The HQPlayer thread

BTW, there’s a way to use Roon with uPnP: Activate Squeezebox streaming in Roon and use LMS-uPnP: https://github.com/philippe44/LMS-uPnP

Or use rooExtend with rooUPNP for easier setup, but I think it requires a Raspberry Pi and a paid license (not sure, never used it). It uses the same software, though.

I have this set up, anyway, to stream from Roon to uPnP AV speakers. As I thought at first that maybe there could have been a tiny difference (definitely less than between filters, though, more like cables, not sure if I heard anything at all, and later thought I didn’t), I will try this, as it’s much easier to switch between the two than from Roon to HQPlayer.

 

So, I've gotten HQP running on this humble Lenovo i5 laptop (my work computer), and it upsamples to 768khz PCM okay, but it does take maybe 5-7 seconds to load each track. Which is probably not going to work for me for anything but the most dedicated listening sessions.

I'm assuming the delay is b/c I've got it running on a modest PC, and that using a more powerful machine will help?

Eventually, I'll have my iMac out of storage. It's circa 2016 but runs fine.

But it might be nice to mess around with DSD512 upsampling, and I'm guessing I might need a beefier rig to handle that. Any suggestions for something that might integrate into a hifi rack okay? I might try to get something that can double as a home theater PC, as I end up using a lot of (video) streaming services via VPN, and maybe a modest gaming PC, as well.

In other words, I might be unlikely to drop like a grand on a PC just to do DSD512, but if other uses are part of the mix, it could make sense.

Thanks again for any suggestions.

 

I should add that my DACs, at the moment, are the R26, a Yggdrasil, and a Matrix X-Sabre Pro, so nothing that would benefit necessarily from DSD256 or DSD512. The R26 DSD chip doesn't seem to be up to much, and the Yggdrasil and X-Sabre, as far as I know, can't do DSD direct.

But if I'm looking to add another computer, I might as well get something powerful enough that I can do DSD512, etc. somewhere down the line, especially if I get a Holo May or a Gustard A26 or something like that.

Sort of surprised to see the semi-humble RME ADI-2 in Jussi's list of recommended DACs. AKM version only though....

[Edit: I see that DSD512 might be pretty intensive, DSD256 might be more doable? Man, the Audiophile Style threads are like a morass of super technical info.]

 

DSD 512 is very serious business. I am using an AMD 7950X3D CPU and Nvidia RTX 4090 GPU. I still have several seconds of delay between tracks. There is a new "quick pause" function that works well, but changing tracks still takes time. I cannot do DSD1024 without having dropouts ever 4 seconds through the track. I have seen others claiming DSD1024 and I assume they may be running Intel systems with very high CPU clocks. Despite the GPU offload, it seems HQPlayer still wants high CPU frequency. If you have 5-7 seconds between tracks for 768 PCM that is probably due to lower performance of your PC. PCM sampling is usually pretty fast.

I've been meaning to write something up and I will hope to do so soon. I've been messing with HQPlayer and Roon since November or so. Short story is it makes a remarkable difference on my Holo Spring 3 KTE, but it is a huge pain in the ass to use. I do not really recommend it to anyone unless they have a lot of time and patience. Even then, it has been a miserable experience to manage.

 

my 13600k without gpu can run DSD512x48 with 7EC 512fs SUPER with most filters other than Sinc L and Sinc Long

with my 3080ti it can run Sinc Long but still no luck for Sinc L.

 

@dericchan1 I’ve tested it now. Much easier to A/B this way as I can simply switch from one device to the other. A few seconds pause when switching from direct to uPnP, no pause at all (but a little skip back) the other way round. I’m sure now that I can’t hear any difference whatsoever.

For good measure, I also tested with HQPlayer Client again. The best way for me is to start playing the song in Roon, then stop and play from HQPlayer Client, which takes some time for selecting the song to play, then stop and immediately start the song in Roon again, which then can be done quickly. I don’t hear a difference there, either.

From a theoretical standpoint, in certain cases playing via the native HQPlayer integration in Roon might even be better than LMS-uPnP: If EQ or any other Muse feature in Roon is used. In this case, Roon will do its calculations not in 16 or 24 bit depth, but in 64 bit. With the native integration, it will then send 64 bit audio to HQPlayer, via uPnP it will go down to 24 bits again before sending the data on. (I don’t think this will actually be audible, but there’s at least a theoretical difference.)

Anyway, I don’t hear a difference and will happily continue to use the HQPlayer Roon integration.

A note for anyone who wants to try LMS-UPnP with Roon and HQPlayer: The stream_length tag in the config file must be set to -1 to correctly work with HQPlayer, the default -3 leads to stuttering sound.

 

It’s normal for HQPlayer to take some time to start playing. It’s buffering and possibly doing other stuff depending on the filter, as the time required to start playing is much shorter on my PC with the poly-sinc filters than, e.g., with sinc-M.

Note that during playback, this only happens when you manually skip to the next song, or when sampling frequency/bit depth changes from one song to the next, i.e. whenever the stream has to be restarted. As long as there’s no such change, there will be no pause.

 

Hmm, yeah, I mostly make playlists on the fly via Qobuz, so that would explain the delayed starts. Though I'm guessing the work laptop is probably underpowered, as well.

