iTunes - HQPlayer front-end re-visited

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

Hi, Geoffrey, I decide to dive into this approach by using Swinsian.  I spent this evening with Swinsian and found it pretty straightforward to use.  I also read the entire thread this evening and I noticed that “iTune to HQP” only works for AIFF.  Unfortunately, I have ripped all my CD using Apple Lossless, all my files end with tag .m4a.  Will the script you developed work for .m4a?  If not, I can always convert m4a to FLAC and played it with Swinsian.  Again, very nice work from you on this, also on several other fronts as well.  I have recommended one of my friends who is on PC platform to look into your effort of “JRiver to HQP”

 

 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

5 hours ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

You've mis-understood here. My iTunes to HQPlayer app will work with any file type that is supported by iTunes, including Apple lossless. In fact it was designed to take any iTunes supported format and create temporary files in your choice of either flac or wav format. This will happen automatically for Apple lossless files in your iTunes lib.

 

The only limitations are in the file types that can be stored in the iTunes library itself. Because iTunes doesn't support flac or DSD. So for people who have ripped their CDs; etc. to flac, or have a lot of DSD, I recommend my Swinsian solution instead.

 

I hope I've made it clearer for you.

 

Thank for recommending my apps

 

Hi, Geoffrey:  Thank you again for the help.  For Swinsian, it appears that people mentioned about memory issue.  Should I concern about it?  Except that I think it fits my need because I do have large collections of both RBCD and SACD, largely 3T for each, saved on a NAS.  While I love HQP, I will not go crazy with parameters - DSD 128 sounds way better than from JRiver.  

 

I did not see the pdf file for the instruction for the more recent development.  Which is your more updated post regarding the procedure of installation?

 

Thank you again!

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

8 hours ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

My most recent post for this is the one above 

The instructions for the Swinsian app are exactly the same as those for the iTunes/Music app.

Hi, Geoffrey: 

 

I have installed the app and it worked right a way.  Beautiful sounds coming out from those *.m4a with SQ which I never heard before. The only caveat is that, instead of Swinsian being started, the Catalina Music was started.  Fortunately, I had both Apple Music and Swinsian ready for this experiment.  Still, I feel excited at the results from your work!  So my first question is that, given both Apple Music and Swinsian installed on one computer, how to guide iTune-HQPlayer App to start the desired program?  Another speculation is the issue could arise from the fact that my Swinsian is still a trial version?

 

My second question is regarding which format of temp file is more preferable,  Flac vs. wav, from the perspective computational demand.  I assume the FLAC is more computational demanding because of compression?  The reason I post this question is that if I define the format of temp to be wav, will it give more power to HQPlayer for filter calculation?  Or this should not be my concern at all because I noticed that within 1 min, the conversion of a 75-min long album was completed and was queued under HQPlayer Desktop?

 

I found your more complicated configuration intriguing!  I am wondering how the computer that runs Apple Music/Swinsian can be connected with the Mac which runs HQPlayer Desktop.  Can this form of communication be WIFI-based which belongs to the same network where HQPlayer Desktop and the streamer where NAA is located such as SoTM sMS 200 are connected through Ethernet?

 

My last question is where the temp files is located?  I want to make sure they are cleaned.

 

Many thanks for an excellent effort!

 

BTW, Swinsian works great.  The library integration of close to 6T in size has been the least painful and the fastest in my memory.  

 

Best regards,  

 

 

David

 

 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

3 hours ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

Hi David,

 

Glad you're enjoying it!

 

I'll answer your questions below your quotes:

 

I posted two different apps here; my Swinsian app and my iTunes/Music app. You need to run my Swinsian app when using Swinsian and my iTunes to HQP app when running either iTunes or the Catalina music app.

 

I can't recall the limitations of the Swinsian trial; but I don't think it should effect the operation of my app.

 

 

Well, that's a good question and one that's been heavily debated here. You really need to subjectively test both.

 

For what it's worth my own subjective impressions are that wav slightly emphasis leading edge transients; but is a little "flatter" and less 3 dimensional than flac. The arguments in favor of flac are, as you say that they don't need to be de-compressed in real-time, also they usually don't contain any meta-data, such as embedded album art.

 

On the other hand flac files are smaller and this might have benefits of HQPlayer. Only @Miska can really answer that.

 

 

 

You might even prefer flac for some music and wav for others.

 

 

This is actually thanks to @Miska since he provided the ability to control HQPlayer over a network. There is a network button on the HQPlayer Desktop interface and this must be activated for this to work.

 

Then you have to set up the client machine to be the ip address of the machine running HQPlayer and the locations for the temporary files to be written to on the Mac running Swinsian/Itunes/Music. That location must be shared over the network from the machine running HQPlayer. That machine's location for the same files must also be specified, so they can be loaded in HQP. It's a bit confusing. So I hope that's clear. Once it's set up it just works.

