What is HQ Player? Is it for regular people or computer people?

[caesar]

What is HQ Player? how does one add it to their system? is it an add-on module?

Is it only for DSD lovers, or for PCM guys?

Is it for geeks, for whom the hobby is as much to play with computers as it is to listen to music (and to whom we should all be thankful for as they are early adopters that help push things forward), or can regular guys who could care less about computer logic use it easily to bring better musical experiences?

 

[EdmontonCanuck]

What is HQ Player? how does one add it to their system? is it an add-on module?

Is it only for DSD lovers, or for PCM guys?

Is it for geeks, for whom the hobby is as much to play with computers as it is to listen to music (and to whom we should all be thankful for as they are early adopters that help push things forward), or can regular guys who could care less about computer logic use it easily to bring better musical experiences?

HQPlayer is an upsampling multichannel audio player. It's a very high quality upsampler that allows you to select from many high-quality filters for performing upsampling. You may want to do this to bypass the upsampling normally performed by your DAC. Software-based upsampling on a higher-end computer is regarded as superior to that performed by DAC chips, which in comparison are vastly underpowered. Also, the filter(s) supplied by the DAC are fixed, and HQPlayer offers many more that may be more to your liking.

Note that all DACS essentially perform upsampling internally.

HQPlayer is a standalone player that you install like any other program on your OS (it is not an add-on module). While many people (myself included) use HQPlayer to upsample all content to DSD, it also handles PCM content just fine.

There are many forums/posts that you can Google to learn more, as well as going directly to Jussi's site (the author of HQPlayer) to try for free for a few weeks to see if you'd like to purchase it: Signalist HQPlayer

I regard it as the highest quality player you can get. It's user interface is not as polished as some of the others, but it integrates nicely with Roon which you can use as a front end and this is the way that a lot of people are using it.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

What is HQ Player?

It is a music player, not a music manager.

how does one add it to their system?

Download from http://www.signalyst.com/consumer.html and follow the instructions.

is it an add-on module?

It can be a convenient add-on to Roon or MUSO because HQPlayer's ability to organize a library is minimal but it can be used on its own.

Is it only for DSD lovers, or for PCM guys?

Anyone but its real claim to fame is upsampling to DSD256 or DSD512 (from DSD or PCM) if your DAC and your computer can handle it.

Is it for geeks, for whom the hobby is as much to play with computers as it is to listen to music (and to whom we should all be thankful for as they are early adopters that help push things forward), or can regular guys who could care less about computer logic use it easily to bring better musical experiences?

I do not know that these groups can be easily distinguished except at the extremes.

You might try of forums which focus on this and have lots of info available, e.g., www.computeraudiophile.com and https://community.roonlabs.com/