Rizlaw

Miska, thank you for your reply to question 1. Based on your webpage for updates, I am using the latest version of HQP - 4.10.3. I don't use Roon so I can't comment on your statement that HQP is more flexible than Roon. The drop down box you mentioned in Transport View does not contain a "Genre" option, only Artist, Composer and Performer. When using other Linux based players (i.e., Quod Libet, Guayadeque, Audacious) I can search on multiple metadata fields: the 3 you mentioned and several others you didn't. For example, the "Comment" field is where I add several descriptive words that allow me to sort my large film soundtrack database by any key word in the "Comment" metadata field. I can also search by multiple metadata fields, like "Genre=Soundtrack" + "Comment=Star Wars" So, if I have 50 different albums with "Star Wars" related music in them, I can create a listing or playlist of just those 50 albums and nothing else. As you noted, all of my music (soundtracks, vocals, instrumental, classical, etc) is displayed together in the "Play View" alphabetically by Artist-Album, so that the Genres are intermixed: Aaron Copland (classical) and Aaron Zigman (soundtrack) are displayed side by side. Not what I want to see. The "Search" field at the top of the "Play View" provides no way to filter how I want to see my music. At least, if I did see a "Genre" option I could just list one music category as opposed to all of them. I hope this is now clear for you. As to my second question about "Conky" do you have any suggestions? Again thanks.

Two questions: 1. Is there a way to sort "Album View" in the HQP 4 desktop Client so that all albums are sorted by "album name" rather than "artist name"? Sadly, the ability to search and sort the database on metadata in the desktop Client has been seriously limited for some time. 2. For those who use Conky, is there a way to use Conky commands like "exec" to extract various metadata (including album art of the currently playing song) from HQP4? Or, to put it another way, does HQP4 have hidden metadata variables that can be accessed with Conky?

Miska, Thanks for the quick reply. I use Gnome, not XFCE, as my desktop so I don't know why the keyboard keys don't work when the HQP window has the focus (MPRIS notwithstanding). IMO, multimedia keyboard keys should work with any Linux desktop, but I say that not being a programmer - hence the level of difficulty involved in supporting multiple desktop environments.

I own HQPlayer 3 and 4. I use Ubuntu 18.04LTS. My keyboard is a Corsair K-70 Rapidfire. The keyboard has multimedia keys for "stop", "play/pause", "forward" and "backward" plus volume control wheel and mute button. I have never been able to get HQP to work with these keyboard buttons. The HQP software manuals state: Since the manual does not define what "standard" multimedia keys means, nor does it state what keyboards are supported under what OSs, I'd like to know if my keyboard can be made to work and, if so, how? I've got the same problem with JRiver Media Center 25. JRiver's unacceptable explanation is that Ubuntu must be intercepting - at some low level - the keypress codes and not allowing JRiver to see them. They haven't fixed this basic functionality in over two years! Media players for Linux like: Guayadeque, Gmusicbrowser, Quod Libet, DeadBeef work just fine with my keyboard (but they also support MPRIS - https://specifications.freedesktop.org/mpris-spec/latest/) which HQP and JRiver, as far as I can tell, do not. This may be the problem. Thanks for any helpful info on the problem. P.S. Forgot to mention that "random playback" on HQP4 is badly broken for Linux; not so with HQP3.

Miska, I upgraded to 4.0.1 last night and have a few issues: 1. In Ubuntu (Gnome) 18.04.2 LTS, the multimedia keys on my Corsair keyboard still do not work. (They didn't work in version 3 either!). Is this going to be fixed anytime soon? The keys work fine in music apps like Deadbeef, gMusicbrowser, and Quod Libet. 2. Installation of HQP 4 gives me 3 different versions of the desktop app: Desktop - Desktop (OS Style) and Desktop (Hi DPI). As far as I can tell, they all look and work the same so why are there 3 different listings in Gnome? 3. HQP 3 had an icon at the top which, when clicked, started the Client GUI. As a matter of fact, HQP3 lately, automatically starts the desktop and Client GUI together. HQP4 does not have this button and the Client has to be started manually. Can the missing button be returned or a setting added to start the desktop and client together? 4. HQP4 when outputting PCM over DSD (DSD128 or DSD256) has a problem for me: when I press the 'stop' button. I get a moderately loud, high pitched squeal out of my speakers for a split second. This never happens in version 3. Pressing 'pause' does not exhibit this behavior. My DAC is a W4S DAC-2 ver.2 SE. 5a. When I start the Client4 GUI it defaults to my machine name rather than 'localhost' . It doesn't remember 'localhost' as my preferred setting, so every time I start HQP4 I have to manually switch to 'localhost' so that it can correctly discover my local music library. I don't run HQP4 over a network, everything is one one machine. 5b. Sometimes the Client4 GUI freezes (the progress bar and all the other time incrementing and track changing features of the GUI do not work even though the music is playing correctly and changing tracks. Thanks for any help is resolving the above.

