Version 1.14.0 is now up on :beta!
Easy Mode
Easy Mode makes it about as simple as it can possibly be to choose between some of the best filters in HQPlayer with absolutely zero jargon: if you know what ‘space’ and ‘transients’ are, you can use Easy Mode.
Accessed through a link in the top right of the filter narrowing card reading “Overwhelmed? Try Easy Mode”. A link in the same location of Easy Mode goes back to full control.
There are nine presets, the last three being gated behind either PCM mode or SDM mode with 48k family support:
- The Perfect Ten aka
poly-sinc-gauss-longandpoly-sinc-gauss-hires-{l,m}p - Lifelike aka
poly-sinc-ext2andpoly-sinc-ext2-hires-{l,m}p - Damage Control aka
poly-sinc-xtr-short-{l,m}p - Old School aka
poly-sinc-short-{l,m}p - The Purist aka
poly-sinc-gauss-halfband - Concert Hall aka
poly-sinc-{gauss,ext2}-xl{a} - The Crucible aka
sinc-MG{a}andsinc-M - Full Analog aka
IIR2 - Textbook aka
FIRandminphaseFIR
(-2s used when available for SDM)
Some presets have an emphasis toggle that allows you to choose between transients (minimum phase) or space (linear phase). Two cards, Concert Hall and The Crucible, have sub-toggles [ The Perfect Ten | Lifelike ] that switches the sub-variant between gauss and ext2.
A lossy button at the top switches you into a mode that uses the hires and mqa/mp3 filters at 1x.
Last but not least, you’ll all be glad I decided to skip adding “
The Skid-Mark” to give the polynomials their own preset 
Junk filter auto-pilot
Rather than keeping an eye on junk filter warnings to turn it on yourself, auto-pilot will do it for you. And then turn it off again when you stop playback or switch to 1x content, clean hi-res, or a dedicated hi-res filter. Does not engage the 2x-8x filters; 20k - 50k only.
Note that it takes HQPTuner ~30 seconds to positively identify HF spurs. Not ideal for some material as it will toggle back and forth (Mareridt by Myrkur at 24/96 continually turns the 30k filter on and off). That’s likely a calibration issue on my end, I’ll work on it.
Redundant filters dropped
If a filter has a -2s variant, the non--2s variant is gone from the SDM list entirely. You can now only select the -2s version, as there’s no good reason to do otherwise. This brings the SDM filter list down to 65 from 77.
It should still be clear from the real filter name and the description that it is two-stage for when that’s relevant.
Improved narrowing dropdowns
This wasn’t all about Easy Mode, I did some work with the narrowing card too.
All narrowing dropdowns except Genre also now have “HQPTuner Hints” paragraphs added to them, for example:
Quality ratings are relative to general-purpose use; lesser-rated filters can outperform higher-rated ones with the appropriate content.
You can now sort filters by the lengths “extra-short”, “adaptive”, and “stupid long”. The first accommodates the polynomials and poly-sinc-hb-xs; the second two mostly accommodate the pure sinc family, which contains a mix of both. Filters can have a length and still be adaptive.
Lastly, I’ve fixed a few errors in the classification; for example, sinc-Ls and sinc-S were listed in Simplified mode as “Short” variants, but only came up when sorting for “Unspecified” length filters. Those now come up when you sort for “short”—a bit of a weird one because “short” to sinc and poly-sinc are two very different things, i.e., even short sinc filters are brutally long… but I’m doing my best with a complicated topic 
.
Live mode changes
I made a ton of improvements to Live mode.
The big one: Live presets now allow you to specify which settings you want attached/loaded! For example, if you wanted a preset to only change filters but keep the current output mode and modulator/dither or vice versa.
Live presets can also be re-selected: previously, if the dropdown was set to preset X, then you changed a filter, you couldn’t re-select preset X without going to preset Y first. That’s fixed.
The preset dropdown now also shows what each live preset contains in a hover tip.
Finally, the preset dropdown now sorts numbers correctly (e.g. DSD1024 would sort above DSD256) and grays out presets that the current hardware can’t support.
Speaking of dropdowns: if you live in Live mode, switching HQPlayer presets (e.g., from headphones to speakers) was a pain in the ass: drop Live mode, select HQPlayer preset, apply, wait for daemon restart, back to live mode. Now, Live mode honors its promise that all settings apply immediately upon selection, even a preset switch. Unlike all other live page settings, though, this obviously restarts the engine.
Woof. I really need to come up with a better name for Live presets than “preset”. Owning it: bad choice on my part.
Oh, and, of course, Live mode lost its output rate setting 
Apod light
An opt-in light in the top bar of the program flashes with apodizing events, brighter with higher density. This allows you to catch apodizing from any page in the app.
Enabled through System > HQPTuner card. Needs tweaking to optimize and the label looks like a sore thumb, but it’s functional.
Dyslexic-friendly font support
Added an option to switch the interface’s font from Inter to Atkinson Hyperlegible, a dyslexic-friendly font. Monospace stays JetBrains Mono. Found in System > HQPTuner.
but it’s oh 
!