HQplayer 4 and Mac-mini M1

[MikePid]

Try one of the gauss-hires options for Nx. Works fine for me with 24/192 using 5ECv2 (but 7ECv2 should be almost the same).  Piece of cake, even with Roon Core on the MMM1.

 

I think integrator and XFi are only used for DSD>DSD, and those are my settings too.  Works effortlessly for DSD64>DSD256 for me.

[MikePid]

Hi @itguy61,

 

My former Roon/HQPlayer machine was a 2012 i7 MacBook Pro which is stuck running MacOS 10.15.  I still use it as my main "desktop" but I moved the audio stuff over to the Mac Mini M1 (MMM1) in June.  Initially it was just HQPlayer that moved over, but recently I moved Roon Core over to it too.  Has been working very well, and I can do 44K>DSD256 with ECv2 and poly-sinc-gauss-xla (and Nx using poly-sinc-gauss-hires-*p (any of them - I haven't decided which one but currently trying ip)).  A real game changer for sound from my rMBP setup, where I was maxing out at DSD128/EC or DSD256 non-EC.  Typically running around 50% total CPU load on the MMM1.  And zero fan noise, unlike my rMBP which needed TG-Pro to keep CPU temp below 80C (with fans spinning around 75% all the time).  Since it sounds like you are a Mac guy, it would be easy for you to set up the MMM1.  I didn't enable anything that isn't needed for playing music, although with the amount of CPU headroom now, that minimalist approach is probably no longer necessary.  Initially, I was running the MMM1 CPU at the limit with HQPlayer, but Jussi has optimized the hell out of it since 😀, to the point where I can run Roon on it now too.

 

As you probably know, MacOS has the CoreAudio limitation that needs DoP for sending DSD on USB, so if you don't already have one, consider putting in a NAA, especially if want to do DSD256 and your DAC doesn't accept USB rates above 705/768k (like mine).  With NAA, you can set Output SDM Pack to None instead of DoP.  DoP doesn't degrade sound quality or add noticeable CPU load, but the NAA will improve sound quality.

[MikePid]

Wow, interesting!  I'm still on the TeraDak 200W LPS.  Someday I might try a better LPS, but very happy with the MMM1 LPS upgrade with that.  My setup has an EtherREGEN and ultraRendu (both powered by really nice LPSs with nice fuses 🤑).

[MikePid]

I have the Sonore LPS too (with Blue fuse) - it used to power my ultraRendu, but there was ground leakage through the USB to my ungrounded DAC (the Sonore LPS is not grounded), so I moved it to the EtherREGEN and moved the (grounded) PH-SR4T over to the ultraRendu (and grounded the ER).  I replaced the Supra CAT8 from the ER to uR with a Sablon 2020 USB, and holy crap, what an improvement.  

 

The MMM1 and LPS upgrade was done after (i.e. with an already good signal chain downstream), and yes the TeraDak was a noticeable improvement over the Apple internal SMPS.  I temporarily installed the TeraDak kit and then a week later swapped back in the Apple SMPS, and confirmed it wasn't confirmation bias.  Someday I'll try my PH-SR4T in place of the TeraDak 200w LPS, however I know for sure that replacing the stock fuse with an Orange fuse in the 200w LPS is money well spent.  I wasn't sure whether a fuse which costs almost as much as the 200w LPS was worthwhile until I tried it.  I also use a Shunyata power cable into the 200W LPS.  As someone on one of these forums said "everything matters".

[MikePid]

I’ve been running HQPlayer and Roon on my Mac Mini M1 8GB, with DSD256 and EC modulators, plus the recommended poly-sinc-guass-long for 1x and poly-sinc-gauss-hires-lp for Nx.  It does it effortlessly.  Just get one MMM1.  That way you don’t have to worry about another cable between them.  Spend the money you save on a TeraDak LPS to power it, and and Orange fuse, and still have money left over.

