HQPlayer Linux Desktop and HQplayer embedded

[simonklp]

On 1/12/2019 at 7:38 PM, Miska said:

 

Ahh, a typo...

 

The AIO card (3) works for the digital inputs with the mentioned limitations. So for example 192k input doesn't work due to driver bugs. I have not tested analog I/O on that card, so it may or may not work. I have two of those cards just for digital input reasons.

 

 

Noted with thanks!

[Bob Stern]

Questions from a Linux neophyte:  (altho I have experience with the bash shell on the Mac)

 

1. Has anyone installed Ubuntu Server and HQP Embedded on a VMware Fusion virtual machine?  If so, were you able to install the VMware Tools and implement shared folders with the Mac host?

 

2. What are the Ubuntu shell commands to download and install HQP Embedded and its dependencies?  (Assuming I don’t have the luxury of Mac shared folders.)

[Miska]

59 minutes ago, Bob Stern said:

2. What are the Ubuntu shell commands to download and install HQP Embedded and its dependencies?  (Assuming I don’t have the luxury of Mac shared folders.)

 

1. "wget <url>" where URL is the package you want to install, practically you need libgmpris and hqplayerd packages, everything else comes from Ubuntu repository.
2. "sudo dpkg -i <package>" where package is file name of the downloaded package. On first install you'll get errors about missing dependencies - this is normal.
3. "sudo apt install -f" will install the missing dependencies of previous step and complete the package installation/configuration.

 

[luisma]

22 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

What are the Ubuntu shell commands to download and install HQP Embedded and its dependencies?  (Assuming I don’t have the luxury of Mac shared folders

You running bionic beaver or 16.04? I believe for the new HQPE you must have bionic beaver. 

[Bob Stern]

@Miska:  I installed HQPE per your instructions in a Ubuntu Bionic virtual machine on my Mac .  I encountered some serious problems trying to get it to work:

 

(1) Outputting to NAA running in the MacOS on the same computer did some initial handshaking, but then hqplayerd logged errors and disconnected:

  2019/01/21 09:21:16 Discovered 1 Network Audio Adapters

  2019/01/21 09:21:16 Output set channels: 2 (2)

! 2019/01/21 09:21:16 clPlayerDaemon::CreateEngine(): clHQPlayerEngine::Initialize(): clNetMiniEngine::Initialize(): adapter not found

- 2019/01/21 09:21:16 Network engine stopping...

+ 2019/01/21 09:21:16 Server starting...

 

I don’t know why hqplayerd reported "adapter not found' because the console output of networkaudiod (NAA) process did report a connection to hqplayerd and then a disconnect.

 

HQP Desktop had no problem playing audio through the NAA.  (I did not have Desktop and Ubuntu running simultaneously.)

 

(2) Simply trying to add a folder to the Library in the web interface logged the error:

# 2019/01/21 11:04:57 clPlayerDaemon::ScanLibrary(): std::exception

The same folder loaded fine in HQP Desktop.

 

(3) I belatedly discovered that VMware Fusion only emulates an ancient Sound Blaster card that resamples everything to 48 KHz, so it's useless for high quality audio.  Oracle Virtual Box purportedly emulates a soundcard having a Sigmatel STAC9221 codec with an Intel HDAudio driver.  So if I'm going to pursue this, I'll have to move my Ubuntu VM to Virtual Box.

 

(4) If I accomplish step (3), how would I modify the XML file to use that emulated soundcard as the input device instead of the USB input devices specified in the default XML file?

[clang]

Finally got my NUC to boot from the image and got the following: 

 

User OS 4,x z.5 hqplayer tty1

User login:

 

I put in "hqplayer" as id and "password" as password and was told that they were incorrect.

What now?

 

And while I'm asking for help, I'd also like to know how to connect the NUC to my home wifi to use HQPDcontrol.

