HQPlayer Linux Desktop and HQplayer embedded

[Outlaw]

9 minutes ago, Outlaw said:

Trying Hqplayer embedded.I can get it to work with Roon but it is not recognized by mconnect player hd ?

Never mind.Uninstalled app and reinstalled and it worked.

[Timbre Lock]

On 7/23/2019 at 8:28 PM, Miska said:

 

If you have only one HDD and have the two on different computers then yes, unless you share the drive on network.

 

Otherwise you need to choose which one has the HDD.

 

 

Yes, there are many ways to do that. One possibility is to use mConnect Player (iOS and Android) for the purpose. Or some other application to play Tidal to a UPnP Renderer. This doesn't require any extra hardware.

 

Then additionally you can use the input feature and Tidal's own application, but this requires suitable input hardware. (I use this also for Spotify)

Hello there. :)

 

1. I’m trying to stream Tidal to my HQP (embedded, Sonic Transporter, using Ultra Rendu in NAA) using the setup above, but nor mConnect or HQPDcontrol finds my HQP to stream Tidal to. I’ve already checked and my phone and the HQP are on the same network - as a matter of fact, I use the phone to control hqp. Is there anything I can do?

 

2. Will it be any loss in sound quality using those apps to send Tidal to HQP instead of Roon?

 

3. Is there a way to create playlists on HQP embedded? I couldn’t find how to do it on the input/configuration pages.

 

Thanks in advance, and sorry if these are novice doubts.

 

Cheers.

[Miska]

10 minutes ago, Timbre Lock said:

1. I’m trying to stream Tidal to my HQP (embedded, Sonic Transporter, using Ultra Rendu in NAA) using the setup above, but nor mConnect or HQPDcontrol finds my HQP to stream Tidal to. I’ve already checked and my phone and the HQP are on the same network - as a matter of fact, I use the phone to control hqp. Is there anything I can do?

 

I don't know how sonicTransporter is set up, you could fetch a backup copy of your configuration and look at the hqplayerd.xml to see if  it has a default element that looks like this:

	<upnp interface="auto">
		<mime>
			<type value="audio/ogg"/>
			<type value="audio/vnd.wave"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=44100"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=48000"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=88200"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=96000"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=176400"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=192000"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=352800"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=384000"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=705600"/>
			<type value="audio/L32;rate=768000"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=44100"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=48000"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=88200"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=96000"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=176400"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=192000"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=352800"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=384000"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=705600"/>
			<type value="audio/L24;rate=768000"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=44100"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=48000"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=88200"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=96000"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=176400"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=192000"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=352800"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=384000"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=705600"/>
			<type value="audio/L16;rate=768000"/>
		</mime>
	</upnp>

 

Without such, the UPnP support is disabled...

 

14 minutes ago, Timbre Lock said:

2. Will it be any loss in sound quality using those apps to send Tidal to HQP instead of Roon?

 

No, what is lost is MQA decoding of Tidal Masters. While otherwise the quality is same or better because there's no extra round-trip through Roon.

 

15 minutes ago, Timbre Lock said:

3. Is there a way to create playlists on HQP embedded? I couldn’t find how to do it on the input/configuration pages.

 

You can create temporary playlists, but not store playlists at the moment. This is something to be done in the future. Because it needs additional file management features to the web interface so you could better manage extra files created.

 

However, you can create playlists elsewhere and have those recognized as albums by the HQPlayer Embedded library functionality (in content scan). As long as the paths in playlists are relative so that HQPlayer can find the correct files.

 

[Timbre Lock]

Thanks for the fast reply.

 

I’ll be honest to say that I am struggling to do steps 1 and 3. 😁 

 

27 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

I don't know how sonicTransporter is set up, you could fetch a backup copy of your configuration and look at the hqplayerd.xml to see if  it has a default element that looks like this:

 

Regarding this step, I tried to find the “hqplayerd.xml” file to take a look, but the only XML I found inside SonicTransporter was the HQP Key.

 

29 minutes ago, Miska said:

However, you can create playlists elsewhere and have those recognized as albums by the HQPlayer Embedded library functionality (in content scan). As long as the paths in playlists are relative so that HQPlayer can find the correct files.

 

 

I even thought to manually create a new folder inside /storage/music and paste files there, but of course it wouldn’t work. Plus it would be silly, because I’d be using extra hard drive creating copies of files... 😅 

 

Is there any tutorial/help available teaching how to do it?

 

Regards

[Miska]

56 minutes ago, Timbre Lock said:

Regarding this step, I tried to find the “hqplayerd.xml” file to take a look, but the only XML I found inside SonicTransporter was the HQP Key.

