Hqplayer: best NAA with best sound quality

[Miska]

6 hours ago, TJHUB said:

It's too bad as I really wanted the Spotify Connect feature.  I also heard a significant downgrade in sound when not in NAA exclusive mode.  NAA and Spotify Connect selected at the same time was a no go for me sound wise.

 

How about just using it for Spotify Connect and route it's output through HQPlayer and then finally to the UP Gateway for output?

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, TJHUB said:

I agree the UP Board is sensitive to power supplies.  I tried the medical grade switching power supply Jussie mentioned, and didn't like the sound.  I have a linear that just seems to sound good with the UP Board.  Based on my findings, 2 of my friends tried the UP Boards, and they seem happy as well.

 

As for the Zen Stream, I need to clarify that I do think it sounded good.  It just didn't sound as good as my UP Board to my ears.  

 

The measurement I provided is with a newer medical grade PSU. Pretty inexpensive one too. And something I'm currently using. I think I ordered it from Mouser. But it's pretty beefy one.

 

[Miska]

12 minutes ago, TJHUB said:

Are you saying you can route the output of the Zen Stream in some way to HQPlayer?

 

Yes, it has S/PDIF output built-in which you can connect to HQPlayer's input feature using some suitable hardware.

 

3 minutes ago, TJHUB said:

The one I tried was a Mean Well you posted about:  MEAN WELL GSM60B05-P1J 5V 6A 30W.  It didn't sound anything close to as good as my HDPlex linear.

 

That's what I used for years in the Spring 2 times. Then for a while I used Ferrum Hypsos, but decided that it was better used as a PSU for the Ferrum Oor headphone amp.

 

Then I ordered pile of those newer CUI's 5V and 12V PSUs for UP Gateway and Fitlet2 and have been using those since. Somewhat better quality than the Meanwell. And didn't notice any difference with Spring 3 when I switched from the Hypsos to the CUI.

 

Main difference with CUI and Meanwell is that CUI is earthed model with 3-pin IEC power, while the Meanwell is floating with 2-pin power.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Zauurx said:

Interesting information, but I don't see any measurements, unlike MeanWell which publishes tests.
The name Medical is linked to safety data and protection, not necessarily a guarantee of minimum ripple.

 

Medical only controls leakage currents.

 

For me, what matters is what I measure from DAC analog outputs. But I check if I have unused CUI PSU and I can measure it's output as well. Meanwell I can easily measure as I have couple unused.

 

Meanwell:

 

CUI:

 

[Miska]

2 minutes ago, dknk said:

I'm not educated on how to read these graphs, what are we seeing? Which one is better? CUI?

 

At the bottom, in amber color you see two measurement values. Peak-to-peak voltage and RMS voltage.

 

Meanwell has about 212 mV peak while CUI has about 12 mV peak. RMS levels are much less different because the Meanwell noise is bursty.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, dericchan1 said:

Are these measurements done connected the Spring 3?

 

No, it is straight from the PSU's 5VDC output.

 

[Miska]

58 minutes ago, jabbr said:

Have you ever tested the inexpensive linear PSUs from eBay ... there's the good theory that performance can be measured by shipping weight ;)

 

No, not really. I've been lacking the motivation to do something like that. And I have not really researched how many LPSU's there are out there on the market that can provide 5VDC with 5 - 6 A currents.

 

I have my own linear PSU's though. For example I have bunch of DSC1 DAC PSU boards I can easily setup to output 5V and 12V with relatively big capacitors.

 

Current consumption with these SBCs can vary couple of Amps in microseconds. But nothing like the big Nvidia GPUs that can jump over 100A within 100 ns at 1.25V... The load regulation on bigger motherboards and graphics cards is pretty crazy advanced. Now the newest RTX4090 is pretty crazy, you may have heard of those melting power connectors! 😅

 

[Miska]

Holo Red is nice in a way that it is all-in-one solution with linear PSU, NAA and DDC in one heavy and sleek box. For me it was best match to bypass poor USB interface of SMSL M400. In such function it can serve two DACs, one through the DDC and another through the USB. So for example M400 through I2S and Spring through USB.

