Dropouts with HQPlayer and Roon

Well, I do like what HQPlayer does for the music… mostly. I’m still sorting out a few issues.

It seems that when using HQPlayer and Roon, playing out to my ultraRendu, things go along well for about five minutes. After that point, I get half-second dropouts in the music. It always seems to come back after 0.5-1 sec., but it gets more frequent as time goes on. It soon becomes unlistenable. I have no issues if I play just Roon.

I tried bumping up the Buffer value in HQP until I was maxed out (settings below). It did not seem to have any effect on the results. Even at 250ms, dropouts occurred.

This is on a maxed-out Mac Mini running Core and HQP… it barely breaks a sweat with these settings. Wifi/Ethernet -> etherRegen -> ultraRendu -> Matrix X S/PDIF -> Directstream DAC.

Again, no issues with just Roon. It only happens (with regularity) when using HQPlayer.

If you stop playback and start again in 15 seconds, does it again play OK for five minutes. Or does it need longer period to work again for some time?

This sounds a bit like thermal throttling. Although with those settings you should have pretty low CPU load.

Another possibility is some network problem. Does the same happen if you connect the Matrix X/SPDIF directly to your Mac Mini, instead of using NAA? You could also try to simplify the setup by dropping etherRegen out and seeing if it makes any difference.

This doesn’t tell us much…at least give something like 2018 macmini and we can rule out the Mac specs

@jussi_laako

It’ll take some time for me to try those different options. I’ll report back.

What I will suggest is that everything plays fine and well until I bring in HQP.

2012 Mac Mini with a Mojo Joule V power supply. 2.6 GHz quad core I7, 16GB DDR3 memory, SSD drive.

As above, zero issues until I use HQP.

Hi Rob,

Ext2 is a longer filter, but I would have thought a 2012 2.6GHz i7 could still handle it at DSD 128.

Do you still get dropouts if you use a shorter filter (say poly-sinc-mp ?) or dial back to DSD 64 ?

Just to check, have you updated SonicOrbiter on the ultraRendu to the latest version ? There was a change to the NAA a little while ago.

@andybob

This is likely going to be one of those frustrating issues, as there seems to be no predictability to it.

Last evening, I lowered the up sampling rate to 192 and brought the buffer time back to Default. The system played fine for about an hour, then encountered its first dropout, which lasted about 1/2 second.

Once that happens, the dropouts come frequently, about every 15 seconds or so, and it continues on that way… unlistenable.

I changed some settings around — frankly can’t recall exactly, sorry — and played another hour before the dropouts started again. At that point, I went back to Roon with no HQP and did not experience a single drop for several hours of play.

I’m running a network monitor which shows no outages or problems that I can see.

Today I’ll run the shorter filter as you suggested. BTW, all of this is happening on PCM upsampling. Perhaps I’ll see if the same thing happens on DSD.

And for what it’s worth, I typically have been upsampling in Roon to DSD128 and DSP with no hiccups, so I’m led to think that it’s not a horsepower issue.

For me, the question is “How can it play well for an hour or more, and then just drop out?” After the drop out last night, I took the Mac Mini’s temperature. It was a cool 81F, no fans at all.

Are you playing local files or streaming ?

@andybob

Both, at various times.

Right now, I’m running DSD128 via HQP and the short filter you recommended. Local files right now. We’ll see where this goes.

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Is your streamer up to date with the latest HQPlayer NAA version ?

@alec_eiffel

I’ll check, but I assume so. I downloaded HQP only a short time ago.

Remi is talking about the NAA app on the ultraRendu. The Sonicorbitor software has an update process that isn’t automatic.

Last week, I ordered and installed the update for the uRendu, taking it from 2.7 to 2.8.

I had a pretty good couple of sessions this morning, upsampling to DSD128 and short filter, with no dropouts.

I’m halfway through Knopfler/Atkins running poly-sinc-mp to DSD128 and ASM7. I’ve had one drop, but it wasn’t/isn’t persistent.

Continuing to listen.

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I had a feeling this was going to be one of those tricky problems. Over the past two days, I’ve had perhaps one dropout that I know of. But nothing like the chronic issues from before.

I’ve even taken to going back to the long filter and upsampling to the max… I continue to listen, which I consider a happy task.

The problem is that there can be multiple sufficient causes. Like all troubleshooting the trick is to vary one thing at a time and assess the result. Good luck !