Building NAA for HQplayer

[Miska]

1 hour ago, kwatch said:

I like to build Windows NAA for HQplayer but I don't know where to start.  Please provide me an instruction.

 

I would avoid using Windows for NAA unless you have a specific reason to do so.

 

Best is to just boot up NAA OS image.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, kwatch said:

I'm still lost. Where can I get the OS image how to install?

 

From the "images" folder on NAA downloads. And then you extract the 7-Zip archive and write the .img image on a USB memory stick using balenaEtcher or similar. And then boot up from it.

 

[Miska]

Idea of NAA is to be low power passive cooled device. The NAA software module itself is very light weight.

 

[Miska]

On 12/18/2021 at 6:20 AM, ericuco said:

That is why the fitlet2 with a fiber optic port is so appealing. A fitlet2 with Linux Mint pre-installed, a few commands to install HQP NAA software and you are up and running with a headless device that is easily accessed from any other computer (Windows) you have.

 

But if you have GUI running there, it kind of works against the idea of NAA... Like why you have NAA in first place, if it then has all graphics stuff...

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, kwatch said:

Can someone tell me what are the maximum PCM and DSD rates that I can output with the NAA on Atom Z8350 using the USB out?  My DAC(Holo Audio Spring 3 KTE) can do 1.536M PCM and DSD 64-512X(DOP).

 

1.5M PCM and DSD1024. No reason to use DoP.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, dericchan1 said:

I have a silly question. Pretty much any SBCs, NUCs can be used as a NAA. (i read some folks are even using a NUC i7 as a NAA and claiming sound quality is better!!!)

I understand that with the fitlet2 you are getting the potential benefit of a SFP+ connection from switch to NAA. Are there any reason(s) why one NAA i.e. say a intel NUC, a Raspberry Pi4,  UP, or say a fitlet2 without the SFP+ module would necessarily sound different or one better than the other per say?

 

Apart from allowing processing and output to happen at physically different places, point of NAA is mostly to deal with ground currents and minimal interference USB output. Low power devices tend to be acoustically and electrically quieter.

 

How much it makes difference in the system's analog output signal depends a lot on the overall system setup. Such as how much USB isolation the DAC has, overall grounding layout, etc.

 

[Miska]

20 hours ago, giordy60 said:

I use this fitletb with image 4.1.1 (but I don't remember other specifics)
the question is this: with 4.1.3 which one is preferable to use?

 

If you've used NAA OS images before, "ramfs" one is like the earlier ones. While the regular one is just like the RasPi4 image for example.

 

If you don't use input features, you don't need to update.

[Miska]

2 hours ago, pis99 said:

The UP squared are all back ordered. Am I good to go with the 2GB memory version instead of the 4GB?  
 

 UP-Board 2GB RAM+32GB eMMC with Case/Power Adapter

 

For the regular (non-ramfs one), likely yes. But for the ramfs one it is probably too tight.

 

There is a lot of data on the filesystem that takes space but is not going to be used in any single system. So RAM usage between the two images is pretty different.

 

[Miska]

17 hours ago, dekipeki said:

Hello, I would like to connect my powerful computer running windows 10 , roon bridge and hqplayer in room A to my standard windows 10 computer in room B connected to my dac and amp and also running Roon with my library on an attached ssd drive

 

The 2 computers are physicaly connected with etjernet cable to the same internal network powered by orbi netgear repeaters (wifi 6)

 

I just downloaded naa for windows and run it with admin on computer in room A

I launched naa on computer B with dac on and connected with usb cable

 

Well in room B I launched hqplayer but it cant find naa endoint in settings ...

 

On computer in room A I can see the attached screen in cmd line

 

It is not working...

 

How is it possible to makenit work in my config ?

 

I deactivated the windows firewall and didnt help. Even the antivirus didnt help either. Thank you so much if you can help ! I cannoct connect computer A to B with etjernet cable, they are too far apart... :-(

 

Deki

 

If your DAC is in B, then you run networkaudiod at B. And HQPlayer at A.

 

Does your DAC have ASIO driver and is it installed?

 

Note that Roon Bridge shouldn't be running simultaneously.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, dekipeki said:

Problem 2

In room A, I have another Dac (marantz hd dac 1) with it's asio driver installed and connected with USB to the powerful computer running hqplayer and have a strange behavior: when I power my DAC Hqplayer won't connect to the asio driver of the dac.

 

I always need to connect the Wasapi Driver first (limited to 192K)  through hqplayer setup to be able to then reset it to the Asio driver (going up to DSD 128). As if the activation of the Wasapi driver "wakes up" the Asio driver saying "hey Asio you have to wake up ! ":-)

 

Did you ever hear about/encopunter such an issue ? It is not specific to hqplayer I think, as Roon by itself (Roon bridge in my case) says that it can't get it's hand on the asio driver ...

