HQPlayer Linux Desktop and HQplayer embedded

[Miska]

3 hours ago, Em2016 said:

So if you feed PCM16bit/44.1 into the Mutec and set HQPe input to 44.1 input, it doesn't work?

 

I see the MC-1.2 has been added to HQPe input options now in v4.80

 

Yes, it also "works" if you set Mutec to input to 192k or anything else and keep sending 44.1k. Since it has ASRC and will convert what ever input to what ever output rate... AFAIK, ASRC is there always to convert between two clock domains, the S/PDIF input's and USB's.

 

I just added the entries in case someone wants to use it anyway and since I have the MC-1.2 and could test it.

 

3 hours ago, Em2016 said:

In the mean time, I have the Roland USB interface coming soon. If I feed it 16/44.1 and HQPe input is set to 44.1 and HQPe main page shows 44.1 incoming and sound is fine... is that good enough confirmation that the Roland is bitperfect at 44.1 sample rate?

 

Best test would be to send DoP there are see if it gets detected and keeps working over time.

 

Also just for sake of it, I could test the MC-1.2 with DoP at one point to confirm it's non-bitperfectness. It's S/PDIF outputs may be bit-perfect though because in those cases it is the master clock anyway.

 

[asdf1000]

10 hours ago, Miska said:

Best test would be to send DoP there are see if it gets detected and keeps working over time.

 

Noted. I think the Roland/Edirol is limited to PCM96kHz. Will still try DoP because often TOSlink outputs and even DAC inputs are spec'ed at 96kHz but still work at higher rates, with the right short TOSlink cable. I have a short glass fiber cable that works with DoP64. So I'll still try.

 

In the mean time while waiting for my Roland (and waiting for miniDSP to get back to me) I'm going to try a contraption of stuff I already have, to see if I can avoid TOSlink and get input to work pop free. I only need PCM44.1 working bit perfectly - I'm really liking Apple Music now for music discovery.

 

Can I use the UpBoard Gateway's micro B port to feed into my HQPe NUCi7 (for DSD512 upsampling) ? 

 

If that works, I can get a 2nd UpBoard Gateway because I really like it as NAA, as I've posted on other threads everywhere.

 

Of course this then limits input to whatever I can get the UpBoard Gateway to play but worth a try.

 

[asdf1000]

No luck with using UpBoard Gateway (running Shairport and Spotfiy Connect plugin) as USB source to HQPe input. 

 

Volumio doesn't recognise the UpBoard Gateway microB port as a USB output and there's no option for HQPe input:

 

 

 

 

Ideal case is to hopefully get miniDSP USBStreamer working pop free - then I can use something like Bluesound Node 2i for official AirPlay and official Spotify Connect.

 

Hopefully miniDSP can fix it.

 

[asdf1000]

Also ordered an official AirPort Express. They're quite cheap on eBay at the moment.

 

Will see/hear if that's a better TOSlink source (into USBStreamer) than what I've tried/tested so far - specifically for Apple Music.

[asdf1000]

Hi @Miska

 

Just doing this DoP64 test that I successfully completed in December, with USBSteram DoP64 input.

 

Using the exact same chain and I don't get any audio when I select USBStreamer 176k from the "Input" page.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30983-hqplayer-linux-desktop-and-hqplayer-embedded/?do=findComment&comment=903605

 

Anything changed regarding USBStreamer stuff with recent v4.80 of HQPe?

 

I thought maybe it was the recent Roon v1.6 update but I went to try Audirvana playing DoP64 and same issue.

 

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Em2016 said:

Just doing this DoP64 test that I successfully completed in December, with USBSteram DoP64 input.

 

Using the exact same chain and I don't get any audio when I select USBStreamer 176k from the "Input" page.

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/30983-hqplayer-linux-desktop-and-hqplayer-embedded/?do=findComment&comment=903605

 

Anything changed regarding USBStreamer stuff with recent v4.80 of HQPe?

 

I thought maybe it was the recent Roon v1.6 update but I went to try Audirvana playing DoP64 and same issue.

 

No changes, DoP is enabled for 176.4 and 192 input rates as before.

 

 

[alec_eiffel]

Found a fully assembled new PC with the following specs at less than 900€:

4.3GHz Octa-Core AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 1To Hard Drive, 16Go 2666MHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4Go

 

Plan is to remove the hard drive and boot from USB with the bootable version of HQPlayer.  Can I benefit from CUDA offload ? The documentation is only mentionning Ubuntu.

 

FYI my use case is:

- input Roon - Roon server on another machine

- 2 channel stereo to 8 channel - active filtering of sub/boomer/mid/tweeter and room correction with convolution filters of length 200ms or less (76000 taps at 384kHz)

- upsampling closed form at 384kHz with dither « i don’t know yet »

- software volume control

- outputing to NAA endpoint feeding Exasound E28 DAC

 

Ideally I’d like to output 8xDSD128 but I am afraid I would need a machine twice the price at least, or maybe shorter filters (200ms filter @ DSD128 is close to 1 million taps...)

