FWIW, since my post above I moved from 2012 Mac Mini to a 2020 M1 Mini and Roon has also updated to the 1.8 build.
These changes have altered my feelings on pcm upscaling with HQPlayer.
Roon 1.8 sounds very good to me and I mostly use Roon direct to my DAC with no upscaling/DSP at all. Not so convinced of the value of HQP for pcm upscaling, especially since it introduces some lag to player control.
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WOW, as I am still “thinking” to get a 16G M1 MacMini, there are already so many good words on HQPlayer and Roon running on MMM1! And I run Audirvana 3.5, HQPlayer 4 Desttop and Roon Core on the same machine. To my ears, A3.5 >= HQP4 + Roon > Roon (on my system: 1. all music files are extracted by XLD, stored in their original format as AIFFs’ plugged directly on MacMini, 2. DAC: Rockna balanced 26bit R-2R, 3. FM Acoustics 711 Mk-2, 4. MBL “Fly-trapper” speakers). Roon DSP just washed off too much micro-details.
Now, it sounds like I need to get a 16G MMM1, even though Roon still runs on Rosetta 2, however, HQP4 already has a native MMM1 version.
Well nothing stays static for long in my streaming set-up it seems.
I experimented using my old 2012 i7 Mac Mini as an endpoint only and running the Roon Core on the M1 Mini - located in the same rack but on a different ac circuit.
This sounded significantly better in terms of focus and image clarity.
So I bought a Sonore ultraRendu to act as endpoint for my usb dac connection - significant SQ improvement again.
I’m using HQPlayer (again) streaming with Roon but only upscaling single rate tracks (44/48).
Audirvana also sounds good streaming to the ultraRendu (using DLNA) - but I prefer Roon/ HQP NAA.
Unfortunately Audirvana Studio is an ergonomic mess IMO - crazy tiny text.