I have a moon 340iD3PX and considering HQP. Does it add significant value versus Roon’s DSP? I will use a M4 Mini directly connected to the DAC over USB (AQ). Speakers are brand new SF Olympics Nova III’s.
It’s free to try for as many 30 minute sessions as you want to run through (just restart the app to get the next 30 minute session).
I use it on a Mac Mini M1 16GB of RAM and use it to play to several endpoints.
It took me a year of playing every now and then to decide it was worth paying for, but now I use it most days when I am sitting down for a serious listening session.
Only you can decide
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I have heard reflections about HQP from every possible position; I can’t hear any difference, to making the music far more enjoyable , in my case realistic. I depends on music, taste and the rig itself according to my personal conclusion. It does not take away the necessary steps of implementing the gear according to best practise, but when all is done to minimize acoustic, electric, RFI/EMI and mechanic interference, HQP will reward you with a stunningly lowered noise level, far less “ringing” from instruments and a better stable sound stage. Harsch high mids and highs and boomy low end is gone. I am no math guy, I cannot help understanding HQP. There is a quite large user threshold in my opinion, but worth every minute of frustration. If you are not a Linux guy, go Desktop. There are many helpful people here, but they will give answers assuming some basics of Linux. I have been in that swamp and sunk, so I decided a new direction and went Windows. Never looked back. I would never start an audition today without HQP. Also the intermediate choices of filters and modulators within HQP is a potential game changer. The trick is not to get confused by the possible re-/up-sample choices. It takes a while to determine the filter you prefer for the music you enjoy. 
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Thank you very much! I will receive the Mac Mini M4 tomorrow (just the base edition, 16GB RAM) to be a dedicated ROON server. On the samen M4 I might run HQP. Played a bit already with HQP on a Macbook M3 air, and I understood my DAC ‘prefers’ PCM, which is 384/32 and DSD256 max anyway so CPU-wise that wouldn’t a problem.
Which filter/settings will be part of the journey indeed but ChatGPT is a great help in this 
What settings do you use, just out of curiousity.
I am running a single PC setup that include both Roon and HQP.
The PC spec is a self built:
Intel I9-14900K
4000MHz RAM 16 GB
Nvidia RTX3080
My DAC is RME ADI-2 DAC fs
I use a self built NAA with HQP NAA image
The filter is DSD256 DoP, ASDM7EC Super, IIR2. The DAC allows DSD Direct, a fantastic feature changing the overall very decent DAC spec for the price to a transparent keeper.
The gear is modified, transmissions are generally optical and the galvanic isolation is complete. There is a substantial attention to ground management, but there is no esoteric gear in wooden boxes, just simple engineering with star ground principals, dampened with resistors to not support dipol-antenna effects, extensive mains filtration from a level of up 1 volt ripple to about 15 mV in operation. Never connect TV or monitors to the clean mains side.
It plays with very fast transients and large dynamic range, no smearing or smoothing. Snare and drums are hard hitting like shots fired. Closer to my own experience of live instruments in rehearsal and on-stage. The new problem I face is the degenerative direction of high res streaming services, where the respect for original well done masters of music is replaced by sloppy contemporary sh*t with over-used multiband compressors and limiter and thus 24-192, the effective dynamic range would not even fill CD format technical spec. Today many times music will not benefit from being unveiled…
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If you are using PCM then it will very happily sit on the same device and probably rarely go above 10% CPU running both.
I tried it that way on an M1 Mini for DSD256 and I had issues, and put Roon back on the Nuc running DietPi.
I have run HQPlayer on Windows, Linux and Mac and as long as you are using an NAA endpoint there has been no difference for me. Very happy running it on the low power drawing Mac Mini now as it is on 24/7
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Thank you both @Stefan_Jorma and @Michael_Harris, very helpful information! As said, my plan is to hook the Mini directly to the DAC, but now I understand you (and many others) use NAA/Ropiee. What is reason for this? Is it SQ related or simply because NAA allows you to place the Mini/NUC somewhere else? Looking forward to hear your opinions!
Those are some serieus specs! What is your CPU load with those settings? The CPU score according to cpubenchmark.net for the i9 is ±60k and for the M4 ±24k while single-threads are fairly comparable. PS, why the heavy GPU? About the TV, I have an AQ PowerQuest which has an output specifically for TV that I use, shouldn’t I?
NAA let’s you locate your HQPlayer server for example in the basement, or equipment closet somewhere. So for example loud fans don’t matter. It also provides galvanic isolation (provided that you use U/UTP or optical cabling).
For galvanic isolation in-place, alternative is to use for example Intona USB isolator. So you don’t necessarily need to use network as means of galvanic isolation.
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@jussi_laako I have renewed all network cables in my house 3 months ago with cat 7 S/FTP cables. The M4 is fanless so no problem there; will be dedicated to Roon/HPQ.
