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

[Iving]

28 minutes ago, Miska said:

Can someone please explain what is the late 90's part in HQPlayer GUI? I've tried to make it pretty modern with transition animations and everything...

 

Politely - it's not how it looks - it's got to do with functionality. What can and can't be done from both the UIs (Desktop and/or Client).

 

It's evident over many years and on diverse threads here on AS that people care about this functionality deficit in different ways.

 

I'm one. I've expressed my views in outline via PM and here. I've got more systematic notes, and I'm happy to be part of a fuller discussion.

 

HQPlayer is a playback engine only for me. Everything else is done in foobar2000 - including finding and selecting music to play on any given day.

[Axiom05]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

 

As an update, Apple never open sourced the code that deals with the .m4a containers where ALAC is usually housed. They only opensourced the codec that deals with the content inside the container.

 

ALAC is practically Apple-only format not really used on any other platforms. Goes into same category as WMA on Windows. There are good truly open source cross-platform lossless formats such as FLAC and WavPack which are both supported by HQPlayer. And as they are all lossless, you can losslessly convert between these formats.

 

Not trying to be prickly, just trying to understand. I’ve used many different music players on both OSX and Linux and none of these players has an issue playing ALAC so it’s hard for me to understand why HQP is different.  That being said, what is the best way to batch convert ALAC files to flac?

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, Axiom05 said:

what is the best way to batch convert ALAC files to flac?

I use dBPoweramp. 

[Jud]

50 minutes ago, Axiom05 said:

Not trying to be prickly, just trying to understand. I’ve used many different music players on both OSX and Linux and none of these players has an issue playing ALAC so it’s hard for me to understand why HQP is different.  That being said, what is the best way to batch convert ALAC files to flac?

 

OSX and Linux have all sorts of different tools. On Linux you'd probably be using ffmpeg or a GUI. On OSX I like XLD.

 

You can also convert to AIFF, though that takes up more space since it's an uncompressed format.

[StreamFidelity]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

Can someone please explain what is the late 90's part in HQPlayer GUI? I've tried to make it pretty modern with transition animations and everything...

 

 

 

I am a big fan of the HQPlayer. But it concerns the engine, not the user interface.

 

Compared to Roon, the user interface is anachronistic. I get all favorites displayed, regardless of the format or whether streamed or on hard drive. I can play my entire library at once or only certain tags, genres, formats, composers, etc.

 

 

A lot of further information is offered to me about the album. When the album is over, Roon Radio continues to play with astonishing accuracy. So I've already discovered a few new albums.

 

 

Incidentally, I do not think that the HQPlayer plays better without Roon. The prerequisite is that Roon is not on the endpoint PC and that both applications work completely separately from each other. I switched off the audio analysis! I implemented it like this:

 

 

@Miska I think it's better if you keep focusing on the engine's algorithms. A program cannot do everything and it would be sad if the SQ worsened because of a better user interface.

[AudioDoctor]

3 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Can someone please explain what is the late 90's part in HQPlayer GUI? I've tried to make it pretty modern with transition animations and everything...

 

 

 

The interface is fine. It does what it needs to do and gets out of the way of the real purpose, playing music.

[davide256]

2 hours ago, Miska said:

 

Can someone please explain what is the late 90's part in HQPlayer GUI? I've tried to make it pretty modern with transition animations and everything...

 

 

 

Remember Windows 3.1... thats what the HQPlayer GUI feels like to me, menus boxes with text, no object oriented GUI representation. JRiver and Roon have it nailed

for library display with album cover grids, filter/sort order choice and metadata search. The only time you see a path box is when adding a new library location, otherwise

you are just scroll/paging through  library album objects  or a library search result to find what you want to play. HQPlayer embedded seems worse, you have

to know the qualified linux path, you don't get a directory hierarchy screen to help you discover the library path.

 

 

[davide256]

5 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

The interface is fine. It does what it needs to do and gets out of the way of the real purpose, playing music.

hmm, I'm now realizing that Miska actually has a separate client interface included with the desktop player install ... there is very little said about it to call it

to your attention with trial download. So I withdraw what I said  since the client interface does add graphical representation, want to try it with

existing HQPlayer embedded device. Does work with the windows desktop trial install

 

@Miska  how does one add a NAS music directory in HQPlayer embedded?  \\{NAS ip address}\music gives a success result but no albums display

                  

 

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, davide256 said:

for library display with album cover grids, filter/sort order choice and metadata search.

...

The only time you see a path box is when adding a new library location, otherwise

you are just scroll/paging through  library album objects  or a library search result to find what you want to play.

 

OK, so can you explain why this doesn't match above? What I find useful is that I can easily search for example for DSD64 content with search term "DSD64".

 

 

Quote

HQPlayer embedded seems worse, you have

to know the qualified linux path, you don't get a directory hierarchy screen to help you discover the library path.

 

This path is supposed to be prefilled by the hardware manufacturer where the storage mount point is. You don't need to know more about filesystem structure.

