I installed HQPlayer on my MacMini but could never figure out how to use it because of the interface being so complex. I’ve heard great things about it’s SQ and very much looking forward to it’s integration into Roon… possibly even a lifetime membership I see in the future, if it all works out.
HQplayer integration is fantastic news. I love the Roon interface…but I’m finding it hard to listen to it after I’ve gotten used to HQplayer upsampling to DSD128.
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+1
I still use HQPlayer for local content. Having it work for Tidal lossless content would be HUGE!
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Incidentally running HQ Player and music files on RAM disks is the end all for sound quality with HQ Player.
Geoff Armstrong (http://www.computeraudiophile.com/f11-software/play-itunes-through-hqplayer-24281/index6.html#post444731) has developed a solution for itunes that converts PCM files into .wav…saves them on a ramdisk…plays them through hqplayer…and then dumps the files afterwards. You can then upsample to high resolution PCM or DSD with HQ Player. Upsampling to DSD128 with HQ player makes redbook files breath taking. This would be a fantastic option (ramdisk creation and pre-play file uncompression) for roon when you integrate HQ Player. Quit simple on a mac…not sure about on a PC.
HQPlayer has an even better API mechanism than reading off ramdisk, which requires no storage intermediary at all. Many fewer moving pieces than involving filesystems.
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@danny very curious if you have a possible time when HQP will/may happen in Roon? End of summer type thing? I’m really looking forward to this feature more than anything else (and possible Oppo 105 endpoint :)) thanks.
Creating temporary files on Ram Disk was actually a solution suggested to me by Jussi.
It is actually a workaround the limitation that HQPlayer doesn’t support Apple Lossless or other formats that iTunes users would typically have in their libs. Conversion from any format to wav (or flac) in a Ram Disk is very fast. So the workaround works well.
Of course it also has the added benefit of improved sq.
Geoff
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Thanks for that background Geoff. I do know that Apple lossless Redbook material sounds fantastic when converted to wav and is played from the ramdisk with upsampling. I haven’t done systematic listening tests to figure out which of those factors is most important. I’m guessing it is the upsampling…however playing from memory may also contribute…but there are obviously obviously other ways to do that other than a ramdisk. Room has the reading apple lossless files solved. I’ve been copying DSD64, 128 and 256 files to the ramdisk to play them with HQ player… But the difference in sound quality is not as dramatic as worth the Redbook material…they already sound so good.
Robert
That’s great! If Roon can send that to HQP as a data stream (pre-converted to wav) the results using HQP conversion to DSD should be fantastic!
Geoff
If this goes forward, is the inclusion of HQ Player’s abilities/API going to be of no cost to the user?
I think it was mentioned earlier when I’d inquired about the same thing, that the features would be there but you’d need to buy a HQ Player license (Probably just like Tidal integration) for those options to be active.
Thanks. @Rugby. I’ll wait until the press & the people conduct a thorough analysis before I’d consider paying more for Roon. I am already increasing my CD purchases!
But, all this is just guessing games until we have an official Roon announcement.
I’m sure would be in for life-time member. Roon+HQ+Tidal is going to be fantastic.
I might pull it sooner. still looking. keep up the work.
I decided to pull the lifetime trigger just based on the promise of HQP integration along with everything else they already have. It’s been a good decision and I recommend it.
@Rugby - Great idea - do it! We lifetime members obviously all think Roon does a wonderful job, but we ought to have a tiny bit louder voice than the annual renewal guys do in insuring that Roon continues to do that wonderful job. A separate thread might be a good way to achieve that.
BTW, Thanks to Roon, I must be done with JRiver. I just let my special renewal rate with JRiver go by without exercising it. JRiver’s silly fight with JPlay left me cold…
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Me too. I am turned off by the whole authoritarian, capricious feel, especially regarding JPlay.
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Danny et al., wondering if there is any update/approximate timing on HQ Player integration?
Robert
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