HQPlayer Embedded & Ravenna Issue

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi @Miska I'm running the hqplayer-embedded-ravenna-4.29.3-x64gen image on my CAPS20 machine and attempting to send audio to a Merging Anubis. I'm getting not audio output and all kinds of errors. Zero errors in the HQP log, but many in the Merging Aneman log and on the CAPS20 display. 

 

I have something similar working with an Aurender and the Anubis. I just changed the input within Aneman from the Aurender to the HQPe machine. 

 

Any idea what's going on ?

 

[Miska]

9 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Any idea what's going on ?

 

No idea...

 

[bodiebill]

@The Computer Audiophile

 

Did you succeed getting HQP 4 Embedded to work with Merging Ravenna?

Here it works well with HQP 4 Desktop for Windows, however with the same setup and HQP settings I am getting no sound with HQP 4 Embedded. Maybe I am missing something?

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, bodiebill said:

@The Computer Audiophile

 

Did you succeed getting HQP 4 Embedded to work with Merging Ravenna?

Here it works well with HQP 4 Desktop for Windows, however with the same setup and HQP settings I am getting no sound with HQP 4 Embedded. Maybe I am missing something?

I gave up on it for the time being. I'll circle back one of these days. 

[bodiebill]

28 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I gave up on it for the time being. I'll circle back one of these days. 

 

Thanks. I will report any progress here. I also asked Jussi.

[El Guapo]

11 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Did you succeed getting HQP 4 Embedded to work with Merging Ravenna?

I did but using different way (I built the Ravenna kernel module on my i9 server). You can try output PCM first. If sounds coming out then switch to SDM.

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, El Guapo said:

I did but using different way (I built the Ravenna kernel module on my i9 server). You can try output PCM first. If sounds coming out then switch to SDM.

 

Thanks! I am running hqplayer-embedded-ravenna-4.32.4-x64avx2 and was assuming Ravenna ALSA is already installed. Or maybe I still need to setup the Ravenna driver (Linux Kernel Module) as per

https://github.com/dewiweb/ALSA-RAVENNA-AES67-Driver

I will experiment a bit more. I cannot find much on the web and understand that Jussi's Ravenna support is limited as this is mostly used by professionals.

[Miska]

52 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

Thanks! I am running hqplayer-embedded-ravenna-4.32.4-x64avx2 and was assuming Ravenna ALSA is already installed.

 

It has driver pre-installed, no need to install anything there.

 

Did  you check with ANEMAN that your RAVENNA device is set up as master clock and that HQPlayer belongs to the same clock domain? Then establish unicast channel connections between HQPlayer and your DAC.

 

Any errors in ANEMAN?

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

It has driver pre-installed, no need to install anything there.

 

Did  you check with ANEMAN that your RAVENNA device is set up as master clock and that HQPlayer belongs to the same clock domain? Then establish unicast channel connections between HQPlayer and your DAC.

 

Any errors in ANEMAN?

 

Thanks Jussi. For the lack of a managed switch I have a direct connection (so not on the home network) between the PC (which has 2 NICs) and the Hapi. I can only 'see' the Hapi and use Aneman from Windows, not when I boot into HQPE. So it looks like a catch-22? 

 

[El Guapo]

28 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

I can only 'see' the Hapi and use Aneman from Windows, not when I boot into HQPE.

When running HQPlayer OS / Ravenna edition you need a switch + another PC or Mac to run ANEMAN to manage the audio route. Hapi has 2 RJ45 ports (act as switch) so just find a PC or Mac to connect to it.

[bodiebill]

22 minutes ago, El Guapo said:

When running HQPlayer OS / Ravenna edition you need a switch + another PC or Mac to run ANEMAN to manage the audio route.

 

I understand. But that seems impossible without a managed switch, because of the direct connection between HQPE and the Hapi. And I have been reluctant to buy such a switch as I was told that the direct connection sounds better.

[Miska]

11 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Thanks Jussi. For the lack of a managed switch I have a direct connection (so not on the home network) between the PC (which has 2 NICs) and the Hapi. I can only 'see' the Hapi and use Aneman from Windows, not when I boot into HQPE. So it looks like a catch-22? 

