Over the last two weekends I have been trying the new HQPlayer version 4. Initially, I was finding HQPlayer 4 somewhat frustrating, a case of me being on a bit of a learning curve, combined with my time being very limited at the moment, so I have tended to dive in and rush things. Anyway, now I have become used to the new quirks, I have to say that I could not be more impressed with this update.
Initially, the changes seam fairly modest. There are now some more filter options, plus a new "1x" and "Nx" filter selection option, plus a few other tweaks. The 1x" and "Nx" filter selection option allows you to select different filers which are the automatically applied depending on if you are playing "hi res" material or not. So if you are playing 16/44.1 material then the 1x filter selection will apply, if you are playing 24/88.1 or higher then the Nx filter will apply. The idea is that for a given system, what works best with Redbook 16/44.1 material might not be optimum when playing 24/192 source material, or whatever. A subtle change, but a nice touch. The new filters are interesting too, for example, a favourite of mine in version 3 was poly-sinc-xtr. In version 4 we now have poly-sinc-xtr-LP and poly-sinc-xtr-MP, so a bit more choice and almost certainly these will be developed further over time.
The bad news is that version 4 comes at quite a price hike over version 3. With UK taxes it now comes in at £225 - ouch! Some good news here, there is a discount for those with an HQPlayer 3 licence. For me, applying the discount code took the UK price to £180. There is lots of debate about the price rise over on Audiophile Style (Computer Audiophile), I guess nobody really likes paying for software. One thing I had not realised was that original purchasers of HQplayer 3 received a full six years of support and upgrades from version 3. So if the same applies to version 4, the price does not seem to bad to me. At the end of the day, that's the price now, it is up to individuals to decide if it is worth it or not, purchase is not obligatory.
I like HQPlayer, and I feel it has enhanced my listening pleasure, so if the above had been it, I would have paid my £180 happy in the knowledge I had an enhanced version of the software and a few years of support and further enhancements to look forward to. I kind of feel that HQPlayer is a part of my system, the same as any cable, power supply or piece of electronics, so a few pounds to keep it up to date is fair enough.
But here come the game-changer...…
HQPlayer 4 has a new "Input Loop" feature. I run HQPlayer on a Windows 10 PC, so I can now set my soundcard to VB-Audio H-Fi cable, and then set VB-Audio H-Fi cable as an input device in HQPlayer. This basically makes HQPlayer function as a virtual soundcard. To be honest, setting this up was less than intuitive and I have benefitted enormously from one poster on AS who was struggling to set this up but ultimately posted how he achieved it. Following his troubles, I was able to get it up and running fairly easily. A case of easy when you know how. So with this set up and running, I was able to run all sorts of things on my PC and stream via NAA to my sMS-200Ultra Neo. As some examples, I can run iTunes WASAPI to HQPlayer, upsample to 24/192 to the sMS-200. Shut down iTunes, switch to YouTube, and you can stream music directly to you main rig. This to me is a excellent feature, in essence, anything that will run on you PC can now be streamed via HQPlayer, upsampled to PCM or DSD with your preferred filters. You can use any music player, YouTube, internet radio, whatever you want. As an example, I was listening to a BBC sounds podcast on my iPad yesterday. I have just picked this up on my PC, and I can stream it upsampled to 24/192 on the big rig. I am listening to this now as I type, and it sounds excellent.
So, HQPlayer 4. Some nice updates, a little pricy, but if the new virtual soundcard functionality is useful to you, then I think this is an absolute game changer.
Initially, the changes seam fairly modest. There are now some more filter options, plus a new "1x" and "Nx" filter selection option, plus a few other tweaks. The 1x" and "Nx" filter selection option allows you to select different filers which are the automatically applied depending on if you are playing "hi res" material or not. So if you are playing 16/44.1 material then the 1x filter selection will apply, if you are playing 24/88.1 or higher then the Nx filter will apply. The idea is that for a given system, what works best with Redbook 16/44.1 material might not be optimum when playing 24/192 source material, or whatever. A subtle change, but a nice touch. The new filters are interesting too, for example, a favourite of mine in version 3 was poly-sinc-xtr. In version 4 we now have poly-sinc-xtr-LP and poly-sinc-xtr-MP, so a bit more choice and almost certainly these will be developed further over time.
The bad news is that version 4 comes at quite a price hike over version 3. With UK taxes it now comes in at £225 - ouch! Some good news here, there is a discount for those with an HQPlayer 3 licence. For me, applying the discount code took the UK price to £180. There is lots of debate about the price rise over on Audiophile Style (Computer Audiophile), I guess nobody really likes paying for software. One thing I had not realised was that original purchasers of HQplayer 3 received a full six years of support and upgrades from version 3. So if the same applies to version 4, the price does not seem to bad to me. At the end of the day, that's the price now, it is up to individuals to decide if it is worth it or not, purchase is not obligatory.
I like HQPlayer, and I feel it has enhanced my listening pleasure, so if the above had been it, I would have paid my £180 happy in the knowledge I had an enhanced version of the software and a few years of support and further enhancements to look forward to. I kind of feel that HQPlayer is a part of my system, the same as any cable, power supply or piece of electronics, so a few pounds to keep it up to date is fair enough.
But here come the game-changer...…
HQPlayer 4 has a new "Input Loop" feature. I run HQPlayer on a Windows 10 PC, so I can now set my soundcard to VB-Audio H-Fi cable, and then set VB-Audio H-Fi cable as an input device in HQPlayer. This basically makes HQPlayer function as a virtual soundcard. To be honest, setting this up was less than intuitive and I have benefitted enormously from one poster on AS who was struggling to set this up but ultimately posted how he achieved it. Following his troubles, I was able to get it up and running fairly easily. A case of easy when you know how. So with this set up and running, I was able to run all sorts of things on my PC and stream via NAA to my sMS-200Ultra Neo. As some examples, I can run iTunes WASAPI to HQPlayer, upsample to 24/192 to the sMS-200. Shut down iTunes, switch to YouTube, and you can stream music directly to you main rig. This to me is a excellent feature, in essence, anything that will run on you PC can now be streamed via HQPlayer, upsampled to PCM or DSD with your preferred filters. You can use any music player, YouTube, internet radio, whatever you want. As an example, I was listening to a BBC sounds podcast on my iPad yesterday. I have just picked this up on my PC, and I can stream it upsampled to 24/192 on the big rig. I am listening to this now as I type, and it sounds excellent.
So, HQPlayer 4. Some nice updates, a little pricy, but if the new virtual soundcard functionality is useful to you, then I think this is an absolute game changer.
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