You can, it is just a bit of trouble to switch the mode. Usually you would run everything through the same process.
Not sure about NUC, but certainly you can find relatively inexpensive PC’s that can do more. They are not as quiet as Mac Mini, so having a HQPlayer network endpoint becomes handy in such case because you can then place the server outside of listening space.
I have not used any NUCs in ages, so maybe someone else can comment how capable those are these days.
Yes you can, WiFi performance depends a lot on the network. My MacBook Pro with M1Max has annoyingly sluggish WiFi, using for example ssh over it is annoying because it has so much lag - probably due to aggressive power savings.
I believe headless still works without a dongle, just with limited (1) resolution. 1920x1080 is what a Mac studio defaults to without a dongle. I image the M2 is the same.
There’s a third party app (BetterDisplay) that’ll give you a bunch of great options Apple won’t.
I subscribe to this topic because even though I am on a fanless server (HDPlex- WinLTSC), the new M2 is priced lower than the M1 for (even) better performance… the opportunity of an HQP server (ECv2 compatible)… a specific HQP-OS ?
I wish I had known that before I bought an M2 mini expressly for the purpose of running HQPlayer (1 month ago). I can confirm that DSD256 is the maximum I can achieve reliably. Even then it only works with reduced subset of modulators. I can just about use ASDM5EC but the v2 version drops regularly.
My m1 mini can do ASDM5ECv2 256 with some filters. I was expecting M2 to be slightly better. What files do you play?
Anyway if I’ll upgrade the zen stream NAA (only can do 256) I’ll get out of apple and build a comp for hqp.
To start trying a bit…
I have set up HQP desktop on my office PC with Ryzen 9 5900X and GeForce 3080RTX and 32GB RAM.
I have setup the NAA on my old HP Omen laptop connected by USB to my Esoteric DAC using the Esoteric ASIO USB driver (installed when I installed the Esoteric SW player). I can use HQP client on there.
All this still unlicensed, because I want to try before I buy
I configured ASDM7SECv2, FIR2/XFi, and the poly-sinc-gauss-long and poly-sinc-gauss-hires-lp with 44.1k x256 bit rate.
So far the music runs glitch free.
Now, how should I best approach the optimization of settings? There are sooo many.
Is there an explanation somewhere of each of the settings and modulator/filter names that would allow me to understand which settings to discard?
Are they very DAC dependent or can I best follow the favorites mentioned by other forum gurus?
With just 30 minutes of trial, it’s a difficult task.
Can I change settings from HQP client?
What happens if source DSD rate is same as output? Nothing (bit perfect)? Or uses just the FIR2/XFi filter and none of the upsampler/modulator settings?
Do I need to optimize any settings from the “Backend” section or are defaults fine if it works without glitches.
I haven’t seen a help file and help menu doesn’t give much help. I’ll look for a help file (txt? Pdf?) on my drive.
For my DAC i haven’t seen recommendations so i may be a first. Its a discrete DAC at 64bit (at least internally, maybe not on USB input) with upto 22.5MHz DSD rates.
Good news (I guess) that even AMSD7ECv2 with 256 is possible on the mini m2.
I said, so far no glitches…
Not true, every now and then something of the connection between naa and desktop stops.
The cmd prompt window of naa reports disconnection and connection repeatedly, as if its searching for HQP. The Desktop settings no longer show the Esoteric ASIO device. Have to relaunch it to get the device back in the drop down menu.
Are you on Windows? If so, you can find HQPlayer manual from the HQPlayer-group in Start-menu.
Filter selection depends on source material and your personal preferences. Modulator choice in terms of 5th / 7th order depends on your DAC. In your case 7th order should be fine. Since you already use ECv2 modulator you are using currently best implementation - which is also the heaviest, since it works you have enough processing power.
The software exits after 30 minutes and then you need to restart it for another 30 minutes and so on.
Yes, when playback is in stopped state, from the control panel (the button with three horizontal lines).
It is always processed through the DSP pipeline, so all the DSP features are similarly available, including volume control etc. (remember to never turn the volume higher than -3 dBFS, and keep eye that the volume knob doesn’t turn yellow or red)
The rate is not changed, but everything else remains the same. So the integrator/modulator etc.
It should be fine with defaults.
ASDM7ECv2 up to DSD256. And most filters. Performing DSP for DSD sources may get it on the edge, since it is very heavy process.
Your PC should be able to do DSD512 output with the same settings. If it doesn’t work with Multicore DSP set to greyed (auto), try setting it to checked (force all).
HQPlayer looks for NAA. And then connects to ask for the available DACs. But sounds like your DAC becomes inaccessible. Please make sure your DAC is not set as Windows default audio output device. And that you don’t have other pieces of software running that could steal it. Such as Roon Bridge or similar.
HQPlayer log file and/or NAA output would likely tell why it disappeared.
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HQPlayer looks for NAA. And then connects to ask for the available DACs
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Thanks!
When this happens the NAA command window cycles through connecting, disconnecting where each time it reports having found the Esoteric ASIO USB driver.
I have no other USB requesting apps/devices on the windows 10 laptop (but HQP client is running). The DAC says USB ready during this time, meaning it has connection to USB. Otherwise it would not say “Ready” and have flashing dots.
I also have Roon running on the Grimm MU1, which has no USB connection to DAC.
Sounds like HQPlayer has lost the connection for some reason. It would be good to enable log file from HQPlayer settings. And then when the disconnection happens check the log file. On Windows you can find HQPlayer4Desktop.log in %LOCALAPPDATA%\HQPlayer folder. It is plain text file, so you can read it with Notepad for example.
After that this just repeats. HQP restart doesnt help, while NAA seems is still listening. I notice I cannot close that window except with a kill in Task Manager. A restart of networkaudio_name makes it work again. Restarting networkaudio while HQPlayer is running, makes HQP hang. So the order seems to be first newtworkaudio then HQPlayer. Then it runs again.
Looks like the network disappears. Someone else had similar problem on Windows. And IIRC, the issue was with Intel’s 2.5G NIC having some firmware issue. Disabling 802.3az (EEE) from the driver settings worked around the firmware bug. Essentially the controller went into power save and didn’t recover without card rebooting itself.
Not 100% sure. In Device Manager of the PC running HQPlayer I only see a “Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller”. Nothing Intel.
Probably the HP laptop running NAA does have Intel. Would the first “Unknown error” warning in the log not point to a connection failure to the DAC, since it says “clSocket:send()”, not receive? It’s also the NAA command window that hangs. And Roon reports “lost connection to the HQPlayer”.
Maybe this helps: Roon runs on the Grimm MU1, streams data to HQPlayer on desktop PC over wired network, this sends data to the NAA over wired network to Mesh WiFi Access point which sends data to the HP laptop with NAA, connected to DAC via USB using Esoteric ASIO driver.
I did use that for about 1 month. Maybe 1h or 2h per day. It is giving a pretty good picture