HQPlayer's Network Audio Adapter

[arglebargle]

7 hours ago, Jud said:

After some false starts with another Linux, I decided to just go with Ubuntu Xenial Server.  After installing the dependencies (libasound2 and build-essentials are the package names in Ubuntu; you need ALSA as well, package name alsa-base), I downloaded and installed the latest Xenial deb for network audio daemon.  It Just Works, yay!  And upmpdcli the same - Just Works!

 

I've been too busy to actually play any music yet (  ), but the DAC is seen by HQPlayer through the NAA, so looking good.

 

Nice Jud, glad to hear it. I use Arch for my NAA but switched to Debian for my server for much the same reason. So little maintenance required, it's liberating When you were asking me about the NAA setup that was the first time in ages I I had to pay any attention to the man behind the curtain.  Thanks for the update and writeup, enjoy the tunes! 

[bigbear2003]

I had implemented NAA on Rpi3.  I tried both iFi iOne and LG Hifi plus successfully but each time I start a new album I would hear a loud click/clark sound.  It does not happen between tracks.  How do I eliminate this noise?

[shadowlight]

@Miska,

 

Will you be releasing the updated images for Rasberry Pi 2/3 with the latest NAA and Anamero patches?  I was looking on the website and the latest image has 342 version of NAA.

 

Thx

[Allander]

@Miska 

I am using the Sonore Micro Rendu as an HQ player NAA. Unfortunately there have been issues getting to dsd 512 in both Roon and Hq player both on their own and when offloading upsampling to HQ when using the micro Rendu in the chain. 

Roon v1.3 259 build seems to have rectified this issue however the issues of drop out, ticks and such still persist if HQ is involved in this chain. 

 As per the thread I have attached when using the I7 computer direct the Gustard x20 pro HQ at 512 sounded significantly better. 

With the Rendu back in the chain and the new version of Roon it operates at 512 flawlessly but to my ear is simply lacking to HQ.

 

I am on the last 2 days of my trial and am wondering if this is something that is likely to be rectified? 

Thanks

 

[Miska]

7 hours ago, Allander said:

@Miska 

I am using the Sonore Micro Rendu as an HQ player NAA. Unfortunately there have been issues getting to dsd 512 in both Roon and Hq player both on their own and when offloading upsampling to HQ when using the micro Rendu in the chain. 

Roon v1.3 259 build seems to have rectified this issue however the issues of drop out, ticks and such still persist if HQ is involved in this chain. 

 As per the thread I have attached when using the I7 computer direct the Gustard x20 pro HQ at 512 sounded significantly better. 

With the Rendu back in the chain and the new version of Roon it operates at 512 flawlessly but to my ear is simply lacking to HQ.

 

I am on the last 2 days of my trial and am wondering if this is something that is likely to be rectified? 

 

 

I have not seen that, but I suspect this is one of the typical network infra issues where ethernet flow control is not functional/enabled through a switch. The place to rectify it is to configure the switch correctly or replace it. Roon has workaround hack trying to solve the broken networking problem.

 

[Miska]

22 hours ago, shadowlight said:

@Miska,

 

Will you be releasing the updated images for Rasberry Pi 2/3 with the latest NAA and Anamero patches?  I was looking on the website and the latest image has 342 version of NAA.

 

Since RasPi has issues with network + USB combination due to very limited bus bandwidth and both sharing the same USB bus, it is useful only to limited extent. RasPi is mostly useful with plug-on DAC boards like HifiBerry that don't need USB for audio output but use the local I2S bus instead.

 

[Allander]

@Miska 

Thanks for the response. I may have spoken too soon on Roon as it seems to be experiencing occasional, very slight issues of the same nature. Possibly, I missed it on the first go. 

I will take a look on the site for suggested switch units in an effort to rectify the problem. 

Thanks again for your input, greatly appreciated.  

[rickca]

5 hours ago, Miska said:

 

I have not seen that, but I suspect this is one of the typical network infra issues where ethernet flow control is not functional/enabled through a switch. The place to rectify it is to configure the switch correctly or replace it. Roon has workaround hack trying to solve the broken networking problem.

 

So do you recommend getting a managed smart switch that has flow control vs an unmanaged switch?

[jabbr]

11 hours ago, rickca said:

So do you recommend getting a managed smart switch that has flow control vs an unmanaged switch?

 

For most home applications, unmanaged switch is fine. Easier not to mess up. I think for flow control, unless you need it, know why you want it, and know how to properly configure it, you are more likely to make things worse rather than better.

[jcn3]

1 hour ago, jabbr said:

 

For most home applications, unmanaged switch is fine. Easier not to mess up. I think for flow control, unless you need it, know why you want it, and know how to properly configure it, you are more likely to make things worse rather than better.

 

agreed!

[Allander]

I found this info on the Micro Rendu website under known issues

10a. Discusses the issues with flow and the attached forum points to the need to enable flow to endpoint units or hq Naa.

 

In my network is an Intel switch not the Cisco units they point to as an issue but nonetheless will try to figure out if enabling Flow to the MR is possible. 

