HQ Player

[AnotherSpin]

I have not tried a RAMdisk on my MacBook Pro yet, but here is an interesting observation worth sharing.

 

I have played with the demo version of HQPlayer on my main SSD drive on the MacBook, on a USB thumb drive, and finally on a Sandisk SD card that's plugged directly into my MacBook. Low and behold, the SD card really made HQPlayer sound significantly better in all respects from the other two options. Go figure!

 

Well... sometimes the simplest idea never comes first. I experimented a lot with SD cards previously, however, every time I was formatting a card to make it bootable with OS installed on a card (stripped or full) and launched HQPlayer from app folder. Now I even do not remember if I ever tried to run system from internal ssd, and HQPlayer from SD card. After 1markr post I decided to try this as well. Formatted one of my bootable SD (Sandisk) into regular external disk, downloaded latest version of HQPlayer, and copied on SD. Booted mac mini from ssd and opened HQPlayer from inserted SD. I am not smoking, but the sound is startlingly realistic and alive. Whether green regen shines in this setting even more, or some other things are in effect, but I listen my music with a greatest joy. So, my advice to all SD aficionados would be to give it a try, it is so simple and easy. Thank you, 1markr!

[tranz]

HQPlayer has implemented DSP in SDM domain. No intermediate conversion to PCM is done if you do upsampling, volume control or convolution with DSD recordings and SDM(DSD) output selected.

 

How is it possible that HQP can do DSP without going back to PCM, when recording studios cannot even do this? Perhaps I am missing some understanding.

[tranz]

I used to use a SOTM SATA filter, but stopped using it as I could not hear a difference. I have also tried SSD powered by a dedicated HDPlex LPS, but the sound quality was no where near as good as the Euro 30 battery power for the SSD and the battery lasts for more than 30 hours between charges ! Hands down winner in price-performance

 

Thanks Eurodriver.

 

It is interesting to read about e.g. the Antipodes server implementation where the developer mentions battery being worse. But the devil is in the details. So many possibilities!

[ted_b]

How is it possible that HQP can do DSP without going back to PCM, when recording studios cannot even do this? Perhaps I am missing some understanding.

 

Yes, Jussi is doing things (DSP in DSD, channel level trims in DSD, distance delays in DSD) that older Pyramix, etc can't do. That is a huge part of the beauty in HQP! I do convolution in DSD (oops, sorry, SDM, need to be politically correct), explained the reasons earlier and in my exaSound review, and not looking back. I have only encountered one issue (and that was last night in PCM; got some limiting going on with a Sara K electronic bass note and need to get to the bottom of it...no pun intended).

[bogi]

How is it possible that HQP can do DSP without going back to PCM, when recording studios cannot even do this? Perhaps I am missing some understanding.

 

Because history went in PCM direction of production/mastering. It is not about technical impossibility but about missing investments in the DSD direction. DSP can be applied on DSD once 1bit DSD stream is processed as multibit PDM stream. In my understanding it means to process moving window of n bits of the original DSD stream.

[1markr]

Well... sometimes the simplest idea never comes first. I experimented a lot with SD cards previously, however, every time I was formatting a card to make it bootable with OS installed on a card (stripped or full) and launched HQPlayer from app folder. Now I even do not remember if I ever tried to run system from internal ssd, and HQPlayer from SD card. After 1markr post I decided to try this as well. Formatted one of my bootable SD (Sandisk) into regular external disk, downloaded latest version of HQPlayer, and copied on SD. Booted mac mini from ssd and opened HQPlayer from inserted SD. I am not smoking, but the sound is startlingly realistic and alive. Whether green regen shines in this setting even more, or some other things are in effect, but I listen my music with a greatest joy. So, my advice to all SD aficionados would be to give it a try, it is so simple and easy. Thank you, 1markr!

 

Glad to be of assistance! I had the same reaction as you did. I was very surprised, in a good way!

[fordski]

Glad to be of assistance! I had the same reaction as you did. I was very surprised, in a good way!

 

+1

 

I've got to stop reading this thread! 3 months ago I didn't even know what a Ramdisk was never mind how to create one. Now I'm sitting here listening to "What's New" by Linda Rondstadt, with HQPlayer running from an SD card rescued from my camera, and files sourced from Ramdisk, all going through a recently purchased used CAPS Topanga running NAA on Ramdisk created by Softperfect.

 

While I can't yet comment on the specific improvements made in the chain from Ramdisk, SD card, NAA etc., I am currently listening with a big smile on my face! The critical evaluations of each will come later. I used to be a big vinyl listener prior to packing up after retiring and moving south to Mexico. Digital has been my only source of music since moving and the improvements made to my digital chain have brought back much of the joy I derived from my vinyl collection. Plugging in the SD card, mounting a Ramdisk, and copying files into it sorta brings back the preparation and routine involved in settling into a good vinyl session.