TIA.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, clang said:

Finally got my NUC to boot from the image and got the following: 

 

User OS 4,x z.5 hqplayer tty1

User login:

 

I put in "hqplayer" as id and "password" as password and was told that they were incorrect.

What now?

 

When you get to the login prompt it is up and ready to go. (after like 10 seconds when the network bridge finishes topology discovery)

 

That is username and password for HQPlayer's web interface. You can point your browser at "http://hqplayer" or "http://hqplayer.local" in case your router supports this. Otherwise you need to know IP address of the device, which you can find out for example by logging in as "root" (no password) and running "ifconfig".

 

 

2 hours ago, clang said:

And while I'm asking for help, I'd also like to know how to connect the NUC to my home wifi to use HQPDcontrol.

 

This is more advanced configuration, you can search internet for instructions how to configure "wpa_supplicant". It is included on the images for advanced users based on request, but I don't support it further than that, only wired ethernet which doesn't need configuration.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

@Miska:  I installed HQPE per your instructions in a Ubuntu Bionic virtual machine on my Mac .  I encountered some serious problems trying to get it to work:

 

(1) Outputting to NAA running in the MacOS on the same computer did some initial handshaking, but then hqplayerd logged errors and disconnected:

  2019/01/21 09:21:16 Discovered 1 Network Audio Adapters

  2019/01/21 09:21:16 Output set channels: 2 (2)

! 2019/01/21 09:21:16 clPlayerDaemon::CreateEngine(): clHQPlayerEngine::Initialize(): clNetMiniEngine::Initialize(): adapter not found

- 2019/01/21 09:21:16 Network engine stopping...

+ 2019/01/21 09:21:16 Server starting...

 

I don’t know why hqplayerd reported "adapter not found' because the console output of networkaudiod (NAA) process did report a connection to hqplayerd and then a disconnect.

 

"adapter not found" means that HQPlayer is not finding NAA and DAC with the NAA name and device ID specified in HQPlayer configuration.

 

3 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

(2) Simply trying to add a folder to the Library in the web interface logged the error:

# 2019/01/21 11:04:57 clPlayerDaemon::ScanLibrary(): std::exception

The same folder loaded fine in HQP Desktop.

 

Is your HQPlayer Desktop also running under the same virtual machine? Does "hqplayer" user in the virtual machine have access rights to your content?

 

3 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

(3) I belatedly discovered that VMware Fusion only emulates an ancient Sound Blaster card that resamples everything to 48 KHz, so it's useless for high quality audio.  Oracle Virtual Box purportedly emulates a soundcard having a Sigmatel STAC9221 codec with an Intel HDAudio driver.  So if I'm going to pursue this, I'll have to move my Ubuntu VM to Virtual Box.

 

These usually support only one single sampling rate, or alternatively do resampling...

 

3 hours ago, Bob Stern said:

(4) If I accomplish step (3), how would I modify the XML file to use that emulated soundcard as the input device instead of the USB input devices specified in the default XML file?

 

You can list available input devices with "arecord -l" and then change the input names and device ID's accordingly in hqplayerd.xml. You can also make further changes, all the supported attributes are documented in the readme.txt included in the package.

 

[clang]

Many thanks.

 

Clarence

 

[Miska]

Regarding using HQPDcontrol or similar to control HQPlayer Embedded. Typical setup would have HQPlayer Embedded connected to wired network that has wireless access point/router. And mobile device with HQPDcontrol would be talking to the wireless network while HQPlayer is on the wired.

 

[cat6man]

10 minutes ago, Miska said:

Regarding using HQPDcontrol or similar to control HQPlayer Embedded. Typical setup would have HQPlayer Embedded connected to wired network that has wireless access point/router. And mobile device with HQPDcontrol would be talking to the wireless network while HQPlayer is on the wired.