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, alec_eiffel said:

Found a fully assembled new PC with the following specs at less than 900€:

4.3GHz Octa-Core AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 1To Hard Drive, 16Go 2666MHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4Go

 

Plan is to remove the hard drive and boot from USB with the bootable version of HQPlayer.  Can I benefit from CUDA offload ? The documentation is only mentionning Ubuntu.

 

FYI my use case is:

- input Roon - Roon server on another machine

- 2 channel stereo to 8 channel - active filtering of sub/boomer/mid/tweeter and room correction with convolution filters of length 200ms or less (76000 taps at 384kHz)

- upsampling closed form at 384kHz with dither « i don’t know yet »

- software volume control

- outputing to NAA endpoint feeding Exasound E28 DAC

 

Ideally I’d like to output 8xDSD128 but I am afraid I would need a machine twice the price at least, or maybe shorter filters (200ms filter @ DSD128 is close to 1 million taps...)

 

Sounds quite decent, you can later upgrade the GPU to bigger RTX series if you wish.

 

Note that CUDA offload is supported only on Ubuntu build, not on HQPlayer OS images. Reason is that the Nvidia driver officially supports Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, but it won't work with the kernel used on the HQPlayer OS images.

 

In this case I would recommend to set CUDA offload to convolution-only (needs manual change in the hqplayerd.xml config file). This leaves CPU free to handle upsampling and may be able to get that 8 channels of DSD128 using -2s filters.

 

Maybe the motherboard has M.2 SSD slot? That would be very nice for Ubuntu Server installation.

 

[gdpr]

3 hours ago, alec_eiffel said:

Found a fully assembled new PC with the following specs at less than 900€:

4.3GHz Octa-Core AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, 1To Hard Drive, 16Go 2666MHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4Go

 

Plan is to remove the hard drive and boot from USB with the bootable version of HQPlayer.  Can I benefit from CUDA offload ? The documentation is only mentionning Ubuntu.

 

FYI my use case is:

- input Roon - Roon server on another machine

- 2 channel stereo to 8 channel - active filtering of sub/boomer/mid/tweeter and room correction with convolution filters of length 200ms or less (76000 taps at 384kHz)

- upsampling closed form at 384kHz with dither « i don’t know yet »

- software volume control

- outputing to NAA endpoint feeding Exasound E28 DAC

 

Ideally I’d like to output 8xDSD128 but I am afraid I would need a machine twice the price at least, or maybe shorter filters (200ms filter @ DSD128 is close to 1 million taps...)

 

 

Please note that 4,3GHz is the max. boost clock of the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X - base clock is 3700Ghz

 

It is a powerful processor,  I can run DSD256 - poly-sinc-xtr-lp - but at DSD512 - the music is stuttering  (I can do DSD512  poly-sinc-xtr-lp-2s but Amanero module in my DAC has some issues with DSD512)

 

Dirk

 

[clang]

Jussi,

"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)"

 

Sorry for the dumb question. Is the program ready to start? How?

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, clang said:

Jussi,

"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)"

 

Sorry for the dumb question. Is the program ready to start? How? 

 

It is running already (after the said delay). You can then start using it.

 

Configuration is accessible through browser (it attempts to register under name "hqplayer"). After configuration you can use it through the web interface, with any of the remote control applications or UPnP.

 

If it doesn't appear under the name, you can find the IP it has got from DHCP by logging in as "root" and running "ifconfig".

 

[AudioXP]

On 1/31/2019 at 2:33 PM, Miska said:

Maybe the motherboard has M.2 SSD slot? That would be very nice for Ubuntu Server installation.

 

Hi Miska, I'm interested to learn what makes you find the M.2 SSD "very nice"? 

[gdpr]

Probably a very stupid question, but is it possible to have 2 licenses of HQplayerEmbedded on 1 Roon server, and use either license for a different output?

Dirk

[Miska]

1 hour ago, ddetaey said:

Probably a very stupid question, but is it possible to have 2 licenses of HQplayerEmbedded on 1 Roon server, and use either license for a different output?

 

Yes, you can have any number of HQPlayer (Desktop or Embedded) outputs configured in Roon. I have something like 10 myself...

 

Then you can easily select from Roon which one you want to use for output.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, AudioXP said:

Hi Miska, I'm interested to learn what makes you find the M.2 SSD "very nice"? 

 

It is very fast, very efficient and fairly low power consumption. It is directly attached to 4x PCIexpress.

 

Optane variant is even nicer, but most likely not supported to full extent on AMD platforms, at least yet. But technically it may still work, I haven't tried myself. Think of it almost like RAM that can persist over power cycles.