 

You can use the backup/restore feature in HQPlayer Embedded web interface. Key and the config file would be usually in the same place. Default location for hqplayerd.xml is /etc/hqplayer

 

Just be careful if you modify the configuration file that it's structure doesn't get broken and cause hqplayerd fail to start.

 

This <upnp> element should be inside the top level <xml> element.

 

[Timbre Lock]

58 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

You can use the backup/restore feature in HQPlayer Embedded web interface.

 

Found it: went to "restore" on web interface, selected "Configuration backup" and the system generated a .ZIP with the hqplayerd.xml in it. 

 

I've opened the file with notepad and it seemed exactly as showed your image. Should it be working, then?

 

(In addition: this XML was generated on my PC. Do I have to copy it to HQP folder on SonicTransporter?)

 

Regards.

[Miska]

15 minutes ago, Timbre Lock said:

I've opened the file with notepad and it seemed exactly as showed your image. Should it be working, then?

 

OK, then it should be working and no changes needed. Although you could check if your sonicTransporter has multiple network interfaces running in bridged mode. In such case you should put name of the bridge adapter (like "br0") to the config file instead of "auto". But this is something SGC should be doing already.

 

18 minutes ago, Timbre Lock said:

(In addition: this XML was generated on my PC. Do I have to copy it to HQP folder on SonicTransporter?)

 

The ZIP is generated by HQPlayer Embedded. You can update the config file inside ZIP and use "Configuration restore" functionality to upload it back to sonicTransporter.

 

[Timbre Lock]

50 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

OK, then it should be working and no changes needed. Although you could check if your sonicTransporter has multiple network interfaces running in bridged mode. In such case you should put name of the bridge adapter (like "br0") to the config file instead of "auto". But this is something SGC should be doing already.

 

 

That was it! It worked! And I couldn't be happier 😄.

 

Thank you for helping me on this matter. I really appreciate it. 🤝 

 

Best regards.

[audiofool]

On 7/11/2020 at 4:46 AM, Miska said:

 

OK, sounds like the chip is indeed not in bypass mode, because NU Audio has same analog noise floor for PCM and DSD (limited by the analog parts, not by the D/A conversion). Although in bypass mode the 3.5 dB output level difference makes also 3.5 dB difference in the noise floor level, when that is compensated for by dropping PCM input level by 3.5 dB, the noise floors are same. (reason for this level difference is that DSD specs allow short term peaks reach +3.15 dB level and thus AKM has decided to keep headroom for that, unlike ESS)

 

Yes, that is one way to determine suitable setting. You can also test with music, using some very quiet passage, or fade-out. Using same method you can try reducing the word length step by step until you can hear the noise floor starting to come up. This is the point where digital noise floor crosses the analog one. With 705.6/768k rates and LNS15, you can probably go to 15 or 16 bits and the digital noise floor still stays below analog one (due to noise shaping).

 

From your description sounds like the linearity error comes from actual processing precision of the on-chip DSP.

 

I find noise shaping dither to always sound brighter than TPDF for some reason, though I Iike sinc-short-mp with LNS15 at 18bits but with sinc-M I prefer TPDF.  sinc-M is interesting, any chance for the an extreme 16M apodizing version for PCM?

 

Weird thing with Archlinux and dsd.  I incorrectly assumed because Arch uses the latest kernel that FiiO would be supported in the kernel.

I am using NAA so not an issue for me, but if anyone is using a XMOS 208 dac which is unsupported and require dsd support, this is what I did to create an alias to the XMOS ID:

lsusb -> to get VID and PID of FiiO

XMOS is 20b1

FiiO K5Pro is 2972

sudo modprobe -r  snd-usb-audio
sudo modprobe -v snd-usb-audio "quirk_alias=29720047:20b10047"
cat /proc/asound/card*/stream0

should show ->   SPECIAL DSD_U32_BE
 

I emailed FiiO requesting a firmware update to enable dsd bypass mode - not holding my breath.

Also, the phase inversion is working correctly on the latest embedded version, Thanks Miska.

 

[hifi25nl]

This is the patch I have made for Audiolinux kernel linux-rt-bfq-dev:

 

--- a/sound/usb/quirks.c    2019-10-11 18:22:37.000000000 +0100
+++ b/sound/usb/quirks.c    2019-11-13 00:26:51.250996147 +0100
@@ -1604,6 +1605,7 @@
     case USB_ID(0x27f7, 0x3002): /* W4S DAC-2v2SE */
     case USB_ID(0x29a2, 0x0086): /* Mutec MC3+ USB */
     case USB_ID(0x6b42, 0x0042): /* MSB Technology */
+    case USB_ID(0x2972, 0x0047): /* FiiO K3 */
         if (fp->altsetting == 3)
             return SNDRV_PCM_FMTBIT_DSD_U32_BE;
         break;
 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, audiofool said:

any chance for the an extreme 16M apodizing version for PCM?