 

[Miska]

3 minutes ago, luisma said:

it could be booting to RAM indeed just showing the unmount warning which I guess is normal as the OS remains mounted although not in use

 

It auto-mounts all volumes it finds. Including the boot partition where the kernel and compressed RAM images are. Complaint is probably about that one.

[Miska]

25 minutes ago, Randomrunner said:

I believe Jussi once said he chose the Up gateway because it uses 5V all the way through.  Can Jussi or anyone also comment on whether this is of the key reasons that it's so sensitive to power supplies?  Thanks!

 

Is it? I would say it depends on the DAC. Since it works so great with Spring 3 using the CUI PSU, I moved Hypsos to power the Oor, where I think it benefits more.

 

[Miska]

Generally, NAA is usually a low power device, such as UP Gateway, Holo Red, or similar.

 

Especially things like graphical user interface should be disabled. At most just a plain text mode console should exist.

 

In terms of PC hardware, nothing bigger than Intel Atom.

 

Preferably built into the DAC, such as the T+A, iFi or Gustard for example.

 

[Miska]

Just now, dericchan1 said:

@Miska hi Miska, just wonder if you had a chance to play around with the fitlet3 and your impression of it?
 

Ordered mine last April so it’s been a year 😂 

 

I ordered mine with Windows 10 IoT pre-installed, because I can boot to NAA OS or HQPlayer OS without installing anything on the internal SSD.

 

But so far, I haven't got time to to do anything more than get the device up and running. The version I ordered has four ethernet ports, so NAA OS is not the best option, but instead HQPlayer OS should work.

 

So I don't yet have much opinion about the device itself, other than it seems to function just fine.

 

[Miska]

Just now, davide256 said:

 I have the UP 4gb Atom Gateway but it, an i3 NUC and the i5 desktop all irritate the heck out of me with treble bite/glare using the Linux NAA images. Problem

is even worse running Euphony Stylus.

Would it make sense to install Windows on the UP Atom machine? Was reading on that, then let it rest when it looked like installing to an EMMC wasn't supported.

Would love to give that a try if it made sense, had a supported install path

 

I certainly don't have any such problems running Holo Spring 3 at DSD256/DSD512 from UP Gateway. Or running Gustard A26 in DSD Direct mode at DSD512 from Holo Red (running NAA OS).

 

What is the source / overall setup? I have never used Euphony myself, so I don't know about that one.

 

At the moment I'm listening Qobuz playlist with HQPlayer Desktop running on Ubuntu 22.04 on Ryzen 7 5800X. Output through Holo Red to Gustard A26 in DSD Direct mode at DSD512. Output to Ferrum Oor+Hypsos combo and AKG headphones.

 

[Miska]

1 minute ago, dericchan1 said:

Thanks, I ordered with the Sfp module and linux mint.

 

When I made the order there was no SFP module option available. Otherwise I would have ordered that one.

 

[Miska]

9 hours ago, Mops911 said:

Did you try windows?

 

I have not used Windows for NAA since old T+A DAC8 DSD days. But I've used Windows for running HQPlayer Desktop and locally connected DAC.

 

I don't want to have NAA running any graphical stuff, because right after storage devices, graphics is one of the biggest sources of noise in computers.

 

I have Windows 10 IoT on the new fitlet3 though. I just have not run anything else yet than just the OS on it though. It is on the internal SSD, because I don't need the internal SSD for the intended Linux based NAA uses. Since NAA boots straight off a USB memory stick.

 

For lowest power NAA boot storage, use microSD card in a small microSD adapter.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, Mops911 said:

Me neither.😉😉 running server core….

