I have had it with Roon, their lack of support, their user forum, and it's users...

[jiminlogansquare]

OK, as a Roon + HQPlayer user, I have questions. I utilize convolution filters generated by @mitchco via Roon. This allows me to apply those filters to Qobuz streaming content, which nowadays is about 95% of what I listen to. 
 

(1) How do I use my existing convolution filters, created for use with Roon, in HQPlayer without utilizing Roon?

 

(2) How do a I listen to Qobuz streaming through HQPlayer without utilizing Roon?

[jiminlogansquare]

Is there some guidance available on how to load convolution filters created via Audiolense for use with Roon into HQPlayer? I certainly would utilize HQPlayer without Roon to play my local files (I have a lot of them!), if I knew how to apply my convolution filters via HQPlayer without Roon.

[jiminlogansquare]

Also, I just now tried loading my local files into HQPlayer embedded. I provided the path on my sonicTransporter where all of my files reside. HQPlayer told me to wait 10 seconds, and then ... only 75 of my 1,000+ albums got imported. 

[jiminlogansquare]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

 

Are those in one of the supported formats?

 

Ah, I think that could be the issue. The vast majority of my music files are ALAC/M4A format. I moved to Roon from an iTunes setup. That occurred so long ago, I had forgotten that detail.

[jiminlogansquare]

I want to offer thanks to everyone here who helped me move my convolution filters to HQPlayer from Roon and also to get my local library playing through HQPlayer rather than Roon. The SQ improvements from each of these changes were significant. The first, because it freed up processing time in my server's CPU to allow me to access the more refined sound of poly-sinc-ext3 even with high sample rate files. The second - and much more important - because playing the same file through HQPlayer rather than Roon simply opens up the sound dramatically and in ways I didn't think possible. The same file played via Roon sounds dark and constrained and condensed and with a collapsed soundstage as compared to playback via HQPlayer. So, while I have been a vocal advocate for Roon, and still see its value as a tool for exploration of new music as well as powering the little mono speakers that reside throughout my home on my network, I am going to have to say that serious listening might have to exclude the use of Roon and instead focus on listening to downloaded files via HQPlayer.

[jiminlogansquare]

So far, I continue to utilize Roon + HQPlayer for Qobuz streaming. (I await your article on how to disconnect Roon from HQPlayer with Qobuz). Local files I am playing via HQPlayer embedded, without Roon, controlled via HQPDcontrol v4

[jiminlogansquare]

20 hours ago, R1200CL said:

I wish there was a logical explanation to this. After all the file is transferred over network to an endpoint, right? 
And we are talking about Roon + HQplayer vs only HQplayer ? So it applies to local content only ?

I must check out this HQPDcontrol v4. I hope I can use it against my HQplayer installed on my Sonictransporter.

I don't get it, either, but the difference is readily apparent. And if I have any bias, it would be AGAINST this result. I would greatly prefer the convenience of using Roon as my one and only playback application. If the SQ improvement of removing Roon from the equation for local files weren't so compelling, I wouldn't bother with the added complication of a second app on my phone, that's for sure. I am inherently lazy. But this improvement is worth the effort to me.  
 

To answer your specific questions:

 

1. Yes, the file is transferred over network to the endpoint, specifically via optical fiber from sonicTransporter to opticalRendu, which appears to HQPlayer as an NAA.

2. Yes, we are talking about a comparison of Roon+HQPlayer vs. HQPlayer alone, with respect to my local audio files. I anxiously await Chris's article explaining a method for streaming Qobuz directly through HQPlayer without involving Roon, however!
3. Yes, my comments about SQ improvement by going direct to HQPlayer vs. Roon+HQPlayer relate to local content only and not to streaming content ... YET. (See 2., above.)

 

Finally, you should be able to utilize HQPDcontrol v4 with HQPlayer on your sonicTransporter... that is precisely the configuration I am using now.  

[jiminlogansquare]

Just now, AudioDoctor said:

 

Was Roon completely off or just not being used?  I found it effected the sound even when sitting idle so I would issue a command to stop it completely on my server. This was before I moved Roon to a separate machine of course.

Roon was just not being used. I have turned off the background audio analysis features.

[jiminlogansquare]

7 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

I do still use Roon for casual listening. I also maintain two separate libraries. One for Roon on an external disk connected to an M1 mini and the HQPlayer library which is inside that machine. I keep them in sync using Forklift on the Mac.