 

Problem with such is the excessive delay and some other problems it creates. Filter length is always related to sampling rate. It is only processing resource intensive to have long filter at high sampling rate. But when you do long filter with low sampling rate it begins to have practicality issues.

 

[audiofool]

3 hours ago, hifi25nl said:

This is the patch I have made for Audiolinux kernel linux-rt-bfq-dev:

 

--- a/sound/usb/quirks.c    2019-10-11 18:22:37.000000000 +0100
+++ b/sound/usb/quirks.c    2019-11-13 00:26:51.250996147 +0100
@@ -1604,6 +1605,7 @@
     case USB_ID(0x27f7, 0x3002): /* W4S DAC-2v2SE */
     case USB_ID(0x29a2, 0x0086): /* Mutec MC3+ USB */
     case USB_ID(0x6b42, 0x0042): /* MSB Technology */
+    case USB_ID(0x2972, 0x0047): /* FiiO K3 */
         if (fp->altsetting == 3)
             return SNDRV_PCM_FMTBIT_DSD_U32_BE;
         break;
 

Looks like the K3 and the K5Pro use the same ID

[tieuphi2006]

Help me please! 

I'm buy key it's not fingerprint(I just drive ' HQ player embedded') and now hqpe play 30 minutes auto off.

How to change my keys.

Thanks miska.

[audiofool]

On 7/18/2020 at 2:41 PM, Miska said:

 

Problem with such is the excessive delay and some other problems it creates. Filter length is always related to sampling rate. It is only processing resource intensive to have long filter at high sampling rate. But when you do long filter with low sampling rate it begins to have practicality issues.

 

Makes sense, delay is long enough.  One issue using Sinc-M is if I hit the stop button in Desktop version and then click on another song in the playlist I get a snippet of the previous song playing.

 

I emailed FiiO, they are looking into my dsd bypass mode request.  I grounded the power supply and I can hear a -135db 1khz tone with more sensitive headphones using 32-bit and TPDF dither.  What does the AKM4493 do with 32 bit data since state of the art is in the low 20 bits?  Are there cases where it is technically better to send 32-bits instead of for example 22-bits?  

[Miska]

16 hours ago, audiofool said:

I emailed FiiO, they are looking into my dsd bypass mode request.  I grounded the power supply and I can hear a -135db 1khz tone with more sensitive headphones using 32-bit and TPDF dither.  What does the AKM4493 do with 32 bit data since state of the art is in the low 20 bits?  Are there cases where it is technically better to send 32-bits instead of for example 22-bits?  

 

If you send there PCM, it will go through the on-chip modulator to be converted to DSD-like data. So the PCM data going there is not directly related to what is getting converted to analog, but instead goes through bunch of additional DSP like volume control and modulator. So you can provide the DSP higher precision data to work with, by sending 32-bit samples. And possibly with some additional headroom by using for example LNS15 noise shaper.

 

[Miska]

On 7/22/2020 at 3:52 AM, tieuphi2006 said:

I'm buy key it's not fingerprint(I just drive ' HQ player embedded') and now hqpe play 30 minutes auto off.

How to change my keys.

 

For any key related things, please send me email (address is on the web page). Forum posts are not suitable way to deal with license keys.

 

[audiofool]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

If you send there PCM, it will go through the on-chip modulator to be converted to DSD-like data. So the PCM data going there is not directly related to what is getting converted to analog, but instead goes through bunch of additional DSP like volume control and modulator. So you can provide the DSP higher precision data to work with, by sending 32-bit samples. And possibly with some additional headroom by using for example LNS15 noise shaper.

 

If I understand this correctly, it is a tough decision between lowering the number of bits to deal with linearity or sending 32-bits to give the internal DSP the best precision?  Does noise shaping also benefit 32 bit data?

 

DSD seems so much simpler.

 

When I click on another song in the playlist and I get a snippet of the previous song playing, is this something that can be fixed or expected behavior with long filters?

 

Thanks Miska

[Miska]

3 hours ago, audiofool said:

If I understand this correctly, it is a tough decision between lowering the number of bits to deal with linearity or sending 32-bits to give the internal DSP the best precision?  Does noise shaping also benefit 32 bit data?