 

You don't need a managed switch or direct connection to use Hapi... I have Hapi on my regular network with everything else on the same network. I do have managed switches, but I haven't made any special configurations for RAVENNA use.

 

10 hours ago, bodiebill said:

because of the direct connection between HQPE and the Hapi

 

Why direct connection?

 

10 hours ago, bodiebill said:

And I have been reluctant to buy such a switch as I was told that the direct connection sounds better.

 

This is some strange myth without any technical basis...

 

[bodiebill]

1 hour ago, Miska said:

You don't need a managed switch or direct connection to use Hapi... I have Hapi on my regular network with everything else on the same network. I do have managed switches, but I haven't made any special configurations for RAVENNA use.

 

Why direct connection?

 

This is some strange myth without any technical basis...

 

Thanks Jussi, the wake up call is appreciated! I attached the Hapi to the modem-router, installed HQPE and Ravenna on GentooPlayer and MAD and Aneman on a NUC with Windows and the latter discovered the Ravenna ALSA driver and the Hapi. There is music!

[Miska]

8 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

Thanks Jussi, the wake up call is appreciated! I attached the Hapi to the modem-router, installed HQPE and Ravenna on GentooPlayer and MAD and Aneman on a NUC with Windows and the latter discovered the Ravenna ALSA driver and the Hapi. There is music!

 

Just remember to create unicast streams on ANEMAN when establishing channel connection. This way it won't flood your entire network with multicast audio!

 

Multicast would be useful only if you need to send same streams to multiple Hapi's for example.

 

[bodiebill]

5 minutes ago, Miska said:

Just remember to create unicast streams on ANEMAN when establishing channel connection. This way it won't flood your entire network with multicast audio!

 

Multicast would be useful only if you need to send same streams to multiple Hapi's for example.

 

Yes, Unicast only in my 'simple' setup with just one Merging device.

Though nothing is simple plug and play with Ravenna... Stuff for tweakers indeed.

Glad I have some results before putting my head to rest.

Thanks all for your help!

[bodiebill]

Although the connections exist in Aneman and the music is playing with HQPE, the MAD panel says "MAD is not connected to any device" and in Aneman the ALSA device is shown with a question mark and there is an error "Receiver in Error" (error 132, "indicating that no packet is received (no streamer? improper IGMP rooting?)").

Maybe this is because MAD and Aneman are designed for ASIO, not for ALSA? Also, the ALSA receiver error may not be relevant as I am using ALSA as a sender, not receiver?

 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Although the connections exist in Aneman and the music is playing with HQPE, the MAD panel says "MAD is not connected to any device" and in Aneman the ALSA device is shown with a question mark and there is an error "Receiver in Error" (error 132, "indicating that no packet is received (no streamer? improper IGMP rooting?)").

Maybe this is because MAD and Aneman are designed for ASIO, not for ALSA? Also, the ALSA receiver error may not be relevant as I am using ALSA as a sender, not receiver?

 

 

I’ve been down this road a million times :~)

 

Try clicking on the orange squares, deleting the connection, and re-adding it. 
 

Or, try playing music. With Linux devices sometimes they appear orange when no music is playing. 
 

The question mark is only an icon. Don’t worry. 
 

Make sure the sample rate of all devices is the same. 
 

What is your ASIO host setting, when you expand the MAD driver panel?

[El Guapo]

4 hours ago, bodiebill said:

the ALSA receiver error may not be relevant as I am using ALSA as a sender, not receiver?

Merging support answered me:

The described behavior is due to the choice to stop the stream when nothing is played. The choice was motivated to reduce power consumption when no audio need to go out.

 

The MAD and VAD always keep sending data over Ravenna network even no audio played. So the bright side for the orange error is you can have quieter network traffic.😆

[bodiebill]

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I’ve been down this road a million times :~)

Does not sound promising :-|

 

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Try clicking on the orange squares, deleting the connection, and re-adding it. 