 

 

Yes, as long as it's the same network.

 

 

By default they are located in: "Users:<your username>:Music:HQP:Server temps"; but you can have my app create a Ram disk for you and have them created there. Might sound better!

 

Best regards

 

Geoff

Hi, Geoffrey:

 

I apologize for my ignorance but I only found one App in your zip file posted the link you suggested.  I did it several times and condition remains the same.  
 

The other thing I noticed is that I kept generating two tracks for each individual track in the original album, and two tracks are side-by-side.

 

i will report my own experience on flac vs wav over the weekend.

 

Thank you again!

 

Best regards,

 

David

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

20 hours ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

Ok David. Here my app for Swinsian

Swinsian - HQPlayer Server.app.zip 7.62 MB · 1 download

Hi, Geoffrey:

 

The app works wonderfully.  The installation process went very smoothly.  Have tested all the file formats in Swinsian library, namely m4a, DSF, and FLAC.  Have tested changing music albums in the mid of playing with no issue.  Have been experimenting in the past 4 hours, only on one occasion the playing on HQPlayer4Desktop stopped by itself, however can easily restart from that track - queue of temp files was regenerated in HQPlayer4Desktop.

 

I tested both FLAC and wav as the formats for temp file, and I personally like FLAC more - a bit more snap and bass are more well-defined, with the rest of the acoustic beauty remains.  Personally I prefer more mellow sound quality - have tried to avoid any speakers with tweeters of metallic material.  Of course, only my ears which are the part of my audio system.  

 

Swinsian is a good interphase for music playing, especially with multiple formats.  I will still keep using JRiver for its capability of managing the music library.  

 

Will try to do the network control from a MacBook Air to run Swinsian, and leave “heavy lifting” computation to the MacBook Pro, to see if SQ can be further improved with HQPlayer. 

 

Thank you for your excellent effort to make the use of HQPlayer a truly pleasant experience!

 

Sincerely,  

 

David

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

On 5/8/2020 at 5:04 PM, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

Ok David. Here my app for Swinsian

Swinsian - HQPlayer Server.app.zip 7.62 MB · 8 downloads

Hi, Geoffrey:

 

App continues works fine except some minor glitches.  I have to play each album from the very first song, and let the APP triggers the temp file conversion to be completed before doing anything.  If I stop the playing during the period of conversion, and more importantly, if I start play the album other than the first song, the conversion behaves more problematically.  Interestingly, if I want to play that album again, the APP appears to have some memory and only converts the album the same way as it was directed to do in the first time.  For example, I opened an album for the first time and really wanted to listen the track 5.  When I highlighted track 5, and pressed the play in Swinsian, on the queue in HQPlayer Desktop, the track 6, not the track 5, becomes the first to be converted and played by HQP, with the rest of the track are following track 5.  However, next time if I want to play this album again from whatever the track I want to start, it always starts with track 6 and the rest of the album, skipping track 1-5.  The only way to solve this problem is to convert the m4a format into Flac format.  I tried many other ways, and none of them can resolve the issue.  These include change the tag information of the album; delete the original files and replace them with my backup copy; reinstall the APP; delete *.plist.

 

The good part of this is that it forces myself to listen to the entire album without skipping any portion of an album. 

 

Thank you again!

 

David

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

9 hours ago, Geoffrey Armstrong said:

Hi David,

 

I'm sorry you've experienced this glitch. I'll look into it and try to resolve it.

 

If I've understood you correctly, all works fine if the original files are in .flac

 

Geo

[Mahler and Bach on Computer]

Hi, Geoffrey:

 

Thank you for your effort and nothing to feel sorry about.  Also it is always a fun to see any problem can be solved.  
 

Yes, everything works well in the cases that formats are in FLAC and DSF.  Behavior-wise, when I clicked an arbitrary  track in the middle of an album, say the track n, in the case of FLAC and DFS, APP generates the queue for play which includes the entire tracks of the album, and HQP plays the track n, whereas in the case of m4a, APP generates the queue only contains the from track n+1 towards the end, and plays track n+1.  And when I come back to the album, even if I click the track 1, APP will regenerate the same queue from n+1 towards the end of the album, and skip the track 1 to track n-1, and this behavior cannot be corrected even after I turn off the computer or reinstall the APP.  
 

My speculation was that the tracks between 1 to n-1 were deemed to be unnecessary to convert to temp files due to the first action.  So when I tried to relaunch the APP and selected “always generate temp file” option instead of “when necessary,” I still could not resolve the issue.  
 

Thank you again,
 

David