This is part of a somewhat bigger project to support additional “playback controls”. Several Roon Ready partners also want this for switching filters/phase at the DAC, doing channel trimming controls, and other stuff like that. HQPlayer is one of about 10 partners that would benefit from this sort of integration. In addition, we would make the same capabilities available via the Roon API so people could attach extra controls of their own (or integrate with other things).
I think we’ll add support for this via the Roon API, via the RAAT SDK (for Roon Ready partners), and in all likelihood for HQPlayer, too, using its control interface (and even if we were to de-prioritize the HQPlayer specific piece for some reason, it would be possible to accomplish the same using the Roon API anyways).
I noticed some implication that we might “focus on our own DSP” or that there might be business reasons not to do this. I don’t really see it that way. We don’t lose anything when our users use HQPlayer, and we don’t gain anything when they use our DSP. Both should remain viable options and work well. Just because we have a little bit of overlap now doesn’t mean we intend to marginalize that integration.