You can simply use CAT6A U/UTP to the NAA device if you use such. Copper Ethernet provides galvanic isolation through the pulse transformers as long as it is unshielded, this is on purpose to avoid potential large DC offsets and ground currents on big buildings. This works up to 25 Gbps. The shield connects device grounds which of course spoils this isolation and can cause various ground current issues, but was necessary to achieve speeds exceeding 25 Gbps on copper…
For audio, 25 Gbps of unshielded is certainly enough…
Those benchmarks are quite over optimistic for M4. In practice with HQPlayer workloads, i9-14900K has about double single core performance compared to M4. The MxPro/MxMax models can reach higher memory bandwidths though, thanks to the memory architecture. Downside of the memory architecture is that you cannot change/add more memory. Apple M-series is certainly very good in terms of performance per Watt.
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I have shielded copper so I need to ground my ftp cable? How can I do this?
For the M4, I’ve tested with an M3 Air and PCM upsampling went perfectly.
If you have in-wall FTP, you just use regular UTP from wall socket to the NAA device. Or if you do like I do, and have a room specific switch between wall socket and all the devices in the room, you just have UTP cable from the switch to the NAA device…
Yes, PCM outputs certainly not a problem. Where things become challenging is if you want DSD1024 output. So about 45 MHz output rates.
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Thanks! Yes, I have wall S/FTP which goes to a switch with a SFTP cat 7 but from the switch to the Mac I now have a regular UTP (cat 6) and also ordered a Delock Network Isolator. This will ensure interference and overcharge is settled.
About the scaling, I understood my DAC prefers PCM over DSD (ESS 9018K2M) so PCM will be sufficient. I also play vinyl, if I want the warm sound
These chips can work very nicely at DSD512 and have improved performance over PCM inputs. Assuming a generally good implementation.
My system is similar:
iMacM410x10>Roon/HQP5>
InnuosZenithMkII SE>Moon280D
The HQP makes a significant improvement in SQ.
Here’s the rub: HQP requires a special NAA in devices thru which it can process. Roon works similarly, hence Roon Ready devices. Moon DACs do not have HQP’s NAA, so you will need to add a device that has it upstream of the DAC. In my case, it’s the InnuosZenith. It has a menu to select whether you want to use the Zenith, Roon or HQP to process audio. Sonore’s UltraRendu is a very good mini audio computer which has the HQP NAA, among others, which can be used to create the same kind of bridge. Of course, there are others.
You know already Simaudio Moon DACs use a USB input to output DSD formats. My Moon specs say it supports DSD 64, 128 and 256. But in my case, I cant get it to output HQP DSD 256 from the InnuosZenith. I believe it’s something to do with the Zenith.
While it’s disappointing, using HQP to upsample with filters sounds fabulous nonetheless.
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Thanks @Bruce_Orr, a fellow MOON-lover ;). My remaining question is why I need a NAA in the first place, as I can (and have) simply connected the M4 to the DAC directly. ROON can be configured to take full control of the audio-output (exclusive mode). Roon does recognize the DAC and provides optimal settings with it. In other words, why would a NAA (or RPiee w/o HQP) add positively to the SQ? Your Zenith is quite an investment I hardly see the benefit of, so please educate me.
In addition, my DAC should be able to process DSD256 too but ROON mentions only 128 over USB so something goes wrong there. With HQP I have managed to get 256. But I don’t (yet) have bought the HQP software.
Both reasons. I have located the main computing PC in other room and NAA is purely eased for outputting the bitsream via dedicated USB controller card Matrix Element H and external linear PSU. Makes wonders with SQ.
Yes and still it is stuttering on occasions. I am running the filter IIR2, Jussi told me this does not benefi from GPU’s but solely CPU cores. Do not know the core load. The PC is my general PC for office work, the one I use now typing. Lots of other software. Windows and SW load the idle with tons of sh*t, so I have to prepare the PC for music playback, by turning of all programs also the invisable back office prosesses, or else it will stutter. But the pleasure with II2R is worth every effort according to me. I also use a SW called Fidelizer, being very observant on warnings I got from Jussi. The software pauses the processes that is not necessary for playing back music. I just let the SW know what .exe-files is important and explicitly to not interefer with core management (HQPlayer excellence). The audible result is stunning and given the fact I use a NAA, it is even more surprising. 
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It is HQP that requires the NAA, not roon. So if roon integrates HQP, it releases all audio shaping and upsampling to HQP. So HQP needs the NAA - if your DAC does not have it embedded.
My iMac which hosts roon/HQP does not connect directly to the Moon, but via local ethernet cable to the Innuos NAA bridge and USB to the Moon.
If you can connect hqp-with-roon- integrated directly to your Moon DAC (without the NAA) via ethernet (not USB) and get all the benefits of HQP that’s great. I prefer USB, and my Moon says it wont play DSD256 without it, and hasn’t.
I will have to see if the HQP recognizes the moon if I switch from usb to ethernet, as it seems to be working for you.
Yes, the Innuos is overkill when set up as an NAA bridge. I didn’t buy it for this originally, nor was I using HQP. As I started using HQP it became a convenient bridge because it had the NAA embedded.
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Which is meaningless if you are using HQPlayer even on the same box. Once Roon hands the audio off to HQPlayer, HQPlayer delivers it to the endpoint, even if it is attached via USB. So HQPlayer, not Roon, needs to be aware of your Moon.
Roon limits to DSD 128 because MacOS does not do native DSD, only DoP (which is why the limit is 128 to afford headroom for the encapsulation).
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