 

I have Marantz HD DAC 1 as well, but I don't even remember anymore if I have ever tried it's ASIO driver (or the device with Windows in general). Have they made any updates to the driver recently? Maybe some Windows update has messed it up. You can also try to reinstall the driver. Since Windows now comes with UAC2 driver (since Windows 10 update), it sometimes "steals" the DAC first before the DAC's own driver is loaded. When that happens, ASIO driver naturally doesn't work.

 

It works faultless nowadays with Linux though. Initially it took some time to gain native DSD support on Linux.

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, dekipeki said:

3) Then I lauched hqplayer on computer A and tried to set up connexion to naa on computer B, but when I choose NAA I can see no device avalaible ...

 

The DAC in question has ASIO driver? If not, you need to change networkaudiod's backend to WASAPI by modifying the startup .bat

 

Either computer has more than one network interface enabled? Please see Control Panel -> Network -> Manage Network Interfaces

 

Also check that network type for both machines is "internal network" instead of "public network". Otherwise firewall would be blocking traffic.

 

1 hour ago, dekipeki said:

Maybee boot the NAA image from a usb key on computer B and move Roon core to computer A. But I guess it is not optimal to run Roon and hqplayer on the same computer even if it is powerful ?

 

Typically NAA is a low power device without anything else running than NAA. I would run Roon on the same machine as HQPlayer rather than on the same machine with NAA.

 

You could just try NAA OS and/or HQPlayer OS on your NAA machine first, without moving any Roon things just to see if it works that way or not.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, dekipeki said:

I found a workaround for this problem, in fact it was Roon Bridge "stealing" the Asio Output. Just by deactivating Bridge it solves the problem and I can directly access to the asio driver from hqplayer after powering the dac. But well if I want to use the Bridge functionality to play directly on the DAC I still have to perform the older workaround by connecting the Wasapi Driver and then switching back to Asio ...

 

You need to disable the DAC from Roon if you use HQPlayer with Roon. Otherwise the two will conflict, this is documented on the official Roon HQPlayer instructions page.

 

[Miska]

12 hours ago, dekipeki said:

Then the boot from the flash drive seemed like it was successful but stopped at a login request

(1st image beelow)

 

That's how it is supposed to be. When it ends up there,  it is ready for use. I don't even have any displays connected to my NAAs.

 

12 hours ago, dekipeki said:

When turning the dac on or off nothing happened on the screen (it stayed on login) but I was able to see the naa on the other computer in the "Output Devices Settings" screen when selecting the NetworkAudioAdapter backend setup but it was not referenced as usb port, ... so I dont know if that would work ?

 

There is usually no extra messages, it just sits on the login prompt, with NAA service running in the background along with few other OS services.

 

Most of those messages are related to the onboard audio in NUC.

 

12 hours ago, dekipeki said:

What could be the problem on the first machine ? (An elitedesk HP usff) while the successfull one is an Intel NUC 11

 

All seem good to me, on both.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, dekipeki said:

I was wondering if there could be a gain by flashing the naa image on a usb 3 flash drive rather than on a usb 2 one (as I did) ? 

 

It will only have some effect on the time it takes to boot up the system. So with a fast USB3 drive, you may be able to get something like 1 - 2 seconds off.

 

If you want to optimize, use USB stick that has metal cover. For lowest noise boot up storage, use microSD card and a small USB microSD adapter, preferably a metal case one.

 

[Miska]

14 hours ago, dekipeki said:

What could be the reason for the repeated pauses while listening on the naa side ? (obviously some network related stuff) what should I look for to troubleshoot and improve that ? 

 

Depends on the NAA, but one possible cause is that 802.3x Flow Control has not become active. Having more information about the network setup would help figuring out possible reasons.

 

[Miska]

On 4/21/2023 at 1:01 PM, dekipeki said:

Hello Miska ! Here is my network config ...

 

This is pretty straightforward and should work fine as such.

 

Are the dropouts frequent/systematic? Or more randomly spaced? How frequent?

 

WiFi can be unpredictable at times, especially depending on nearby neighbourhood. But then there can be other aspects as well in high speed network, such as as flow control issues.

 

It is also beneficial to check through locally connected DAC with the same settings, that speed of the HQPlayer computer is not the limiting factor. Other tasks (such as Roon), running on the same machine as HQPlayer can also make a difference.

 

[Miska]

7 hours ago, dekipeki said:

By the way, It is such a pitty that the hqplayer app doesn't allow Qobuz access, in that case I wouldn't need Roon. In fact I mostly use Roon because it is simple to integrate Parmetric Eq's for my different headphones.

 

What do you mean? HQPlayer does support Qobuz natively.

 

7 hours ago, dekipeki said:

The situation was better when I inserted a router that has flow control enabled (the famous buffalo BS GS2008)

 

Yes, having proper 802.3x flow control is pretty much mandatory. Otherwise there is too much packet loss and resends.

 

7 hours ago, dekipeki said:

I also ried to play with the buffer time in hqplayer settings, putting it too high a value (250ms) had not the desired effect on the contrary, 100ms looked like the safest bet...

