HDPlayer

[brad225]

I tried 3 different searches here for Roon and HQPlayer or HQPlayer alone and nothing came up. I find that hard to believe no discussion of HQPlayer exists.

How do people like HQPlayer and Roon with HQPlayer.

I have just started a trial of Roon and Qobuz. Going to keep Roon for sure. I will try Tidal in a few days to see which I like better.
I'm sure it is just the music I have searched for but, I am surprised there is not more choice above 44.1-16 on Qobuz so far.

[audio.bill]

I think the problem may be that what you're actually looking for is HQPlayer.

[Randy Myers]

Definitely HQPlayer is what you should search for. I have used Roon and HQPlayer together for a year or so. HQPlayer sounds good, but in my view it is kind of a pain to use and configure. It is also not bullet proof like Roon is.

What I mean is that configuring HQPlayer can be a lot more involved and sometimes getting it all to work almost seems like voodoo. Versus Roon by itself; nothing could be easier. On my brand new machine I installed Roon, nothing to it. HQPlayer I tried to setup and I had it upsampling DSD fine but for some reason I cannot get it configured to upsample my PCM files. Still not sure what I am doing wrong. And I am a Software Engineer also btw...

With recent Roon releases it can upsample to DSD512 itself and does a really good job at it. Therefore I am thinking I might not mess around with HQPlayer any more and simple use only Roon.

[brad225]

I think the problem may be that what you're actually looking for is HQPlayer.

Thanks Bill, That should work much better. I knew it was HQ just kept typing HD.

[brad225]

Definitely HQPlayer is what you should search for. I have used Roon and HQPlayer together for a year or so. HQPlayer sounds good, but in my view it is kind of a pain to use and configure. It is also not bullet proof like Roon is.

What I mean is that configuring HQPlayer can be a lot more involved and sometimes getting it all to work almost seems like voodoo. Versus Roon by itself; nothing could be easier. On my brand new machine I installed Roon, nothing to it. HQPlayer I tried to setup and I had it upsampling DSD fine but for some reason I cannot get it configured to upsample my PCM files. Still not sure what I am doing wrong. And I am a Software Engineer also btw...

With recent Roon releases it can upsample to DSD512 itself and does a really good job at it. Therefore I am thinking I might not mess around with HQPlayer any more and simple use only Roon.

Thanks Randy, That is exactly the information I was looking for. I am having enough trouble with one item in Roon that is problematic. I will wait until I find someone local that knows Roon and HQPlayer before making another change.

[nicoff]

I use Roon and HQPlayer.

The initial set up for HQP takes a little patience but once done, you don't have to touch it anymore.

HQP has a new version to the one I have but the changes do not make need to upgrade. From what I have read, the new version of HQP allows you use a digitized analog signal (from an LP for example) and run it through HQP.

I upsample everything to DSD using HQP. Roon now has the ability to upsample everything to DSD as well. Also both Roon and HQP allow you to use convolution filters for room correction purposes.

The one difference I can see is that Roon does not have as many FIR filters as HQP and the new version of HQP allows you to run digitized analog sources through it.

[Randy Myers]

Hey Nico,

Can you give me your full HQPlayer settings. For whatever reason I cannot seem to get HQPlayer configured correctly. I get DSD to upsample, but PCM files do not want to upsample for me???

[nicoff]

Here you go Randy:

[Randy Myers]

Thank you sir! I will check it out a little later and see if I can get it running ....

[Randy Myers]

Hey Nico,

One other favor. If at all possible could you give me your Roon settings for the HQPlayer zone? It would be much appreciated.

[nicoff]

Hey Nico,

One other favor. If at all possible could you give me your Roon settings for the HQPlayer zone? It would be much appreciated.

Here you go. Let me know if you need something else.

[nicoff]

One more...

[Randy Myers]

Thank you Nico. Very much appreciated.

