I’ve been using Roon on my synology NAS for sometime and using a dedicated and remote PC connected to my DAC to use HQ Player. Ideally though, I’d like to have a single remote PC (not my NAS) running my room server AND HQ Player that then ‘serves’ the upscaled signal to a remote, low power, Roon device on my network that is connected to my DAC.
I don’t know enough about configuration options to know if this is possible so thought it beset to ask before I start looking at equipment.
You can build a capable PC with enough power to run Roon and HQPlayer on the same box. Keep in mind, when Roon sends the audio stream to HQPlayer, it is HQPlayer that then sends the stream to the endpoint not Roon. The HQPlayer endpoint software is called NAA. So, you would need to make sure your endpoint runs NAA.
So would the NAA endpoint be served from Roon? I want to continue using roon as my GUI and library etc, use HQP to upscale and then send the signal to a PC or other endpoint connected to the DAC. I thought to use an NAA you had to have HQplayer embedded and use that as the server, not Roon.
No, it will be served from HQPlayer. Embedded or Desktop doesn’t matter. Once Roon sends the audio stream to HQPlayer, Roon is out of the picture and HQPlayer handles the upsampling and then the final distribution to its’ own endpoint.
Roon to HQPlayer (Desktop or Embedded doesn’t matter) to HQPlayer Endpoint.
I presume I select HQplayer as the output device in Roon and then change the settings in HQplayer ‘output’ → Backend → NetworkAudioAdapter or NetworkAudioAdapterIPV6?
Yes, or ASIO if you have an attached DAC running the ASIO drivers, for example.
Excellent. I’ll give it a whirl. I’m trying to reduce the amount of boxes in my rack to the bare minimum and if I can offload the main work to elsewhere in the house and then just deliver the final signal by a Pi or something similar that would be a big starting point.
So I think I’ve hit a bit of a problem with this that hopefully can be resolved. I overnighted a Holo Audio Red to use as a NAA (it also offers room end point so not all is lost if not) but my DAC (Classe Delta Pre) requires Classe/Thesycon drivers for playback on the rear USB port, which the Holo clearly doesn’t have because the music played is all crackly.
I can use AES/EBU but this limits me to 96k rather than the 384k of the rear USB port and I appreciate some people will say ‘thats good enough’ but I always want to try and get the best I can.
Then you need to use a Windows PC as the endpoint. Get a small Windows PC, load the DAC drivers, install RoonBridge so it can function as a roon endpoint and load the NAA software so it can function as an HQPlayer endpoint.
If the music is playing in recognizable way, but is not fluid, then it could be also either networking problem or lack of processing power in HQPlayer computer for the given settings.
On Holo Red, one can always also try my NAA OS (on a different microSD card - do not overwrite the original one!). It has some DAC support extensions that may not yet be in the Red OS.
Thanks Jussi, I’ll give the NAA OS a try.
I don’t think its a networking issue as the music is continuous, but ‘metallic’ like its not being coded correctly. The HQPlayer PC is a i7 9900 and was working fine when connected directly via USB.
I’ve also contacted Classe about the Delta Pre, it says on their specs that the AES/EBU should do 192k but if I send anything over 92k I get no audio. Roon and HQPlayer indicate that the track is playing, just no output. This only applies to the balanced AES/EBU socket, the coaxial works fine which I find odd because if a socket or part of the DAC was dying I’d expect it to either work or not, not partly. At this point I can only presume its a limitation of the design but I’ll wait to see what Classe say.