HQplayer 4 and Mac-mini M1

[Account Closed]

12 minutes ago, James Stephens said:

Hi there. Help/advice needed please.

 

I am new to HQPlayer and I am having 2 issues.

 

I hearing a couple of small popping sounds at the start of each track when doing SDM conversion.

 

I am also hearing occasional pops during playback .. maybe once every other track or so and always from the left speaker.

 

My playback chain is Roon on an Intel NUC to HQPlayer Desktop 4.22.0 running on an M1 Mac Mini with 16GB RAM.

 

My NAA is a Holo Audio Red and I have a Holo Audio May KTE DAC. My May KTE has the Gen 2.0 USB and is running the original 30.14 firmware.

 

See signature for more info on my setup.

 

My HQPlayer settings are attached. These seem, from other postings I have come across, to be within the capabilities of the M1 Mini.  My CPU runs around 270% with these settings.

 

With hopes of solving the pops during playback I have tried dropping down to ASDM5EC which runs a shade under 200%. It still occurs.

 

The pops between tracks are quieter if I use my preamp for volume control instead rather HQPlayer and keep the volume in HQPlayer at the -5dB maximum.

 

Thoughts?

 

Thank you!

 

James

 

 

Put SDM pack to none. Put Adaptive Output to grey box not checked.

[James Stephens]

2 hours ago, bobflood said:

Put SDM pack to none. Put Adaptive Output to grey box not checked.

 

 

I just listened to some 44/16 for an hour. I counted 2 tiny pops during playback. That's definitely better.

 

I then played some DSD64 ripped from an SACD and took a trip to pop town right away. (That might have been why I enabled SDP Pack to DoP to begin with)

 

.. so I'm not sure re the SDM Pack setting.

 

Adaptive Output setting grayed has definitely made a positive difference .. but why? - doesn't the May support both rate families? I read the HQPlayer manual and figured that it would be desirable to force the upsampling within the same rate family by having the Adaptive Output box checked.

 

James

 

 

[Account Closed]

47 minutes ago, James Stephens said:

 

 

I just listened to some 44/16 for an hour. I counted 2 tiny pops during playback. That's definitely better.

 

I then played some DSD64 ripped from an SACD and took a trip to pop town right away. (That might have been why I enabled SDP Pack to DoP to begin with)

 

.. so I'm not sure re the SDM Pack setting.

 

Adaptive Output setting grayed has definitely made a positive difference .. but why? - doesn't the May support both rate families? I read the HQPlayer manual and figured that it would be desirable to force the upsampling within the same rate family by having the Adaptive Output box checked.

 

James

 

 

Holo DACs cannot use DOP so don’t use that setting. It is for DACs that can only take DSD in as PCM and then convert it back internally. Holo DACs accept native DSD. Yes Holo DACs can do either rate family but your computer can make the conversion so stick with it. Try some different buffer settings. Start at 100ms and work down. I cannot help with the DSD part as I don’t have any.

[Miska]

12 hours ago, James Stephens said:

I hearing a couple of small popping sounds at the start of each track when doing SDM conversion.

 

I am also hearing occasional pops during playback .. maybe once every other track or so and always from the left speaker.

 

Have you tried with the NAA OS on Holo Red? Does it change anything?

 

What kind of network infrastructure do you have?

 

[ripples]

23 hours ago, bobflood said:

That filter is a CPU hog and can take forever to initialize. Just use the 2s version.

thanks for the feedback, helps to clear things up as i'm investigating the M2 waters🙂

 

things start to lite up ,

sending from M2  to NAA  , below helps  me getting a more relaxed sound (YMMV)

sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 

[James Stephens]

13 hours ago, bobflood said:

Holo DACs cannot use DOP so don’t use that setting. It is for DACs that can only take DSD in as PCM and then convert it back internally. Holo DACs accept native DSD. Yes Holo DACs can do either rate family but your computer can make the conversion so stick with it. Try some different buffer settings. Start at 100ms and work down. I cannot help with the DSD part as I don’t have any.

 

Thanks very much. The Specs for the May show it supports DoP or Native DSD. The manual for the Red though, only appears (at the moment) to list support for DoP over I2S and I am using USB. 

 

Thanks for the tip re buffer size.

[James Stephens]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Have you tried with the NAA OS on Holo Red? Does it change anything?

 

What kind of network infrastructure do you have?

 

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I had no idea I could do that. I will give it a try and report back.

 

Network-wise I have some DSD256 downloads from NativeDSD and they have always played to my previous streamer (an Aries G2.1) without any issues so I don't suspect my network is the problem (at the moment).

 

[Account Closed]

22 minutes ago, James Stephens said:

 

Thanks very much. The Specs for the May show it supports DoP or Native PCM. The manual for the Red though, only appears (at the moment) to list support for DoP over I2S and I am using USB. 

 

Thanks for the tip re buffer size.

