Appointment?
Oh man, I meant amplifier.
Ok, so making some kind of progress here. Not sure if it made any difference or not, but I noticed there were some upgrades to be done for SMS 200. So I performed these and then checked on the Roon section of Euhenansa and it now showed my DAC. Was able to change DSD128 to DSD256 in the DSD rate field, so that’s a result.
I can also now use sample rate DSD256 in DSP on Roon now, previously the max was DSD128.
I will not have a chance to try out the SMS 200 on Roon with HQPlayer at DSD256 till Sunday morning now as it’s too late, will report back tomorrow.
Thanks to @dabassgoesboomboom . @rob2 and @CrystalGipsy for all their help so far
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Sounds like your on the correct path.
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Well bizarrely after making the changes to the SMS 200 on the website, eg changing DSD rate from DSD128 to DSD256 as per screenshot above, things have actually got worse using HQP 
I’ve tried HQP on Roon, and also just the HQP desktop with the settings below, and the distortion is even more pronounced.
Playback on Audirvana and Roon (without HQP) using DSD256 with the SMS 200 is perfect.
Playback on Roon with HQP using DSD256, but substituting the SMS 200 with my MacBook is also perfect.
I may be reading the situation wrong, but in summary the SMS 200 plays perfectly in various scenarios, but seems to fall down when it is having to use it’s in built NAA with HQP.
No idea where to go from here!
I would talk to Jussi.
@jussi_laako was giving input to the thread that I initially reported distorted problem with DSD256 using HQPlayer. He diagnosed that it was possibly due to part of my network having a wifi link (eg a booster Disc getting a wireless signal from my main router which is in a different room). However that theory seemed to be quashed after I tried running a very long ethernet cable from my SMS 200 direct to my main router and still got distortion. He also asked me to test out the SMS 200 at DSD256 using DSP on Roon, and also with Audirvana. In DSP settings I could only select a maximum of DSD128 so he quite rightly pointed out I was comparing apples to oranges and it was a meaningless comparison. Which is why I found this thread and asked in post number 2 if anybody knew how to achieve DSD256 on DSP. After 40 plus posts we finally managed to achieve that last night , and DSD256 using my SMS 200 without distortion is now possible using Roon DSP and on Audirvana. So to use Jussi’s terminology I now appear to be comparing apples to apples, but for whatever reason on HQP I cannot achieve DSD256 on my SMS 200 without distortion. Sorry for long winded explanation lol.
This is the other thread where I asked my first question on this subject at post number 109
Is it working with Roon alone with DoP enabled or disabled? Same with Audirvana?
I see in HQP you have DoP enabled. Try disabling?
And make sure it matches correctly on your SMS 200 config screen (under the DSD mode screen). The HQPlayer side (SDM Pack: DoP vs “none”) has to match your SMS 200 side (DoP vs native)
It is working with Roon alone DoP enabled. Apparently on a Mac DoP has to be enabled, regardless of that there doesn’t seem to be an option to switch DoP on or off.
I have disabled DoP on SDM Pack, and changed the SMS 200 side to be native. Only listened to a couple of songs so far using HQP on Roon and there is a vast improvement, but I am probably listening out for it but I think I can hear some very low level crackle every couple of minutes, although that may well be my imagination!
One thing I have not done yet is eliminate DoP from the D90 Dac in Roon.
This is the current setup that you advised me to do yesterday
Should I take it out of Exclusive mode to take away the DSD playback strategy setting?
Damn, just had 2 or 3 pops there. lol However took about 20 mins or so of playing songs before that happened. Could it be memory related?
Note yesterday I just wanted to make sure whatever you had working successfully with Roon alone, was replicated with HQPlayer.
This was the gist of Jussi’s comment too.
So either that means DoP on or DoP off but whatever worked for you with one, to do the same with the other. To make it apples to apples comparison.
And to check the SMS200 side matches also.
I wasn’t saying it had to be DoP enabled. Just saying to keep things consistent (that work).
