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I've been fooling around with turning Intel NUC PCs into Network Audio Adapters (NAA) for HQPlayer, and thought I would share some of the experiences: NUC #1 NUC5PPYH (in Akasa Newton P fanless chassis) 4GB DDR3L-1600 RAM 256GB Samsung 850 Pro 2.5" SATA SSD Windows Server 2012 R2 OS Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 redistributable 64-bit runtime ASIO4ALL 2.14 Windows networkaudiod 3.5.1 NUC #2 NUC6CAYS 4GB DDR3L-1866 RAM 32GB built-in eMMC flash Windows Server 2016 OS Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 redistributable 64-bit runtime ASIO4ALL 2.14 Windows networkaudiod 3.5.1 I wanted both the HW and SW configurations of the NUCs to be minimal. For the HW, I removed the pre-installed Intel WiFi/Bluetooth module from the M.2 2230 slot on the motherboard, since I plan to stream audio only over Ethernet. For OS I chose Windows Server over Windows 10 for far fewer processes launched by default. For Windows Server 2016, I uninstalled Windows Defender. The Print Spooler service was also manually disabled. Appropriate device drivers for graphics, chipset, etc. were installed, leaving no yellow bang devices in Device Manager. For the NUC5PPYH running Windows Server 2012 R2, I left the graphics driver as "Microsoft Basic Display Adapter". For the NUC6CAYS running Windows Server 2016, I could not stop OS from downloading and installing an Intel HD Graphics driver, but I manually disabled the services associated with this driver, leaving just the bare device driver running. Both NUCs were configured with Windows autologin enabled, and networkaudiod launched via the startup group. These settings enable the NUCs to be configured as "headless" (i.e. no display, keyboard or mouse attached) and thus appliance like and work within 30 seconds or so from power-on. Remote Desktop was enabled to allow remote management to be done by GUI on another Windows PC (e.g. the PC running HQPlayer). So far I have only tested these NAAs with a set of KEF X300A powered speakers with USB input. Since KEF does not have an ASIO driver for the X300A, I had to use ASIO4ALL to allow HQPlayer to see the NAA over the network. A more typical setup with the NAA driving a DAC would involve installing the DAC's Windows driver into the NAA. The NUC6CAYS came with Windows 10 Home (RS1) OS pre-installed into the internal 32GB eMMC flash. For those interested in using this NUC as NAA, the NUC6CAYH model is substantially cheaper as it has no internal eMMC flash and no pre-installed Windows OS. A 2.5" SSD or HDD would be used as OS drive. 32GB is minimum for Windows Server 2012 R2 / 2016. 60GB is minimum for Windows 10. I bought the NUC6CAYS to check out the pre-installed Windows 10 Home OS, but since it didn't behave satisfactorily I wiped the eMMC disk and did a clean install of Windows Server 2016 OS. Even Windows Server 2016 Essentials OS is more than enough for NAA, but since I have a product key for Windows Server 2016 Standard, this is the OS I ended up using. One caveat: Since neither Intel nor Microsoft support NUC6CAYS/NUC6CAYH running Windows 7, 8 or 8.1, installing Windows Server 2012 R2 *may* be problematic as well. This is one of the reasons I chose Windows Server 2016, since it is the server parallel of Windows 10, and I was able to install Win10 device drivers for NUC6CAYS against WS2016 with no special tricks involved. Here are some AC power consumption figures for these two NUCs working as NAAs in headless mode (measured with a Wattsup? PRO meter). The only cable connections are gigabit Ethernet (to home network), USB (to DAC) and DC +19V power in (from AC adapter). I installed all available updates from Windows Update, rebooted and waited for OS housekeeping activities to quiet down before taking the power measurements. Power supply was the 65W AC adapter that shipped with the NUCs. NUC5PPYH: OS idle: 3.5W Streaming 24/88.2K PCM: 4.1W NUC6CAYS: OS idle: 2.8W Streaming 24/88.2K PCM: 3.3W I also dual-booted the NUC5PPYH into Snake-oil OS but got an idle power consumption of 6.1W. Not connecting a display helps reduce the NUC idle power by about 0.5W. Not connecting USB keyboard or mouse means the USB DAC becomes the only connected USB device, after the WiFi/Bluetooth module got removed (the Bluetooth portion is a USB device). The USB DAC can be plugged into any of the external USB ports, and the DAC gets the whole USB bus to itself, so to speak. Overall, I'm quite impressed by these low power consumption figures, considering both NUCs feature quad core CPUs of 6W and 10W TDP respectively. I'm quite sure even lower power figures can be achieved with a motherboard featuring certain Intel Atom processors, but the quad core Pentium and Celeron processors in the NUC5PPYH and NUC6CAYS respectively have decent performance with affordable prices and fully support 64-bit OS, so I have not bothered to push lower. Further OS optimizations are possible by running Audiophile Optimizer, Process Lasso, etc. along with HW tweaks such as UpTone Audio ISO REGEN, LPS-1, Ethernet isolator, etc. but these will have to wait for another day.

