback in HQPlayer Embedded (I think t his was a5 or a6 mind you) but it would freeze the Media Center interface. JRiver was throwing an error saying what I was trying to do was not possible, and yet it was happening in the background If you clicked "OK" to the error, playback would stop.

 

Sorry this isn't of much help. Honestly, I got frustrated with the JRiver approach to linux (and audiophile playback in general) after having to ask a simple yes/no question about DoP playback multiple times over a month+ just to get a simple "no".

[arglebargle]

If I recall, a12 reported as a11... but it was updated so quickly there was no reason to add to Miska's emails

 

As for Audiolinux, well you've asked the expert already but it looks to me the pkgbuild is up-to-date on the AUR: a14-14 Xenial package. Should require nothing more than yaourt -Syu hqplayer-embedded (or whatever the cmd is, I don't use yaourt) to bring it up to date.

[arglebargle]

If one were trying to update HQPlayer Embedded by copy-pasting a14 into a pkgbuild for a8, it would definitely fail on account of changes to the package contents from a9 on.

[arglebargle]

I don't use Audiolinux but it's based on Arch Linux which meana that yaourt -S hqplayer-embedded should install whatever the latest version available on the AUR is. The package "provides" hqplayer-embedded, meaning it would simply overwrite the current version with a message it was doing so. What exactly was the process for installing a8?

[arglebargle]

Cheers! Check out the /etc/hqplayer folder, usually Arch is smart enough to save something like hqplayerd.xml.bak if it did overwrite your config.

[arglebargle]

@ted_b I switched to Debian for that very reason. Too many papercuts out there on the bleeding edge ... Wondering which Arch packages might cause errors in HQPlayer or Roon. I imagine AudioLinux takes care of some of that uncertainty.

Anyways, totally possible to update to A15. I'm not sure if this will be enough to get you there, or even if it's worth doing other than to learn the process—the package is usually updated in a quite timely fashion. The gist of it would be:

 

 

• AUR (Arch Linux User Repository) page for hqplayer-embedded. (Same package maintained by Audio Linux)
  
• Download snapshot and unzip to some local folder. `tar xvf hqplayer-embedded.tar.gz`
  
• Edit PKGBUILD. In this case, 14 and 15 may be similar enough in structure that changing all the "14"s to "15"s will do it. Save and exit.
  
• run `makepkg` to build the package. Alternatively, run `makepkg -i` to make and install.
  
• If something happens to go wrong, likely no update will be made. At any rate, running yaourt -S hqplayer-embedded would take you back to 14.
  

 

As they say: no warranty is implied. Good luck!

[arglebargle]

Now there is a15 build available. Quite a bunch of fixes and improvements again. And one new feature; point your browser at port 8088 of the machine where hqplayerd is running to get to a status page where you can also change some active settings.

 

This is great, thank you. After an evening of listening, the only issue I've noticed with Roon is a tendency for playback to stop when using "Play Now" if something is already playing. I don't know if this is something that would need to be tweaked on the Roon end but it looks like this:

clControlThread::ParseMsg(): clHQPlayerEngine::Play(): clThread::Create(): already running!

[arglebargle]

@Miska

Understood.

 

The mention of timing made me wonder whether this could be latency or some subtle interaction of the wired and wireless connections in my current configuration:

 

iOS remote (5g wifi) -> Roon server (wired Ethernet) -> NAA (2.4g wifi).

 

Cheap dual band (Archer C7) router, lots happening on both bands in a small time frame, could be something. Maybe my imagination but so far it's much less likely to trigger a full stop with iOS remote set to 2.4ghz band.

 

Will test some wired connection, as well as the cubox when it arrives hopefully today.

[arglebargle]

I uploaded build a16 with some serious state management rework, I hope the problem is now gone...

 

I've narrowed this timing thing down to switching from Tidal > Tidal albums.

 

With a16, in all other cases, triggering a new album while another is playing works as expected.

 

But if the album playing is a Tidal stream and the new album is a Tidal stream, the "Already Running" error is reproduced virtually every time, on my setup anyways.

[arglebargle]

Interesting. Switching between Tidal's proprietary playlists also seems fine here, as well as playing a single Tidal track while a Tidal album is already playing.

 

It seems only possible to trigger if playing an album while what is currently playing is also a Tidal album started via "Play Album". And even though I was able to reproduce on the first try for the logs I sent, I find it only happening rarely now vs almost every time with a15.

 

I will just continue to use normally and report back. I fully admit that sometimes when jumping around a bunch to test something one can create conditions that would not come up in regular use.

 

Edit: I tried some faster initializing filters and some PCM modes just to rule out a performance issue and was still able to reproduce.

[arglebargle]

Anyone out there listening to a19? Hopefully not jumping the gun to install it, I seem to have a sixth sense for when an update is available So far everything is working pretty smoothly with Roon and a Cubox i4pro NAA running 3.5. None of the showstoppers like playback stalling;  the only issue that reappeared  for me is the slight post-pause echo of whatever was playing.  Wish I could recall what version cleared that up. I recall there was at least one other person who was experiencing the same. 

