The HQPlayer thread

I did some experimenting with small, travel ready platform for HQPlayer.

Roon and HQPlayer desktop running on fanless Surface 7 i5 8050U Windows 10 Home, services reduced to minimum with Black Viper. USB to Kann Cube and Senn Amperior. Sin-L and NS9, max sample rate 384.
AutoEQ @Crinacle parametric EQ on HQPlayer. Among three HPs I have right now and tried with HQP Amperior responds the best to to this change comparing both to Roon -> KannCube, directly from Kann Cube as a DAP.

KAnn Cube does not have NOS , which I used on RME ADI-2 Prol and I wonder what is the best DAC filter for HQP in this case.
Is there any general answer to his question? Like for example linear vs minimum phase, fast vs slow roll off, or this is the question of experimenting. I would think that the least of of audible range the filter is affecting the better.
On the list of recommended DACs there is RME with AKM specifically. Is there any particular reason why? And not ESS?

I tried the Amperior stock pads, similar to HE25 velour but much softer, and Yaxi leather pads.
With both the most noticeable improvement with HQP is head stage . Precise location of instruments and space around them. Audible if you listen to for example string sextet, two of each instruments, and being able to space two cellos or violins apart is difficult on some recordings. There may be other factors in play here like better micro resolution.
Bass is way better articulated with the he stock pads. There are three Amperior AutoEQ settings: InnerFidelity, Headphones.com and Crinacle.
With Yaxi pads all three require lowering the 125-250 HZregion by at least 2 dB.
Amperior with stock pads and HQP needs very little EQ. Only my hearing correction, different for left and right channel, and minimal mid bass down.
After trying HPQ with RME ADi-2 Pro NOS and Kann Cube I am pretty convinced I will get a license.

 

EDIT: Upon rereading your post, I’m not sure if I’m not only telling you stuff you knew all along, and your point was the mobile setup. If so, please accept my apologies. I hope others will find value in the post then.

Just a few points:

• Both DACs you mention are Delta Sigma DACs (not R2R DACs), which means they internally upsample to MHz frequencies with 1 bit (or sometimes a few bits) resolution, which is the DSD or SDM format.
• So as long as you feed them with PCM, not SDM, there will always be additional upsampling done inside the DAC.
• In ESS DAC chips, even when they get SDM, the signal is still altered inside the DAC, there’s no way around that. That’s why the AKM version of the RME is recommended, as many AKM chips allow playing SDM directly without further changes.
• That ESS chips alter the signal doesn’t mean that HQPlayer can’t improve things dramatically, though.
• Upsampling to SDM is a lot more resource intensive than upsampling in PCM only, though. You probably won’t get very far with a Surface tablet, at least the battery life won’t be great.

That said, PCM only can be great, too, even with a D/S DAC. I did that myself for quite a while when the DAC I had didn’t do DSD. Plus, for a mobile setup, it’s probably the only sensible way to go.

But at home, do try SDM output with a more powerful PC, ideally with an NVIDIA graphics card, or alternatively PCM with a NOS R2R DAC. It’s really worth it!

Regarding the “best” filter: That just depends on preference. The default filters poly-sinc-gauss-long and poly-sinc-gauss-hires-lp (for source material > 48 kHz) are a good start (and many stay with those), but just test and stay with what you like best. Maybe avoid those that are marked as “not recommended” in the documentation, but even that is only a recommendation you don’t have to follow. Personally, I’ve preferred different filters for different headphones and different DACs, others even switch filters based on music genre or mood.

 

I now bought a used NVIDIA Tesla P100 for HQPlayer duty. These are professional number crunching cards that offer nearly 10x the FP64 performance (which is relevant for HQPlayer) of the TOTL consumer graphics cards. And they can be found used for some € 250-300.

There are downsides, too, of course:

• These are no graphics cards, you can’t attach a monitor, you need an additional graphics card.
• They don’t have active cooling as they are meant to be used in server racks that provide cooling/fans that blow air through the cards. You’ll have to build some custom solution if you want to use them in a PC.
• NVIDIA has recently announced in the CUDA release notes that the Pascal architecture (among others) that this card is based on is considered “feature complete” and will be deprecated in a future release. That means that there will be a point in time in the probably not too distant future when either Jussi decides to use a CUDA function in HQPlayer that is not supported by the card, or when NVIDIA completely deprecates the card and new CUDA versions and/or driver versions won’t support it anymore.

