HQPlayer Linux Desktop and HQplayer embedded

[Miska]

32 minutes ago, Le Concombre Masqué said:

thank you Jussi, my apologies : I was not enquiring about the Upsquared capabilities but suggesting that maybe the crashes I experimented with Embedded 4.15.1 could be revealed only with convolution engaged

 

What kind of crash message do you get?

 

[Le Concombre Masqué]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

 

What kind of crash message do you get?

 

PM. total crash. Can't do journalctl -a but took a pic

occurred today after 10 minutes of pleasure from CD rip

You'll read cpuidle and thermal etc. With 4.14.1 and previous it gets warm but I can play SACD rips and 24/192 for as long as I want. At the touch the Mac was not hot at all today; hence it's not an issue of more heat built with 4.15.1 but rather a different threshold or maybe even a crash instead of/when before I had just a warning but it kept playing

Thus being, I play 16/44 with ext2 and I get more and earlier warnings of cpu throttle because of temperature, than when I play 24/192 with mqa mp

[craighartley]

On 3/5/2020 at 12:18 PM, Miska said:

 

This is a mystery, I tried the same yesterday on three DACs and two NAA's (both Windows and Ubuntu based) and I cannot reproduce it. Both NAA 3.6.0 and 4.1.0 versions.

 

Taking NAA out of equation would tell which side it likely is.

 

 

I’ve now found that I can reduce the volume (and intrusive effect) of the click if I put a ‘pre-amp’ between the DAC and my power amps. As well as updating HQPlayer, I had recently also swapped to driving my power amps direct from the output of the T+A DAC8 DSD. The click on Play was similarly loud whether I controlled volume from the variable output of the DAC or if I controlled volume in software (HQPlayer) and used the fixed output of the DAC. I’ve now reinserted my transformer-based passive pre-amp between DAC and power amps, and the click is reduced to almost inaudible, although I can still hear that it is present   

 

I’m sorry that I’ve only just realised that this other recent change in my system may have had the effect of increasing the volume of the clicks, which were previously present rather than introduced by any recent changes to HQPlayer. 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, craighartley said:

 

I’ve now found that I can reduce the volume (and intrusive effect) of the click if I put a ‘pre-amp’ between the DAC and my power amps. As well as updating HQPlayer, I had recently also swapped to driving my power amps direct from the output of the T+A DAC8 DSD. The click on Play was similarly loud whether I controlled volume from the variable output of the DAC or if I controlled volume in software (HQPlayer) and used the fixed output of the DAC. I’ve now reinserted my transformer-based passive pre-amp between DAC and power amps, and the click is reduced to almost inaudible, although I can still hear that it is present   

 

I’m sorry that I’ve only just realised that this other recent change in my system may have had the effect of increasing the volume of the clicks, which were previously present rather than introduced by any recent changes to HQPlayer. 

 

If the DAC's built-in volume control doesn't affect loudness of the click, but transformer does, it sounds like a DC offset in the DAC output. It doesn't need to be large to a DC connected power amp to have such click when the mute relays are disengaged.

 

[craighartley]

8 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

If the DAC's built-in volume control doesn't affect loudness of the click, but transformer does, it sounds like a DC offset in the DAC output. It doesn't need to be large to a DC connected power amp to have such click when the mute relays are disengaged.

 

Thank you. I'll ask T+A about this. Do you think any DC offset is an issue possibly related to the Amanero USB firmware?

[Miska]

1 hour ago, craighartley said:

Thank you. I'll ask T+A about this. Do you think any DC offset is an issue possibly related to the Amanero USB firmware?

 

No, it shouldn't be, unless it keeps outputing something wrong when the stream stops. There have been such cases with some other DACs. But at least I have not noticed any clicks from DAC8 DSD. Note that I'm using the balanced output... Unbalanced may be different.

 

P.S. Sorry I've forgotten you have connected the DAC to, but I'm assuming it is for example running my kernel or otherwise relatively recent kernel.

[craighartley]

7 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

No, it shouldn't be, unless it keeps outputing something wrong when the stream stops. There have been such cases with some other DACs. But at least I have not noticed any clicks from DAC8 DSD. Note that I'm using the balanced output... Unbalanced may be different.

 

Thanks. Yes, I’m using balanced too. 

[craighartley]

On 3/12/2020 at 11:46 AM, Miska said:

 

If the DAC's built-in volume control doesn't affect loudness of the click, but transformer does, it sounds like a DC offset in the DAC output. It doesn't need to be large to a DC connected power amp to have such click when the mute relays are disengaged.