Yes did that a few times already, especially after switching from Ravenna to AES (with SDTrans384 as source) or spdif (for watching movies etc.) and back.

 

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Or, try playing music. With Linux devices sometimes they appear orange when no music is playing. 

Indeed I noticed that in spite of things that look like errors, playing music does help. This is probably related to what @El Guapo mentions in his post.

 

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

The question mark is only an icon. Don’t worry. 

Thanks, good to know.

 

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Make sure the sample rate of all devices is the same. 

Yes I did: same in MAD, Hapi web interface and Aneman S/R zone.

 

3 hours ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

What is your ASIO host setting, when you expand the MAD driver panel?

See below.

'Rob Pap' (author of PureAsioPlayer and the one who recommended the Hapi) advised I could put the S/R at 44.1 even though I mostly play DSD. The Hapi internally corrects this to DSD/DXD. Rob kindly supports me by answering my many questions and doing remote sessions if needed. He does not have experience though with Ravenna + Linux.  

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Does not sound promising :-|

 

Yes did that a few times already, especially after switching from Ravenna to AES (with SDTrans384 as source) or spdif (for watching movies etc.) and back.

 

Indeed I noticed that in spite of things that look like errors, playing music does help. This is probably related to what @El Guapo mentions in his post.

 

Thanks, good to know.

 

Yes I did: same in MAD, Hapi web interface and Aneman S/R zone.

 

See below.

'Rob Pap' (author of PureAsioPlayer and the one who recommended the Hapi) advised I could put the S/R at 44.1 even though I mostly play DSD. The Hapi internally corrects this to DSD/DXD. Rob kindly supports me by answering my many questions and doing remote sessions if needed. He does not have experience though with Ravenna + Linux.  

 

 

Don't get too worried I've run into issues a million times because I'm constantly changing things around, trying different configurations, and different products etc. I break things, so you don't have to and if you do, I can help fix them :~)

 

The Master Audio host could get interesting at the default setting. This means that any of the devices can set the sample rate I ran into some strangeness with this, but likely because I have more than one device sending audio to my Anubis and HAPI Mk2 via Ravenna. I'd play something and the sample rate would change, then I'd open my laptop and the rate would change because that wasn't in sync etc... It got strange. 

 

It would be great if you could set the Gentoo player as the ASIO host, but it's on another PC, so you can't.

 

DSD can only be set by the Master ASIO host if it's an application, not the MAD device driver. I'm guessing you'll be fine if it's set by Gentoo but I've only done this by setting HQPlayer as the Master ASIO host or another app. 

 

I ran into an issue where I'd hear little pops once in a while at 352..8 kHz. After trying everything under the sun, I switched from an Intel NIC on my motherboard (should've been perfect) to an add-in PCIe 10Gbps card (I know, not officially supported), and everything works perfect.. 

[Miska]

10 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Although the connections exist in Aneman and the music is playing with HQPE, the MAD panel says "MAD is not connected to any device" and in Aneman the ALSA device is shown with a question mark and there is an error "Receiver in Error" (error 132, "indicating that no packet is received (no streamer? improper IGMP rooting?)").

Maybe this is because MAD and Aneman are designed for ASIO, not for ALSA? Also, the ALSA receiver error may not be relevant as I am using ALSA as a sender, not receiver?

 

MAD (Merging Audio Device) is not in use on your Mac, because it is not involved in the playback. IOW, the CoreAudio driver is not being used.

 

10 hours ago, bodiebill said:

 

 

One issue I spot here is that you have ALSA as clock master and Hapi as clock slave.  They correctly share the clock domain though. You should drag Hapi to the top to have "crown". But otherwise looks fine to me.

 

You may have some input connection - hence ALSA receiver that is not working. ADC or AES input or such.

 

[bodiebill]

25 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

Don't get too worried I've run into issues a million times because I'm constantly changing things around, trying different configurations, and different products etc. I break things, so you don't have to and if you do, I can help fix them :~)

 

The Master Audio host could get interesting at the default setting. This means that any of the devices can set the sample rate I ran into some strangeness with this, but likely because I have more than one device sending audio to my Anubis and HAPI Mk2 via Ravenna. I'd play something and the sample rate would change, then I'd open my laptop and the rate would change because that wasn't in sync etc... It got strange. 

