There be a serious rabbit hole there…… (as well as dragon’s)
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I honestly can not answer this. My journey started with Roon, then I figured out how to do the convolution filters for my various headphones under Roon. Then I started reading more about HQPlayer. So I tinkered with that and have it doing upsampling to DSD256.
I understand Roon upsamples and that HQPlayer does convolution filters. I simply haven’t figured out that way, yet.
Yes, once you have determined which filters and modulator combination sound the best for you in PCM and in DSD, you can not touch them again.
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Every time I’ve installed it and activated it within Roon, I’m presented with a solid black window with a bunch of drop down menus with greyed out options—I think I’m misunderstanding how it works…
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It took a bit for me to get. The creator @jussi_laako is here and helps answer a lot of questions. Local setup was pretty simple. server/client took some. I even had to ask. Thankfully a clue-by-4 was nearby.
I’ve applied convolution files in Roon using Wav files I downloaded from GitHub that allegedly have Harman Curve targets for my individual headphones. Maybe it’s my hearing or just my preferences, but with all three of my headphones—Utopias, Susvaras and Z1Rs—I prefer the native tuning with just a bit of oomph added to the sub bass through about 120 hz. But in all honesty my amp is the iFi Pro iCAN Signature, and I prefer its analog bass enhancement above all of it.
I’m still not sure which I prefer. I had the same self argument with the loudness button on stereos as well.
One sounded better but is it?
I’ll admit the filters change the sound.
Better . . . ?
To each their own is what I’ve learned.
Yes then you just have to play and find what works for you.
It does want a machine with significant power to get the best of it, but it does create some wonderful music when it is set up well. Work’s great with the Zen.
Though I do find my mini PCs cannot keep up with the demands I ask of it and it starts to make a lot of noise after a while. It’s why I have not committed HQP yet
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I’ve been running HQP on a shell server in the garage. I’m going to take the NUC this ZS is replacing and convert it to a dedicated HQPlayer and see if I can gain access to more of the capabilities HQPlayer offers.
That is a question that each will have to answer.
I love the sound of poly-sinc-ext2 with ASDM7ECv2 upsampled toDSD256.
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I was using my old i5 7th gen NUC for this, but it never had enough grunt.
Now using a mini Dell PC with 7th gen i7.
Better but still not quite up to it
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I have a 1u with dual Xeons nice but can’t do a lot of the filters I could be.
But it’s a beast and runs solid.
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Thanks. My sole setup is on my nightstand in my bedroom—ZS—>Topping D90se—>iFi Pro iCAN Signature amp. I have Roon server running on a 2021 iMac M1 24” with 16GB of RAM, and I use either my iPhone or iPad as remotes. I just can’t seem to figure out how to implement HQPlayer into this arrangement, but you’ve sparked my curiosity enough to do more research.
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You can run HQPlayer on the Mac (i believe) and feed it to the ZS.
I’d be glad to help in PM if you wanted.
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Does the ZS offer something over what a Raspberry Pi with roopieee does? Since you guys mentioned “all roon features” etc.
And does the USB filter do anything?
Marc the Stream offer’s very quiet filtered outputs on USB and SPDIF and is now Roon Ready as opposed to using Roon bridge.
I have Pi’s running Ropieee and digital and analog HifiBerry hat based Pi’s as well as do many of us on this thread, so nobody is disrespecting those.
The Stream is better than them, but they are great, it’s like buying an Pi with an extensive power supply and USB filter’s with a good USB cable etc, it ends up being of similar price and the Stream has the edge. It’s not night and day in any way but it’s there.
I had the former setup in my study and living room for my headset listening devices and one has been replaced by the Zen and the other by RR Matrix Audio mini I pro 3, but I still have a total 6 Pi’s involved in my Room setup.
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No wonder I can’t buy one! 
Wow!
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Ha ha… oops I better edit that, I counted 5 but then found another one 
And found another since.
I am not the great Pi hoarder of 2022 (honestly) 
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I am so hoping it is a typo.
I mean I have issues but . . . dang.
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Edited now, so only Bill knows the truth 
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