 

Challenge with Windows is that bunch of services are needed for correct operation. And number of those are not installed by default even on full Windows Server installation. And it is still a mysterious black box. In addition, Windows Server edition kernels are optimized for I/O throughput in file server and web server applications, instead of latency sensitive multimedia applications. These two domains have conflicting requirements and that's one of the reasons why there are separate OS releases.

 

I rather use Linux, since I can freely modify all aspects of the OS, since it is all built from scratch, from source code, on NAA OS and HQPlayer OS.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, giordy60 said:

why install an operating system on the pc (both linux and windows) when the simple flash drive with Embedded works so well?

 

Yes, exactly.

 

Sometimes people need more flexibility than what the strict single purpose "streamer firmware" provides. Thus there are options going with gradually bigger system depending on one's needs.

 

When I'm traveling I run HQPlayer Desktop on my MacBook Pro or ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 with output to iFi xDSD Gryphon.

 

[Miska]

Just now, lotusaurus said:

What happens if there are two instances of HQP trying to use the same NAA at the same time? Is that even possible? I was about to do some testing and realised that I might end up doing this, as I have just one NAA.

 

Who ever catches the NAA first, reserves it. It stays reserved as long as HQPlayer is running and the NAA is selected as output device.

 

[Miska]

20 minutes ago, Lukasluis said:

Hi @Miska I plan to boot the Holo Red using the NAA OS. Does the OS support Native 1024 DSD to a HOLO MAY using I2S?

 

No, the I2S interface in Red supports up to DSD512. With USB connection to Spring/May DSD1024 works though. I don't see a reason to use I2S either.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, VRS said:

Hi @Miska. Thanks for this. In May’s manual, it was mentioned that it can theoretically go up to DSD2048. Can you advise how can this be achieved through HQPlayer?  

 

HQPlayer also supports DSD2048. Just suitable output hardware is missing...

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, VRS said:

Thanks @Miska. When setting up an audio core like audiolinux with HQPlayer 5, would having multiple GPUs help in the computing load of more sophisticated modulators like asdm7EC 512+fs super at DSD1024? If not, can you kindly share some hardware recommendations to cope with computing requirements pls?

 

Yes, if such works on audiolinux, I don't know.

 

I think most doing such have something like i9-13900K plus RTX4080 or RTX4090. Putting focus on enough cooling for the CPU is also pretty critical for the performance.

 

[Miska]

7 hours ago, lsantista said:

I hear you. My 13900k + 3070Ti with an ok air cooler has been a big disappointment, performing basically the same as my 11600k + 1030 fanless card

 

With CUDA offload active, there is pretty big difference between those cards though...

 

What have you been trying to do with these?

 

I have 12900K with Noctua NH-D15 air cooler and it is not performance limited by that cooler. But it will need such a big cooler, otherwise it will easily get into thermal throttling.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, Mops911 said:

I am doing the opposite: all passive cooled for DSD256 with super modulator and poly-sinc-shrt-mp on 15w reduced i9-12900KS resp a i9-13900T and the NAA is in both system a J6412 celeron on 4.5w (all running Server2019 core with a couple of tweaks). 

 

I have i9-13900T with active air cooler plus RTX2080, doing DSD512. The CPU can do DSD512 also without the GPU just fine. With GPU it is very close to being able to do DSD1024 (with EC-light). Using very fast G.Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6400 CL32 RAM.

 

Machine is built into Fractal Design Ridge case.

[Miska]

56 minutes ago, Rovo said:

BeQuiet Dark Rock Pro 4 is also enough to keep an i9-10900K under control

 

Yes, that's a good one too. I have such on my 5800X AMD machine.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, blueninjasix said:

Raspberry Pi 5 announced today with new OS from mid-October, requiring 5v / 5amp power supply. Any advantage in this over a Pi4?

 

Looking at the specs, it seems like it could become much more feasible for running full HQPlayer Embedded. Both increased CPU performance and almost double memory bandwidth. If it manages to squeeze DSD256 with ASDM7EC-light, it would be perfect. But I'm not sure if it can reach that far.

 

Certainly needs even more focus on cooling than RPi4.