 

 

and that works perfectly here

[Miska]

 

Solutions for Tidal/Qobuz to HQPE I've been testing are:

• Roon
• BubbleUPnP app on Android
• mConnect Player (HD) on iOS
• Audirvana+ on macOS

 

Since Qobuz is not available in Finland I have not really paid attention to it. So my testing is with Tidal. I've understood that Qobuz' own application also at least had UPnP support but was disabled for some time due to some compatibility challenges. I haven't followed the thread here if it has come back.

 

And if you can output to Chromecast Audio or something similar, or even just S/PDIF or AES output from another computer, that is one possibility too.

 

[asdf1000]

7 minutes ago, Miska said:

I've understood that Qobuz' own application also at least had UPnP support but was disabled for some time due to some compatibility challenges. I haven't followed the thread here if it has come back.

 

It’s there as beta but not working for anyone, with anything. Qobuz said they do plan to get it working though.

 

 

[asdf1000]

Hi @Miska

 

I get 1 or 2 audible pops each track when using TOSlink --> USBStreamer > HQPe.

 

Both with Chromecast Audio and HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro TOSlink sources.

 

The rest of the chain, HQPe --> NAA --> Pro-Ject S2 DAC is not the problem, because I can play to HQPe via both Roon and UPnP 100% trouble and pop free, for months now.

 

So it's just TOSlink + USBStreamer and the input function of HQPe.

 

Both Chromecast and HiFiberry are connected via ethernet (not WiFi).

 

Does the USBstreamer input function of HQPe have any pops for you?

 

I'm only using 44.1k USBStreamer input -  no other rates.

 

On the HiFiBerry, first I thought it was Shairport and the Raspotify being the problem - but I installed RoonBridge and have the same issue. Just 1 or 2 audible pops, but every track.

 

Tried a few different TOSlink cables too.

 

And both the Chromecast Audio and HiFiBerry Digit+ straight into DAC Toslink input is pop free also.

 

So it appears to be HQPe input?

 

There's nothing in HQPe logs:

 

  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Web switch input: USBStreamer @44.1k
+ 2019/01/23 01:36:12 Playback engine running
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Rate or blocksize change triggered
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Rate: 44100, block size: 4704, frame size: 588
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Block size: 4704 (sample: 4)
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Oversampling: short poly (light)
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Modulator: adaptive seventh order 1-bit
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Integrator: IIR
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Playback engine ratio: 512
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Set volume: -12
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Offload: resampler=disabled convolution=disabled
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Initialization complete, starting audio engine
+ 2019/01/23 01:36:12 Network engine starting...
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Network SDM streaming
+ 2019/01/23 01:36:12 Network engine started at: 22579200
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Parallel threads: 8
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Nested parallelism: 0
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 Parallel pipelines: 4
+ 2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input engine starting...
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input set hardware parameters for requested rate: 44100
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input channels: 2 - 2
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input active channels: 2
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input number of periods: 2
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input period times: 181 - 1486078
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input period sizes: 8 - 65536
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input period time: 100000
  2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input period size: 4410
+ 2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input engine started at: 44100 (44100)
+ 2019/01/23 01:36:12 ALSA input engine running...
  2019/01/23 12:44:06 asoundlib version: 1.1.3
  2019/01/23 12:44:06 Found ALSA device: hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=3 - HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 0
  2019/01/23 12:44:06 Found ALSA device: hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=7 - HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 1
  2019/01/23 12:44:06 Found ALSA device: hw:CARD=PCH,DEV=8 - HDA Intel PCH: HDMI 2
  2019/01/23 12:44:06 Found ALSA device: hw:CARD=USBStreamer,DEV=0 - USBStreamer: USB Audio
  2019/01/23 12:44:06 Network Audio IPv6 support enabled
  2019/01/23 12:44:06 Discovery from ::
- 2019/01/23 12:44:08 Network engine stopping...

[asdf1000]

@Miska and I've taken NAA completely out of the loop now. Just to remove that big variable (network). NAA hasn't had a single issue with Roon and UPnP playing to HQPe for months, but took it out as a variable here anyway.