Up to and including HQP 3.14.1, I've had no problems with HQP. With version 3.14.2 the program loads but will not play. The small loading window which appears when you play the first track just keeps moving the blue bar back and forth within the window and the program freezes. I have to use the terminal kill command to stop the HQP process. I am only using PCM output. Has anyone else had this problem? I'm running Linux Mint Sarah 16.04 LTS 64bit (Cinnamon Edition). P.S. 10/16/16 ll:50am - I just unchecked "cuda" in File >Settings and HQP started working again. It looks like my new EVGA GTX 1080 FTW card and HQP 3.14.2 don't want to play nice together. Could also be my i7-920 /EVGA Classified X58 motherboard are adding to the issue; not sure.

Sorry if this question come out of the blue for this thread. Is there a good reason why HQP does not release ALSA when the "stop" button is selected? Every other media player that has the capability to bypass Pulse Audio has this ability (gmusicbrowers, guayadeque, deadbeef and Media Center 22). I am wondering why HQP does not. The reason I ask is that sometimes I want to stop HQP so that I can view and listen to a web page link to some audio/video clip; or, compare HQP output to some other media player's output. As it now stands, HQP must be exited in order to release it's hold on direct ALSA audio before another audio stream from another player can be used. This is more than just a little inconvenient.

Jud, Thanks for the explanation.

It's now been a few months since purchasing HQP. Having followed this thread for that time, I'm still confused about how HQP manages to improve the sound. I understand, basically, how digital audio works, but the following paragraph from the Signalyst website still confuses me: I have, at least, two questions about this paragraph: 1. In what way are the better Delta Sigma DACs "hardware implementations more or less resource constrained". For example, how is a W4S DAC-2-se DSD hardware resource constrained? (I am assuming this does not simply refer to the differences between 1 bit delta sigma DACs vs. true multi bit DACs like the Schiit Yggdrasil). After HQP has worked it's software magic on a digital FLAC file, the output is fed to the DAC and converted to an analoge signal then fed to an amplifier and finally to speakers or headphones. 2. Is this HQP "improved" digital stream passed through the DAC without any further digital manipulation, or is it passed through the "resource contrained" DAC (subject to the fixed digital manipulations within the DAC's software/firmware) so that the "improvements" made by HQP are either modified or nullified?

I read that HQP has MPRIS support. I would like to control HQP with an on screen applet called "Now Playing" which is found in the "Screenlets" program under Linux. The "Now Playing" applet requires three fields to be filled in with information regarding the media player to be controlled via MPRIS. Below is a sample of the information needed to control the "Guayadeque" player in Ubuntu 14.04LTS. Does anyone using a Linux OS know what information to input into these three fields to get control of HQP? Thanks for any help.

For Miska, I just purchased my copy of HQP today, plus the 2 year download protection (not sure what that's about, or if it's worth $7.00. Wording is a little too vague, especially the last sentence in the "info" pop out which makes no sense due, I believe, to a grammatical error in the sentence structure). I'm running Ubuntu 14.04 LTS /64bit with Unity desktop. I am noticing a few bugs in HQP 3.8.2-28 running Linux kernel 3.19. BUG 1: I believe was also reported for another OS somewhere in this 138 page thread! I read the entire thread over two days. The bug deals with missing folders (File, Matrix, Tools, Help) in the top menu bar of the main transport screen. This occurs when switching the view to full screen mode and then back to what I call the initial main screen. Once you switch back, you no longer get the four menus no matter what you do on the menu/title bar (right click, left click, middle click, double click). It's necessary to quit the program and restart. BUG 2: I use an old Logitech MX3100 wireless keyboard which works very well with Linux, particularly the keyboard's dedicated "media" transport keys (play, pause, stop, forward, backward, audio mute and volume control via a wheel). These keys control every media player I use: Guayadeque, Quodlibet, gMusicbrowser, and Rhythmbox. Most of these keys almost work (only once each - see Bug 3) in HQP's main screen after a couple of seconds delay, but they don't work in the full screen mode at all. If I depress "stop" I can see the "stop" icon in full screen mode giggle just a bit, but the music stream doesn't stop. The same goes for the other keys in full screen mode. BUG 3: On the main screen, if I pause playback by clicking the "pause" button, I can't resume playback by clicking the "play" button. Everything freezes. Same goes for "stop" button. I think part of this may be due to the long delay in HQP reacting to each button click. Other players react immediately with no delays. BUG 4 a/b: Using the main menu's folder tree to select an album does not always import the album into the lower half of the main window with the tracks in "chronological" order. The tracks are not always listed 01....02...03...04....etc. They can be 02.....04.....03......01....... I purchase and rip whole CDs with dbPoweramp under Crossover and no such issues occur in my other music players under Linux. In addition, clicking on the column heading, in this particular case the "#" header, fails to correct the broken "chronological" track number order. Normally, I expect column headers, when clicked in a gui, to reorder or reverse order a list of items in a column, be the items numerical or alphabetical. BUG 5: Main screen "Time", "Remain" and "Total Time" are not saved on a restart of HQP program; a minor inconvenience. BUG 6: HQP icon in the Ubuntu Unity Panel (left vertical panel on desktop) has no right click options for: Play, Pause, Stop, Forward, Back and Quit. IMO, a serious oversight since you are doing such a fine job in creating and supporting this software under Ubuntu. This alone, makes it worth my while to support you by purchasing this fine product. I hope these issues, assuming they can be reproduced, can be fixed in the near future.