 

It would be great if you could set the Gentoo player as the ASIO host, but it's on another PC, so you can't.

 

DSD can only be set by the Master ASIO host if it's an application, not the MAD device driver. I'm guessing you'll be fine if it's set by Gentoo but I've only done this by setting HQPlayer as the Master ASIO host or another app. 

 

I ran into an issue where I'd hear little pops once in a while at 352..8 kHz. After trying everything under the sun, I switched from an Intel NIC on my motherboard (should've been perfect) to an add-in PCIe 10Gbps card (I know, not officially supported), and everything works perfect.. 

 

Steep learning curve, nice!

 

You say you set HQP as Master ASIO, but I do not see how I could that here as it does not appear in Aneman. Which makes sense as in my case it is on another PC (on the NUC with GentooPlayer). So far no pops or dropouts with i7-9700K, sinc-M, ASDMEC7v2 and DSD256. It is quite a relief that the Merging DACs go no higher than DSD256 as that saves me from taking part in the battle of the giants for PC optimization :-)

[El Guapo]

3 hours ago, bodiebill said:

Indeed I noticed that in spite of things that look like errors, playing music does help.

I forgot to mention please check the configuration file:

merging_ravenna_daemon.conf

 

you need to configure the frame size at 1fs to match your Hapi’s frame setting (here I use Ravenna’s 64 but if you use AES67 please change to 48):

tic_frame_size_at_1fs=64

and also if you want to put the ALSA on crown position, please also verify this line to the desired sample rate zone:
default_sample_rate=352800

 

after changing the conf file restart the Ravenna daemon.

[bodiebill]

44 minutes ago, Miska said:

 

MAD (Merging Audio Device) is not in use on your Mac, because it is not involved in the playback. IOW, the CoreAudio driver is not being used.

Ah that makes sense (substituting Windows for Mac in my case).

 

44 minutes ago, Miska said:

One issue I spot here is that you have ALSA as clock master and Hapi as clock slave.  They correctly share the clock domain though. You should drag Hapi to the top to have "crown". But otherwise looks fine to me.

From the examples I saw I assumed that the ASIO or ALSA should always go in the crown and not the Hapi, but I now realize that it means that the crowned device is the Master in the sense that the other devices follow its S/R. So I reversed it and crowned the Hapi. Which seems to make sense as I am feeding the Hapi with an external WCK signal as follows:

Afterdark Emperor Double Crown (we are getting more royal every day) --> 10 MHz 75 Ohm --> Audio-gd DI-20HE WCK out 50 Ohm --> Hapi WCK in 75 Ohm.

 

The latter does not look ideal but already seems a small step up from Hapi's internal clock.

I am considering either to convert the WCK on the Audio-gd to 75 Ohm or get me a Gustard c2 magical clock cable that is said to be insensitive to the 50/75 Ohm discrepancy. Not that I can explain how this cable works...

 

 

 

[bodiebill]

50 minutes ago, El Guapo said:

I forgot to mention please check the configuration file:

merging_ravenna_daemon.conf

 

you need to configure the frame size at 1fs to match your Hapi’s frame setting (here I use Ravenna’s 64 but if you use AES67 please change to 48):

tic_frame_size_at_1fs=64

and also if you want to put the ALSA on crown position, please also verify this line to the desired sample rate zone:
default_sample_rate=352800

 

I cannot say that I fully understand, but I checked in the Hapi advanced setting and there it says frame size (@1fs) 64. So as you suggested I changed merging_ravenna_daemon.conf to look like

 

interface_name=eth0
web_app_port=9090
tic_frame_size_at_1fs=64
config_pathname=/var/alsa-aes67-driver/butler.config

 

i.e. I changed 192 to 64.

 

I did not add the default sample rate as I now have the Hapi in the crown.