 

Subsequently are are there a known list of switches that will solve this or that flow can be enabled without getting into a managed switch?

 

Roon alone seems to have fixed itself and is functioning at DSD 512 no problem. 

I would really like to solve the issue in order to utilize HQ player

 

[Miska]

1 hour ago, Allander said:

I found this info on the Micro Rendu website under known issues

10a. Discusses the issues with flow and the attached forum points to the need to enable flow to endpoint units or hq Naa.

 

In my network is an Intel switch not the Cisco units they point to as an issue but nonetheless will try to figure out if enabling Flow to the MR is possible. 

 

Subsequently are are there a known list of switches that will solve this or that flow can be enabled without getting into a managed switch?

 

Most unmanaged switches work fine, as they pass through multicast as well as flow control packets. Some managed switches have flow control disabled by default which is causing the problem. HP managed switches (which I have) seem to have it enabled by default while Cisco seems to default to disabled. The issue can be solved easily by changing configuration of the managed switch. Same goes for multicast forwarding between the ports.

 

Some routers may have problematic switches inside (Apple Airport Extreme), but those are exception more than a rule.

 

So far I've had only one unmanaged switch that had problems with multicast, and that was only with UPnP. For some strange reason it didn't cause problems with NAA multicast functionality though.

[Miska]

15 hours ago, rickca said:

So do you recommend getting a managed smart switch that has flow control vs an unmanaged switch?

 

Most unmanaged switches just forward flow control packets between ports, but don't get involved in the flow control activity itself. While most managed switches are actual flow control end-points and are involved in the activity. And thus are required to support it to make things work properly in these cases.

 

Problem with microRendu and many other streaming devices is that they may have 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps ethernet port, but are not actually able to keep up with traffic at full speed. With flow control they'll just ask the sender to stop and wait as they process the packets. If the flow control packet is lost, sender will just keep on sending more data which leads to packets being dropped by the device because it cannot keep up with the incoming data flow. If a smart switch has flow control disabled, it will just throw away the flow control packet from the small streaming device... This causes problems not only with NAA, but also with any other network traffic such as file transfers from a NAS or playback with UPnP. It doesn't cause total failure, but a lot of extra network traffic because same data is being sent several times until receiver acknowledges it, which in turn makes things worse too by increasing amount of total traffic.

 

This same problem also appears to lesser extent with cheap gigabit ethernet adapters, like Realtek and such, which cannot cope with real 1 Gbps speeds in reality. My old Mac Mini with Broadcom's 1 Gbps ethernet adapter was also suffering from this same issue.

 

[rickca]

@Miska thanks for the background on flow control and managed vs unmanaged switches.

[louisxiawei]

I think what Miska mentioned about unmanaged and managed switch does make a difference to streaming playback, at least in my cases for HQplayer NAA streaming. 

 

I recently bought a netgear nighthawk gaming switch that was on sale on Amazon. I'm not quite a gamer but that model is the only few switch whose LED lights can be switched off. I hate these LED lights flashing beside my NAA and DAC. It also has EEE power saving feature so less RFI/EMI noise.

 

I have quite a complex internet connection route. There are no Ethernet ports upstairs in my current house, so I use TP-link power adapter AV2000 to create one. 

 

The chain is like this: Router --> TP-link AV2000 (downstairs) --> TP-link AV2000 (upstairs) --> Netgear ethernet switch --> PC, wireless access point and Logical CL100 as HQplayer NAA.

 

Enable the flow control option of the switch makes a quite a few obvious difference.

 

1. Multiple tabs in the Chrome opens much faster (I have a very bad habit using Chrome,  like open >50 tabs)

2. HQplayer NAA streaming reposes faster without any noticeable delay. (It used to have one second or two delay when switching different tracks from time to time, not always)

3. When I full-speed download stuff on uTorrent, Tidal streaming used to have playback stutter. Now it doesn't. I'm quite shocked by that.

 

I'm also not quite certain whether different switch should give different response speed or different latency (IMO, It is supposed to be not because they have the same spec 1Gbps). But I used to use Netgear ProSAFE 8 port switch before, also enabled the flow-control, never had that fast response like the nighthawk switch. 

 

Maybe someone who knows network, switch, router stuff can explain my findings better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[R1200CL]

On 29.8.2017 at 10:33 PM, Miska said:

Problem with microRendu and many other streaming devices is that they may have 100 Mbps or 1 Gbps ethernet port, but are not actually able to keep up with traffic at full speed.

 

Maybe a bit off topic, but I have noticed the MicroRendu sounds better with an old dlink 10/100 switch with LPS-1. (Only the MicroRendu connected). These switches can be obtained for almost nothing.

 

Normal 24/192 streaming don't need more speed. For DSD, I don't know.

 

if you use cat 6a cables where the connector is metal, you may get unwanted ground loops. In my system 6a make hiccups. 

 

The AQ Vodka as an example does not have shield connected to the Telegärtner metal plugs, so that will not apply to that cable. 