 

Dealing with linearity in such way works better on NOS R2R DACs (Holo Audio, etc) where you have bit-perfect access the the actual conversion stage. There are still other aspects, such as accuracy of the on-chip DSP in cases like this, if they begin to build rounding errors on the LSBs.

 

Noise shaping benefits any PCM word length, more on the low side, but it adds same amount of dynamic range in audio band when sampling rate stays the same, regardless how many bits are in use. This is more apparent if you use for example on-chip digital volume control.

 

4 hours ago, audiofool said:

When I click on another song in the playlist and I get a snippet of the previous song playing, is this something that can be fixed or expected behavior with long filters?

 

I need to check that, I don't remember experiencing such myself. Is this with HQPlayer playlist or are you playing from somewhere else to HQPlayer?

 

[audiofool]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Dealing with linearity in such way works better on NOS R2R DACs (Holo Audio, etc) where you have bit-perfect access the the actual conversion stage. There are still other aspects, such as accuracy of the on-chip DSP in cases like this, if they begin to build rounding errors on the LSBs.

 

Noise shaping benefits any PCM word length, more on the low side, but it adds same amount of dynamic range in audio band when sampling rate stays the same, regardless how many bits are in use. This is more apparent if you use for example on-chip digital volume control.

 

 

I need to check that, I don't remember experiencing such myself. Is this with HQPlayer playlist or are you playing from somewhere else to HQPlayer?

 

Thanks for the info on Noise shaping.  Looks like 32-bit and LNS15 is the way to go.

 

Snippets from the previous song occur in both Embedded and Desktop using HQP playlist, I'm also using NAA.  Both flac and dsd sources behave the same, I noticed using Sinc-M. Hit stop in the middle of a song and then click on another on in the playlist.

 

 

[Timbre Lock]

On 7/16/2020 at 4:27 PM, Timbre Lock said:

 

That was it! It worked! And I couldn't be happier 😄.

 

Thank you for helping me on this matter. I really appreciate it. 🤝 

 

Best regards.

Hi there again. 

 

I was talking to a friend about an issue I'm experiencing, and she told me she was having the exact same problem on her setup. I've tried to find some help about it, but I've had no success. 

 

We both have similar sygnal paths: we listen to music played via Tidal upsampled to 512 using HQPlayer, Ultra Rendu and T+A DAC 8 DSD. Our only difference is that, in my case, I use a sonicTransporter with HQPe as music server, and she uses PC with HQP. And I use mConnect Player to access Tidal, while she uses Roon. The rest remains the same.

 

It occurs to us that music simply "gaps" during the playback. It's like a hiccup during the song: it goes mute for half of a second or so, and continues playing like nothing happened. It occurs in an aleatory way: sometimes more than once in a song, and others after longer periods of listening.

 

To make it worst, sometimes the DAC simply loses the sygnal. The display starts to show "PCM ----" (no sygnal) while just a moment ago was "DSD 512" and playing. And to solve it we have to reboot the Rendu.

 

First we thought it could be network issues - but then we thought nor I or her have had this before with previous DACs (although those DACs, iFi Black Label, have showed to be pretty unstables in several ways).

 

Then we thought it could be the newest DAC firmware - but other friends with the same item seems to be doing well.

 

Then we thought it could be something with internet connection, and increased the buffer on HQP to 100 ms. But the problem persisted.

 

Then we thought it could be the Tidal interface - but she's using Roon, I'm using mConnect Player, and we both experience the same thing.

 

Then we thought it could be the Ultra Rendu somehow (we're using the 2.7 software version). So I took it off of the path here, and so far it's playing well. But she said the problem persisted on her setup, even without the Rendu. 

 

As you can see, we're a bit lost on this matter, and still can't understand in which link of the chain the problem is.

 

Has anyone experienced this... any suggestions?

 

Thank you all in advance.

 

 

[ericuco]

2 hours ago, Timbre Lock said:

Hi there again. 

 

I was talking to a friend about an issue I'm experiencing, and she told me she was having the exact same problem on her setup. I've tried to find some help about it, but I've had no success. 

 

We both have similar sygnal paths: we listen to music played via Tidal upsampled to 512 using HQPlayer, Ultra Rendu and T+A DAC 8 DSD. Our only difference is that, in my case, I use a sonicTransporter with HQPe as music server, and she uses PC with HQP. And I use mConnect Player to access Tidal, while she uses Roon. The rest remains the same.

 

It occurs to us that music simply "gaps" during the playback. It's like a hiccup during the song: it goes mute for half of a second or so, and continues playing like nothing happened. It occurs in an aleatory way: sometimes more than once in a song, and others after longer periods of listening.