I haven't come across a thread focused specifically on feeding a microRendu with a signal from HQPlayer, so thought I'd start one (please let me know if there is one already - did a search, couldn't find one). I've run into a problem that I'm hoping someone can help me with. As I've mentioned in another thread, I’ve been playing around with the following setup: Roon -> HQPlayer -> microRendu -> iFi Nano DSD Most of my early listening was without using HQP’s filters or modulators and sending out ‘raw’ 16/44.1, just to get everything working properly. I had absolutely no problems, and everything worked perfectly. I then started applying some PCM to DSD conversion: I started with poly-sinc-2s and ASDM7 outputting 11.2896 MHz. This worked perfectly. I then changed ASDM7 to DSD7 256+fs. This sounded a bit better to me. Again, everything worked perfectly. I then changed poly-sinc-2s to poly-sinc. It took about 30 secs for playback to begin (my music server just has a lowly i3 CPU), but when it did, the SQ was transformed. Now it was very, very good! And this is where things started to go wrong. At the end of the track, the playback simply stopped. And I've not been able to get anything to work since: I closed Roon and tried to play directly from HQP – nothing worked. I closed HQP and restarted. I got the 'Failed to open audio device' error message. I started Roon and selected RoonReady in the Audio App Switcher in microRendu. RoonReady worked fine. I uninstalled and reinstalled HQP, and reselected NAA in the Audio App Switcher in microRendu. I still get the 'Failed to open audio device' error message. I have a feeling that the audio device (in my case, the iFi) is being hogged somewhere, but have no idea where or by what. Any ideas or thoughts would be most welcome. Cheers, Mani.

I am trying to setup HQPlayer on windows 10 with another windows 10 as NAA. I am running the networkauodiod.exe on the NAA PC and try to connect from the other PC. No matter what I do I the HQPlayer cannot see the NAA. I tried to add firewall permissions, run without antivirus but with not success. Any ideas?

Hoping to get some advice and clarity! I own a set of KEF LS50W active speakers. They run 24/192 through Asynchrounous USB. I'd like to take sound to the next level and am considering an NAA + linear power supply...specifically either Sonore Signature Rendu or SOtM 200Ultra. With much of the success (and cost) of these devices attributed to the timing/clock corrections, can I expect improvements to an ASYNCHRONOUS USB utilizing its own clock? My thought is that the DAC on the KEF is going to leave its fingerprints all over the timing from the Sonore or SOtM and make it a bad investment. Yes, I know NAA's do more than just timing in addressing jitter...paricularly with good linear power. Are NAA's only going to improve timing for synchronous connections where the source is responsible for the clock? Much appreciated!