 

But I was forgetting, as I explained above, the clicks disappear completely when I play from Roon via RoonReady on the MicroRendu. So surely the clicks must be related to HQP naa, rather than DC offset, mustn't they? 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, craighartley said:

But I was forgetting, as I explained above, the clicks disappear completely when I play from Roon via RoonReady on the MicroRendu. So surely the clicks must be related to HQP naa, rather than DC offset, mustn't they? 

 

I don't know how the Roon stuff behaves, if it keeps playing all the time or does something else differently. I don't know why such happens, just some guesses. Is there a difference in the DAC display between Roon and HQPlayer being in stopped state, after stopping playback?

 

[craighartley]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

I don't know how the Roon stuff behaves, if it keeps playing all the time or does something else differently. I don't know why such happens, just some guesses. Is there a difference in the DAC display between Roon and HQPlayer being in stopped state, after stopping playback?

 

Display is the same for both.

[craighartley]

On 3/5/2020 at 1:06 AM, Miska said:

 

It is just that when you use NAA, HQPlayer is not directly controlling the audio device, it is instead communicating with NAA that deals with the actual audio device. So such behavior is more related to NAA than HQPlayer itself. There may be some slight timing differences though as you noted, but these have indirect effects on the output.

 

I've now been able to try connecting the HQPlayer server direct to the T+A DAC8 DSD and the clicks on music starting (and stopping manually) remain exactly the same as they are with NAA. I've also upgraded the Amanero firmware from 2006be10 to the very latest 2006be11, and that makes no difference.

I'm reluctant to send the DAC back to T+A to investigate whether there is DC offset on the analogue output, as this would mean sending it from the UK to Germany, and - especially - because there is absolutely no click when I play from Roon direct without HQP.

[alec_eiffel]

I am planning to move my Intel Nuc8i3 Windows 10 HQPlayer Desktop to a powerful i7-9700K Linux machine in the garage.

Distro will be Ubuntu Server 10.04 and a minimal GUI, with remote access via ssh or Remote Desktop.

I am not a Linux guy but I think i can handle the online tutorials. Something I missed so far : how can I make HQPlayer Desktop launchable at machine startup? Can it be set as a service?

I know I could go with HQPlayer Embedded but I don't need the extra functionalities, plus don't have the cash to acquire another license.

 

[alec_eiffel]

On 3/17/2020 at 3:17 PM, alec_eiffel said:

I am planning to move my Intel Nuc8i3 Windows 10 HQPlayer Desktop to a powerful i7-9700K Linux machine in the garage.

Distro will be Ubuntu Server 10.04 and a minimal GUI, with remote access via ssh or Remote Desktop.

I am not a Linux guy but I think i can handle the online tutorials. Something I missed so far : how can I make HQPlayer Desktop launchable at machine startup? Can it be set as a service?

I know I could go with HQPlayer Embedded but I don't need the extra functionalities, plus don't have the cash to acquire another license.

 

 

Server up and running, Ubuntu Server 18.04, i7-9700K, processing 8xDSD128 ADSM7EC with all cores at 65%, SQ is fantastic ! 

The only annoying thing : I can't find a way to launch HQPLayer Desktop headless automatically at startup, I have to open a remote desktop session. My GUI is xfce. Any idea ? 

 

 

[Miska]

23 minutes ago, alec_eiffel said:

Server up and running, Ubuntu Server 18.04, i7-9700K, processing 8xDSD128 ADSM7EC with all cores at 65%, SQ is fantastic ! 

The only annoying thing : I can't find a way to launch HQPLayer Desktop headless automatically at startup, I have to open a remote desktop session. My GUI is xfce. Any idea ? 

 

With XFCE it should allow you to remember your session applications. So when shutting down, leave HQPlayer running. Then select logout from XFCE and in the dialog select "Save session for future logins". On next login, all the applications should get restarted.

 

There are probably other means too.

 

[craighartley]

On 3/12/2020 at 1:25 PM, Miska said:

 

No, it shouldn't be, unless it keeps outputing something wrong when the stream stops. There have been such cases with some other DACs. But at least I have not noticed any clicks from DAC8 DSD. Note that I'm using the balanced output... Unbalanced may be different.

 

P.S. Sorry I've forgotten you have connected the DAC to, but I'm assuming it is for example running my kernel or otherwise relatively recent kernel.

New discovery: the click from speakers when play starts only happens when I stream DSD through the (latest) HQPlayer NAA; if I stream PCM there are no clicks. 

 

Using MicroRendu as NAA. Balanced output from DAC. 

[Miska]

13 minutes ago, craighartley said:

New discovery: the click from speakers when play starts only happens when I stream DSD through the (latest) HQPlayer NAA; if I stream PCM there are no clicks. 