But still, at that price level, I couldn’t resist. Now I only need a CPU that supports more modulators at DSD512.

I hope the card will arrive soon.

 

I would say not anymore, as the asus ally rog can easily last 4 hours doing DSD512 on battery. Double that with an anker power bank there is no need for doing PCM playback on the go.

 

Miska confirmed major efficiency improvements on the MAC platform in the latest HQplayer update, folks now confirmed the M4 mini can do DSD512 with dac correction!!! That might be the way to go for a home setup.

 

Ah, good to know! I’ll test with my MacBook Air, too, what it’s capable of now. It’s an M2, though, so I don’t expect wonders.

 

Does anyone have experience running HQP on a mini PC? Am wondering if I should get this GMKtec K10 i9-13900HK w 32GB RAM, or a Mac Mini M4 w 16GB RAM for about the same price. it seems like the specs of the K10 would on the face of it seem better, but despite the fan I imagine I’d be very worried about thermal throttling. And yes, I know the GPU wouldn’t do me any good b/c not NVIDIA - though the Mac gpu doesn’t do any good either. But Mac is incredible at thermal management. And I’m not going to build a PC - or spend more than ~$500. And I don’t need to do more than DSD512. (Holo Cyan 2)

Any thoughts welcome on these two options. Thanks!

https://www.gmktec.com/products/gmk...&variant=a5044398-5549-44ce-9a9c-6d996c3af748

Category Specifications

CPU 13th Gen Intel® Core™ i9-13900HK

• 14 cores, 20 threads, up to 5.4GHz
• 24MB Intel® Smart Cache, TDP 45W

GPU Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics (up to 1.5GHz, 96 execution units)

RAM DDR5 5200MHz, 32GB/64GB (dual-channel support)

• Max support 96GB (SO-DIMM*2)

ROM Pre-installed: PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 2280 512GB/1TB/2TB

Expandable: M.2 2280*3, max support 12TB (3*4TB)

 

With the major improvements for Mac in the latest hqp update, I think your safest bet would be to go for a M4, especially folks have reported it can even do dac correction at dsd512.

I have previously considered a similar mini pc, but as you noted, thermal management is a major concern and directly impact ultimately what you can achieve in terms of hqplayer settings. Last thing you need would be that it limits the ability to run dsd512 with dac correction.

I am glad I have sold my cyan 2 back in October so I don’t have to worry about the extra load required for dac correction so it gives me a lot more flexibility in my choice.

 

@dericchan1 Is there a source from Jussi somewhere about DACs where he thinks they don’t need correction? I mean, how do you determine if a DAC just hasn’t been evaluated, or has been evaluated and doesn’t need correction?

 

Dac corrections are only made by Jussi because he has possession of these dacs and can perform measurements on the analog output.

 

There's no indication anywhere of the extent of the correction unfortunately. Golden Sound did some analysis at one point on the Holo Spring or May and found the correction measured as fairly insignificant. It's one of those nervosa type things - Jussi makes all this available, but he still comes back to just listen and use what you like.

It's not magic, and it may not matter a lot at all - I can hear no difference on my Spring 3 KTE that makes my listening experience any different. My system can easily run it, so I do for shits and giggles. But I would not (for example) run a lower sampling rate just to be able to run correction, as I can hear a difference between 256 and 512 with the filters I use, and I prefer 512.

With a decent DAC and HQP you're at the level of no right and wrong - you have access to really excellent quality digital conversion. Take that concern away and just be subjective.

 

I had the Cyan 2 for about 10 months, I did think dac correction made a significant improvement to the sound quality that I would not do without. My system is capable to do DSD512 with dac correction, but I could not go back to not using dac correction even if it means going down to DSD256.

Having said that, all my current dacs do not have dac correction and I am totally happy with them. So its something that if it is available for your dac, use it, but no need to lose sleep if the dac you have don't have dac correction.