[brad225]

I didn't ask for it but, Thanks

[Randy Myers]

Playing around with HQPlayer again, using Nico's settings. DSD upsamples to 512, no problem. However PCM files will not upsample to DSD. They play at 384khz. I must be missing a setting somewhere to tell HQPlayer to upsample PCM files to DSD. Dammed if I know where it is.

[nicoff]

I didn't ask for it but, Thanks

You are welcome!

[brad225]

Do you think there is much of a difference in how HQP sounds compared to Roon for upsampling for 256 over 128?

I haven't even set up my i5 SonicTransporter yet and I think I have decided to exchange it for the i9.

My current DAC will play 256 but, the i5 4 core ST will only be able to upsample to 128 but play 256.

My current i3 2 core HP laptop does upsample 128 properly. It sounds better than not upsampled so I am saying yes.

So in some ways other than I am guessing the i5 ST would probably sound better as there is nothing else running in it, I possibly haven't gained a lot for $895.

-----OK here comes the audiophile logic/justification on wise spending-----

If I spend another $1000 (still a lot of $) I would be able to upsample to 256, the max my current DAC will handle.

I will never know how 128 sounds compared to 256 if I don't.

Going forward should Andreas of Playback Designs, write software for the Gate Array configuration he uses rather than chips, it may be able to do 512.

I could decide to change DACs, (though I have thought a lot about that and really like the PD sound) and want 512. Then I would need to replace the i5 and start over.

So, as to my question that started this. Do you think the sound of upsampling with HQP is better (personal preference, I know) than Roon?

Thanks
Brad

[Randy Myers]

It is very close... HQPlayer used to be a lot better... now I am thinking Roon is so close that I may just stay with it.

[Randy Myers]

I found the additional setting... on the main page just under the volume there is a drop down box that requires being set to DSD (thanks for the poor documentation and convoluted setup HQPlayer, I mean three separate places to make setting changes to get this to work, really ).

So I have everything running at 24.6 Mhz (or 24M6 as the crazy Germans display it). I will experiment with it running HQPlayer for a while. It is very close, but I might give a slight edge to HQPlayer with Roon over Roon by itself.

[Randy Myers]

As a point of reference, I am now running HQPlayer in full mode, in other words not the 2s filters. The old machine was not able to run this mode, it would stutter all over the place. I also choose to not get a video card in this machine, no Cuda core off-loading.

I was just monitoring performance. HQPlayer is utilizing all eight CPU cores (not threads, this machine has a full eight cores). They were averaging between 25%-28% utilization at about 4.2-4.5 Ghz speed! All eight were being used! Nice!

RAM utilization is very low, hard drive use is very high. Obviously the M.2 main drive and SSD secondary drives are very important. Here is the Roon output display playing the new Abbey Road high res download... 96 Khz being upsampled to 24.6 Mhz! Upsampling PCM files was kicking the CPU use up a few percentage points, peaking at about 32%.

[brad225]

Glad to hear that Randy.

If i ever get my Roon to find my NAS I will give HQP a go. I apparently need a Network Path and nothing I have tried will work.

Waiting of response from Roon and Small Green Computer folks.

[Randy Myers]

I went back to the 2s filters in HQPlayer. I was finding that files with various different formats started driving it crazy. Dam HQPlayer is the biggest computer killing software I have ever encountered!

[Randy Myers]

Glad to hear that Randy.

If i ever get my Roon to find my NAS I will give HQP a go. I apparently need a Network Path and nothing I have tried will work.

Waiting of response from Roon and Small Green Computer folks.

Under settings/storage I added a folder entitled 'music' that I have on each of my drives. I keep all music in these 'music' folders.

[nicoff]

Glad to hear that Randy.

If i ever get my Roon to find my NAS I will give HQP a go. I apparently need a Network Path and nothing I have tried will work.

Waiting of response from Roon and Small Green Computer folks.