Maybe DSD256 is a better target for my purposes. Or is there a real performance difference between 256 and 512? And what, really, is the benefit of an even higher sample rate once you're exceeding what the DAC might do on its own?

Various posts on Audiophile Style suggest a Mac Mini M1 can handle DSD256 and can perhaps be had for circa $300 used.

How much would you expect to pay for a PC that can handle DSD256? DSD512? Just trying to price this out a bit. I'm only semi-literate on specs, I'm afraid, and a little intimidated by custom builds.

Cheers, again. Lots of good suggestions in the last dozen or so posts.

 

Actually for most dacs - native dsd delta sigma dacs or nos discrete dacs, dsd256 are usually the “sweet spot”, you get a decent audible band noise floor with substantially most ultrasonic noise being pushed further out.

Dsd512 is usually a trade off compared to dsd256, you are a few db worse in audible band noise compared to dsd256 but ultrasonic noise being pushed even further out…

Dsd1024 is where there is pretty much nil benefits because ultrasonic noise is pretty much already non existent at 512 or even 256 but audible band noise floor is measured worst compared to even dsd512. Even Miska who designed hqplayer or the head of R&D at T+A who design the dac200 does not use dsd1024 and never recommend it.

 

Regarding playback latency, I ended up moving Roon Optimized Core Kit (ROCK) onto my Linux server today in its own VM. I have been meaning to do this for a long time. The process was pretty gross and there are some things they've done that are unforgivably bad. I had to elicit some help from a buddy to get this done. BUT, latency of playback has improved a lot. I am now able to network stream to my Holo Red with essentially no delay, and any upsample rate at HQPlayer takes 2-3 seconds to start playing back. This is a really nice enhancement. Not sure if it's just Linux Kernel handling of networking or what. It is also worth noting I was running Roon Core and HQPlayer on the same high-end Windows Desktop previously (AMD 7950X3D and RTX 4090) when I was seeing 10+ seconds of delay before playback through HQPlayer upsampling would start.

I will do a lot more messing about with this config. I am currently running the following scenarios. I am going to decide if I want to keep HQPlayer in the mix or not.

Code:

Roon ROCK in Linux VM --> Ethernet LAN --> Holo Red --> USB DAC --> Headphone amp

Code:

Roon ROCK in Linux VM --> Ethernet LAN --> High-end Windows Desktop --> HQPlayer --> USB DAC --> Stereo

 

We should not fight, but we (or some of us) might strive for technical enlightenment. If there is a difference, what causes it? In some cases, such as DACs, it's subtle because of the interactions between (electrically-encoded) digital and analog. But a music server is a purely digital device. It either pulls and pushes the bits through in the right order and temporal windows, or it does not. If it does not, it has software bugs, or it is overloaded and threads that need to run at certain times fail to be scheduled. With HQPlayer, it's possible that some users are running demanding configurations that don't leave enough capacity for everything else (processing incoming RAAT, context switching, OS tasks), which might cause issues with the outgoing NAA stream. I'm somewhat skeptical of this explanation, though, because the time I had an overly demanding configuration, the stutters and dropouts were very apparent.

 

I run two HQPlayer setups in different locations, HQP Desktop on a Mac Mini M1 and HQP Embedded on an i9-11900 running Ubuntu Server 22.04. Each is a Roon endpoint for a Roon server running on i7-13700 Ubuntu Server 22.04. NAA endpoints are Up Gateway boxes running the NAA RAMdisk image, connecting to Holo DACs via USB with Intona isolators. I had a few issues with the Mini M1 to start with -- networking oddities of macOS -- but otherwise the systems just run, no management hassles of any kind.

 

What sort of upsampling are you able to achieve on the Mac Mini and i9 respectively? Do you do PCM? DSD256?

The M1 is probably making most sense to me at the moment, so I'm curious how you have it specced.

 

To me hqplayer setup is pretty rock solid and painless as well. I have a hqp 4 and 5 desktop licenses. Never really had any issues, I have had it installed on my Ubuntu server 22.04, Linus mint, raspian bookworm, windows, no issues whatsoever

 

DSD256 with poly-sinc-gauss-xla (1x) and poly-sinc-gauss-hires-lp (Nx) filters and ASDM7EC-super modulator on both systems. Processor load on M1 is 50-60%, slightly lower on i9. I got the M1 a lot more recently than the i9, and I see no reason to get anything else unless you want a super-loaded with GPU server for much more complex processing.

 

Good to know. Seems like some DACs (like the Gustard A26) don't even play well with DSD512 anyway.

Mac Mini M1 seeming like a great option. Small, quiet, and you don't have to spend $$$ it seems.

 

Listening thus far suggests that HQPlayer upsampling to the R26 leads to a clearer, somewhat smoother, if somewhat more polite result. This is with 768khz, Sinc-M, Sinc-L, and LSN15 and the R26's streamer as the NAA.

It also seems to help the cohesiveness of the head stage on the Enleum/Sus somewhat, though that's a bit harder to pin down.

I haven't had time (or much inclination) to do any AB'ing, but I generally feel that it's a positive (or at least interesting) result.

Am also finding that, on this humble work laptop, the playback delays are manageable and rather better when I'm not jumping between tracks and albums as much. For whatever reason, I can't get Roon to recognize the new core on my other computer, but I'm sure that's not a hard fix.

Anyway! Fun experiment for no money thus far! Though I can see it getting expensive down the line. I recommend others give it a try.