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Best CPU for hqplayer


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10 minutes ago, evalon said:

@bobflood & jcbenten: Thank you both for your feedbacks ... Well, I sort of assumed that it would be so (large, heavy, warm, active fans, etc.) if there were suitable laptops but it is fine to have it confirmed, thanks! Hmmm ... time to ponder again what would be a suitable solution - maybe some manufacturer will "soon" make processors in 1nm technology so that heat dissipation may drop significantly - would make things much easier 😌

 

Cheers,

 

Jesper 

The workable solution is to have a powerful non laptop server on your network that isn't sitting next to your system. You can access it via a Remote Desktop or something similar. Use a renderer or small fanless PC as network endpoint connected to DAC. That's  what the HQP NAA is for.

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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20 hours ago, evalon said:

...  any of you have experience with using laptops for DSD upsampling to DSD256 with the EC modulators?

Jesper 

I experienced tons of laptop as a music sources in the past, from supercool ultrabooks to CAD workstations or gaming devices and all of them are suitable only when cpu usage is low, so HQP with complex filters will definitely force fans to run quickly ...

I currently have a couple of Apple MacBookPro I7-2.2GHz (6 cores) and I can run just DSD128/ASDM7 (non EC) with fans at decent speed, DSD256 force fans at high speed and I experienced dropouts ...so I finally landed to a passively cooled I5-8400 that is capable to do DSD256/ASDM7 and cost 1/5 of any MacBookPro

 

Maybe the next generation MacBookPro devices with Mx CPU could do the job ...  

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@firedog & Ipoci: Thanks also for your feedbacks. I think it is still time to let my mind simmer on which solution is the best in my context although my guess is that I likely will end up building "sort of" a laptop myself so that it is both portable, reasonably powerful, yet still quiet. If possible I would prefer to not have a network in my home as it is less feasible from a practical point of view (and I am not into wireless networks) so preferably just one unit. 

 

Cheers & Merry Christmas (soon),

 

Jesper 

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25 minutes ago, evalon said:

@firedog & Ipoci: Thanks also for your feedbacks. I think it is still time to let my mind simmer on which solution is the best in my context although my guess is that I likely will end up building "sort of" a laptop myself so that it is both portable, reasonably powerful, yet still quiet. If possible I would prefer to not have a network in my home as it is less feasible from a practical point of view (and I am not into wireless networks) so preferably just one unit. 

 

Cheers & Merry Christmas (soon),

 

Jesper 

Maybe you should investigate an i7 NUC. I don't know if it will do what you want, others can chime in. It will be fairly small and compact. There are also fanless ones available - for more money.

Main listening (small home office):

Main setup: Surge protector +>Isol-8 Mini sub Axis Power Strip/Isolation>QuietPC Low Noise Server>Roon (Audiolense DRC)>Stack Audio Link II>Kii Control>Kii Three (on their own electric circuit) >GIK Room Treatments.

Secondary Path: Server with Audiolense RC>RPi4 or analog>Cayin iDAC6 MKII (tube mode) (XLR)>Kii Three .

Bedroom: SBTouch to Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Setup.
Living Room/Kitchen: Ropieee (RPi3b+ with touchscreen) + Schiit Modi3E to a pair of Morel Hogtalare. 

All absolute statements about audio are false :)

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11 hours ago, cjf said:

Perhaps those wanting a powerful pc in the listening room without the noise would be willing to experiment with non conductive liquid cooling (ie..fully submerged) as an option.

 

 

 

What in the hell kind of absolute nuttery is this!!!!!!!!  My CAPS is in my listening area, is liquid cooled, and I can't hear it at all. All I hear is music.

No electron left behind.

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1 hour ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

What in the hell kind of absolute nuttery is this!!!!!!!!  My CAPS is in my listening area, is liquid cooled, and I can't hear it at all. All I hear is music.

I agree my aircooled Ryzen 1800x with GPU and 5 case fans is in my room and 10 feet from my listening chair and no one hears it in my room.  I've measured 42 db 2 feet away from the case.  That will never disturb your listening.

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1 hour ago, Quadman said:

I agree my aircooled Ryzen 1800x with GPU and 5 case fans is in my room and 10 feet from my listening chair and no one hears it in my room.  I've measured 42 db 2 feet away from the case.  That will never disturb your listening.

 

I am sitting 3-4 feet away from my Ryzen 9 5950x / 6900XT desktop PC, also water cooled, and I can't hear it either.

No electron left behind.

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Just now, Miska said:

 

Have you tested HQPlayer on that one? How does it perform overall, and with "Multicore DSP" grayed vs checked?

 

 

No, not really as its not my music server. At other tasks though, it monsters through them like it hasn't seen a problem it cant solve in 1 second flat.

No electron left behind.

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Jussi, or others in the know,

If I order a Mac Mini M1 for my 2 channel EC modulator needs at 256 is there a sweet spot for how much RAM (8 is default entry level at $699)?

Thx

Ted

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Hi Jussi,

I am happy to use HQP on my "old" tiny Lenovo with a 2-core i5-3470T (4 logical) and I can switch from redbook to DSD 256 (ASDM7) and even DSD 128 ASDM7EC (90% CPU Win10 LTSC).
Surprised that it works but really happy !! Thank you very, very much !!
I am testing a brand new model with a 9th gen i7, still mobile version, not the best for HQP (i7-9700T)
"Not the best" but a very good option to have a small server without noise and easy to feed with a linear power supply.
And these processors also allow HQP to be used on a laptop.
But there, "out of the box" without optimization (Win10 IOT ENT)
it's already stuck.
Still 8 cores but even with the multicore option it seems only 4 are supported.
And no EC filters possible (screenshot illustrates overload with cuts every 2 sec).
The Intel architecture had to change and the EC filters, demanding but on the I5,
the distribution is almost perfect and even more stable than with a non-CE.
I was hoping for at least the same with the I7 and of course, more with 8 cores.