No you can leave that there.
Hmmm not sure.
I raised a pops issue with @jussi_laako a few years ago with microRendu.
Rendu owners can thank me (but mostly Jussi of course for the fix) about not having pops with high rate DSD.
It’s hard to know if it’s same issue with your SMS200 or something different.
The only way to rule out SMS200 NAA is to try a different NAA. This is actually exactly what I did with my Rendu pops issue - I tested with a NUC running as NAA to verify it was a Rendu specific issue. And Jussi had a Rendu on hand with him.
If you could run your Intel laptop as NAA it would really help with the troubleshooting. As previously mentioned, it doesn’t change anything on your hard disk. And involves no Linux command line stuff. It runs from USB stick.
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Ha, You’re determined to get me to try a different NAA lol.
Are there easily available steps you can provide, because I have never done anything like this before. Also you mentioned something called etcher (?) in a previous post, I’d need help with that. Does HQP need to run on the laptop as well, or does that still run from my MBA?
Edit, actually I’ve just realised I have an idle PC that I would rather use instead of the laptop. I basically never use it now so if anything went wrong it would be less disastrous than losing the laptop lol
It is possible you will be stuck with pops forever with HQP and SMS200 so it’s up to you lol.
You can still keep HQP running on your Macbook.
You are just swapping out your SMS200 NAA with another NAA.
Just change one thing 
- Download etcher app.
balenaEtcher - Flash OS images to SD cards & USB drives
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Format a USB stick to FAT32 (4GB or more).
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Download this 7zip file of NAA OS, which you will burn to USB stick
https://www.signalyst.eu/bins/naa/images/naa-4122-x64.7z
On Windows you can use 7zip: https://www.7-zip.org
On macOS you can use The Unarchiver to unzip
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Unzip the .7z file and open etcher, find the “image” and burn to USB stick.
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Make sure the PC is connected to your USB DAC and DAC is powered on, before you power on the PC in next step.
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Stick USB stick into your Intel PC or laptop and make sure you boot from USB stick. You might need to go into your BIOS for your particular motherboard to make sure it boots from USB stick.
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Once NAA OS is booted (you will see it reach a command line on the screen but you don’t need to type anything) then open HQP on your Macbook.
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Your DAC should be visible to HQP Desktop in the same place your SMS200 was , in HQP settings
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Thanks I’ll give it a go later this afternoon.
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If I’m reading correctly you got DSD 256 working with HQPlayer when using the computer alone, so my experience may not be relevant.
I use an older i7 pc for my core. I can stream 512 via Roon with a processing speed of 1.6 (as seen in my Roon signal path). On HQPlayer (3) I can go up to 256x48, but the processor cannot handle 512: it’s all pops and dropouts.
What’s your processing speed using 256 in Roon alone, as seen on your signal path?
At DSD256 in Roon alone my processing speed is 1.8
I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, but I think I may have a solution.
I changed the buffering from default to 10ms, and set both the SDM Pack and my SMS 200 to be DoP. I have played music at these settings for about 45 minutes now and haven’t heard any distortion.
So fingers crossed that it stays that way for a while longer, and perhaps we can then say it’s solved.
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So after approx 10 hours listening I think I am reasonably confident in saying that HQP works in my system without distortion.Perhaps 3 or 4 times over that period a song would briefly stop for a second or so, but that can probably happen when streaming music and I guess it’s just the computer taking a spike, or perhaps a glitch on the network. Certainly not a showstopper.
I’m using these settings.
Thanks to every poster who helped me get to this stage, with special gold star award to @dabassgoesboomboom for his patience, invaluable suggestions and advice.
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But how does it sound ! (HQPlayer vs Roon alone)
Liking HQPlayer?
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I think HQP gives a bigger soundstage, better instrument separation, a more analogue sound which I do prefer. A definite improvement over Roon alone I reckon. I was doing some google searches on HQP and came across a few threads from this forum, and from the posts it seems that some of the Roon staff use HQP - that says it all I guess.
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