How to combine ROCK HQ-Player

Audio Gear Talk HQ Player
1

Roon Core Machine

ROCK on Cirrus7 with i7 10th Gen.16 RAM 500 SSD, 1TB SSD Second Slot … really good.
MacMini Late 2014 I7 3Ghz 16 RAM with DC-Power.

Networking Gear & Setup Details

Fritzbox 7590( modified with LPS)…Uptone Etherregen with Farad3 LPS

Connected Audio Devices

Uptone Etherregen / Farad3….NCF LAN…to …Cirrus7Nimbini…Neotech Copper USB to Denafrips DDC….Tubulus Argentus HDMI to Denafrips Terminator II

Library Size

18000 Tracks

Description of Issue

I want to use the Cirrus Nimbini only for the HQ-Player and … either the MacMini as Roon Core or a smaller Cirrus as Roon Rock.

My questions … can I combine a MacMini for Roon and a NUC in my network? What do I have to do, that HQ-Player is visible in the Roon software or vice versa Roon in the HQ- Player.

And, . do I need Linux or Windows for installing the HQ-Player exclusive on the Cirrus.

Hope I could explain my target :slight_smile: Thank for your support and help.

2

No, you can just dump HQPlayer OS image on a small USB memory stick, boot it up and you are done.

It is a bit like Roon Rock, but instead a custom built OS for running HQPlayer Embedded.

2 Likes
3

Here is where you can find the image that Jussi mentions, to burn to USB stick (using etcher):

Index of /bins/hqplayerd/images/

You also need to point Roon to it. Just find the IP address of the HQP OS machine and point Roon to it with the IP address here:

image
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4

I am running a Roon Rock system. Does this HQPlayer add to it or replace it? If it adds to it, can I use a separate machine for it? As you can see, I’m a tad confused…

5

Yeh add a more powerful machine.

Although on a more powerful machine you can also run both HQPlayer and Roon.

But in some ways, simplest and most optimised solution is Roon OS (ROCK) on one machine and HQP OS on a separate.

HQP OS can be booted from a USB stick and won’t touch whatever is on the hard disk - it mostly runs from RAM.

You just point Roon to play to HQPlayer’s IP address , under Roon’s audio zones.

Do you already have a more powerful machine around the house to do the free trial? Even a laptop

1 Like
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I’ve been having issues with Roon being slow to search and to load songs. Perhaps this will solve that problem?

I have 64 GB of RAM on the ROCK. Could (should) HQP be booted from a USB stick attached to that machine? It has an i7 processor. Or would it ultimately be better to use a completely separate machine? BTW, I have 285,000 tracks (all lossless, and nearly all flac). If a completely separate machine is the way to go, what would ideal specifications be? (I would be using it for nothing else.)

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What DAC? What budget

You can trial HQP OS right now on your NUC from USB stick but then you obviously need to run Roon on a separate machine

I don’t think adding HQPlayer would help with your Roon OS (ROCK) slowness

Are you doing Roon DSP?

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A couple weeks ago I started this topic, trying to figure out why Roon had become so very slow in searching and loading files. After upgrading my Rock, and exploring a number of leads, I’m coming to the conclusion that the slowness is mostly on Roon’s end of things, and there may be little I can do about it. I hope the techs at Roon are working on fixing the problem, since I’ve loved Roon since I first came onboard many years ago, and I’m a lifetime subscriber. My curiosity here is whether HQ Player might handle things a bit differently, and if it could be of help in regaining the old “snappiness” I would set a budget of over $1,000 to do it.
Here are my devices:

Ropiee
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And in answer to your question about DSP, all of these zones have the following settings:

Library
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