if forum communication is not the way for you to go, as you say…
This is actually not what I said. I don’t know any other way of saying what I actually did say, so I’ll stop saying it now.
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Ok. There are several threads that deal with Pi and running HQPe iteself. Just google for those.
HQPlayer is actually my crossover in my speaker system !
Crossover is critical part of any HiFi system 
And it is my room correction thingy ! Critical in speaker system !
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HQPlayer is actually my crossover in my speaker system !
Crossover is critical part of any HiFi system
Sure, good point - I wasn’t meaning to say that HQPlayer couldn’t act as a component. I was planning to run it as a separate component myself. But in my eyes it is still an invalid comparison - if that was intended originally, which of course I can’t be sure about - to put a license for a DIY software module side by side with an expensive (usually overly expensive, who are we kidding) physical Hifi component to make the point that £200 are not very much.
There are people spending more than that on streamers and cables !
It is doing my digital room correction too, which has a way bigger impact than exotic cables and streamers !
It is literally changing the tonality of sound that reaches your ears !
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Again, no doubt - but when I judge whether £200 is subjectively “a lot” or not, then I compare like for like. That means, to me, that I compare a piece of software to other pieces of software.
Anyway, a moot point - I said from the start that I might have justified the price to myself, and I also explained before that the reason I’m mentioning this is merely that my expectations derive from the price. If the product cost £24.99, or £5 a month or whatever, then my expectation would be different. That’s all - not really meant to be great wisdom at all.
Oh, and btw - these points are exactly what make me really sad to leave this software behind. But given the stability of it, the various unresolved issues and the lack of communication from the manufacturers, I still feel better having made the choice to walk away from this particular rabbit hole.
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Yes, it is not the product for you obviously. Sorry to say so.
Your comments are funny, mate. No offense intended. You seem to make the point that this product is basically for those people who are happy to spend £220 after 30 minutes of testing, disregard all technical issues or else try to solve them themselves by googling endlessly… you know, I use many products in exactly this manner, on a daily basis, but they are all FOSS software. I’ve been trying to impress upon you the entire time that this is all about expectations - give me software without warranties implied or otherwise and I’ll gladly fiddle all day if I decide I like it. Give me software with a price tag and I want it to work, or to be supported to make it work. It’s that simple.
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Myself is very happy with HQP incl. its stability and the support I get. I do not care, if I get the sound from hardware or software. If software is giving me an excellent sound, I am willing to pay for it. Compare SQ to less expensive options and decide for your own, which SQ you prefer. Sure you may get a Chord Upscaler or a DAC with Upscaling, if is really better than HQPlayer, there myself puts a big questionmark on and comparable hardware has a very different price tag. I guess, you made your point now? I can not confirm, what you are posting. Sorry, that you had such a bad experience.
I’ll have a closer look at the issues you mention, a bit later. I’ve been rush reading (sorry). I’ll get back to you ! Maybe I can help. Maybe I can’t.
But for me, from a stability perspective, this thing is rock solid. Hundreds/thousands of hours of consecutive playback without a hiccup.
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Glad to hear that. I’m sure that the issues I was facing will not be the same for everybody. If the product had been stable in my tests, I would be far less excited about the availability or otherwise of support services.
This we agree on!
I made my point in my original post - just hanging around to see whether I can clarify things. As I said, my intention was to be helpful to others, including in fact HQPlayer itself, by posting about my experience.
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Check the thready specific to Pi and running HQPe. You will most prob. find all answers to your technical topics there. If you are done with it, what would be sorry, then…Have a nice day. All said by me. And sorry to hear about your experiences.
Thanks, mate, appreciate it. The stability issue is a dumb thing, in a way - it prevented me from even testing the product properly. Change a filter setting - half the time, roughly, this requires extensive fiddling, restart of the HQPlayer device, removal/readding of the HQPlayer endpoint in Roon. Coupled with the paranoid 30 minute limit and the licensing (all I know about the licensing is that it’s adhered to very strictly - see forum posts - since I have yet to see a license text!), this has the potential to scare me away from a product.
Changing filters maybe is a bit fiddly. But once you’re seasoned veteran you won’t fiddle any more !
For the Desktop version, the licensing is actually the simplest.
You can use your Desktop license key file (which he emails you on purchase) with Windows, Mac, Linux Desktop. Just not at the same time on different machines.
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Oops sorry, noticed Embedded in your thread title. Scrap the part above, about Desktop.
dabass, no license so far…so still option for Oli to get Desktop licence
I was actually wondering about that - it appeared to me, given the various documented different qualities of different filters for different musical styles, source resolutions etc etc, as if it might be useful to occasionally play with filters a bit even once you’re happy with your initial setup. I was surprised to see how complicated this was even in the best case - but perhaps this usage scenario is not really a goal. Otherwise I understand what you mean - you fiddle just once, or at least not frequently… however, as we know very well in the software industry, the “onboarding” experience is nevertheless one of the primary selling points of any software product. Perhaps the only “primary” one in a case where severe limitations such as 30 minute time limits are imposed on the first-time user.
Right, I understand - but I’m not interested in a desktop version. The main two questions I wanted to see clarified is whether I can use my license on multiple devices (so I can target more than one HQPlayer endpoint from Roon), and whether there is any hassle when I need to replace hardware (prompted by the unexplained requirement for a “hardware fingerprint”). Beyond that I simply find it astonishing and legally suspicious that license information is not readily available in an obvious place… I do believe I have a legal right, but most certainly a moral right, to check license conditions before I make a purchase.
myself switching a lot using HQP Desktop. But you can use HQPClient for it too with HQPe to my knowledge. Or you use the mobile App HQPDControl for this. Desktop is for usage scenarios, running on several platforms most flexible. Also, if you want a mobile setup to take with you on biz trips.
HQPClient has direct Qobuz or HRA interface…
I saw mention of this somewhere, but I didn’t test it. When I use the web UI to change a filter setting, I need to click Apply, wait 10 seconds while something restarts in the Embedded version, then start my playback in Roon again, which for some reason also takes 10 seconds or so most of the time. In the best cases this is not a bad experience - it could be faster, but no big deal. However, about half the time it does not work. Sometimes the HQPlayer Pi hangs after the Apply step - this usually requires a hard restart, meaning I need to get up, unplug the thing and plug it back in, wait for it to restart. Sometimes it appears to work, but the changed setting somehow doesn’t make it into Roon, so I need to remove the HQPlayer endpoint in Roon and re-add it. Sometimes playback from Roon simply doesn’t start for no obvious reason, so a reboot of the Pi is required - sometimes it hangs on reboot (!) and requires a hard reset. There are variations of these error scenarios - but the point is that this made me very hesitant after a while to change any settings. And of course it’s extremely annoying if you’re trying to listen to different settings in a critical manner because it breaks your flow and disturbs your ability to compare reliably.
I see no reason to think that the use of a different client to apply the configuration changes would somehow resolve these issues.