That was the part I had trouble with when setting up Roon for the first time. If you are running Roon in a windows machine the path will likely involve “smb:” in the path to locate the music folder.

But Apple is different. When I was running Roon in a Mac I mapped the folder with my music from the NAS drive to the desktop of my Mac. Once I did that and I was able to direct Roon to the mapped folder, I never had to mess with it again.

[nicoff]

I went back to the 2s filters in HQPlayer. I was finding that files with various different formats started driving it crazy. Dam HQPlayer is the biggest computer killing software I have ever encountered!

Randy,
Since you are experimenting with Roon and you have a T+A DAC, you may try and bypass HQP and use the T+A as your Roon Endpont. the T +A has two separate DACs inside one for PCM and one for DSD. Then within Roon use DSP to make the T+A to upsample all PCM to the highest PCM resolution and do the same to DSD. You will now be using the T+A to the fullest. Then compare it to the HQP upsampling everything to DSD and see what you think. And if you want to get really experimental, find a way to create convolution filters for your system and have Roon use those filters. I think you will be happily surprised.

[BlueFox]

LOL. What a PITA just to listen to Internet music.

[nicoff]

Do you think there is much of a difference in how HQP sounds compared to Roon for upsampling for 256 over 128?

I haven't even set up my i5 SonicTransporter yet and I think I have decided to exchange it for the i9.

My current DAC will play 256 but, the i5 4 core ST will only be able to upsample to 128 but play 256.

My current i3 2 core HP laptop does upsample 128 properly. It sounds better than not upsampled so I am saying yes.

So in some ways other than I am guessing the i5 ST would probably sound better as there is nothing else running in it, I possibly haven't gained a lot for $895.

-----OK here comes the audiophile logic/justification on wise spending-----

If I spend another $1000 (still a lot of $) I would be able to upsample to 256, the max my current DAC will handle.

I will never know how 128 sounds compared to 256 if I don't.

Going forward should Andreas of Playback Designs, write software for the Gate Array configuration he uses rather than chips, it may be able to do 512.

I could decide to change DACs, (though I have thought a lot about that and really like the PD sound) and want 512. Then I would need to replace the i5 and start over.

So, as to my question that started this. Do you think the sound of upsampling with HQP is better (personal preference, I know) than Roon?

Thanks
Brad

If I were in your shoes, I would stick with Roon. In my opinion, the advantage that HQP can bring relies on the filters. But the most advanced filters require very powerful computer processing which makes it a much more expensive proposition.
The computer that you got should allow you to use Roon you upsample to 256 and you can decide if it is worthy to you.
In my experience, if you use convolution filters (room correction) with Roon you will notice a much more noticeable change (improvement).

[nicoff]

LOL. What a PITA just to listen to Internet music.

Agree! It used to be a lot worse when using Squeezeboxes. More than once I had to go back to my CDs because some computer gremlin would show up at the wrong moment.
But I can say that computer audio is no longer as hard as it appears to be and once one overcomes those initial hurdles and it is set up properly it is super convenient not to mention that (in my case) sounds better than my physical media.

[Randy Myers]

Computer audio is easy, now, in my view. Roon took me a whole five minutes to setup. Then again I keep all of my music files internal on the machine itself which I am very sure makes it a ton easier. Now copying all the files to the machine took a very very very looooong time ....

HQPlayer is a pain because the initial setup is very un-intuitive. Having to go to three separate screens to setup to upsample everything to DSD is just plain silly.... I say this as a Programmer and Data Architect who has dealt with typical programmers for years, many of whom just do not get the concept of making software intuitive to use. This is essentially important in my view, however HQPlayer has built a reputation of making very good sounding software so long as you are willing to pull your hair out setting it up.

I have directly compared Roon upsampling to DSD512 and HQPlayer doing the same... they are now getting fairly close but I still prefer the sound of HQPlayer, slightly. I really wish I didn't because it is hard to recommend HQPlayer to anyone who is not very comfortable playing around with computers.