Using any audio source with HQPlayer - Spotify, Amazon, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, Soundcloud [2021-2022]

And this is what it looks like from HQPlayer Desktop on macOS

@ dabassgoesboomboom this exactly what ive been wanting to do. Please bare with me im kind of just getting back into hifi and streaming specifically.

I am running a 2.1 setup with custom fir filters created with audiolense right now im just using them with roons convolution engine.

My current system is roon + hq player on my pc in my office > convolution fir filter > orbi mesh router in office > orbi mesh satellite in listening room > bluesound node and ifi stream > holo may dac > preamp > amp > speakers

How would your method 4 with the rme dac fit in with the goal of using apple music hires lossless on ios through hqplayer convolution filter?

Thanks!!

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That’s a pretty potent system for “just getting back into hifi” ! :grinning:

I use Audiolense XO too ! Correction files loaded into HQPlayer.

Apple Music played to your Bluesound Node is lossy via Airplay at the moment. Even if you have the Hi-Res Lossless enabled.

Are you happy with loss Apple Music or want the Hi-Res.

If you want Hi-Res then the way to do it is iPad → Apple Camera Kit connector (lightning or USB-C , to USB 3.0). So there’s cables involved. Which is not a problem for my desk listening setup, since my iPad is within arms reach.

Would the wires coming out of an iPad or iPhone be a problem in your listening room? Do you want the iPad on your lap on the couch? Or happy to have it on the equipment rack and you have to get up off the couch to change albums?

Like the old days with CD players and turntables ! A bit of exercise isn’t a bad thing sometimes.

The cool thing is Apple Music coming out of iOS via USB cable is both hi-res lossless and supports automatic sample rate switching. Very nice.

Amazon Music HD - all music comes out at a fixed resampled sample rate. They haven’t updated their app in years to support auto sample rate switching from iPhone/iPad.

Let me know the above, before I proceed with best way to go about it.

All this pain in the a$$ disappears when Airplay finally (one day) supports hi-res from Apple Music app. Then you can Airplay to a Bluesound Node, connected to an RME ADI-2 , all can be in your office. Then you just have a HQPlayer endpoint (NAA) in the living room connected to your Holo DAC.

But at my desk having a cable coming out of my iPad is not a problem at all obviously. In listening room sitting 4 meters from the speakers and hifi rack, could be a problem, depending on the persons preference.

I wouldnt mind having a wire for the ipad/iphone in my room but where would it have to go to get back to hqplayer? In using the ifi stream as the HQplayer NAA In the room.

But would also like the option to stream airplay if i have to move around the house.

Ok then this makes it easy! You will do exactly what I do at my desk setup then.

So USB coming out of iPad or iPhone (using Apple’s camera kit which have USB type A output).

You need to convert this USB to TOSlink to feed the RME ADI-2’s TOSlink input. I recommend miniDSP USBStreamer:

https://www.minidsp.com/products/usb-audio-interface/usbstreamer-box

But I also use this cheap one off eBay - it is bit perfect. RME have bit perfect test files they supply, so you can/should test this with any converter you get, to make sure all the bits get sent to the ADI-2 properly.

Mini XMOS XU208 USB to Coaxial /Optical /12S Converter Digital Interface DSD256 | eBay

The RME ADI-2 TOSlink input converts to USB output.

You take this USB output and feed it into HQPlayer. You can do it over the network or plug it direct into your HQPlayer server. Depends if HQPlayer server is in another room. If it is in a different room, you just have a little lightweight fanless machine inside your listening room (can be a Raspberry Pi4) - install HQPlayer NAA on it and make some changes via command line that makes it communicate with the ADI-2.

If you go down this path I can share the code but no point typing it all out if you don’t go down this path.

So iPad to ADI-2 to RPi4 which then talks to HQPlayer over the network (HQPlayer can be in a different room).

HQPlayer then pumps out to your iFi Stream NAA as per usual. That doesn’t change here.

Nothing in this thread affects the NAA connected to your DAC, so that doesn’t change. This entire thread is only changing how you feed HQPlayer. What comes out of HQPlayer doesn’t change.

Do you mean Airplay through HQPlayer around the house ? Or just Airplay in general?

Airplay in general isn’t related to any of this. This is all about feeding Apple Music into HQPlayer specifically.

Hope this helps

Note Jussi has only tested the ADI-2 Pro FS (which features A to D converter as well as DAC). But I can confirm I have it working with just ADI-2 FS DAC. But it is technically ‘experimental’. I bought this ADI-2 on the used market for cheap. I use the cheap one for HQP input. I have another newer ADI-2 at the DAC end .

I definitely wouldn’t recommend someone go buy an ADI-2 DAC brand new, just for the purpose of optical to USB converter. I guess for non-HQPlayer use, you could still use the headphone amp output for late night listening. iPad would still be connected to it via optical, so you could use headphones.

I have another way working at the moment that avoids having an ADI-2 and avoids optical conversion (keeps things USB) but you would need to buy this below, in place of the RPi4.

You also have to set HQPlayer to a fixed output sample rate - no auto rate family / adaptive rate or you can static for some reason. So this may tax your CPU, depending what you are doing.

I only tested on macOS and HQP OS image - works well for me.

You have USB cable from iPad straight to this fanless machine’s “micro B” input - not type A. So in theory less cables, less clutter inside the listening room. No need for optical converter or ADI-2.

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Also note, this is all only for the brave to try.

