Thank you for the comprehensive answer. Makes me less ready to make this jump, in part because of how I have essentially 3 audio systems, one in office, a headphone setup (with ROON, and which also can use SONOS endpoints) and a mostly analog (Turntable, FM, Tape plus CD and SONOS Port) one with my main speakers. Adding an NAA to the main system is possible, but it sounds like more work when I’d rather grab a Manhattan and listen to music.
Thanks for all this detailed info! A couple of questions, if you please:
Is this because Apple Music doesn’t have a lot of high-res content or because you’ve figured out a way around this issue with Apple Music?
I’m having similar issues as Essentials except I’m running an older Macbook Pro that does not have the dedicated GPU option. The CPU load is never above 15% when running HQPlayer but I’m still having pops occasionally. Any tips besides ensuring Multicore is enabled and using less demanding filters?
The primary reason that it’s not an issue with Apple Music, is that the Apple Music player itself doesn’t (currently) automatically switch output sample rates (there are reasons for this).
There’s plenty of hi-res content on Apple Music, though I don’t think they’ve hit their goal of the entire 75+ million track library being available in hi-res yet. Certainly more than enough of it to make having auto-rate switching desirable for those that don’t want their OS doing their re-sampling.
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A good while ago, I wrote a little app that does do the proper output rate switching with Apple Music on macOS. I talked about it a bit in the Apple Music Lossless thread. I haven’t done the work to make it App Store policy compliant, as a) I’ve had more interesting things to do, b) I can use it as-is anyway and c) only my mobile/travel listening is via Apple Music.
If you’re converting to DSD, are the pops mid-track or between tracks? If it’s the latter, it’s really a DAC (or DSD) issue. HQPlayer has some mitigations for this built-in, but I think they only work when playing from an HQPlayer playlist.
If you’re strictly PCM, or it is mid-track pops/clicks, then its probably dropping out.
There can be numerous causes for this, and they don’t have to be that there’s too much load on the machine. You can have USB latency issues even with little to no load on the CPU.
It’s really an issue to take up with Jussi; which is most easily done in the HQPlayer thread on “Audiophile Style”.
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Trying to get HQPlayer to work on an Apple Silicon iMac => Qobuz => HQPlayer => USB to Topping D90. The program and or the client keeps quitting, freezing, won’t play. I don’t want to buy Roon. I’m reluctant to buy the program beyond the trial with it being this spotty. Is there any way to get it to work in this configuration?
Are you using a loopback audio driver or does Qobuz support HQPlayer directly?
HQP supports Qobuz natively – my problem was such a dumbo move. I had Qobuz open as well. Now it works great.
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My experience with HQP native qobuz was pretty bad too. If your using DSD it could be a setting issue. For me it was. Ultimately I had to use Roon because the using external players with either Blackhole or VB cable does not allow you to change the frequency automatically.
The native HQP qobuz has too many limitations to use it effectively. For me the main problem was liking songs, artists and albums. There is just no way to find an album if you liked it and don’t know the artist over the top of your head.
It’s hard to navigate, but soundwise, it’s like a new DAC.
I have what is probably a very stupid question: why can’t I access Qobuz through the HQPlayer 4 interface? According to the user guide, there should be a Qobuz option in the left-side dropdown menu on the transport view, but there is no such option and any attempt I make to type anything in that field just disappears. Is this some kind of limitation with the trial version or am I doing something wrong?
On the side you will see album view on the left and transport view on the right, mouse click on the actual words or swipe left if you have touch screen. Hope this helps.
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do you have hqplayer or hqplayer-embedded running elsewhere on your network?
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I emailed the company for help. Turns out I didn’t have the “allow control from network” button selected in the Desktop app. Not entirely intuitive IMHO, but it did solve the issue. 
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