HQplayer 4 and Mac-mini M1

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, copy_of_a said:

does anyone here run a little 13“ Macbook Pro with M1 or even better with M2 chip?

 

I have 14" MacBook Pro with M1Max which is my current macOS development machine.

 

Main limitations come from thermal envelopes on smaller machines. I believe only biggest screen size MacBook Pro's, Mac Mini and Mac Studio have unrestricted TDP.

 

With bigger M1 chips you don't necessarily win higher rates, but more capabilities in terms of filters, convolution and multichannel. Or if you look at it the other way, you also gain spare CPU power to run Roon or something else on the same machine. As something like Mac Mini M1 can get pretty much 100% occupied with HQPlayer alone.

 

[copy_of_a]

9 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I have 14" MacBook Pro with M1Max which is my current macOS development machine.

 

Main limitations come from thermal envelopes on smaller machines. I believe only biggest screen size MacBook Pro's, Mac Mini and Mac Studio have unrestricted TDP.

 

With bigger M1 chips you don't necessarily win higher rates, but more capabilities in terms of filters, convolution and multichannel. Or if you look at it the other way, you also gain spare CPU power to run Roon or something else on the same machine. As something like Mac Mini M1 can get pretty much 100% occupied with HQPlayer alone.

 

Thanks Miska - that's a helpful subsumption!

[Reg19]

@Miska Need some help:

 

Roon (on Intel NUC) —> HQPD (on base level M1 Mac Mini) —> opticalRendu (powered by the Sonore Audiophile Power Supply) —> Holo May DAC

 

Intel NUC and M1MM are both connected to network via ethernet.

 

The M1MM is not headless and not dedicated - but it is not running any other apps or browser at this time - only HQPD.

 

I can run, say, DSD256 using poly-sinc-ext2 / ASDM7ECv2 fine without any issues.

 

However, whenever I switch to DSD256 poly-sinc-short-mp / ASDM7EC for 1x, I get the ‘spinning wheel of death’ on my Mac Mini M1.

 

Additionally: has anyone run tests on whether there is a benefit gained by getting a Mac Studio running M1 Max with 32GB memory? I know that Apple typically has a 14-day return policy on their computers. :)

 

Lastly, (1) would my setup benefit in any way from using a LPS on my M1 Mac Mini? (2) Can you briefly explain potential leakage current issues by using ungrounded LPS? I think the LPS powering my NAA may not be grounded.

[Account Closed]

3 hours ago, Reg19 said:

@Miska Need some help:

 

Roon (on Intel NUC) —> HQPD (on base level M1 Mac Mini) —> opticalRendu (powered by the Sonore Audiophile Power Supply) —> Holo May DAC

 

Intel NUC and M1MM are both connected to network via ethernet.

 

The M1MM is not headless and not dedicated - but it is not running any other apps or browser at this time - only HQPD.

 

I can run, say, DSD256 using poly-sinc-ext2 / ASDM7ECv2 fine without any issues.

 

However, whenever I switch to DSD256 poly-sinc-short-mp / ASDM7EC for 1x, I get the ‘spinning wheel of death’ on my Mac Mini M1.

 

Additionally: has anyone run tests on whether there is a benefit gained by getting a Mac Studio running M1 Max with 32GB memory? I know that Apple typically has a 14-day return policy on their computers. :)

 

Lastly, (1) would my setup benefit in any way from using a LPS on my M1 Mac Mini? (2) Can you briefly explain potential leakage current issues by using ungrounded LPS? I think the LPS powering my NAA may not be grounded.

PS ext-2 is a 2s filter in SDM so I would try ps short-mp 2s and see if that works.

[Miska]

5 hours ago, Reg19 said:

However, whenever I switch to DSD256 poly-sinc-short-mp / ASDM7EC for 1x, I get the ‘spinning wheel of death’ on my Mac Mini M1.

 

It is one of the filters that is heavy to initialize, especially to conversions between rate families, on M1/M2 and such. Like @bobfloodsaid, -2s variant may initialize a lot faster.

 

5 hours ago, Reg19 said:

Additionally: has anyone run tests on whether there is a benefit gained by getting a Mac Studio running M1 Max with 32GB memory? I know that Apple typically has a 14-day return policy on their computers. :)

 

I have MacBook Pro with M1Max and compared to MacMini with basic M1, It certainly has more processing capacity, especially when you want to do something else simultaneously.

 

5 hours ago, Reg19 said:

Lastly, (1) would my setup benefit in any way from using a LPS on my M1 Mac Mini? (2) Can you briefly explain potential leakage current issues by using ungrounded LPS? I think the LPS powering my NAA may not be grounded.

 

Since you use opticalRendu, there's no point in modifying MacMini to use LPS.

