Roon + HQPlayer server (fanless, if possible)

[acatala]

I am going to buy an Intel NUC in order to run Roon in the first place and after that, I would be interested in running HQPlayer Embedded too.

 

I was thinking of buying an NUC7i7BNH but I have read a lot abut the fan noise. It could stay in another location different from the listening room, but my concern is about the temperature of the i7 in such small box. Because of this I am also considering the NUC7i5BNK. The second drive is not important because the music library is in a NAS.

 

My current Roon computer is a MicroServer Gen8 with Celeron G1610T CPU and 4 GB RAM. This computer lets me upsample to DSD128 with no problem at all. So, I guess that either i5 or i7 will do the job too.

 

But, I am interested in adding HQPlayer Embedded to the system, just for DSD128 upsampling at the beginning. Would it run fine within a NUC7i5BNK with 8 GB RAM? Would I need 16 GB RAM? Should I go for a NUC7i7BNH?

 

If there are little differences just for upsample to DSD128, I would choose the i5. If my CPU needs start growing, I would consider another computer to run HQPlayer Embedded. I am aware that embedded license is tied to a computer and I should talk to @Miska before trying to migrate it, but this is another history at this moment.

 

I would appreciate any thoughts on this.

 

Thanks guys.

 

 

 

[mfin]

If you want DSD128 upsampling you don't need HQPlayer (unless you want it to do it), you can just install Roon Rock on a NUC and that can upsample to DSD128 (I use my i5 one to upscale to DSD256 with no problems at all).

 

NUC7i5BNH is what I used then moved it into an Akasa Newton s7 fanless case, so there's your fan problem gone too. That case won't support an i7 but the i5 will do everything you need. For Roon Rock they say anything over 8Gb Ram is a waste of money and 40Gb of M2SSD for the system is more than will ever be needed. Going wild on Ram or SSD spec is also not needed at all.

I put a small 80gb 2.5" SSD in for some local storage too, although I have music on a NAS, I figured I'd put the stuff I actually listen to onto that so it is local, but the vast majority of my listening is Tidal. I let Roon do it's first unfold of any MQA that I stumble on and everything gets upscaled to DSD256.

 

Unless you really want HQPlayer, this is the simplest thing to do, let Roon do the upscaling, it's also self upgrading, so nothing to have to get your head into at all once you have it build and running. I guess you want HQ Player though like you said, but at least this might point you at an i5 NUC that you can put in a fanless case, so your fan noise is not an issue if the i5 NUC has enough firepower for you.

 

https://kb.roonlabs.com/Roon_Optimized_Core_Kit have a look there for more info.

[acatala]

Thanks for your answer, mfin.

 

If I were going to run just Roon, I am sure that I would go for NUC i5, 8 GB and ROCK. The fanless case is not important to me because, the NUC can stay in another room. That's very clear to me.

 

If I choose ROCK, then the only way to run HQPlayer Embedded is on another computer. But If I wanted to try HQPlayer on the NUC, I should install Debian, Roon and then HQPlayer Embedded.

 

In this scenario:

Is NUC7i5 powerful enough to upsample to DS128 (DSD256 tops, but not at this moment) and possibly running room correction over HQPlayer

Worth it the extra 8 GB?

 

My point is: if running HQPlayer Embedded on the NUC is a bad idea, I will go for NUC i5, 8 GB and ROCK. On the other hand, if running HQPlayer Embbeded, with moderate use, on the NUC is fine, I can go for NUC i5 / i7 (which one?), 8 GB/16 GB (how many) and Debian.

 

 

 

[luisma]

On 12/30/2017 at 6:04 AM, Miska said:

Although it would be doable to make the Linux version run in a cluster.

old post I know and you may be kind of joking with this comment but it actually makes sense, you can have your processing threads distributed over 4 or more cheap small units to achieve enough processing for  xtr and you will be set for the next 20 years of HQP to scale accordingly ...

[luisma]

On 6/5/2018 at 6:33 AM, acatala said:

Thanks for your answer, mfin.

 

If I were going to run just Roon, I am sure that I would go for NUC i5, 8 GB and ROCK. The fanless case is not important to me because, the NUC can stay in another room. That's very clear to me.