 

Using MicroRendu as NAA. Balanced output from DAC. 

 

Let's see if the new NAA 4.1.1 changes this. How loud is it? What I've tested, if I turn up my headphone amp to maximum volume with ADI-2 Pro, I can hear a faint pop when silence pattern changes to the data, like a small dust particle on vinyl. With normal listening volume it is inaudible.

 

[craighartley]

8 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Let's see if the new NAA 4.1.1 changes this. How loud is it? What I've tested, if I turn up my headphone amp to maximum volume with ADI-2 Pro, I can hear a faint pop when silence pattern changes to the data, like a small dust particle on vinyl. With normal listening volume it is inaudible.

 

Many thanks. I’ll try 4.1.1. It’s more like dropping the stylus on the vinyl at the moment. 

[asdf1000]

38 minutes ago, craighartley said:

New discovery: the click from speakers when play starts only happens when I stream DSD through the (latest) HQPlayer NAA; if I stream PCM there are no clicks. 

 

Using MicroRendu as NAA. Balanced output from DAC. 

 

At which DSD rate?

 

Only with DSD512?

 

[craighartley]

29 minutes ago, asdf1000 said:

 

At which DSD rate?

 

Only with DSD512?

 

DSD256

[craighartley]

11 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Let's see if the new NAA 4.1.1 changes this. How loud is it? What I've tested, if I turn up my headphone amp to maximum volume with ADI-2 Pro, I can hear a faint pop when silence pattern changes to the data, like a small dust particle on vinyl. With normal listening volume it is inaudible.

 

With NAA 4.1.1 the click remains the same. Worse is that the start of the music on some albums is chopped off; this is not the case with 4.1.0.

[Miska]

18 minutes ago, craighartley said:

With NAA 4.1.1 the click remains the same. Worse is that the start of the music on some albums is chopped off; this is not the case with 4.1.0.

 

OK, if this doesn't happen with Roon upsampling to the same DSD rate, no idea then. If start is chopped off, it means DAC unmutes only after the music is already playing and thus the pop comes from the relay switching in the DAC.

 

Next HQPlayer release should deal with the problem of start being chopped off.

 

[craighartley]

27 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

OK, if this doesn't happen with Roon upsampling to the same DSD rate, no idea then. If start is chopped off, it means DAC unmutes only after the music is already playing and thus the pop comes from the relay switching in the DAC.

 

Next HQPlayer release should deal with the problem of start being chopped off.

 

Unfortunately it's very difficult to directly compare Roon because it won't do software volume control with DSD output. I think the click may be there, but it's muted by me reducing the level with my transformer pre-amp. When I thought it was not there with Roon direct I didn't realise that Roon was converting to PCM because I had software volume selected.

[Miska]

13 minutes ago, craighartley said:

Unfortunately it's very difficult to directly compare Roon because it won't do software volume control with DSD output. I think the click may be there, but it's muted by me reducing the level with my transformer pre-amp. When I thought it was not there with Roon direct I didn't realise that Roon was converting to PCM because I had software volume selected.

 

Notable difference here is that in T+A with PCM input it goes through completely different DAC than DSD inputs. There are two relays involved in this too, one that routes output of the appropriate DAC to the analog stage and another which is output mute relay. It seems like either of these two switching actions would be causing the pop.

 

[audiofool]

hqplayer minor Issue:
The Desktop settings shows channel_offset grayed out for NAA and it is not available at all on the embedded config page.
I inserted channel_offset="2" in the network address line of the xml files on both Desktop and Embedded versions and it works!


hqplayer Feature Request:
I usually set my analogue volume control on my dac to 12:00 and end up with hqplayer volume set to around -20db for a lot of my music library.
The issue I have is that I often have to adjust the volume control between -30 and 0db depending on the album.  If I have random songs or even complete albums in the playlist the volume difference can be dangerous.

 

I have ebur128 average album volume tags in my music files.  What about an option to adjust the hqplayer volume control automatically at the start of the song relative to the ebur128 tag.  There would need to be a reference volume setting.  This would have the same effect as me physically changing the volume at the start of an album.

 

I suspect the technical issue would be how to seamlessly change volume at the start of a song and avoid any clicks or gapless playback issues.

Any other ideas on dealing with massively different mastering levels?

 

[arglebargle]

I would love for HQPlayer to handle volume leveling. I know its maybe not high on @Miska list being a big album listener but I think it would be a very popular feature. Especially if the volume target could be passed on by Roon. The sound quality of Roon's volume leveling leaves something to be desired. I don't use it for that reason.