[MikePid]

On 9/18/2022 at 11:16 PM, musicjunkie917 said:

If you are using an NAA don’t waste money on an LPS setup for the mini…

YMMV, however I noticed a very significant improvement when I upgraded the built-in MMM1 power supply with an inexpensive Chinese LPS module and 12V LPS.  So much so that I replaced the stock fuse in the LPS with an Orange fuse (yeah I put in a fuse that costs about as much as the LPS 😆), which bumped up the sound quality further.  I verified by (non-blind) A/B/A/B testing with each (including figuring out which direction was better for the fuse.  The switch back to the built-in power supply (or back to the stock fuse) was very noticeable, with reduction of sound stage and dynamics.  I have no idea why, because aren't bits just bits, especially so far upstream?  😉  I guess as others have said "everything matters".  And yes, I have an ultraRendu NAA (powered by a Paul Hynes SR4T LPS with Blue fuse), and also an EtherRegen (powered by a Sonore LPS with Blue fuse).  With the old mac mini, Uptone sold a lot of LPS upgrade kits for that.

 

Some people recommend not to run Roon on the same machine as HQPlayer, but when CPU usage of HQP dropped a few releases ago, I tried moving Roon over to the MMM1 and found a small uptick in sound quality (probably due to not needing to run across an Ethernet connection and/or powering the Roon core with an LPS) so I left Roon on the MMM1.

 

Of course, a lot of things are system dependent.  I was a power cord skeptic too, but now a convert.

[MikePid]

2 hours ago, Schafheide said:

I recently broke my golden rule, when I hastily upgraded to Ventura!

Can someone recommend a simple, fool-proof method to downgrade my Mini M1 to Monterey?

What broke when you upgraded to Ventura?

[MikePid]

Just updated MMM1 to Ventura.  Works fine.

[MikePid]

I'm running MMM1 with DSD256 using any of the ECx modulators (currently deciding between ECv3 and EC-super) and almost all filters, plus Roon core for about a year.  The optimizations in HQPlayer keep getting better.  Currently using about 1/4-1/3 of the CPU, and no fan noise.  My library only has about 1000 albums, and I don't do convolution, but I do use Pipeline and speaker channel balance sometimes.  I only have 8GB RAM, and has never been an issue for my setup, but some people say they need 16GB in their setup.   I've turned off most MacOS services, but probably that doesn't matter any more.  When I first got my MMM1 a year and a half ago, DSD256 with EC and ext2 was pushing it to the limit (without Roon), but now it is no sweat.

 

You'll need an NAA if you want to do native DSD rather than DoP.

[MikePid]

Hmm, maybe it is time to rename the thread to HQPlayer 5 and Mac Mx? 😉

 

I just ran a quick test.  My system is the mighty yet humble MMM1 with 8GB RAM, into EtherREGEN then UltraRendu (similar to @Schafheide.  DAC is ESS9038Pro-based.  MMM1 is on latest Ventura, and I just updated to HQP 5.0.2.  Roon Core is running on MMM1 too.  Cables are Ghent CAT8 JSSG360 from MMM1 to ER then Sablon 2020 CAT8 to UR, and Inakustik Referenz USB to DAC.  No issues with playback or pausing with any input rates, and amazingly low CPU loads for HQP doing DSD256x44/5ECv3/poly-sinc-gauss-long.  Buffer is default.

- 44k: 240%

- 48k: 300%

- 88k: 240%

- 96k: 300%

- 192K: 400%

- DSD64: 250%

- DSD128: 260%

 

Almost no load on efficiency cores except 48k-based.  With 192k, the extra CPU was offloaded to the efficiency cores, meaning the performance cores were doing not much more than for 44k.  

 

Truly amazing work by @Miska to optimize HQPlayer for Apple Silicon!  It wasn't that long ago that DSD256 with regular EC and ext was an unachievable holy grail, now even heavier modulators and filters are easily achieved.

[MikePid]

16 hours ago, Markus8 said:

So running Roon (with a small library) and HQPlayer (latest version) with a convolution filter and Upsampling to 192/24 PCM should be fine with a M2 Pro with 16GB RAM ?

I'm running HQPlayer and Roon on a Mac Mini M1 with 8GB with no issues upsampling to DSD256x44 with most filters, using EC-Super. I am not doing convolution though. Mostly streaming though, including Qobuz 192/24.