HQPlayer v4 released

Ron_The_Bear · April 30, 2019, 12:58pm

Just a note that v4 has been released in the past couple of days. Although I enjoy tinkering with HQPlayer and consider it an improvement on Roon alone, the price to upgrade - after applying the 20% coupon - is more than 30% above what I paid for v3 last September.

This is the most expensive software upgrade I’ve encountered and is a bridge too far for me as a casual user. However I’m interested in the thoughts of those who have upgraded as to the merits of v4 compared with v3.

Cheers.

ckpiv · April 30, 2019, 2:03pm

This upgrade is now multi platform. One License key for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Before you had to buy multiple licenses to use on each OS. This is cost effective and beneficial if you switch OS in the future or use multiple OS in your setup or want to experiment with another OS.

Spence_Marquart · April 30, 2019, 5:10pm

I’m using a Windows 10 PC with Roon lifetime membership and updated to HQPlayer 4 desktop. I tweaked some of my settings (see photo) to get the best sound out of my NAD C510 Direct Digital Preamp/DAC. This DAC is PCM only. I’m looking for the cleanest sound with more of a “flat” setting for my reference Focal Solo6 Be speakers. It sounds remarkable! I assume Jussi has modified some of the filters as it sounds better than HQP 3 to my ears. Just wonderful.

Spencer

Henry_McLeod · April 30, 2019, 6:37pm

Looking at the blurb on the Facebook announcement it seems the big thing is real time audio inputs. That might be quite compelling and something we have been asking for in Roon for a while.

miklats · April 30, 2019, 7:25pm

Upgrade costs are some € 150 plus tax.
For my understanding that is quite reasonable. I bought the prior version 2014/2015 and had not to pay a single € for maintenance. I agree for the casual user the price might be too steep as you have excellent filters available in Roon already.

Luca_Melandri1 · April 30, 2019, 8:17pm

I am sure that this upgrade is everything but snake oil, it has a lot of improvements but, with my humble micro idsd iFi , I really can’t hear a sound difference, moreover I think that roon sound by itself is quite good now, of course using my dac. On top of that I just purchased Audirvana for windows, and, frankly, awful gui apart, it sounds really good! just my two cents of course

dabassgoesboomboom · April 30, 2019, 11:25pm

I’ve been using this with HQP Embedded for some months now… using a miniDSP USBStreamer with it’s optical input and USB output, I can feed HQP with any optical source and distribute over the network… it works brilliantly.

Optical source can be a CD player, Bluesound Node 2i, Chromecast Audio, Airport Express, or whatever streamer you want with optical output…

rrwwss52 · May 1, 2019, 1:21am

I like HQPlayer, but will probably stick with V3…the Roon filters work well. Only NAA player I have is the microrendu…

Brian69 · May 2, 2019, 8:27pm

It is a significant price hike. However, HQPlayer version 3 was released in May 2013. So anyone who bought then would have had the software and regular updates for just about a full six years.

So not exactly cheap as a one off payment, but if version 4 offers six years of cost free updates, then it is pretty good value I would say.

Isiah_Lau · May 3, 2019, 2:06pm

@jussi_laako

Jussi why this setting bar is gone? Its very unhandy to change setting now!

jussi_laako · May 4, 2019, 6:13pm

Two reasons:

People seemed to keep changing settings through Settings/Preferences dialog instead of main window because that’s how other applications deal with it. So many people totally ignored the main window, which was the Master.
Those same things have moved to the Client to be remote controllable. So they are not totally gone, just relocated. Note that if you want to do this, wait for 4.0.2 release as there’s a synchronization bug regarding this feature in current Client.

Isiah_Lau · May 5, 2019, 12:21am

But when I use it with Roon, the client shows nothing at all.
(OK, just got it now, I need to click the setting in client then it shows. Is it the sync problem you mentioned?)

Rick_Stevenson · May 5, 2019, 6:05am

I bought a copy of HQPlayer 3 less than 4 weeks before the release of HQPlayer 4. The coupon from the web shop offers me a 20% discount on the new version. That’s pretty disappointing…

rrwwss52 · May 5, 2019, 6:20am

Did you contact @jussi_laako directly? I would. He probably doesn’t know who bought what when…

@Rick_Stevenson

Rick_Stevenson · May 5, 2019, 6:50am

Thanks for the suggestion, @rrwwss52. The process of getting a coupon requires you to upload the license file which has a conspicuous timestamp in it, so I assume the process is working as intended. But I’ll try making contact directly. Cheers, Rick.

miklats · May 5, 2019, 7:34am

Please let us know how this works out for you.

hammer · May 5, 2019, 8:34am

Hi, anyone else having connection issues with Roon? On my system, HPQ 3.x works just fine, but not HQP 4.00 or the latest 4.01. In the logs, I’m getting this error:

clControlThread::HandleConnection(): clSocket::SetOption(): setsockopt(): Unknown error

I’ve tried changing Firewall settings, but no luck. It seems something changed in v4 since on that same machine, I can still use 3.x without issue. Any ideas?

Thanks!

miklats · May 5, 2019, 10:19am

same here. I wait for 4.02.

hammer · May 5, 2019, 12:42pm

Hi, are you getting the same error in the log? What operating system are you using? I’m on Server 2016. I was browsing ComputerAudiophile Style and I’m not sure if 4.02 will fix it…

miklats · May 5, 2019, 1:26pm

I am on Win 10 Pro.
I wait for 4.02.
I learned taking action just after release is almost always lost effort.