 

So it's now just direct USB 2.0 (certified cable) between HQPE (NUC7i7DNHE) and Pro-Ject S2 DAC.

 

Still get 1 or 2 pops per track with USBStreamer 44.1kHz input on HQPe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

2019/01/23 14:38:37 Audio transport: rate=44100 channels=2 format=auto buffer=100
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Input set channels: 2 (2)
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 asoundlib version: 1.1.3
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input device: hw:CARD=USBStreamer,DEV=0
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: Mic Capture Switch
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: Mic Capture Switch
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: Mic Capture Volume
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: Mic Capture Volume
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: USBStreamer  Playback Switch
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: USBStreamer  Playback Switch
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: USBStreamer  Playback Volume
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: USBStreamer  Playback Volume
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: miniDSP Clock Selector Clock Source
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: miniDSP Internal Clock Validity
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: miniDSP TOSLINK Clock Validity
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: Capture Channel Map
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input control element: Playback Channel Map
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input mixer element: Mic
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input mixer element: Mic
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input mixer element: USBStreamer 
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input mixer element: USBStreamer 
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input mixer element: miniDSP Clock Selector Clock Source
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input mixer element: miniDSP Internal Clock Validity
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input mixer element: miniDSP TOSLINK Clock Validity
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input access mode: 3
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input PCM format: S32_LE
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input PCM bits: 32
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input PCM physical width: 32
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input PCM rates: 44100 - 192000
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input DSD not supported
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input rate available: 44100
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input rate available: 48000
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input rate available: 88200
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input rate available: 96000
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input rate available: 176400
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input rate available: 192000
+ 2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input backend initialized
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input set sampling rate: 44100 (44100)
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Web switch input: USBStreamer @44.1k
+ 2019/01/23 14:38:37 Playback engine running
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output set sampling rate: 22579200 (22579200)
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Automatic output rate: 22579200
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Rate or blocksize change triggered
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Rate: 44100, block size: 4704, frame size: 588
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Block size: 4704 (sample: 4)
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Oversampling: short poly (light)
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Modulator: adaptive seventh order 1-bit
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Integrator: IIR
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Playback engine ratio: 512
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Set volume: -12
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Offload: resampler=disabled convolution=disabled
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Initialization complete, starting audio engine
+ 2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output engine starting...
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output set hardware parameters for requested rate: 22579200
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output channels: 2 - 2
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output active channels: 2
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output number of periods: 2
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output period times: 126 - 92880
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output period sizes: 89 - 65536
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output period time: 92879
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output period size: 65536
+ 2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output engine started at: 22579200 (22579200)
+ 2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA output engine running...
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Parallel threads: 8
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Nested parallelism: 0
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 Parallel pipelines: 4
+ 2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input engine starting...
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input set hardware parameters for requested rate: 44100
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input channels: 2 - 2
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input active channels: 2
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input number of periods: 2
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input period times: 181 - 1486078
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input period sizes: 8 - 65536
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input period time: 100000
  2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input period size: 4410
+ 2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input engine started at: 44100 (44100)
+ 2019/01/23 14:38:37 ALSA input engine running...

[asdf1000]

And USBStreamer alone as a USB-to-TOSlink converter feeding the DAC TOSlink input, is no problems at all - 100% pop free. So it can't be the USBStreamer itself.

 

CPU loading is very light for the NUC7i7DNHE with poly-sinc-short-lp-2s at DSD512.

 

 

This NUC can actually do poly-sinc-short-lp non-2s at DSD512 if Roon isn't running - to NAA, 100% pop free also.

 

So it can't be CPU causing these pops with USBStreamer 44.1kHz input.

[asdf1000]

Just now, I tried increasing period_time to 500 - is that a buffer in ms?

 

Didn't improve anything though - still pops

 

[Miska]

Yes, it is in milliseconds. Making it bigger than 100 ms hardly helps, at some point it begins to harm instead.

