Consumer products

HQPlayer - upsampling multichannel audio player for Windows, Linux and macOS

Screenshots (click to enlarge):

Album view

Playlist editor

Desktop mode

Supported source formats:

• CDDA (Audio CD)
• FLAC
• DSDIFF (DFF, non-compressed)
• DSF
• RIFF (WAV, including DXD/RF64)
• AIFF
• RAW streams

Supported playlist formats:

• M3U / M3U8
• PLS

Features:

• Software upsampling / downsampling with selectable algorithm up to 32-bit 1.536 MHz or down to 16-bit 32 kHz PCM (22 options, most "apodizing")
• Delta-Sigma modulators for upsampling PCM/DSD content up to 49.152 MHz 1-bit SDM (21 oversampling options)
• Selectable dithering / noise shaping algorithm (7 options)
• Selectable convolution algorithm (FIR) for equalization, such as digital room correction (2 options), for PCM/DSD content
• Optional high-frequency expansion for the convolution engine
• Software-based digital volume control for PCM and SDM (DSD)
• Playback of DSF/DSDIFF files through any supported audio interface (PCM conversion and DSD rate conversion)
• Selectable algoritm and noise filters for DSF/DSDIFF PCM playback (7 / 6 options)
• Native/direct playback of DSF/DSDIFF files (ASIO DSD, DoP v1.1 with both 0x05/0xFA and 0x06/0xF9 markers)
• Playback of stereo, 2.1, 3.0, quadrophonic, 3.1, 5.0, 5.1 and 7.1 channel material
• Speaker configuration for multichannel playback (delay and level) for PCM and SDM (DSD)
• Matrix processing for routing, filtering and mixing channels with gain, for PCM/DSD content
• Bypasses operating system software mixer and sample rate conversion
• Support for professional ASIO drivers
• Multi-room support with Signalyst Asynchronous Network Audio Adapters
• Support for ID3v2 tags on AIFF, DSF and WAV files (versions 2.2, 2.3 and 2.4)
• Smooth level limiter for clipped material
• "Dual wire" channel bonding support to reach 2x rates, PCM and DoP (DSD)
• 64/80-bit floating point processing
• Full support for multi-core processors (can utilize up to around 27 cores depending on configuration)
• Light weight desktop-GUI to lower graphics noise
• Touch-GUI for use with tablets or laptops with touch screen.
• DSP offload to GPU using NVIDIA CUDA

Resampling filters:

• 12 linear phase
• 7 minimum phase
• 3 impulse optimal
• 2 closed form

Dithers and noise-shapers:

• 4 dithers
• 4 noise shapers

Delta-Sigma conversion:

• 8 modulators
• 21 oversampling filters (64x - 1024x)
• Direct rate conversions
• Digital volume control
• Convolution engine
• Routing and mixing

External control applications:

• HQPDcontrol
• Roon
• muso
• Alchemy Desktop

HQPlayer is a high quality audio player for Windows, Linux and macOS. HQPlayer also features several selectable high quality upsampling and downsampling algorithms as well as selectable dither, noise shaping and modulator algorithms.

All modern DACs employ oversampling and delta-sigma modulation, however the hardware implementations are more or less resource constrained. Higher quality oversampling and delta-sigma modulation can be done by utilizing vast mount of processing power available in modern PCs. Many AVRs also resample internally to 48, 96 or 192 kHz, with the HQPlayer, these can be fed at the native rate.

Want to buy 192/24 or DXD files for future but currently own only 96/24 capable hardware? Or want to buy DSD128 or DSD256 files but currently own only DSD64 or 192/24 PCM capable hardware? Resampling and dither/noise shaper can be used to playback high resolution files on a lower resolution hardware, allowing future-proof investment on high resolution files.

For digital room correction and other equalization purposes, selectable convolution algorithms are included. Convolution engine supports RIFF (WAV) format FIR impulse responses, which can be produced with suitable software, such as Acourate, Room EQ Wizard or DRC.

Network Audio Adapter

Network audio is especially useful to give freedom from cables when player is run on a tablet or other wireless device.

Processing is performed by the player application and the processed data is then asynchronously streamed over network to a very lightweight network audio adapter interfacing to the DAC. Asynchronous FIFO provides maximum isolation between processing and audio reproduction.

System requirements, Windows version:

• Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1 x64, Windows 10 x64
• Audio interface with support for WASAPI Exclusive or ASIO
• CPU support for SSE4.2 instruction set (SSE2 for 32-bit version)
• Display adapter with OpenGL support
• PDF reader software (such as Adobe Reader or Foxit Reader)

System requirements, Linux version:

• Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (64-bit) or one of the variants (Ubuntu Studio is recommended as optimized version)
• Audio interface with ALSA-drivers
• CPU support for SSE4.2 instruction set
• Display adapter with OpenGL support

System requirements, macOS version:

• macOS version 10.11 or later
• Audio interface with CoreAudio or ASIO drivers
• Display adapter with OpenGL support

System requirements, CUDA offload:

• NVIDIA GPU
• Minimum Compute Capability level 3.0
• Latest NVIDIA drivers

Recommended hardware:

• T+A DAC8 DSD (Win)
• RME ADI-2 Pro (Win/Mac/Linux)
• exaSound e20/e22/e28 (Win/Mac)
• Holo Audio Spring DAC shops: US/EU (Win/Linux)
• iFi iDSD Nano/Micro, iDAC2 (Win/Linux/Mac)
• Sonore microRendu as a NAA
• Logic Supply CL100 as a Windows-based NAA
• TEAC UD-503/NT-503 (Win/Linux)
• Pro-Ject Pre Box S2 Digital (Win/Linux)
• Fostex HP-A8C (Win/Mac/Linux)
• TEAC UD-501 (Win)
• Sony UDA-1 (Win)
• Resonessence Labs HERUS (Win/Linux/Mac)
• Marantz HD-DAC1 (Linux/Win)
• Prism Lyra/Titan/Atlas (Win/Mac)
• Focusrite Forte (Win/Mac)

Special ASIO4ALL driver is also known to work, but is not recommended as it doesn't guarantee specific direct access quality.

Note! If you have audio problems when using USB audio device with default settings, try increasing buffer time to 100 ms. This will most likely help.

Quick Start Guide

A really brief quick start guide can be found here.

HQPlayer Desktop: 3.20.1

trial / update.
Important! On Windows, uninstall the previous version of HQPlayer before installing 3.14 or newer! Old keys can be converted to a new key file format for versions >= 3.17.
If you are using Windows version older than 10, make sure you have all the latest updates installed, or alternatively in case you get an error when starting HQPlayer, you may need to install a correct update package from here.

trial / update.

trial / update.

Network Audio Daemon: 3.5.2

On Windows, Microsoft runtime is required, in case you get error message about missing DLL, you can download the necessary runtime here.

 

 

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