What is your analysis?

 

spacer.pngspacer.png

ROON + HQP / Hdplex H3-i5 + 400ATX >Gustard A26 (NAA twk) > SQM > Benchmark AHB2 / Recital Audio Illumine HEFA

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3 hours ago, Zauurx said:

I am testing a brand new model with a 9th gen i7, still mobile version, not the best for HQP (i7-9700T)
"Not the best" but a very good option to have a small server without noise and easy to feed with a linear power supply.
And these processors also allow HQP to be used on a laptop.
But there, "out of the box" without optimization (Win10 IOT ENT)
it's already stuck.
Still 8 cores but even with the multicore option it seems only 4 are supported.
And no EC filters possible (screenshot illustrates overload with cuts every 2 sec).
The Intel architecture had to change and the EC filters, demanding but on the I5,
the distribution is almost perfect and even more stable than with a non-CE.
I was hoping for at least the same with the I7 and of course, more with 8 cores.

 

Make sure you don't make "Multicore DSP" checked on Intel CPUs, only grayed. Otherwise the performance will certainly suffer.

 

And yes, 8 cores can be used, for example select "poly-sinc-xtr-lp" as filter (non-2s) and you will see some load on the other cores too. Or if you do some convolution too, especially for DSD sources.

 

On Intel CPUs, modulators can efficiently use only one core per channel. Splitting the work to two cores per channel just fully loads two cores instead of one and still things don't work without dropouts.

 

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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Thank you so much !!
With your advice and some adjustments with ProcessLasso, it seems to work.
Listening to headphones but without convolution. No blanks or clicks in DSD256 ASDM7EC.
It's still limited ... I will continue my optimization (AO, Fidelizer) .. but this little Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q only cost me 460 € new.
I cannot be too demanding !!

 

spacer.pngspacer.png

ROON + HQP / Hdplex H3-i5 + 400ATX >Gustard A26 (NAA twk) > SQM > Benchmark AHB2 / Recital Audio Illumine HEFA

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On 12/16/2020 at 8:42 AM, Miska said:

 

I have 16 GB, but it is for development reasons. It should work with 8 too.

 

So Jussi (and those who have Mac Mini M1s as their server), is there anything that needs to be done to when my Mac Mini M1 arrives, say, to the M1's bios, normal defaults, etc to make it run better as a headless dedicated HQP music server? 

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Hi Guys,

 

Hope and appreciate for those who can share findings regarding sound quality between last Gen Intel vs New AMD  ZEn3, thing is im coming from a Ryzen 7 3700X and im upgrading, some very respectable folks who have tried both this AMD 7 3700X vs Intel lets say i7-8700K or i9-9900K have said the Intel CPU sounds more musical and less mechanical but until now i have not read yet from gentlemen who has made comparison with INTELs vs this new AMD ZEN3. I don't know if the new ZEN 3 besides being more powerful has suffered any kind of change in its sound signature, i have read that AMD managed lowered latency in ZEN 3 among other things, so im guessing the sound could have changed.

 

I am between these two choices:

INTEL:

i7-10700K + ASUS ROG STRIX Z490-E

 

AMD:

Ryzen 5 5600X + GiGABYTE Aorus Master

 

Thanks for reading, appreciate your comments

Regards

-Miguel

 

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3 hours ago, mikicasellas said:

i have read that AMD managed lowered latency in ZEN 3 among other things

 

AMD is usually right at the top in the benchmarks. Respect for this achievement. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the latencies.

 

For me, latencies are very important parameters for audio playback.

AIDA64

Source: hardwareluxx.de Benchmarks memory bandwidth and latencies

Latency

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12 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

AMD is usually right at the top in the benchmarks. Respect for this achievement. Unfortunately, this does not apply to the latencies.

 

For me, latencies are very important parameters for audio playback.

AIDA64

Source: hardwareluxx.de Benchmarks memory bandwidth and latencies

Latency

Thanks Gabriel for refreshing this, i thought ZEN 3 were at least head to head on latency with Intel this time

 

Regards

-Miguel

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On 12/18/2020 at 5:13 PM, Zauurx said:

Thank you so much !!
With your advice and some adjustments with ProcessLasso, it seems to work.
Listening to headphones but without convolution. No blanks or clicks in DSD256 ASDM7EC.
It's still limited ... I will continue my optimization (AO, Fidelizer) .. but this little Lenovo ThinkCentre M920q only cost me 460 € new.
I cannot be too demanding !!

 

spacer.pngspacer.png

 

In the end, impossible to stabilize the operation without the fans starting up .. and too noisy to stay in my living room .. 😔

temporary return to my old i5-3470T which does the job in DSD128 .. and in silence .  

ROON + HQP / Hdplex H3-i5 + 400ATX >Gustard A26 (NAA twk) > SQM > Benchmark AHB2 / Recital Audio Illumine HEFA

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3 hours ago, Zauurx said:

In the end, impossible to stabilize the operation without the fans starting up .. and too noisy to stay in my living room .. 😔

temporary return to my old i5-3470T which does the job in DSD128 .. and in silence .  

 

You need a big case to silently cool big CPUs. 3 - 4 slowly rotating 15 cm fans works nicely for i9-10900K using a huge heatsink.

 

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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On 12/20/2020 at 5:57 AM, mikicasellas said:

Hope and appreciate for those who can share findings regarding sound quality between last Gen Intel vs New AMD  ZEn3, 

 

As long as they don't do calculations wrong, they should sound the same given that they can keep up with the processing demands.

 

Signalyst - Developer of HQPlayer

Pulse & Fidelity - Software Defined Amplifiers

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