 

If I choose ROCK, then the only way to run HQPlayer Embedded is on another computer. But If I wanted to try HQPlayer on the NUC, I should install Debian, Roon and then HQPlayer Embedded.

 

In this scenario:

Is NUC7i5 powerful enough to upsample to DS128 (DSD256 tops, but not at this moment) and possibly running room correction over HQPlayer

Worth it the extra 8 GB?

 

My point is: if running HQPlayer Embedded on the NUC is a bad idea, I will go for NUC i5, 8 GB and ROCK. On the other hand, if running HQPlayer Embbeded, with moderate use, on the NUC is fine, I can go for NUC i5 / i7 (which one?), 8 GB/16 GB (how many) and Debian.

 

 

 

Got Roon and HQPe running on NUC7i7, the fan noise is acceptable, BIOS updated to latest and fan settings quiet. Sounds very good and upsampling to SDM DSD256 with closed form 1st filter and for the n filter I think one of the 2s -r shrt variations but I want to go further to use other filters. So I'm considering a remote PC not so powerful running Roon,  one powerful PC running HQPe (without CUDA offload but overclocked to get more speed per core like I currently do with some of my systems) and then NAA device, ideally I would like to get there for now. Later on when Miska ports his code to clustering Linux then will think on something else and add more boxes

@acatala don't know if you already went down the embedded version but it is great and better in my opinion

[acatala]

I have purchased an Intel NUC7i7BNH a Samsung 970 EVO M.2 250 GB drive and Crucial DDR4 Single Rank 8 GB memory module. I purchased a 2400 MT/s module instead of 2100 MT/s because that was the one that was available. After that I decided that it would be fine to acquire a SSD drive too to hold the music library. I decided to go for the NUC7i7BNH instead of NUC7i7BNK just for this.

 

Currently, my library uses around 250 GB. All my CD are already ripped and I am not buying music in file format, just a couple of monthly downloads from Bowers & Wilkins' Society of Sound, so my increase rate is low. Because of this I also bought a Samsung EVO 500 GB SSD drive.

 

I installed Debian 9 on the NUC instead of ROCK because I have no problem with Linux, I wanted furhter testing with the system and HQPlayer Embedded is on my roadmap.

 

My music library is still on my NAS and it will remain there for a while until I relocate it on the SSD drive. My Debian box uses autofs in order to mount the remote CIFS share. I am happy with this. The NUC is 24x7 powered on but the NAS goes power down every night. Roon finds no problem at all to access back the library after the NAS powers on the next day.

 

When I have a little more time I will look for a procedure in order to sync the library on the NUC with the library on the NAS just for use with Audirvana+. I guess I will use rsync or similar tools. Another option could be keep the library on the NUC and share it with CIFS and use the NAS as a backup system. We'll see.

 

Roon serves music to my stereo in DSD128 format throught a networked DietPi device, raw through Airplay to my AVR and raw to my laptop. The fan noise is low even that I have not configured yet its BIOS profile, althought it is not a problem because the NUC and the NAS are together in another room. The processor and memory use are very low with my configuration.

 

I have installed a virtual Debian Box on my laptop to mimic my configuration and I will add a HQPlayer Embedded in evaluation mode just for check the memory usage. I can use this workbench in order to test HQPlayer with my system withount installing it on the NUC. Besides, I can use another DietPi with NAA for testing purposes I will keep my configured deviced almost untouched.

 

The transfer procedure of Roon Core from my old location to my new NUC was simple and because the mount point was the same on the two machines I didn't need to take further actions.

 

 

[luisma]

Seems like you have it all figured out  good testing.

I am very happy at the moment with the NUC, it has enough CPU for running Roon and HQP with the basic filters

Running DSD256 closed form for the 1x and Nx filters (which is not a very taxing filter and sounds very good) using 40-47% CPU. True I cannot use many other filters due to CPU limitations.

 

Now I have noticed CPU usage goes from 1-50 no issues but after that pretty much any other combination takes it to 100 and just read on the HQP forum that HQP (wisely) doesn't use the CPU siblings threads just the actual cores so 50% would be maximum CPU usage

 

I may go to a better system, I'm just trying to decide how much CPU processing I will be putting to use and which chassis. IF I go the remote monster CPU processing machine with fans and water cooling way or the locally connected miniITX fanless chassis which less processing power.