I did not know that the May would take DoP, my Spring 2 doesn’t. Still, it is an unnecessary conversion. It cuts in half the DSD rate so 256 becomes 128. Speaking of I2S, if you have an HDMI cable handy you may want to try the I2S output of the Red into the I2S input of the May. I am using I2S on my Spring and like it. If you want to use it as primary then get a high quality HDMI cable and only as long as needed to get to the input and no more. I am sure someone here can help with the DSD settings.

[Miska]

2 hours ago, James Stephens said:

Network-wise I have some DSD256 downloads from NativeDSD and they have always played to my previous streamer (an Aries G2.1) without any issues so I don't suspect my network is the problem (at the moment).

 

Just in case, please make sure 802.3x flow control is actually active on your network...

 

[James Stephens]

10 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Have you tried with the NAA OS on Holo Red? Does it change anything?

 

 

 

Yes it did!

 

I no longer get unexpected pops during playback (*). I have been able to check the "Adaptive output rate" box again (which is my preferred setting to keep within the same rate family) and that remains true.

 

I do hear a barely audible pop sound (if that is the right word to describe it)  at the very start of playback or if I advance manually between tracks but not if I let playback continue naturally between tracks. 

 

(*) There is a strange behavior when playing back DSD64 ripped from SACD's (but not purchased and downloaded DSD content from other sources such as NativeDSD) I have tried a few albums and they all produce a pop soon (a second or two) after playback commences when playing native DSD but this does not occur when I set SDM Pack to DoP. This was true also with Red OS running as an NAA. Not sure what to make of that ......

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Best,

James

 

 

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, James Stephens said:

(*) There is a strange behavior when playing back DSD64 ripped from SACD's (but not purchased and downloaded DSD content from other sources such as NativeDSD) I have tried a few albums and they all produce a pop soon (a second or two) after playback commences when playing native DSD but this does not occur when I set SDM Pack to DoP. This was true also with Red OS running as an NAA. Not sure what to make of that ......

 

At least at one point some versions of the extraction tools had some bugs, so it needs a careful extraction process to avoid such.

 

[James Stephens]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

At least at one point some versions of the extraction tools had some bugs, so it needs a careful extraction process to avoid such.

 

 

That makes sense as they were ripped some years ago. I queued one up while testing and went down the rabbit hole a ways.

 

In any case, I deleted those rips. Will just stream those albums instead.

 

Thanks for clearing that up.

 

The NAA image is working great!

 

[robi20064]

On 5/2/2023 at 2:24 PM, ripples said:

thanks for the feedback, helps to clear things up as i'm investigating the M2 waters🙂

 

things start to lite up ,

sending from M2  to NAA  , below helps  me getting a more relaxed sound (YMMV)

sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0 

 

Out of curiosity, are you setting this on the M2 or on the NAA or on both?

[ripples]

5 hours ago, robi20064 said:

 

Out of curiosity, are you setting this on the M2 or on the NAA or on both?

I only configure it on the  M2

 

my network is mostly Wifi:

[m2]--->isp wifi router--->tp link (wifi bridge)---//rj45-->naa --//usb--->dac

 

[MarcMarc]

Just tried out HQPlayer desktop on my M1 MacBook Air. Probably shouldn't have ... Because even with only using pcm filters it did already sound better than roons own upsampling to DSD512.

 

I guess since I used the core audio of the Mac I couldn't get DSD to work. 

But I didn't want to replace my Roopiee image with NAA while I'm only on the trial version.

 

But I will buy a licence soon.

 

My question is with a MacBook M1 as roon core, the only version to get is HQPlayer desktop? Embedded would be for a NUC for example?

 

And I have been very interested in the DSD upsampling Sony does with devices like the TA-ZH1ES DAC.

 

Is there a similar Modulator in HQPlayer?

 

 

I tried the poly-sync-gauss filter and everything sounded already "fuller" (not louder). And more balanced.

 

 

[Miska]

19 minutes ago, MarcMarc said:

And I have been very interested in the DSD upsampling Sony does with devices like the TA-ZH1ES DAC.

 

Is there a similar Modulator in HQPlayer?

 

Yes, there are multiple modulators to choose from, M1 can upsample to DSD256 or DSD512 depending on the modulator and filter selection.

 

23 minutes ago, MarcMarc said:

I guess since I used the core audio of the Mac I couldn't get DSD to work.

 

Through CoreAudio you can get DSD working by setting "SDM Pack" to "DoP" in HQPlayer output device Preferences.

 

[MarcMarc]

Nice . Thanks. 

Is there a particular filter that is close to Sony's upsampling? Another review mentioned Sony's upsampling Introduces some noise that measures similar to a 300B tube amp.

 

That really peaked my interest.

 

So MacBook and Mac mini = HQPlayer desktop? 

 

When apple releases a M3 mini pro I will probably upgrade. But not interested in a computer with GPU anymore.

