Been using (and loving) HQPlayer on my Mac Mini Roon Bridges for the past year. (I have a few, as I have a few different systems in the house. Yeah, kind of expensive as streamers, but they’re decommissioned work computers, so they’d be gathering dust otherwise.)
Anyway, these Macs only run Bridge. No other stuff is actively running on them. All are running V3, and all have OS 10.14 or newer, so they can accommodate V4.
I know there are new filters that V3 doesn’t have, but beyond that, is there a sound-quality argument to upgrade?
Not sure if it matters, but Roon Core is also on a Mac Mini. (A separate one that ONLY runs Roon Core. Like I said, I have a few of these!)
I finally took the plunge and licensed HQPlayer 4. I tested with HQPlayer 3 about a year ago, and found that its flexible filters make a difference in the sound. I spent a day or two testing with v.4, and liked it enough to go ahead and purchase it. Both versions work just fine and do what they advertise. So why 4 instead of 3?
The advantage I see to v.4 is that it’s the version where the new development is going to be happening, though v.3 will still be supported for a while. When I amortize the cost of HQPlayer over a year, it ends up about the same as the Adobe software I pay for monthly. If I spread the cost over the time between releases, it’s ridiculously cheap.
The developer has come up with a unique application to fit a specialized niche. It’s developed and supported by one person (who really knows his stuff), so it’s going to be more expensive. The good news is that you can actually email the developer, he will email you back, and if you’ve uncovered something that needs to be fixed/addressed, he’ll do it. When was the last time that happened with Microsoft.
How do I evaluate 4 while 3 is still on my machine? (Again, I’m using Roon, and it already sees a version at the same network IP address. Using localhost doesn’t seem to make it happy.)
EDIT: just remembered that “localhost” is used if HQP is on same machine as core, which it’s not, so ignore that.
I guess the question is how do I get it to use V4 if it sees V3? uninstall V3?
I didn’t upgrade to 4 until a few months after release. The impetus for me was the EC modulators which sounded better to me at DSD 256 than my previous settings for DSD 512. Another minor factor was explicit handling of DSD rates for 44.1kHz or 48 kHz “family” source material.
To test v4 just install it and run v4 instead of v3.
Yah, I get install and run, but can it be tested from Roon if Roon still sees V3? Or does it have to be run only on its own? (Drag files directly into the player, etc…?)
Roon sends data to the IP address of the device running HQPlayer. The version of HQPlayer that is running on that device gathers such data. Roon doesn’t “see” a version of HQPlayer that is not running.
You can have both installed in parallel, but since both share the same settings and library files, I recommend saving settings and library information with v4. Otherwise some settings and library metadata will be missing from v4, since v4 has more settings and much wider support for metadata in it’s library.
Ok, I feel like a dork because it’s working now. (Wasn’t able to connect to HQPlayer at first, but now it is.)
Interesting on this. Good call.
Trying to get my head around the filtering/oversampling selections: 1x vs Nx. Didn’t see anything in the manual about them, unless I missed it! When does Nx come into play?
1x is for so called “1x rates”, practically meaning 44.1k and 48k source material and thus that filter selection applies to those rates. Nx filter applies for the higher source material rates (could be called hires).