[brother love]

I currently have a dual boot Win 8.1/ Linux Ubuntu 16.04 PC server with a Network Audio Adapter (NAA) mini PC dual boot Win 10/ Ubuntu 16.04 & currently get HQPlayer Apple/Linux upsampled to DSD256 by-way-of Ubuntu 16.04 on both machines.

I wanted to try DSD256 thru Win10 on the NAA side, but I can only get DSD128 & that is strangely DoP. If I understood Miska correctly from prior posts, ethernet cable fed DSD256 data shouldn't care what OS is on NAA side so long as proper networkaudiod application is utilized.

 

There could be a Windows driver related issue from the DAC-side (special driver required to get DSD256 by i2S thru USB). I am pursuing this angle, but wanted to be sure that I wasn't misinterpreting what is even capable.
 

[tboooe]

21 minutes ago, brother love said:

I currently have a dual boot Win 8.1/ Linux Ubuntu 16.04 PC server with a Network Audio Adapter (NAA) mini PC dual boot Win 10/ Ubuntu 16.04 & currently get HQPlayer Apple/Linux upsampled to DSD256 by-way-of Ubuntu 16.04 on both machines.
 

I do DSD512 through my NAA .  What DAC do you have?  Is DoP option selected in HQP?

[ted_b]

DoP will not do DSD512, it needs to be direct (in 99.99% of the cases; there are new dacs that claim DSD1024 and maybe they can do 512 via DoP because they go to some ridiculous PCM levels, but doubt it).

[brother love]

1 hour ago, tboooe said:

I do DSD512 through my NAA .  What DAC do you have?  Is DoP option selected in HQP?

 

Gustard X20u. Max rating DSD128 for DoP.  On the Win 10: Backend set to NAA, SDM Pack tried w/ both selections: DoP (DSD128) & none (24/ 384 hHz PCM only uploads). I set the buffer to 100 ms & am using the less demanding oversampling poly-sinc-shrt-mp-2s. As mentioned, I can get DSD256 w/ Ubuntu @ both ends.

[tboooe]

45 minutes ago, brother love said:

 

Gustard X20u. Max rating DSD128 for DoP.  On the Win 10: Backend set to NAA, SDM Pack tried w/ both selections: DoP (DSD128) & none (24/ 384 hHz PCM only uploads). I set the buffer to 100 ms & am using the less demanding oversampling poly-sinc-shrt-mp-2s. As mentioned, I can get DSD256 w/ Ubuntu @ both ends.

 

Must be a driver issue.  In the NAA window can you pls tell us if DSD256 is listed as a valid format?  Also, can you post a pic of the main page settings in HQP?

[brother love]

The Win10 NAA says regardless of DoP or none SDM pack settings:

start 352800/32/2 [pcm] ....

ASIO engine running at: 352800

enter streaming mode

 

The HQPlayer player drop down menu shows DSD 48 x 128 max for SDM pack: DoP & PCM only for SDM Pack: none

 

Looks like it's a driver issue ...

 

 

 

[brother love]

DIYinHK v3.34 driver installed & Win10 mini PC NAA running DSD256 now. Thanks for the assistance quadman !

[richard kimber]

I have installed NAA (networkaudiod_3.5.1-35_armhf.deb) on an Odroid XU4 (Max2play based on Ubuntu 16.04) and ps says that /usr/sbin/networkaudiod is running.

 

How do I get HQPlayer on my Linux PC (Ubuntu 17.04) to connect to this? If I choose NetworkAudioAdapter in Settings I get "Failed to open audio device"

 

The Network Audio Adapter Naming window doesn't allow an address to be entered (can't type anything in the text box). It allows a Name to be typed in but pressing 'set' does nothing.

HQPlayer says "Failed to open audio device".

 

I've tried several versions of HQPlayer, including hqplayer_3.15.1-58_amd64.deb, hqplayer_3.14.4-54_amd64.deb, and hqplayer_3.17.0-63_amd64.deb

 

Any guidance or links to documentation would be helpful.

 

[richard kimber]

OK. It seems to be a firewall problem. To solve this I need either to disable the firewall altogether (which I don't regard as good practice) or to open the specific ports for the two machines concerned. The problem with this is that Miska has said he has not specified particular ports and that they are allocated randomly by the OS.

 

FWIW, currently, netstat shows the PC listening on 4321 and the Odroid listening on 43210. Opening these allows HQPlayer to see the NAA. Presumably after the next reboot the ports will be different. This doesn't seem very satisfactory.

 

Just opening the ports hasn't solved the problem entirely. There are two other issues.

 

Firstly, when I play a CD I get a few seconds of music, followed by a similar few seconds of silence, followed by the music carrying on from where it left off. This sounds like some sort of buffering issue. It's not clear to me how, if at all, the NAA buffering can be configured. I've got HQPlayer on the maximum value.

 

Secondly, HQPlayer is only offering PCM (192 max) DSD playback doesn't seem to be offered.

 

Any thoughts?