I am about to run an experiment. I would like others thoughts before I make this happen. I have a “spare” Mac Mini that was my music server and my current music server which is the last generation Sonic Transporter i5. I have been reading the threads about using a bridged network to improve sound quality. So I am am thinking about the new ST i7 DSP but before I spend $$$$ I want to experiment. My current NAA is a microrendu with 1.3 hardware and 2.5 software. I am running Ethernet to it. The music servers are in the network rack in the basement. 1. Move Roon Core back over to the Mac Mini and put the music either on my Synology NAS or on a drive attached to the Mac. 2. Test the Mac Mini as the server without bridging for a few days. 3. Setup bridging on the Mac Mini and see what happens. 3.5. Try some software optimization’s? 4. Move back to the sonic transporter to close the loop. I really like the Sonic Transporter for the simplicity in that I do not have to worry about software updates or OS Managment. . There are a lot of ways to spend say $2000 on just the server. —RJF I have a SoTM-200 ultra and their power supply on order to try.

Hi Trying to figure out if I can get IR control for Roon with HQPlayer I am wondering if the Flirc USB remote, https://flirc.tv/more/flirc-usb, can work with HQPlayer NAA and Roon The setup is: Audiolinux computer running Roon Core + HQPlayer Embedded Allo USBridge Signature running RopieeXL with HQPlayer NAA It is not clear to me if connecting the FLIR USB receiver to the Allo will act as a remote for the NAA (in which case it is useless, since the controls on the HQPlayer don't control Roon. Using them from the web interface causes Roon to lose control - which is what is expected, but useless) Or, Does the FLIR work as a stand alone control for a specific Roon endpoint- in which case I will be a able to set it up to control the HQPlayer endpoint which means it performs the same as the Roon remote application on a smartphone? Many thanks

Hi everyone For a while, I planned on building a single audio computer ala CAPS. Then I posted a thread and Jud commented on some of points that got me to rethink my whole strategy. He basically in a few sentences got me to understand the concept of the player / NAA. But it also raised many questions for me. I guess the player / NAA model I am most familar with is HQ Player. Let's start with my questions on that. Can the NAA and the main PC run on different OS? One being e.g. Windows, the other Linux. I plan to use a Hardkernel Odroid as the NAA. Otherwise it would need to be a more expensive x64 based solution If I understand correctly, the whole player / NAA concept is meant to separate the noisy decoding process away from feeding the DAC with a clean signal. The way I understand it, it would work because the connection runs over network, which would serve as block as no electrical signal gets transmitted unlike with USB. My thoughts therefore are that any tweaking (LPSU, minimize activity on the NAA, USB filters etc) should be concentrating around the NAA. The PC could be a plan standard box. Or am I wrong and things like AO optimizer, LPSU etc help as well when you apply them on the player? On the website, I can find the Player package, but where is the NAA package and what are the minimum requirements? That said, is there other software that has this NAA architecture? I believe JPLAY does allow for this too? But what else? Thanks for your time!

