UPDATED: HQPlayer Album art and track information on modern streamers

Tinkering
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Hi everyone,

Modern streamers like the Eversolo Play series support album art and track metadata display via NAA6 (Network Audio Adapter v6), the new protocol from Signalyst. Unfortunately, Roon doesn’t support NAA6, so metadata isn’t displayed when routing Roon → HQPlayer → streamer.

To fix this, I built a proxy that sits between HQPlayer and the NAA endpoint, injecting Roon metadata into the HQPlayer stream. With it properly configured, you get full metadata display on NAA6-capable streamers when playing from Roon via HQPlayer. It works best when the proxy runs on the same machine as HQPlayer — there are some minor track title quirks, but overall it works very well for me.

It’s distributed as a Debian package and is a little technical to set up, but when working is very solid. IMHO the T8 NAA6 implementation is more stable using the proxy than going directly from HQPlayer.

:warning: Important disclaimer

This proxy is an independent, community-developed project — it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Signalyst in any way. If you use it, please note:

• Do not contact Signalyst support for any issues arising while RooNAA6 is in use.
• If you experience problems with HQPlayer or your NAA endpoint, disable the proxy and test direct first. Only if the issue persists without the proxy should you reach out to Signalyst.
• This software is provided as-is, without warranty. Use at your own risk.

“HQPlayer” and “NAA” are trademarks of their respective owners, used here for descriptive purposes only.

So far it has been tested with an Eversolo T8 and an Eversolo A10- Your mileage may vary. Please let me know if you get this working for you - please let me know if you have nay fixes for the small issues currently experiened while using it.

Conrad

HQPlayer Album Art and MetaData
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Version 2 of the Proxy has now been released with some big updates.

gui
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  • It can now be configured with an optional GUI - use it for setup and then disable it if you are worried about performance.
  • It now correctly handles the second HQPlayer status stream which fixes all the metadata handler bugs.
  • It now support ARM64 and so should in theory run on a raspberry Pi - but I haven’t tested this yet.

Enjoy!

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Having beta tested it, I can vouch for the functionality. You may indeed need a little linux experience, but in the time of AI, anyone with the help of Chat should be able to get it up and running ;).
Great thanks to Conrad, as I’ve missed my album art on the A8 since switching over to HQP. Now you don’t have to anymore.
Just to add here, I’ve tested and listened carefully. It has no effect on the audiostream. So, no worries about possible quality issues.

My suggestion to @jussi_laako is to have a look at the code. Perhaps it could be a default in the NAA stream, but that’s my 2 cents.

Anyway, I’m a happy man. Thanks again Conrad!

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In my opinion, Roon should be providing it directly to the HQPlayer which they could very well do if they wanted to.

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I totally agree with Jussi - this should only be a temporary work around until Roon fix it themselves.

But necessity is the mother of invention and for now I will have to use the proxy in my setup to have it function the way I want.

1 Like
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I fully agree with that. And it’s on the list (plugging the initial request here as well: HQPlayer Album Art and MetaData - #2 by Henk_Kramer)

Unfortunately that is not getting much traction yet.