 

Thanks to all the contributors here who have generously shared their knowledge which led to the current configuration I'm listening to.

[ChuckT]

Hi, I plan set up a computer music server (my first) and HQ player seems to be a good choice for the music player. Can I ask if I plan to run some room correction does HQ player support it.

For hardware, will the newer Intel NUC (i5 running Ubuntu Studio) has enough processing power to do all the upsampling and room EQ . Thanks.

[AnotherSpin]

Now I even do not remember if I ever tried to run system from internal ssd, and HQPlayer from SD card. After 1markr post I decided to try this as well.

Update: Info for those who will want to try HQPlayer from SD card - when I previously tried OS on bootable SD card, I found out that I prefer 16GB Transcend regular card over 32GB Sandisk fast card. Now, when OS on ssd and HQPlayer on SD card, it seems I prefer the sound of HQP from 32 GB Sandisk rather than from 16GB Transcend. I also did clean install of Yosemite from USB drive.

[EuroDriver]

I posted the message below

 

 

There are quite a few of us on the Computer Audiophile forum who have good results placing a copy of an audio player program in a Ramdisk set up with Softperfect and running it from there. The sound quality is significantly better than when the .exe is executed from the SSD, but the question is why ?

 

We believe when the .exe is run from the SSD it is loaded in to Windows memory. When the .exe is run from a Softperfect Ramdisk what happens ?

 

 

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Here is the reply

 

 

Good question, technically there should not be any difference between a program launched from an SSD and a program launched from a RAM Disk, except maybe for a faster start in the latter case.

 

I would assume it's the placebo effect, but if for any reason it does work better, that's great

[AnotherSpin]

I posted the message below

 

Here is the reply

 

I already find out (discussion several pages ago with Miska participation about PCM settings in HQP played DSD) than some crazy ideas do have effect, also within the case of "there should not be..." Settings that shouldn't have effect seem to have effect.

 

Program launch from SSD vs. RAM Disk would influence some other/third factors or processes within soft or hardware that influence the outcome, maybe. I have no lead to rational understanding of this, but this might as well be the reason of the beauty of things

[jamesg11]

I already find out (discussion several pages ago with Miska participation about PCM settings in HQP played DSD) than some crazy ideas do have effect, also within the case of "there should not be..." Settings that shouldn't have effect seem to have effect.

 

Program launch from SSD vs. RAM Disk would influence some other/third factors or processes within soft or hardware that influence the outcome, maybe. I have no lead to rational understanding of this, but this might as well be the reason of the beauty of things

What size SD card is minimum to run HQPlayer from?

[wwaldmanfan]

What size SD card is minimum to run HQPlayer from?

 

Maxing out the RAM on your computer (16GB) is a good thing with HQPlayer. HQPlayer does not preload the track into RAM cache before playback like Audirvana, Amarra, BitPerfect, etc. It processes it in real time, so loading your music files into a RAM disk vs. playing it from the storage drive actually makes a difference with HQPlayer.

 

If you are loading your entire OSX plus apps on the card and booting from it, 16GB is a tight fit. 32GB works well. I use this one, which boots as fast as the internal SSD on my MacBook Pro (<20 sec.)

Got it on sale at Best Buy for $33.

 

SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC and SDXC UHS-I Memory Cards by SanDisk

[Jud]

This script for OS X will create two RAMdisks of specified size, copy the player app to one and music from a specified folder to the other. It can be set to run at bootup (Google for how).

 

[b]set[/b] MusicSizeInMB [b]to[/b] 1536
[b]set[/b] AppSizeInMB [b]to[/b] 512


[b]set[/b] NumSectors [b]to[/b] ((2 * 1024 * MusicSizeInMB))
[b]set[/b] DeviceName [b]to[/b] [b]do shell script[/b] "hdid -nomount ram://" & NumSectors
[b]do shell script[/b] "diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ RAMDiskMusic " & DeviceName


[b]set[/b] NumSectors [b]to[/b] ((2 * 1024 * AppSizeInMB))
[b]set[/b] DeviceName [b]to[/b] [b]do shell script[/b] "hdid -nomount ram://" & NumSectors
[b]do shell script[/b] "diskutil eraseVolume HFS+ RAMDiskApp " & DeviceName


[b]tell[/b] [i]application[/i] "Finder"
[b]duplicate[/b] [i]file[/i] "Macintosh HD:Applications:HQPlayerDesktop" to "RAMDiskApp:"
[b]duplicate[/b] [i]folder[/i] "Macintosh HD:RAMDisk" to "RAMDiskMusic:"
[b]end[/b] [b]tell[/b]

 

These particular settings will produce RamDisks named RAMDiskApp and RAMDiskMusic on the desktop, the first half a gig and the second 1.5 gigs in size; copy the HQPlayer app to RAMDiskApp; and copy a folder named RAMDisk, with whatever files you've put in it, from the root directory of your Mac HD to RAMDiskMusic.