 

If you use MacMini with direct connection to a DAC and you are worried about leakages, Intona USB isolator does a good job (measured). Note that it is not always needed, it depends on the overall system. If there are no disturbances flowing, it does nothing.

 

[Account Closed]

Jussi, Have you been able to get Apple Music and HQPlayer connected together on your Mini M1? I haven't tried this recently but as I remember the problem with the loopback programs (like Black Hole) was automatic rate switching. I would really like to be able to access the Apple Music catalog but I want to play it to my NAA devices using HQplayer. I wish they would let you put it on the Client, but if not I would use the Apple Music app on my Mini M1 if I could get it connected to HQPlayer on the same machine. If not possible now, is this on the to do list?   Thanks

 

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, bobflood said:

Jussi, Have you been able to get Apple Music and HQPlayer connected together on your Mini M1? I haven't tried this recently but as I remember the problem with the loopback programs (like Black Hole) was automatic rate switching. I would really like to be able to access the Apple Music catalog but I want to play it to my NAA devices using HQplayer. I wish they would let you put it on the Client, but if not I would use the Apple Music app on my Mini M1 if I could get it connected to HQPlayer on the same machine. If not possible now, is this on the to do list?   Thanks

 

AFAIK, Apple Music doesn't switch rates on macOS in first place. It always goes through the CoreAudio rate converters/mixer.

 

In order to avoid this, people have been playing Apple Music on iPad, since there it appears to be switching output rate. To make this work to a HQPlayer running on macOS, you'd need a suitable Linux-based NAA.

 

The solution I prefer to use is RME ADI-2 Pro as input device to HQPlayer Embedded. This gives coaxial and optical S/PDIF, AES/EBU and analog inputs into HQPlayer with automatic rate switching. Through those S/PDIF and AES/EBU, you can get even DSD64 using DoP to HQPlayer. A bit more limited solution (due to drivers) I also use is RME HDSPe AIO PCIe card.

[Account Closed]

9 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

AFAIK, Apple Music doesn't switch rates on macOS in first place. It always goes through the CoreAudio rate converters/mixer.

 

In order to avoid this, people have been playing Apple Music on iPad, since there it appears to be switching output rate. To make this work to a HQPlayer running on macOS, you'd need a suitable Linux-based NAA.

 

The solution I prefer to use is RME ADI-2 Pro as input device to HQPlayer Embedded. This gives coaxial and optical S/PDIF, AES/EBU and analog inputs into HQPlayer with automatic rate switching. Through those S/PDIF and AES/EBU, you can get even DSD64 using DoP to HQPlayer. A bit more limited solution (due to drivers) I also use is RME HDSPe AIO PCIe card.

Hopefully one day Apple will straighten this mess out. Thanks, but all of the things you mentioned are much more than I want to take on ( or spend for) right now. What a sad state of affairs!

[Schafheide]

FWIW to other Mini M1 owners - this experience might help.

Given that DSD to DSD conversion is most CPU intensive -

My Mini M1 16GB has no trouble converting DSD64 (or DSD128) to DSD512, even with Pipeline EQ.

But, for my Mini M1 8GB, the added load of the Pipeline EQ is the killer.

So, from my experience, opt for the 16GB version!

Enjoy your music via HQPlayer!

[AudioDoctor]

19 hours ago, bobflood said:

Hopefully one day Apple will straighten this mess out. Thanks, but all of the things you mentioned are much more than I want to take on ( or spend for) right now. What a sad state of affairs!

Bob, I have an M1 mini and a 2011 i5 mini running Kubuntu right next to each other and to my ears the 2011 running Kubuntu sounds better than the M1 mini even though it can't do much more than 24/192 upsampling. What this tells me is that Linux is a far better OS for HQPlayer than Mac OS, and as far as Desktop OS's go, Kubuntu is the best I have heard yet.

[Account Closed]

44 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

Bob, I have an M1 mini and a 2011 i5 mini running Kubuntu right next to each other and to my ears the 2011 running Kubuntu sounds better than the M1 mini even though it can't do much more than 24/192 upsampling. What this tells me is that Linux is a far better OS for HQPlayer than Mac OS, and as far as Desktop OS's go, Kubuntu is the best I have heard yet.

Thanks Doc, I also run regular Ubuntu 22.04 as a dual boot on another Intel machine with HQPlayer Desktop. I was hoping to try Apple Music on my M1 as I have a desktop license for that machine as well. Thanks for the tip on Kubuntu. I will check it out.

BTW, how is your flight schedule? Are you back to your pre-pandemic amount of flight time yet? I remember how hard it was to stay current as a single pilot when I became an officer. I pretty much insisted that someone come with me when I hadn’t been up much. Anyway, thanks and best wishes.  Bob 

[Reg19]

@Miska I had HQPD on M1 Mac Mini.