 

Did you already look more into the Gustard A26 ? I'm only following the posts in the roon forum where the wide and narrow filter was mentioned as not working.

 

 

[Miska]

6 minutes ago, MarcMarc said:

Is there a particular filter that is close to Sony's upsampling? Another review mentioned Sony's upsampling Introduces some noise that measures similar to a 300B tube amp.

 

I don't have much more information about their functionality than what their web page says.

 

6 minutes ago, MarcMarc said:

So MacBook and Mac mini = HQPlayer desktop? 

 

Yes, HQPlayer Desktop is for Macs.

 

HQPlayer Embedded needs a device running Linux, typically some PC. Or one can use the self contained HQPlayer OS on a suitable PC.

 

6 minutes ago, MarcMarc said:

Did you already look more into the Gustard A26 ? I'm only following the posts in the roon forum where the wide and narrow filter was mentioned as not working.

 

I'm hoping Gustard will eventually release firmware update that would fix it. But since they don't respond to my emails, I don't know if that is ever going to happen.

 

Now it is sitting in my rack waiting for such to happen. I occasionally listen through it, it sounds pretty nice as it is already, running at DSD512. But I would really prefer that it's features would actually work.

 

[Miska]

Now DSD512 with EC modulators is also properly possible on M1/M2 Macs, this running right now on my MacBook Pro with M1Max:

 

No DSD256 limitations anymore.

 

(that higher efficiency core load earlier is Opera browser for reading/writing on this forum)

 

[Kalpesh]

11 minutes ago, Miska said:

Now DSD512 with EC modulators is also properly possible on M1/M2 Macs, this running right now on my MacBook Pro with M1Max:

 

No DSD256 limitations anymore.

 

(that higher efficiency core load earlier is Opera browser for reading/writing on this forum)

 

unfortunately, with MMM1 it's not real for Nx rates and DSD 64. But I can see you have twice as many performance cores : maybe you can ; can you confirm for PCM up to 192 and DSD 64 ?

I wish I could enjoy ASDM7EC Light + Sinc MG without interrupts ; sounds great !

[Miska]

18 minutes ago, Kalpesh said:

unfortunately, with MMM1 it's not real for Nx rates and DSD 64. But I can see you have twice as many performance cores : maybe you can ; can you confirm for PCM up to 192 and DSD 64 ?

I wish I could enjoy ASDM7EC Light + Sinc MG without interrupts ; sounds great !

 

 

Yes, these work fine. Note that the PCM cases have Oratory headphone EQ for Sennheiser HD800 enabled, for DSD source I need to disable it (switch to empty matrix profile) or I get dropouts after a while.

 

This also works fine without issues:

 

Note that M1Max has 4x the memory bandwidth of M1. And M1Ultra would 8x the memory bandwidth. This also has it's own impact on performance.

 

[Kalpesh]

12 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

 

Yes, these work fine. Note that the PCM cases have Oratory headphone EQ for Sennheiser HD800 enabled, for DSD source I need to disable it (switch to empty matrix profile) or I get dropouts after a while.

 

This also works fine without issues:

 

Note that M1Max has 4x the memory bandwidth of M1. And M1Ultra would 8x the memory bandwidth. This also has it's own impact on performance.

 

Thank you. So dropouts with DSD 64 and convolution.... Would you expect better from a Mini M2 Pro ?  For whatever reason second hand market is flooded with entry Studio while there is no Mini M2 Pro and I guess you recommend the 500 euros/$ 32 GB RAM option ?

 

PS : for DSD source dropouts, have you tried playing from RAM ? it often saves the day here

[Miska]

4 minutes ago, Kalpesh said:

Thank you. So dropouts with DSD 64 and convolution....

 

I have not tried convolution in this scenario. My headphone EQ is parametric. It always depends on length of the the convolution filter or number of parametric EQ bands.

 

4 minutes ago, Kalpesh said:

Would you expect better from a Mini M2 Pro ?

 

No, I don't think it is any better.

 

4 minutes ago, Kalpesh said:

For whatever reason second hand market is flooded with entry Studio while there is no Mini M2 Pro and I guess you recommend the 500 euros/$ 32 GB RAM option ?

 

My MacBook Pro is with 32 GB RAM. But reason for that RAM is because HQPlayer Mac builds, testing and development is done on this machine.

 

But this is very very power efficient. The laptop is barely warm to touch while doing this. And pretty quiet, fan running at level that I can just hear it when I take headphones off.

 

[MarcMarc]

What would be the best settings for a normal M1 with 8gb ram ? Probably still DSD256 with one of the new modulators?

 

I'm not gonna upgrade anymore before there is a M3 mac mini pro 

[semente]

On 5/4/2023 at 1:24 PM, Miska said:

HQPlayer Embedded needs a device running Linux, typically some PC. Or one can use the self contained HQPlayer OS on a suitable PC.

 

Can't HQPlayer Embedded be installed on Mac hardware (e.g. Mac mini)?