 

[gdpr]

4 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

Yes, you can have any number of HQPlayer (Desktop or Embedded) outputs configured in Roon. I have something like 10 myself...

 

Then you can easily select from Roon which one you want to use for output.

 

Apparently, you seem to have granted yourself a very nice deal on your licences:-)

I will explore further with the guys of pinkfaun.

Dirk

[Miska]

Just basic testing adds up quickly. Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, macOS current - 1, macOS current, Linux. HQPlayer Embedded... It actually easily becomes daunting task to test number of different combinations.

 

[asdf1000]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

It actually easily becomes daunting task to test number of different combinations.

 

Incredible for a one man band, to be honest.

 

[AudioXP]

Some months ago, Miska confirmed that upon starting HQPe a choice can be made between different hqplayerd,xml configuration files, by using the command line. I'm interested in finding out how this works, i.e. what is the exact command? 

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, AudioXP said:

Some months ago, Miska confirmed that upon starting HQPe a choice can be made between different hqplayerd,xml configuration files, by using the command line. I'm interested in finding out how this works, i.e. what is the exact command? 

 

hqp-control has an option --configuration-load for which you give filename (without path) of the configuration you want to load. All configuration files must be within the HQPlayer configuration directory.

 

[asdf1000]

On 5/27/2018 at 6:32 AM, Miska said:

While someone else listening to a lot of classical music from local storage could instead select for example 1x as "poly-sinc-xtr-2s" and Nx as "poly-sinc-short-2s".

 

Hi Jussi, regarding this quote:

 

Unfortunately there is (slowly) an increasing number of 24/44.1kHz MQA tracks/albums in Tidal, where the 16/44.1 version isn't available (sadly). It is a low number fortunately (for now) but seems to be slowly increasing.

 

In these cases, MQA Core Decoder (like in Roon) will obviously decode these to 24/88.2kHz.

 

I know you have the mqa filter, but if I have Nx = poly-sinc-short-2s, is HQPe still doing some of the filtering of MQA related crap?

 

Or would you recommend Nx = poly-sinc-mqa for ALL >50kHz music, both MQA and non-MQA? Stop-band attentuation of the poly-sinc-mqa filter isn't as good as poly-sinc-short-2s right? But for >50 kHz is the lower stop-band attenuation of the mqa filter not an issue?

 

I guess it's probably complicated with lot's of things to consider but what would be your recommendation, with everything you know about 24/44.1 MQA (when 16/44.1 isn't available specifically).

[Miska]

4 hours ago, Em2016 said:

I know you have the mqa filter, but if I have Nx = poly-sinc-short-2s, is HQPe still doing some of the filtering of MQA related crap?

 

When the MQA is decoded to 2x rate, it is less issue because decoding removes some of the noise that is due to the folding process. And what ever is left is now mixed with the audio anyway.

 

4 hours ago, Em2016 said:

Or would you recommend Nx = poly-sinc-mqa for ALL >50kHz music, both MQA and non-MQA? Stop-band attentuation of the poly-sinc-mqa filter isn't as good as poly-sinc-short-2s right? But for >50 kHz is the lower stop-band attenuation of the mqa filter not an issue?

 

You can try that, it works quite well. For hires it is more question if you like slow roll-off type of filter. Which works better for hires than for RedBook, because audio levels around 40 kHz are usually quite a bit lower level than at 20 kHz, but it really also depends on type of music too. So you can do that if you primarily listen Tidal streams and most of the "hires" listening is MQA. For true hires you could use some other filter, but then it is easy to select one from the front page because you likely are switching less between RedBook and true hires.

 

While poly-sinc-mqa has massively lower stop-band attenuation than regular poly-sinc, it is still nowhere near MQA's filters. poly-sinc-mqa still has similar stop-band attenuation as ESS Sabre's built-in first-stage filters, at >96 dB.

 

[AudioXP]

11 hours ago, Miska said:

 

hqp-control has an option --configuration-load for which you give filename (without path) of the configuration you want to load. All configuration files must be within the HQPlayer configuration directory.

 

 

Thanks :-). Pity there appears to be no means to select one out of several configuration files as part of the hqplayerd service startup? What I'm trying to achieve, is to start  HQPe with the configuration that fits the NAA in the room I want to listen. Any other way to get there? (Guess Roon gives me that)

[Miska]

4 hours ago, AudioXP said:

Thanks :-). Pity there appears to be no means to select one out of several configuration files as part of the hqplayerd service startup? What I'm trying to achieve, is to start  HQPe with the configuration that fits the NAA in the room I want to listen. Any other way to get there? (Guess Roon gives me that)

 

No, at startup the default configuration file is loaded. After starting up you can tell the service to load another one. Does this make a big difference?

 

[AudioXP]

10 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

at startup the default configuration file is loaded. After starting up you can tell the service to load another one. 

 

 

Right, and I'm looking for a way to do this on the HQPe machine.