 

Just bought the Mac Studio (running M1 Max). Migrated data from Mini to Studio. Removed HQP license key on mini. Registered on studio.

 

Not getting sound (though HQP seems to be running fine). Please help. I sent you an email with the details.

[AudioDoctor]

On 9/6/2022 at 12:07 PM, Reg19 said:

@Miska I had HQPD on M1 Mac Mini.

 

Just bought the Mac Studio (running M1 Max). Migrated data from Mini to Studio. Removed HQP license key on mini. Registered on studio.

 

Not getting sound (though HQP seems to be running fine). Please help. I sent you an email with the details.

 

Is your old mini still running HQPlayer?

 

HQPD is something else entirely, not made by Miska.

[jdubs]

Has anyone tried HQPlayer Embedded with an M1 running Asahi Linux, yet?

 

Jim

[AudioDoctor]

On 9/7/2022 at 6:04 AM, jdubs said:

Has anyone tried HQPlayer Embedded with an M1 running Asahi Linux, yet?

 

Jim

 

Probably not as Asahi linux is Arch based and there probably aren't any builds of HQP that would run on the Asahi linux version of Arch on ARM.

[Jud]

54 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Probably not as Asahi linux is Arch based and there probably aren't any builds of HQP that would run on the Asahi linux version of Arch on ARM.

 

NAA apparently runs on Arch Linux ARM, see below, but don't know about Embedded.  I'm waiting a while on Asahi.  It's in alpha, so there's sure to be a bunch of stuff that would be a PITA for a non-expert like me.

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

3 hours ago, Jud said:

 

NAA apparently runs on Arch Linux ARM, see below, but don't know about Embedded.  I'm waiting a while on Asahi.  It's in alpha, so there's sure to be a bunch of stuff that would be a PITA for a non-expert like me.

 

 

 

It is possible to run intel based HQP on Arch. I have done it myself. But I don't know about HQP on Asahi as the only ARM build of HQP is for Mac OS.

[Miska]

4 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

It is possible to run intel based HQP on Arch. I have done it myself. But I don't know about HQP on Asahi as the only ARM build of HQP is for Mac OS.

 

Embedded is available for arm64 Linux. Runs for example on NXP's iMX8M SoC which I use for the builds. Different arm64 build is on HQPlayer OS for RPi4.

 

So far very few run graphical desktop on such, so Desktop has not been being built for arm64. No technical reasons why it couldn't be done though.

[Schafheide]

When I have Adaptive Output Rate greyed out, I can hear very faint "random ticking" noises in my headphones.

But when I tick the box, instead, there are no noises at all.

What does this mean?

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Schafheide said:

When I have Adaptive Output Rate greyed out, I can hear very faint "random ticking" noises in my headphones.

But when I tick the box, instead, there are no noises at all.

What does this mean?

 

What are the respective output rates in these cases? Those noises happen at output rates multiple of 48k?

 

[Schafheide]

20 hours ago, Miska said:

 

What are the respective output rates in these cases? Those noises happen at output rates multiple of 48k?

 

It only occurs when I pause SDM - SDM conversion (FIR2/Wide) - 48k is ticked, Holo May DAC.

[Miska]

46 minutes ago, Schafheide said:

It only occurs when I pause SDM - SDM conversion (FIR2/Wide) - 48k is ticked, Holo May DAC.

 

When you have adaptive rate grayed, you are asking "stay at the requested max rate if the filter allows".

 

When you have the adaptive rate checked, you are asking "use same rate family as the source".

 

When the box is unchecked, you are asking "always use the requested rate".

 

 

Now, the question is what is the output rate in each case. This depends on the source rate and filter selection.

[Schafheide]

Thank you for the explanation.  I see now the change in output rate.  Which device is actually making the tick noises?

[Reg19]

On 9/6/2022 at 3:16 PM, AudioDoctor said:

 

Is your old mini still running HQPlayer?

 

HQPD is something else entirely, not made by Miska.

I meant HQPlayer Desktop.

 

Yes, Miska finally helped me successfully setup HQP Desktop on my M1 Max Mac Studio. Fantastic! I can run a lot more desired filters that I could not on my M1 Mac Mini.

[Miska]

19 hours ago, Schafheide said:

Thank you for the explanation.  I see now the change in output rate.  Which device is actually making the tick noises?

 

That is usually USB transfer problem. So first check your USB cable, preferably try with a standard USB HiSpeed certified. Or in case of Holo Audio or Ifi, with a standard USB SuperSpeed certified (blue connectors with the big block connector at the B-side).

 

Then if you are using a NAA, check the NAA side.