[arglebargle]

Just a tip in case it helps anyone out there: despite the targets being correct for the systemd unit, one of my machines somehow has a mistaken idea about what constitutes the network being "up" so hqplayerd fails to start on boot—too many retries. Adding RestartSec=5 to the unit file prevents this, and hqplayerd starts without manual intervention. Even two seconds would probably do, ymmv. 

[arglebargle]

1 minute ago, Miska said:

 

OK thanks! Usually the problem happens when DHCP is used, because sometimes DHCP servers are slow to respond and annoyingly systemd doesn't wait for those to really come up, even with network-online.target...

 

I'm configuring network with static IP using /etc/network/interfaces file so it comes up fast.

 

I'll add two seconds setting to the service file, there is not much point in spinning the restart loop faster than that.

 

That's great, thanks. No need to even log in and less than 25 processes to run roon + embedded!  Now that all that parts of my system are basically stable, having set up my new cubox NAA, I should really set up static IPs myself. I ended up using an Arch Linux Arm img, as I used Arch for years and it was the fastest way to get a very recent kernel. Working great with the 3.5.0 daemon. 

[arglebargle]

14 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

 [...] a web interface for HQPlayer embedded or have I totally misunderstood what's going on ?

 

He has, it runs at localhost:8088 when you start Embedded. This is what it looks like right now. What other features may be planned for the future I have no idea.  As it is, being able to change filters on the fly is pretty great. Combined with roon there is little need to visit the other room where my HQPlayer machine lives. 

 

[arglebargle]

Just now, R1200CL said:

 

Have I ? Isn't this a web interface ?

He as in Miska,  sorry about that! 

[arglebargle]

Thanks @shadowlight. A suggestion for the section on configuration would be a reference to the readme at /usr/share/doc/hqplayerd or even a table showing the bit about what # corresponds to which filter / modulator in hqplayerd.xml. Of course, that's what the readme is for, but it's nice to have on hand. Doubly helpful would be translating the technical names of the filters from the readme to the familiar names in Desktop.

 

 In my opinion it's definitely worth the effort to get something like Debian or Ubuntu LTS for playback. Once you're set up, the  almost total lack of maintenance required, at least compared to Arch Linux, is liberating. 

[arglebargle]

Still get that little post pause echo on a19 and 20. Anyone else out there? Wish I had some insight to offer on this one! All I can report is using a17 for my everyday listening for some time with no issues including this but also older timing stuff etc.

 

Still using Stretch, up to date, with the current RT kernel. Could be some network latency thing? Will try a few different connections one of these days; direct from Embedded to DAC as well as more direct line between HQP machine and NAA. Currently using a wifi extender with an Ethernet out, but I recall this little glitch used to happen even when everything was in the same room. 

 

Regardless, it's such a tiny thing. Brilliant work.  Since experimenting at the beginning of the year, I've gone to using Embedded for 100% of my home listening. Cheers. 

[arglebargle]

@Miska Was going to report that sample rate changes were stalling out again on a22 but it's no longer an issue after installing today's newly announced 4.0.0 Beta 1. 

 

Do you have any idea what might cause that little blip of sound a few seconds after pausing a track in Roon?  I recall you caught it at least once in your testing. I'm still getting that here; it's the one thing keeping me on the a17 release.  

 

Track changes seem even quicker and cleaner on the new beta though, so I might just stick with it.

 

Cheers! 

[arglebargle]

@Miska Right on, I didn't realize a long press of pause in Roon would initiate a full stop. That is a good workaround.

 

Testing various filters this morning it doesn't seem to matter, SDM or PCM at with various filters and bitrates on my iDAC2, regular pause has the same echo.  There are still some things I haven't tried with the latest version, ipv6 on/off, setting specific buffer times instead of setting to 0.

 

It could come down to something about buffering on my network itself maybe? I'll try my DAC direct into the Embedded machine and see if ALSA playback has same result as NAA and report back later   

[arglebargle]

@Miska Do these new authorization features have something to do with changes to "read" permissions on /etc/hqplayer folder after installing b1, or is that something I've done accidentally?

 

I guess it makes sense if the intended use-case going forward is that all modifications are done through the web interface. I'm comfortable changing permissions if I want to break the rules and make manual changes, just curious.

[arglebargle]

@Miska Since Embedded is now in beta, I have one small and silly bug report I've been meaning to make for a while: 

 

There appears to be a typo in the default config. Under <alsa>, dualwire is mis-typed as deualwire.

 

[arglebargle]

Another thing to file under utterly trivial, I wonder if it's possible to add the snippet of <head> code that would give iOS homescreen bookmarks a fancy Signalyst icon? 

 

If anyone out there knows how to accomplish this simply in the css, please do share. It's a bit beyond my meagre skill level. One way I've done this in the past was running a small http server on my machine to create a sort of local homepage with custom icons but that's a bit much for this I think. 

 

Cheers!