 

[Miska]

41 minutes ago, davide256 said:

 

@Miska  how does one add a NAS music directory in HQPlayer embedded?  \\{NAS ip address}\music gives a success result but no albums display

 

 

On HQPlayer OS, you have a link at bottom "NetworkShares" which appears under mount point "/smb" which you can scan for on "Library" page (should appear on the drop-list). On other OS it depends on the OS / device manufacturer.

 

41 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Miska actually has a separate client interface included with the desktop player install

 

Graphical player interface is separated completely from the server on HQPlayer v4, on purpose. HQPlayer Desktop server process GUI is as minimal as possible on purpose without eye candy to keep GPU and other graphics processing at minimum possible level. HQPlayer Embedded of course skips this GUI part completely and provides just a minimal web interface.

 

This is explained on the HQPlayer v4 quick start guide:

https://www.signalyst.com/quickstart.html

[davide256]

8 hours ago, Miska said:

 

On HQPlayer OS, you have a link at bottom "NetworkShares" which appears under mount point "/smb" which you can scan for on "Library" page (should appear on the drop-list). On other OS it depends on the OS / device manufacturer.

 

 

Graphical player interface is separated completely from the server on HQPlayer v4, on purpose. HQPlayer Desktop server process GUI is as minimal as possible on purpose without eye candy to keep GPU and other graphics processing at minimum possible level. HQPlayer Embedded of course skips this GUI part completely and provides just a minimal web interface.

 

This is explained on the HQPlayer v4 quick start guide:

https://www.signalyst.com/quickstart.html

Thanks! I've opened a ticket with Euphony support, will see if this can be made to work.

[stefano_mbp]

On 9/6/2021 at 11:42 AM, Miska said:

ALAC is practically Apple-only format not really used on any other platforms. Goes into same category as WMA on Windows. There are good truly open source cross-platform lossless formats such as FLAC and WavPack which are both supported by HQPlayer. And as they are all lossless, you can losslessly convert between these formats.

That’s true but having thousands of Alac files it could be a very tedious and time consuming task converting them, I agree that a conversion can be easily done in batch way but you loose metadata (for example XLD do not respect embedded metadata)

JRiver, Audirvana, MinimServer, moOde, Volumio and many other players on different OS do not have any difficulty with them … should be fine if you could reconsider your point of view

[rando]

On 9/6/2021 at 6:30 AM, Miska said:

Can someone please explain what is the late 90's part in HQPlayer GUI? I've tried to make it pretty modern with transition animations and everything...

 

You've come a long ways in this regard over recent years/iterations.  During which you rightly prioritized (testing, testing, testing...) cross platform stability and internal functionality, but most importantly SQ!  None of which is easy to accomplish in a 1/2/3 (I think you finally hired someone(s)?) man shop dealing with all the major OS environments.  

[Foggie]

On 9/3/2021 at 6:10 PM, jvvita said:

30 security cameras

Ahem, 30?😱  Do you have them in the bathrooms and closets too 😀

[jvvita]

Not quite.

 

But it is a 10,000 sq meters state. I like to have it pretty well guarded.

 

But in my listening room I do have 4 of those cameras...

[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.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, jiminlogansquare said:

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.

How did you end up controlling playback?

[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

[AudioDoctor]

27 minutes ago, jiminlogansquare said:

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.

 

Glad you have it working and are satisfied with the results.

[R1200CL]

31 minutes ago, jiminlogansquare said:

I await your article on how to disconnect Roon from HQPlayer with Qobuz

Qobuz is listed as Ravenna compatible, and so is HQplayer. So I think as long Anubis is in the chain, I would expect just to play from Caps 20. Or any other PC. If it’s possible via iPad as control will be interesting to learn. (Without RDT). 

I think it may be possible to configure the master clock by Linux, according to an old tread from 2016, but I don’t think it’s been done. Would be nice to discover a more reasonable priced way to implement the PPT master clock than the Anubis. 
 

46 minutes ago, jiminlogansquare said:

The same file played via Roon sounds dark and constrained and condensed and with a collapsed soundstage as compared to playback via HQPlayer.

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.

[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.  

[AudioDoctor]

1 minute ago, jiminlogansquare said:

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.)

 

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.

[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.

[AudioDoctor]

2 minutes ago, jiminlogansquare said:

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

 

For another gain in SQ, shut it down completely. I have been down this road.

[jvvita]

Should you want to try Qobuz through HQPlayer, I know of two methods that really works. 

 

The first one is use HQPlayer embedded and an app like mconnect or bubbleupnp (the latter is android only). Very easy to setup, but will envolve buying a HQPlayer embedded license. 

 

If you want to keep windows/mac, you have to use a virtual device, to which Qobuz will output and from which HQPlayer will retrieve the stream. For windows, look for VB virtual cable. For Mac, look for black hole. Both are freeware. 

 

This last method can pose some difficulties. I have successfully made it work, so should you have questions, just ask.