 

(Having a folder copied over rather than just the files in it enables me to use the Audirvana Plus smart playlists feature to have the files in RAMDiskMusic auto-loaded into a smart playlist.)

[EuroDriver]

I already find out (discussion several pages ago with Miska participation about PCM settings in HQP played DSD) than some crazy ideas do have effect, also within the case of "there should not be..." Settings that shouldn't have effect seem to have effect.

 

Program launch from SSD vs. RAM Disk would influence some other/third factors or processes within soft or hardware that influence the outcome, maybe. I have no lead to rational understanding of this, but this might as well be the reason of the beauty of things

 

My speculation is that the quality of the program data blocks written into Windows memory is better when reading from RAM than reading from SSD. It's interesting / comforting that the same phenomenon is also observed with MAC OS, and HQ Player read from a SD card instead of SSD results in better sound too

 

It's perhaps a sign/indication that the memory controller's quality of writing data is not uniform and is dependant on where the data is coming from, SSD, SD or RAM. For data processing applications error correction takes care of this, but for audio, where timing is important, we hear a difference. This also explains that for server applications Xeons have a different memory scheme with striping and redundancy built in

[CA7539]

It's the same software that forms the basis of the Meridian Sooloos music server, which has always been the Rolls Royce of music servers as far as meta-data is concerned. While we're waiting for further developments there I'd appreciate your sharing your exact configuration of Foobar to work with Discogs and Bogi's solution. There are so many ways foobar can be configured that following the steps you take will save time for any of us that care to try it. Thanks in advance, Geoff

 

I was amazed by Roon's described capabilites... So I pulled my credit card... I am not amused at the moment regarding metadata, still waiting on reply from Roon... But I read about such problems in other places, maybe I was a bit too fast in my decision...

 

https://community.roonlabs.com/t/questions-on-metadata-quality-not-impressed-at-the-moment-at-all/1645/

 

Are there any news now on a Roon/HQP collaboration, as I heard Roon wanted to talk to Jussi because many people asked for a functionality to start HQP out of Roon...

[bogi]

My speculation is that the quality of the program data blocks written into Windows memory is better when reading from RAM than reading from SSD. It's interesting / comforting that the same phenomenon is also observed with MAC OS, and HQ Player read from a SD card instead of SSD results in better sound too

 

It's perhaps a sign/indication that the memory controller's quality of writing data is not uniform and is dependant on where the data is coming from, SSD, SD or RAM. For data processing applications error correction takes care of this, but for audio, where timing is important, we hear a difference. This also explains that for server applications Xeons have a different memory scheme with striping and redundancy built in

 

IMO no different quality of the program data blocks exists in RAM when reading from different storage media. If the same data is written into RAM, it means no difference in RAM. The data in RAM is refreshed using high frequency clock. After few such refreshes it is hard to expect any difference, regardless on what happened previously.

 

I think it is all about noise from the storage media itself. So I mean the sonic difference is caused by storage media and has nothing to do with RAM. Simply reading for example from HDD produces more noise than reading from RAM disk. RAM is periodically refreshed regardless on if we read data from RAM disk or HDD. But the HDD noise is additional if we are reading music tracks from HDD. That's my view.

[YashN]

IMO no different quality of the program data blocks exists in RAM when reading from different storage media. If the same data is written into RAM, it means no difference in RAM. The data in RAM is refreshed using high frequency clock. After few such refreshes it is hard to expect any difference, regardless on what happened previously.

 

I think it is all about noise from the storage media itself. So I mean the sonic difference is caused by storage media and has nothing to do with RAM. Simply reading for example from HDD produces more noise than reading from RAM disk. RAM is periodically refreshed regardless on if we read data from RAM disk or HDD. But the HDD noise is additional if we are reading music tracks from HDD. That's my view.

 

It's not about the 'quality of the data' in the storage media per the traditional sense: the data could very well be the same in both.

 

However, the processes used during playback for each medium have different noise profiles: both have extensive noise profiles. That DRAM refresh is very costly in end result audio reproduction quality. That noise profile encompasses both hardware and software (despite the non-believers about the latter).

 

Computer audio reproduction then becomes an electrical problem (even when the bits are identical). Lot more info around that in the DRAM thread.

 

So, one day, we should change our perception of what 'quality' in the storage media means, assuming bit-perfection (yes, this is necessary as well).

[bogi]

What size SD card is minimum to run HQPlayer from?

