HQPlayer Impressions and Settings Rolling Thread
Superunknown2
100+ Head-Fier
I had a 2021 M1 Macbook Pro with 16 GB of ram, and HQ Player through Roon kept choking up. I just exchanged it for a 2023 M3 Macbook Pro with 18 GB of ram, and it works a lot better. It doesn't appear to be able to play filters or modulators that it couldn't play before, but what it can play, it does it much quicker without stuttering. I'm shocked the difference could be this much. One interesting thing is that it doesn't seem to be maxing out the processor. I play SDM and it only is using something like 25% of the processing power. But it does seem to use most of my ram. Maybe that extra 2 GB of ram makes all this difference.
You can only play Tidal if you use a loopback adapter and don't use Tidal's exclusive mode.
suggestion for good setting for Crossfeed. Right now I have enabled Jan Meir Preset at 600Hz and 3 dB in parameter 2. Any suggestion is welcome.
bogi
100+ Head-Fier
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If you would use HQPlayer Embedded instead of Desktop, then it would be easy, since Embedded is UPnP capable. So you could use a phone or tablet with mConnect Player, BubbleUPnP or JPlay installed, they all support Tidal on iOS or Android.
With HQPlayer Desktop it is also possible but in more complicated way and has some drawbacks. Better to use the existing options of Qobuz, HRA in such a case.
Superunknown2
100+ Head-Fier
Can HQPlayer Embedded be installed on a Mac laptop? Or does it have to be installed on a phone or tablet? And if installed on an iphone, does the iphone have to be dedicated for this use? Or can you install it on your regular phone without it causing issues?
Embedded isn’t for phones or tablets
Superunknown2
100+ Head-Fier
What is HQPlayer Embedded installed on then?
ohcrapgorillas
500+ Head-Fier
Either on Linux or on a standalone system like a Raspberry Pi
edit: for example, I have a dedicated media server with an i5-11600KF and GTX 1660 Ti which also runs a Jellyfin server and a few other things. It runs on Ubuntu Server and does the HQPlayer processing. Massive overkill for oversampling PCM to 4x but again it has other jobs to do as well.
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Superunknown2
100+ Head-Fier
What device would someone get that would run Linux? A computer or something else?
ohcrapgorillas
500+ Head-Fier
Yes, a computer, usually headless. Mine is a custom build based on a mini-ITX mobo and some leftover gaming PC parts. I think if you look through this thread there are other examples of things that people run. As I mentioned, a Raspberry Pi 4/5 will do PCM oversampling and probably lower DSD rates, but if you want higher DSD on the best filters/modulators, a decent CPU and GPU are a must.
Superunknown2
100+ Head-Fier
What is a "headless" computer? Do you mean a computer with no screen? How do you operate it if it is headless?
you remote into the machine using either a command prompt or with software that provides a GUI interface. To use Embedded HQP, you can either use HQPClient or a web interface.
ohcrapgorillas
500+ Head-Fier
Correct. You operate it via command line through a SSH tunnel, but besides occasional updates they are mostly set-it-and-forget-it. If you were only installing HQPlayer and nothing else on this computer, you could use HQPlayer OS "instead of" Linux (technically it is still Linux... but should be far easier to set up) which would simplify a lot. If you decide to go that route, let me know and I can help with the setup but basically it should look like this:
1. Flash the HQPlayer OS image to a hard drive
2. Install the hard drive in HQPlayer dedicated computer.
3. Find the local IP address of the new computer via your router.
4. Login to the HQPlayer Embedded web interface at http://(computer's IP address):8088
5. Configure your preferred settings.
or even flash a usb drive and insert it into the host computer and boot, once you have the bios set to boot to USB as a priority and it'll run HQPE.
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