 

To make it worst, sometimes the DAC simply loses the sygnal. The display starts to show "PCM ----" (no sygnal) while just a moment ago was "DSD 512" and playing. And to solve it we have to reboot the Rendu.

 

First we thought it could be network issues - but then we thought nor I or her have had this before with previous DACs (although those DACs, iFi Black Label, have showed to be pretty unstables in several ways).

 

Then we thought it could be the newest DAC firmware - but other friends with the same item seems to be doing well.

 

Then we thought it could be something with internet connection, and increased the buffer on HQP to 100 ms. But the problem persisted.

 

Then we thought it could be the Tidal interface - but she's using Roon, I'm using mConnect Player, and we both experience the same thing.

 

Then we thought it could be the Ultra Rendu somehow (we're using the 2.7 software version). So I took it off of the path here, and so far it's playing well. But she said the problem persisted on her setup, even without the Rendu. 

 

As you can see, we're a bit lost on this matter, and still can't understand in which link of the chain the problem is.

 

Has anyone experienced this... any suggestions?

 

Thank you all in advance.

 

 

I have experienced a similar behavior, sudden gap of maybe 1-2 seconds then starts up again. I thought I solved when I replace a few SFP modules in my fiber network but the issue has recently returned after a few weeks (months) of no issues.
 

In my setup, I play local files from my NAS which is located in another part of my home network so the files have to travel through several devices (switches) as well as WiFi. I have I moved the NAS closer to my music system network so that is connected to the same switch but that didn’t help.

 

Not sure what my DAC does because I turn off the display. I always send DSD256 to my opticalRendu (HQP NAA mode) so it is usually displaying D256. Might be interesting to turn on the display to see if it switches to PCM. That said, I have not had the oR lock up due to this issue.
 

The only other thing to point out is that I run one of the EC modulators at DSD256 so I am pushing two of my i7 processors fairly hard. Then again I am pretty sure this issue was happening before I moved to the EC modulators.
 

It would be good to get this resolved.

 

 

[Miska]

4 hours ago, Timbre Lock said:

To make it worst, sometimes the DAC simply loses the sygnal. The display starts to show "PCM ----" (no sygnal) while just a moment ago was "DSD 512" and playing. And to solve it we have to reboot the Rendu.

 

This sounds like a USB problem. Is either one with original firmware, T+A driver and connected directly to Windows where HQPlayer is running?

 

What kind of USB cable is in use? Please check with a standard inexpensive USB HiSpeed certified cable.

 

Other alternative sounds like the network connection between HQPlayer and NAA would be broken. But if you have already tested with HQPlayer connected directly to the DAC without NAA, then that is not the case.

 

[Timbre Lock]

Miska,

 

I'm already using the USB OEM cable that comes with the DAC, but the same thing happens with a different one (Nordost).

 

Both DACs are using up to date firmware, but different versions of it: one makes the DAC strictly to use with Linux, and the other is the latest hybrid version (Win/Linux).

 

It's a mistery...

[Timbre Lock]

Today I'll try to find time to listen to music stored in HDD only and see if it happens as well. The routine I decided:

 

1. HDD music using Ultra Rendu;

2. If it "gaps", HDD music without Ultra Rendu. 

 

In addition, I'll try to to tests 3 and 4: to listen to the routine bove using the iFi DAC instead of T+A. I really don't think it's the guilty one, but just in case...

[Timbre Lock]

10 hours ago, Timbre Lock said:

Today I'll try to find time to listen to music stored in HDD only and see if it happens as well. The routine I decided:

 

1. HDD music using Ultra Rendu;

2. If it "gaps", HDD music without Ultra Rendu. 

 

In addition, I'll try to to tests 3 and 4: to listen to the routine bove using the iFi DAC instead of T+A. I really don't think it's the guilty one, but just in case...

All day long playing background music with the Ultra Rendu on the sygnal path. Conclusion: the gaps occurs WAY more often listening to Tidal streaming, but it also happens with internal HDD listening. I was about to write telling it was just Tidal, but when I was typing, it "gapped" here. A brief moment of silence (less than a second) and then the playback continues.

 

To make it worse: from out of nowhere, music simply STOPS when it's Tidal streaming. I've listened to 2 ou 3 songs and then, in the middle of the third, the song stopped. Just like that. Then I have to select another song and it restarts playing. But when you least expect (it can be right away or take a while)... stops again. "Boom - like that", as Mark Knopfler sings in his Shangri-La album.