 

If you want only HQPlayer to be placed on the card, find the size of the HQPlayer program folder. On Windows it is about 45 MB. So the smallest SD card is OK if you only want to use it to launch HQPlayer.

[bogi]

It's not about the 'quality of the data' in the storage media per the traditional sense: the data could very well be the same in both.

 

However, the processes used during playback for each medium have different noise profiles: both have extensive noise profiles. That DRAM refresh is very costly in end result audio reproduction quality. That noise profile encompasses both hardware and software (despite the non-believers about the latter).

 

Computer audio reproduction then becomes an electrical problem (even when the bits are identical). Lot more info around that in the DRAM thread.

 

So, one day, we should change our perception of what 'quality' in the storage media means, assuming bit-perfection (yes, this is necessary as well).

 

I found sonic difference between playing from IMDISK and SoftPerfect. That points to different noise profiles from RAM when RAM is used by different software. Crazy.

[YashN]

I found sonic difference between playing from IMDISK and SoftPerfect. That points to different noise profiles from RAM when RAM is used by different software. Crazy.

 

I know, it can come as a big surprise. Lots of things sure surprised me when I found out.

 

The very way data is buffered can change the noise profile. Try BugHead Emperor/BugHead Green of Infinity Blade for that. The creator avoids the cache on playback.

 

There appears to be a high correlation of power consumption with audio quality, through ground plane noise, and just pure EMI/RFI, things like the high-frequency switching in motherboard traces involved.

 

Furthermore, among the crazier things which make sense post understanding them but seem astounding in the beginning: the software instructions you use in code have very different noise profiles. Hence, the algorithms you use will too. Secondly, I have come to the conclusion that a 0 and a 1 have different noise profiles as well in DRAM...

 

Therefore, a coder who says the software has no effect so long as bits are bits and remain unchanged isn't really building and selling an audiophile player...

[ted_b]

 

I think it is all about noise from the storage media itself. So I mean the sonic difference is caused by storage media and has nothing to do with RAM. Simply reading for example from HDD produces more noise than reading from RAM disk. RAM is periodically refreshed regardless on if we read data from RAM disk or HDD. But the HDD noise is additional if we are reading music tracks from HDD. That's my view.

 

So, I felt the same way, cuz my latest install of SoftPerfect did nothing for me, and my Samsung Pro SSD is powered off the grid by batteries. I decided to try an experiment and plugged my SSD back in to the mobo (albeit powered by a 19V Hynes but much cheap Pico-induced noise likely between that and the output to the SSD. Voila! RAM disk makes an audible difference when the SSD is in a noisy environment. Makes me remember the day I went SSD battery (whole thread about it here) and was quite surprised by the improvements in noise floor, etc.

 

Sending music to RAM disk did very little (maybe 2% maybe not) but the hassle wasn't worth it. My Synology NAS comes in via decent thernet cabling and GISO isolator (demo SOtM due here tmrw, as is fiber cables for complete fiber trial).

[Jud]

So, I felt the same way, cuz my latest install of SoftPerfect did nothing for me, and my Samsung Pro SSD is powered off the grid by batteries. I decided to try an experiment and plugged my SSD back in to the mobo (albeit powered by a 19V Hynes but much cheap Pico-induced noise likely between that and the output to the SSD. Voila! RAM disk makes an audible difference when the SSD is in a noisy environment. Makes me remember the day I went SSD battery (whole thread about it here) and was quite surprised by the improvements in noise floor, etc.

 

Sending music to RAM disk did very little (maybe 2% maybe not) but the hassle wasn't worth it. My Synology NAS comes in via decent thernet cabling and GISO isolator (demo SOtM due here tmrw, as is fiber cables for complete fiber trial).

 

Thus your practical experience (app in RAMDisk can make a difference, music very little if any) is diametrically opposite to Miska's reasoning about what ought to be happening (music in RAMDisk can make a difference, no reason he can think of why putting the app on one should). And onward we progress!

 

(I am not intending to be the least bit critical. I've got both app and music on RAMDisks because I subjectively thought both made a difference in my system, and the script makes it all easy and free, so why not? I was just thinking bemusedly about getting such different experiences and conclusions from two credible sources.)

[sig8]

........ and the script makes it all easy and free,.......

 

I saw your script, it is for OS X, no such thing for Windows? I tried music files on RAM disk, probably sounds few percentage points better, but as Ted says, it is very tedious.

[57gold]

Been monkeying with settings and wonder if others see it (or better yet hear it) like I do.

 

Can only run CD rips at 5.6 DSD with *2 filters or at 2.8 DSD with full filtering...seems like better recordings sound better (particularly cymbals and high frequency details) at lower conversion rate and more complete filtering.

 

Thin I need a more powerful computer to hear the full boat!