I’m just an end user. If you try this and need help and I take a week or two or four to reply, you’ll have to just be patient. Today I’ve been fast because I happen to have the day off. I won’t normally always be this fast :slight_smile:

And there’s a chance I simply can’t help if you run into a different issue that I did. There’s no guarantee everything will work exactly the same as it did for me.

Jussi can help you too, if you stick to his recommended hardware. If you try something different and it doesn’t work, you’re on your own.

These are all the conditions I accepted when I tried this. It was a fun thing to try I thought and took a long time to get it all working nicely.

Just don’t expect plug and plug and immediate live support when you need help. As I said, I’m just like you, an end user.

I’m not an IT guy, or software or networking guy etc. I just chipped away at it very slowly (over weeks/months).

I’m assuming everything in your house is hard wired via ethernet. If you are hoping to have HQPlayer working via WiFI I can’t help you with that, I have no idea. Everything I have is hard wired. Only the iPad runs wireless to stream music of course.

Probably need to go through the thread in details but I wonder if anyone can give some pointer. I mainly stream using a 3rd party non-mainstream app on Mac, and wonder if/how I can upsample with HQPlayer? Thanks!

Hi, yes I detailed a few different methods in one of the earlier posts of the thread.

If you have specific questions about these methods, happy to help

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Thanks. Let me search for your posts in the thread and give it a try. Or maybe I can start with Roon + HQPlayer and see how much sound provement I can get.

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Todas, I made some experiments with Spotify. HQPlayer desktop + Ubuntu.

I used alsa loopdriver (snd-aloop) and librespot. I started librespot pointing to the virtual card, and captured the output with HQPlayer.

I managed to get music, but the setup was very unstable. I think there is a right startup sequence for hqplayer to successfully capture the sound stream (create virtual card → set input in hqplayer → start librespot → set audio stream in hqplayer transport to 44.1khz → start music on Spotify → hit play on HQPlayer) I was able to get this sequence working only once, and could not duplicate it.

I don’t know if anyone has any experience with this.

Yes, it’s a bit tricky, because the loop interface is stuck until both ends are operational.

What is most frustrating is the alsa error “unsupported format S16” if you do things in a different order. Or when you can’t select the 44.1khz stream on hqplayer.

Is this kind of setup easier with embedded + Ubuntu server?

Easy setup I have with Embedded + Ubuntu Server is to use RME ADI-2 Pro for input. It has three digital inputs (AES, coaxial S/PDIF and optical S/PDIF) and analog input. HQPlayer has special support for automatic rate switching with this device.

If you don’t need automatic rate switching, like with Spotify that is always 44.1k you can use cheaper miniDSP USBStreamer.

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Will it work with an old airport express access point (using toslink out)?

Maybe, when I still had those in use I had some problems with some input devices because the Toslink output on AP Express is so bad quality. But I don’t remember anymore which input device those were.

I also have Bluesound Node 2i for similar purpose, it has lot of endpoints. It’s optical output connected to optical input.

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That’s a good tip, @thanks @jussi_laako.

ok. Pratice makes perfect. I have just found a reliable and repetible way to use alsa loopback. But I will move the discussion elsewhere, since it is not about Roon.

As per the thread title, this entire thread is about non-Roon use

You can share here. It’s entirely on topic

Ok. So here it goes

I am using th following method to play spotify through hqplayer desktop on Ubuntu. It goes with alsa loopback module, combined with librespot. You will be able to play using your spotify app to librespot, and route the audio through hqplayer, as long as you use a NAA as output.

the steps are:

  1. install librespot. Key here is to compile the app using alsa for audio playback.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install build-essential cargo libasound2-dev git

git clone GitHub - librespot-org/librespot: Open Source Spotify client library

cd librespot

cargo build --release --no-default-features --features alsa-backend

The path to librespot will be ~/librespot/target/release, and you can add it as a system wide path including it in /etc/environment

  1. load alsa loopback module

sudo su

echo ‘snd-aloop’ >> etc/modules

reboot now

once rebooted, check if loopback is loaded, and note the card number (in my case, it is card 0)

aplay -l

you will see two cards for loopback, One is the output, the other is the input

  1. play music

go to hqplayer settings. In input, select alsa, then select the second loopback option (the first wll be used by librespot)

load librespot. This is the command line I am using. Substitute for the first zero of the hw option, should your loppback not be card zero

~/librespot/target/release/librespot --device hw:0,0,0 --disable-audio-cache --initial-volume=100 --bitrate 320

you spotify app should be able to see librespot and stream to it. begin playing a song for test purposes

go back to hqplayer main window. I the dropbox, select audio:default/44100/2. click on the transpot window, so the stream gets activated. click play on hqplayer. you should get the output from your NAA

Here I found a minor glitch in hqplayer. should 44100 already be selected on the dropbox, you wont get activated on the transport window. you will have to edit the box, or to select another sample rate (48000 for example) and then go back to 44100. A bit annoying, but it will work.

Any feedbacks are welcome.

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Hello all,

I am trying to use HQPlayer to enable Apple Music lossless playback on my NDS.

I have been using the squeeze2upnp plugin to enable the NDS as an endpoint in Roon and this enabling streaming from Roon into Naim NDS. Now with lossless being available from Apple, I want to send Apple Music through HQPlayer to the Naim NDS. Can I run HQPlayer on the Mac Mini where I have the Apple Music App and output to HQPlayer that streams to the NDS via the squeeze2upnp plugin?

Thanks,