HDPlayer

brad225

brad225

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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.
 
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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.
 
Randy Myers said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
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.
 
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???
 
Here you go Randy:

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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.
 
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. :(
 
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
 
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.
 
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.

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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%.

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