I will probably move toward Roon for casual listening only, which in my case means internet radio and Qobuz via the BlueSound speakers hidden around my house.

 

I have a lifetime subscription to Roon that long ago paid for itself, and I am perfectly OK with relegating it to "lifestyle product" for listening to over cocktails or while chopping celery in the kitchen.

 

But I do relish the idea of listening to Qobuz on my main system without Roon.

[jiminlogansquare]

So. I have been trying to move over to HQPlayer played via HQPDControl v4. It has mostly worked. But the app is simply failing to locate and add files. For example, tonight I purchased Samara Joy's album from Qobuz, and I loaded the files into my music directory on my server (sonicTransporter I9 optical) exactly where all my other local music files are stored. Roon found those files immediately and asked whether I wanted to make this the primary version. All well and good. But shouldn't HQPDcontrol v4 have found these files and added them to its folder for playback? And now that I think about it, there are any number of other albums stored in the directory that I told HQODcontrol to monitor that are nowhere to be seen. What's up?

[jiminlogansquare]

Thank you, but this doesn't work. In fact, the last two times I did this, a couple of albums just disappeared. 

[jiminlogansquare]

1 minute ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Ok, let me think about this for a bit. I have had issues like this before. I need to remember how I solved it.

Thanks. The fact is, literally hundreds of albums disappeared when I moved from Roon to HQPlayer. 

[jiminlogansquare]

"Clean Scan" is checked

[jiminlogansquare]

Also, the HQPD app totally screwed up the album art, such that often it's just a random event what actually gets played when I click on an album cover. It's kind of dispiriting. The SQ is great! But it's kind of worthless as a playback device. 

[jiminlogansquare]

That said, I can access all my albums in a web browser pointed at HQPlayer using my iPad. Oh, vey.

[jiminlogansquare]

Just an example. I click on the album art for this album by avante garde soprano Bethany Beardslee and instead get an album of jazz standards 

 

 

[jiminlogansquare]

I guess I do  not know. I converted all my ALAC files to FLAC in order to get them to work with HQPlayer. Now I feel like I did myself a terrible disfavor. I think I might have destroyed much of my metadata in that conversion using dbPoweramp.  But you know what? I really don't care. This is a hobby. No lives depend on the results of how I sort my digital music library. Thanks to all of you who have att3mpted to help me. I really should have made a backup file before batch conversion of my music files. This one is on me

[jiminlogansquare]

5 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

I feel bad asking... but are you sure the cover art is correct in the file? That is where HQPPlayer and HQPD pull it from.

FWIW, Roon gets it right:

 

 

[jiminlogansquare]

Thanks, all. The answer seems to be to utilize HQPlayer via a web browser rather than the HQDPcintrol v4 app. 

[jiminlogansquare]

1 minute ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

You have a back up, right?

Yes, uploaded to a server. But turns out not to be an issue. 

[jiminlogansquare]

Eh, at this point I have to just say, any problem is a result of my own poor choices. Thanks for trying to help me.  If anybody wants to remote in an try to really understand from a technical perspective what my problems are and attempt to solve them, I would of course be indebted. 

[jiminlogansquare]

Well, power cycling my iPod seems to have been the fix that waited for us to try.  Always power cycle, guys. Anyway, the Samara Joy album magically got picked up by the HQPDcontrol app after I power-cycled the iPad that I use to control my stereo. Good grief. Thanks again, everybody

[jiminlogansquare]

I really can’t say. Not a satisfying answer, I am sure, but I have relied on Roon for the past five or so years, which pulls in its own metadata from online sources. I really can’t say today what metadata I encoded with those files, the vast majority of which are five to ten years old and predate my use of Roon.

 

To answer the question with certainty would require me to pull together the old ALAC backups and review the metadata to compare to the metadata on the files after they got converted to FLAC by dbPoweramp.

 

What I can say without further analysis is that album art has disappeared from many of the albums when sorted via HQPlayer Linux embedded’s in-browser player and on the HQPDControl iOS app. There could be other reasons for this than stripping of metadata.
 

My many-years’ dependence upon Roon as a source for metadata is a huge confounding factor here. I am just sort of accepting the situation for the time being at least, because I can still see and play albums from the list view in the iOS app (under the “Dirs” tab).