 

You should normally leave it default. If the network is  challenging, using lower values like 10 ms may help.

 

7 hours ago, dekipeki said:

Another thing that I experienced is when I installed a VPN software I was not able anymore to see the NAA in "Room 3" from hqplayer in Room 2- The VPN software wasn't active but it was running in the background. After uninstalling it I could see the NAA again ...

 

Yes, that is quite usual, as the VPN has default route or higher priority (lower metric) and discovery multicasts end up there instead of local network.

 

[Miska]

6 hours ago, cpcat said:

Any ideas?

 

Sounds like USB packet loss or similar issue between the source and the DAC.

 

USB packet contains 125 microseconds of data, having such packet lost results in sounds like dust particles on vinyl.

 

If clocking goes out of sync, then you have typically static overlay with the music. But it can also happen due to data loss.

 

[Miska]

3 hours ago, dekipeki said:

 

I was talking of the hqplayer control v4 android app.

 

That is a third party control app, I cannot comment much about what it does or doesn't support. That is up to Ales to decide.

 

3 hours ago, dekipeki said:

Not the standard hqplayer client app that is installed with hqplayer... of course being in another room than hqplayer wont allow me selecting and playing the desired songs on my NAA usb flash endpoint using the standard hqplayer client.

 

Of course it allows you to do precisely that.

 

[Miska]

16 hours ago, cpcat said:

I have searched the USB specs and can’t find much on DSD.  I assume since it is working it is ok- but why would USB 3.0 have packet loss and 2.0 would not?

 

Have you tried with different cables? What was the output device (sorry, I don't remember)? Cable issue is possible.

 

Another possible reason is some incompatibility between the USB 3 controller in fitlet2 SoC and the DAC's USB interface.

 

[Miska]

2 hours ago, cpcat said:

The DAC is Lampizator Big7 MKII with JLSounds usb board.   I use LMS/Daphile via upnp as server and a QNAP NAS.  The HQPe PC is Asus PN-51-s1 with AMD 5800u CPU, running Ubuntu 22.04 server minimal install -in a fanless Akasa case.  My network consists of cable modem, Netgear router, unmanaged switches, Netgear powerline adapters.

 

I don't know details of such setup. Is the QNAP acting as UPnP Media Server? If not, there are three network hops that matter. Is it like NAS -> LMS -> HQPlayer -> NAA?

 

JLSounds is very reliable and generally trouble free. I just recommend using USB HiSpeed Certified cables.

 

Likely tricky part are powerline adapters or wireless bridges which can have varying performance depending on the environment at the particular moment.

 

2 hours ago, cpcat said:

However, the issue has been intermittent which makes it even more difficult to isolate.

 

Biggest trouble makers for things like power line adapters and similar are anything with large electric motors and tube lights. Such as washing machines, AC, and similar. So when problems emerge, I would recommend to keep eye what is drawing current from the mains at that moment.

 

 

[Miska]

11 minutes ago, Schafheide said:

Maybe @Miska can say what improvements he was trying to achieve with the latest NAA ??  I can certainly see that the file size is considerably smaller than the previous version.

 

You mean just the networkaudiod software module? Not the whole OS?

 

On networkaudiod, most of the recent changes circulate around the input support. Plus some updates to CoreAudio and ASIO backends for example. I have also changed some thread priority assignments.

 

I have not heard of anyone using Rendu for input.

 

[Miska]

49 minutes ago, Schafheide said:

I mean the whole package, which is burnt to uSD, to replace the original uSD in the ultraRendu (ie the file NAA-440-cubox).

 

The OS has plenty of updates, like driver updates to support new devices, etc. This is sort of separate track from the networkaudiod module itself. For the very latest things, one can use HQPlayer OS image as a NAA too.

 

[Miska]

22 hours ago, SPAZ said:

I recently ordered a NOS DAC to replace my Yggy and I had a couple of questions. I will have two connections to the new DAC. One will be my gaming PC connected to the DAC with a USB cable. The other will be a Holo Audio Red connected to the AES port. Currently, the Roon library is running from my gaming pc. Does the Holo Audio Red have the ability to do the HQP filtering if I purchase the HQPlayer imbedded license or I would still need to have something in between to do the HQP filtering?

 

If you use AES and just 192k output rate, likely Red can run HQPlayer OS well enough for the purpose for most filters that would be useful for that case.

 

[Miska]

5 hours ago, giordy60 said:

Jussi one question.....
can this mini pc with intel atom Z8350 be a solution like NAA?
but above all the 5V power supply is interesting, which is not common in mini PCs (up-board type that you reported some time ago)

 

Potentially yes, but it could have some bugs. That is similar to the UP-Board hardware, but I would personally rather go with the UP-Board in the passive cooling metal case. These unknown brands can be unknown quality.

 

UP-Board is made by AAEON which is industrial computer division of ASUS.

 

On-Logic is another good industrial computer vendor with passive cooled solutions. They usually build on ASRock's industrial boards.