Which HQP Filter are you using? [2015-2023]

Hi All!

Are there any experiences with Apple Mac Studio M1 48 core CPU and HQPlayer? Or Apple Mac Pro 12 core Xeon?

Which one would be the better choice? How they perform compared to MacMini M1 core?

Thanks!
Dirk

I was wrong, the Mac Studio M1 Max has 10 CPU cores. 8 performance cores and 2 efficiency cores.

This are double the performance cores of a MacMini M1. I’ll give the Mac Studio a chance, hopefully then ASDM7ECv2 runs gapless with all filters.

The M1 Ultra has 16 performance cores, but is actually not available in store.

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What kind of music genre? Have you tried the new default 1x=poly-sinc-gauss-long Nx=poly-sinc-gauss-hires-lp ?

Thanks for reply. No I haven’t tried. Mostly rock, sometimes new wave pop and electronic and occasionally classical or jazz

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For your genres try short mp. If it is too dry for you then try gauss hi-res mp.
Otherwise, Jussi’s presets are great. Nothing will ever be perfect…

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Great!!! I have changed to this settings and it is amazing

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Perfect! HQP desktop runs flawless on my Mac Studio M1 pro, upsampling to DSD256 with poly-sinc-gauss-hires 1x/Nx and ASDM7ECv2!

No drop-outs anymore. This machine is the -expensive - key. No sound from cooling or fan.

CPU usage on all 8 performance cores round about 40%. Maybe DSD512 is possible, but my DAC doesn’t support.

Regards
Dirk

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I’ve been using the HQPlayer Embedded settings below for my Holo May

on a Noctua-cooled i9-11900-based ASUS board, running Ubuntu Server 22.04. All good, excellent sound for normal listening sessions. However, yesterday I left it running overnight (ambient temperature 17C) as part of breaking in some headphones. When I got back to the system this morning, there was faint crackling on some tracks, and when I looked at CPU load, it was pegged at over 80% (unlike the 20% I had seen before) and core temperature was over 80C, which made me think the CPU was hitting thermal throttling. My questions:

  1. Is thermal throttling a plausible explanation for the sound glitches?
  2. Is DSM256 with those filters and modulators too much for this hardware?
  3. Is there a way to tweak core use to reduce peak load?

Thanks!

For (1) yes. But I would keep eye on the temps under normal playback to check if the temps keep creeping up, indicating inadequate cooling.

What kind of Noctua is it? And what kind of CPU fan profile do you have in BIOS?

It could be related to the fan control, such as BIOS settings. I’m assuming here you are not using any Noctua’s fan speed lowering resistors, which could be limiting maximum possible CPU fan speed.

Also pay attention to the case airflow (fan profiles?).

Last item is to consider thermal paste between CPU and cooler. If there’s not enough, or if there’s too much, or it is not evenly spread thin layer.

This is wrong approach… There should be adequate cooling so that even sustained 100% CPU loads don’t cause CPU temps to creep over ~70C.

As an example, in normal gaming use case, you would have both CPU and GPU operating at constant 100% load for several hours. So HQPlayer is still sort of easy use case.

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Thanks, @jussi_laako. This is the build, with i9-11900, 32GB of main memory, 500GB of M.2 SSD and a 4TB SATA SSD, Noctua NH-L9x65 Low Profile. It’s currently running Ubuntu Server 22.04, nothing but OS, basic services, hqplayerd, and syncthing. SilentPC have a good reputation around here for the quality of their builds.
Update: Checking the BIOS fan settings, they were in “silent” mode, changed them to “turbo” mode that speeds up CPU fan speed earlier and faster. Long-running core temp now around 70C.

Using HQP embedded OS on Intel i5-10th gen 10400 cpu 12Gb ram
Cat 6->Cisco Switch1-SFP->Fiber->Cisco switch2 SFP–>CAT6->ultraRendu->Denafrips Pontus 2
flow-control is turned ‘on’ the relevant ports.

After using the popular poly-sinc-gauss-long/ASDM7ECv2/DSD256 setup, I thought it was time to try something else.
poly-sinc-xtr-short-lp/DSD7 256+fs/DSD512 is working and sounding very good. Rock solid passing the traffic too.

poly-sinc-xtr-short-lp/DSD7 256+fs/DSD512 lasted just a day. I began to feel somthing was missing in the music after a while.

Reverting back to poly-sinc-gauss-long/ASDM7ECv2/DSD256 restored the balance. This combo is hard to beat, well, in my setup anyway.

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also for SDM@512 you may try for the difference
poly-sinc-gauss-long/AMSDM7 512+fs/DSD512

at least you can compare thr same filter, but ECv2 modulators are difficult to beat :slight_smile:

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Can someone offer thoughts/comparisons and the pros and cons of:
IIR v. minphaseFIR v. minringFIR-mp

I thank everyone here for sharing their experiences. It’s been really eye-opening!

I started using Roon with used Mac Mini 2012 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 16Gb RAM, 1TB SSD HD
Connected to an Accuphase E-280 with a DAC-60 and Bluesound Node to support MQA, ProAc DB1 Speakers.

Before I was using a Bluesound Node to support MQA on Tidal and it was connected to the DAC-60 coax digital. I updated the old Mac Mini to run Roon to consolidate my digital music and have it as a dedicated player.

Then I found out about HQP and that Roon also supports MQA, so I ended up running HQP direct USB to DAC-60 with DoP and no longer using the Node and I got also a qobuz subscription for more FLAC High Res Audio Choices.

I’m really impressed with the results.

These are my last two settings, the latter one is my current one. I was inspired with @Deano settings, the only issue my old Mac Mini processor goes to 100% using the poly-sinc-gauss-long, so I’m staying with the poly-sinc-xtr-lp/AMSDM7 512+fs setup for now! really enjoying it

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Thanks for sharing, my Mac Mini 2021 2.5Ghz Dual Core i5, runs HQP at 45% with these settings, has more instrument separation, and feels more alive.

Much appreciation for @IgorSki guidance, I’m a newbie here and I must be doing something wrong, got an Issue trying to test SDM playback, my HQP immediately crashes :bomb: when I play music at Roon.
PCM has no problem.

Hardware
Mac Mini 2012 2.5GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 16Gb RAM, 1TB SSD HD
Connected to an Accuphase E-280 with a DAC-60

My DAC-60 specs: (ESS Technology’s 32bit Hyper Stream DAC ES9016K2M)
USB Type-B Input accepts up to 384kHz/32bit-PCM and 11.2896MHz-DSD.
DSD data can be received both DoP(DSD over PCM, up to 5.6448MHz) and ASIO2.1(up to 11.2896MHz). DAC-60 also supports Melco’s Markerless DSD playback.

My SDM :bomb: crashes immediately after playing

My current PCM works fine :+1:

Many thanks again to @IgorSki for helping me correct my settings

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I think it is too stressful using 2-core i5 doing DSD upsampling… :thinking:

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Agree, It only works with at 44.1x64 on only MQA files, when I select a FLAC option it will crash :frowning:

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You cannot use AMSDM7 512+fs modulator to DSD128. It is for DSD512+.

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