I have been using Roon+HQPlayer combo with my audio setup on a Raspberry Pi 4b running NAA for a good several months until this issue came up recently... It occurs randomly - sometimes after a 5 minutes normal playback, sometimes 20 minutes. Totally unpredictable. Though it is not catastrophically fatal, any help or advice is appreciated. What I know is that sound coming from my headphones stops all in a sudden, playback time indicator in Roon and HQPlayer stops as well. If I immediately open HQPlayer's settings panel at this moment, I can see that the RPi entry in output device settings section disappears. But after closed the panel and wait for a brief period, say, 20 seconds, then open the settings again, RPi shows up normally as if nothing happened. Modify the setting for dac output and hit play button in Roon, then everything will work fine - until the next time the whole process starts. I looked into HQPlayer's log file and found that every time this issue occurs brings up an error: ! 2020/11/17 12:58:31 clNetMiniEngine::PushPCM(): clNetMiniEngine::SendStreamPCM(): clSocket::Send(): send(): Unknown error ! 2020/11/17 12:58:31 clHQPlayerEngine::Execute(): push to FIFO failed 2020/11/17 12:58:31 Stop request (reset) & 2020/11/17 12:58:31 Stop... - 2020/11/17 12:58:31 Network engine stopping... - 2020/11/17 12:58:31 Playback engine stopped & 2020/11/17 12:58:31 ...stopped ...Followed by these lines indicating that HQPlayer has lost connection to the NAA and cannot dicover it on LAN again in a short period: 2020/11/17 12:58:32 Network Audio IPv6 support enabled 2020/11/17 12:58:32 Discovery from 0.0.0.0 2020/11/17 12:58:33 Discovery from :: 2020/11/17 12:58:34 Discovered 0 Network Audio Adapters 2020/11/17 12:58:35 Network Audio IPv6 support enabled 2020/11/17 12:58:35 Discovery from 0.0.0.0 2020/11/17 12:58:36 Discovery from :: 2020/11/17 12:58:37 Discovered 0 Network Audio Adapters (more omitted) Switching to ipv4 in HQPlayer during this phase won't help. The only way to get things working again is to wait until HQPlayer discovered the NAA again: & 2020/11/17 12:59:33 Discovered network audio: name='raspberrypi' version='Signalyst Network Audio Daemon 4.1.1' @[fe80::59da:25a4:4e9b:9876%13]:43210 & 2020/11/17 12:59:33 Discovered network audio: name='raspberrypi' version='Signalyst Network Audio Daemon 4.1.1' @[fe80::59da:25a4:4e9b:9876%13]:43210 2020/11/17 12:59:34 connect to [fe80::59da:25a4:4e9b:9876%13]:43210 [ipv6] 2020/11/17 12:59:34 Network endpoint: bcm2835 Headphones: bcm2835 Headphones (hw:CARD=Headphones,DEV=0) 2020/11/17 12:59:34 Network endpoint: PCM-DSD USB Audio Interface: USB Audio (hw:CARD=Interface,DEV=0) 2020/11/17 12:59:34 Discovered 1 Network Audio Adapters + 2020/11/17 12:59:34 Connect to [fe80::59da:25a4:4e9b:9876%13]:43210 [ipv6] Then everything works fine until the next identical problem appears... My PC is connected to RPi through an robust Ethernet cable so I suppose there is little to do with network connection. I have tried switching to another newly flashed MicroSD card as storage on RPi but unfortunately it didn't resolve the issue. Also tried executing sudo systemctl status networkaudiod on RPi and the output seems pretty fine with no problems.. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance..

Apple Mac Mini "Core i7" 2.3 Quad-Core (Late 2012) w/16GB of RAM + Uptone Audio MMK DC Fan Controller (Installed by Uptone Audio) Includes Mac OS X El Capitan (Optimized) on a 32GB Toshiba SDHC Card with HQPlayer playback software installed. Mac OS X is configured with bridged networking. It's plug n play with this configuration. The internal 500 GB SSD Drive also includes Windows 10 on a partition that I ran optimized with Process Lasso and Fidelizer - also configured with bridge networking. It's plug n play with this configuration too. This Mac Mini can also run Audio Linux (AL) booted to RAM. I have only booted AL to RAM once for testing, but have not listened to it. Alex Crespi of Uptone Audio runs his Mac Mini using Audio Linux in this way and he has stated that he is very pleased with it. Before discovering Audio Linux, I experimented a lot with different operating systems and settled on an optimized version of OS X El Capitan booted from an SD Card, then un-mounting the internal SSD. I used this to run HQPlayer as an NAA and I ran Roon Server on my sonicTransporter. This machine is powerful enough to run Roon alone or HQPlayer in a distributed setup as I did. There are A LOT of different configuration options to choose from using this Mac Mini. It can be configured as a Roon Server, Roon Endpoint, NAA, etc. I bought this Mac Mini from Frys and shipped it to Uptone Audio to install their Mac Mini DC-Conversion/Linear Fan Controller Kit (MMK). Power Supply is not included. I ran mine with my Paul Hynes SR5 linear PSU. Here's what's included: Mac Mini with original box 500 GB Internal SSD 16 GB of OWC RAM Toshiba Exceria Pro 32 GB SDHC Apple Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter CompuLab Display Emulator (fit-Headless) Edimax Wi-Fi USB Adapter I will let it go for $1,200.00 - Reduced to $995 OBO. Free Shipping in the continental US and Buyer pays PayPal fee of 2.9%.