HQ Player Setup Insight

@dabassgoesboomboom @andybob Update: choosing iPV6 NAA almost eliminated the issue. I don’t have iPv6 enabled on my router, so the reason for the improvement eludes me. I’ve had maybe four drops in an hour and a half listening to PCM and DSD sources, so we’re close to resolving the issue fully. I did notice, however, that if I don’t have Adaptive output rate selected, the playback never starts and my ethernet graphs is all spikes. I’m not entirely clear what this option does yet, aside from allow or disallow straight 192 output, so I’m not sure if I “should” be using it, and why it seems to be a non-starter if I’m not.

Can you show your Roon signal path with music playing?

And did you try Jussi’s NAA OS that i linked?

And is your RPi4 connected to network by ethernet cable or WiFi? Sorry if I missed it earlier. If WiFi try ethernet cable.

What are the specs of your HQPlayer machine?

PCM192kHz should be really easy for PC, network and HiFiBerry.

And this leads to next obvious thing to try: do you have any dropouts if you limit sample rate to PCM96kHz max ?

@dabassgoesboomboom I haven’t tried the NAA OS because my girlfriend uses the AirPort functionality of RoPieee XL, so that’s a deal breaker. My RPi4 is connected by Wi-Fi because it’s in a completely separate area with no ability to run ethernet; I’m consistently pulling ~500mbps down/25mbps up in that room on Wi-Fi so I’m not thinking it’s bandwidth-related necessarily. The machine running my Roon core and HQ Player is a NUC10i7, 32GB Corsair Vengeance RAM, 1TB Western Digital Black SSD for Windows, 2TB Seagate Firecuda SSD for music storage. Like I said, the PC is not trying hard by all graphs and there is no stutter whatsoever when playing 192kHZ directly in Roon. Attached is a signal path screenshot. Thanks for your help!

Just suggested swapping SD card just for quick trouble shooting.

What about quickly swapping girlfriend?

LOL sorry the joke had to be said !

Hmmm WiFi is likely your problem…

Did you try limiting to PCM96kHz like I suggested ? Quick test?

I would guesstimate your troubles disappear…

4 dropouts per hour doesn’t have to be max speed related. Can be interference related.

Is that 2.4GHz or 5GHz ? If 2.4 try 5 … can be less interference

Also, try setting different channels for Wi-Fi on your router. Sometimes if there are a lot of routers in an area the default channels get congested.

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LOL @dabassgoesboomboom

I haven’t gotten a second microSD card yet for NAA OS but I may if I can’t narrow this down. I just switched the max sample rate to 96khz and it played fine (honestly, after I replied to you this afternoon, I had no more droputs for about another 45 minutes or so of listening at 192. However, even at 96, playback will not start at al without Adaptive Output Rate being selected…the RPi4 is on 2.4ghz because it won’t stay on my network if I force it to the 5ghz channel (to me, this is probably the root of the droputs but not the non-starting). I flashed the SD card times four times yesterday trying to get it working, but as as soon as I hop on the 5ghz SSID, it will appear on the network for a few seconds then drop, over and over - no other devices in the same room have any issue with this. @andybob I will have a look at the channels, I have to do this constantly in our apartment. I’d love to figure out why I can’t stay on the 5ghz with my Pi first, or why I can’t start playback without Adaptive Output Rate being turned on…

Ticking Adaptive Output Rate tells HQP to always convert sampling rate from the source file rate to the selected output rate. This may prevent play if an integer filter such as closed form is used.

If set to grey then HQP will convert as necessary to the highest rate up to the selected output rate. This should always enable play but can take longer to initialise with some filters.

Leaving it unchecked means HQP will only output multiples of the source file rate. This may prevent play if the source file is 44.1 kHz but the DAC doesn’t support 88.2 or 176.4 input rates.

Jussi usually recommends leaving it grey.

Edit: I mixed up checked and unchecked, see below.

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Yes, otherwise but when checked it sticks to simple multiples of source rate, when unchecked it sticks to selected rate. Grayed attempts to stick but allows flexibility based on filter capabilities.

poly-sinc-mp can convert from any rate to any other rate. It can take a bit to initialize for conversions between rate families. But for 192k output rate it is not notable, unlike for MHz range rates.

Multicore DSP is best left grayed (auto-detection).

Are your router and RPi4 on opposite sides of the apartment? A few walls in between?

5G’z covers less distance compared with 2.4G’z

Since you’re in trouble shooting mode, I would eliminate the WiFI network completely for now to see if you can get PCM192kHz working - by using an ethernet cable between RPi4 and router…

Once you get music playing without issues using ethernet cable, then you know it’s not the RPi4 or the HiFIBerry having issues at 192kHz - you’ll know it’s 100% definitely WiFi related…

At the moment there’s a few different variables in play at the same time. That’s the perfect formula for getting your head spinning :grin:

Thanks for weighing in @jussi_laako. Am I right in inferring from your post that I’d want both Adaptive Output Rate and Multicore DSP set to gray? I’m a little confused as to what you mean by the poly-sinc mp filter not being notable for 192k.

He was talking about initialisation time. This time will be longer if using HQPlayer to upsample to ~12MHz compared to 192kHz.

That will be in your future. But not just yet Young Padawan :grin:

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@dabassgoesboomboom Tested with ethernet tonight; no drops. Since I also barely had dropouts by the end of yesterday’s listening over Wi-Fi, I’m willing to call that resolved. I haven’t messed with my routers channel yet @andybob, but I’m confident that would resolve the inability to stay connected to 5ghz with my Pi - again since 2.4 seems to be much more stable than the other day, it’s less of a priority for me at this point. However, I still can’t get any playback for 192khz (Adaptive Output unchecked), so it must be a filter interfering…

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When you start playback in the 192k output case, do you get an error message on HQPlayer status bar?

No error @jussi_laako, it just never starts in Roon and the HQ Player GUI just shows processing time 00:00:00.

Take HQP out for a moment and use Roon to upsample to 192k (turn off power of 2) to your RPi4. You may need to reboot your Pi if it’s locked in NAA mode.

Any issues ?

Share a screenshot of your Roon signal path.

Can you check HQPlayer log file what it says about the playback attempt and how it ends?

Sorry for the delay @jussi_laako. The log files states " 2021/02/07 11:10:47 Requested filter not possible with this rate combination 44100/192000, stop" so I’m assuming this means a filter conflict.

What should dac bits and buffer time be for optical transmission to dac?
192khz upsampling?
What are generally considered most reliable dither and other settings?