 

How's your HQPlayer volume setting?

[asdf1000]

6 minutes ago, Miska said:

Making it bigger than 100 ms hardly helps, at some point it begins to harm instead.

 

Ha yeh, just found the harm, by changing it to 1000ms. Stuttered playback. So changed back to 100ms. Changing to 500ms and 1000ms was only the last thing I tried. Prior to that, all the things I tried above were with 100ms.

 

6 minutes ago, Miska said:

How's your HQPlayer volume setting?

 

Volume is at -12dB at all times - never changed. Can see in the HQPe config screenshot above.

 

[Miska]

So far I've had it playing again for like 15 minutes without pops, from Spotify on my iPhone to Chromecast Audio. Tidal app is completely freaked out today and unusable, so no Tidal today...

 

[asdf1000]

14 minutes ago, Miska said:

So far I've had it playing again for like 15 minutes without pops, from Spotify on my iPhone to Chromecast Audio. Tidal app is completely freaked out today and unusable, so no Tidal today...

 

 

Hmm. I get very small pops, one or two every track. I don't hear them on speakers - only headphones but very easy.

 

A bit like the microRendu saga we went through (pops with DSD512) in that I could very easily hear them with headphones but not speakers, which is probably why others never noticed and reported the pops were there.

 

But I know if you can't reproduce it at your end it's hard to know what to do next.

 

 

[Miska]

16 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

Hmm. I get very small pops, one or two every track. I don't hear them on speakers - only headphones but very easy.

 

A bit like the microRendu saga we went through (pops with DSD512) in that I could very easily hear them with headphones but not speakers, which is probably why others never noticed and reported the pops were there.

 

But I know if you can't reproduce it at your end it's hard to know what to do next.

 

Those are likely lost USB frames. Each data bundle is typically 125 µs long, this yields the 8 kHz transfer rate you can also sometimes see leaking to the DAC output.

 

For example if 100 ms ALSA period goes missing it is quite noticeable. 125 µs long gap is much less.

 

Probably this has something to do also with the simultaneous transfer going on with both devices. Was this Debian? With my kernel build?

 

[asdf1000]

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

Those are likely lost USB frames. Each data bundle is typically 125 µs long, this yields the 8 kHz transfer rate you can also sometimes see leaking to the DAC output.

 

For example if 100 ms ALSA period goes missing it is quite noticeable. 125 µs long gap is much less.

 

 

 

Is this about the microRendu or my current USBStreamer issue? You fixed the microRendu issue a long time ago remember !

 

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

Probably this has something to do also with the simultaneous transfer going on with both devices. Was this Debian? With my kernel build?

 

Yep must be. I thought changing that buffering might help but not. 

 

Yes this is Debian Stretch running your custom kernel + customer headers.

 

linux-image-4.9.144-jl+_11_amd64.deb and linux-headers-4.9.144-jl+_11_amd64.deb

 

Anything else I can try / adjust?

 

[Miska]

16 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

Is this about the microRendu or my current USBStreamer issue? You fixed the microRendu issue a long time ago remember !

 

Well, that fix is kind of black magic...

 

16 minutes ago, Em2016 said:

Anything else I can try / adjust?

 

Hardware permitting, you could try moving either DAC or USBStreamer to a different USB port.

 

Btw, I just built new .151 kernel this week. Likely won't make difference, but shouldn't harm trying that either.

 

[asdf1000]

13 minutes ago, Miska said:

Hardware permitting, you could try moving either DAC or USBStreamer to a different USB port.

 

I do have a lot of USB stuff plugged into the NUC7i7DNHE.

 

I even have the Chromecast Audio and HiFiBerry powered by NUC USB ports (microUSB cables)

 

I'll try and go to bare minimum USB port usage (and power Chomecast Audio and HiFiBerry by the wall or USB powerbank) to see if that helps.

 

This might explain why I'm having issues with ALSA, but could it explain the same pops issues playing to NAA?