I mean there isn’t a dac correction profile for the Mola Mola Tambaqui dac too, or any of the chord dacs…

 

I just had interpreted the posts above as “Jussi said DAC xy doesn’t need correction”.

With my DAC (iFi Neo iDSD), I like the effects of the correction provided. It provides a little more clarity and reduces treble fuckery. My favourite filter sinc-MGa is perfectly ok without, but the standard filters improve a lot to my ears.

 

My NVIDIA P100 has arrived! \o/

The first I ordered seems to have been a scammer, he quickly answered my questions but ghosted me when I ordered with buyer protection and never sent the card.

The second came today. When I wanted to put it in the PC, I found that my power supply didn’t have the required connectors—and it was at the edge of underpowered for the task, anyway. So I quickly organised a used power supply via local classifieds and put it into my PC. Then I had to change some BIOS settings to make it boot at all—but then it worked. \o/

I could only test quickly because the fan I ordered for the card will only arrive next week, and the card gets warm very quickly without cooling.

sinc-MGa at DSD256 with correction leads to less than 10% GPU load! Around 7% most of the time.

A quick test with sinc-MGa at DSD512 didn’t work, unfortunately, HQPlayer crashed just like it did with my old graphics card. I thought that had been insufficient RAM on the graphics card, but now I have 16GB. Maybe my 16 GB normal RAM isn’t enough? I’ll look into that next week.

 

Ok, now the P100 is really up and running. Some early notes:

• It doesn’t break a sweat. With all filters that work, GPU load is < 50% at DSD512. Temperature with the fan (which I’m running at 60% currently) stays in the low forties Celsius.
• sinc-MGa doesn’t work at DSD512, it seems I’d need more normal RAM for that: HQPlayer is killed by the oomkiller.
• What I didn’t expect at all: More modulators work than with my old card! \o/ I can now run poly-sinc-gauss-long with ASDM7EC-super 512+fs, with sinc-Lh even ASDM7EC-super works! (Seldom dropouts at 96k, though.)
• Speaking of which: I think sinc-Lh might be a new favourite at DSD512. Too early to really tell, but right now I really enjoy it.
• DAC Correction works only on modulators that are easier on the CPU, like ASDM7 or AMSDM7EC 512+fs. Currently, at DSD512 I like my DAC better without correction, actually, but here, too, it’s too early to really tell.
• Who would have guessed that it’s possible to run 7EC-super at DSD512 on an i3-6100 with a fast GPU? I’m impressed. Note that Roon is also running on the same machine—I’ll try with Roon on another machine soon.
• I still want to hear sinc-MGa at DSD512, but right now I actually prefer sinc-Lh/DSD512 over sinc-MGa/DSD256. Again, the last word isn’t spoken yet.
• My guess is that even older i7 CPUs should give me more or less everything at DSD512, though I will have to add RAM, too.

Nice! And relatively cheap, too.

 

I previously posted an article about the Mac mini M4. Both the standard version and the Pro version are essentially the same, and they support the following frequency upgrades:
1.DSD512


2.DSD1024



If it weren't for the necessity of Super+sinc-L=DSD1024, I personally think the Mac mini is quite good. Unless one day we can utilize the GPU of the M4, it would be perfect.

 

That's impressive. And without any stuttering or drop outs or long track loading times? Is DAC correction enabled there?

 

The loading time for sinc-L is still quite long, taking more than 20 seconds. However, once it's loaded, there are no issues. Overall, playback is good with minimal stuttering, and occasional issues may occur with certain large-scale tracks.
May set up the NOS.

 

Just a quick note: To my delight, I just found out that sinc-MGa does work with 16 GB RAM. It only needs more if DAC correction is also enabled! Which was my default until recently, so it was on when I tried.

Now comparing sinc-MGa with sinc-Lh. Both are very good to my ears, but very different. Lh is much drier and provides a kind of exactness that MGa can’t deliver. OTOH, MGa’s wetter sound can provide more engagement, and it’s still very, very detailed. Can’t say which I like better right now.

 

I find Sinc Long H has pretty much exactly what you have described for MGA. If you need even smoother presentation, use 7EC Super rather than Fast...