I have a K50 and I’ve been enjoying experimenting with the different playback options. Personally, I found Squeeze to sound a bit more spacious and open compared to UPnP/MPD — it just had that extra sense of air and ease. I’ve also noticed that many Antipodes users seem to prefer Squeeze in general.
That said, I’m quite curious to hear from anyone who has done serious comparisons between HQPlayer and Squeeze. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position right now to test HQPlayer thoroughly myself (and I don’t have a license at the moment).
The reason I’m particularly interested is because I prefer to work with minimalistic DSP, and as far as I understand, CamillaDSP doesn’t work with Antipodes on the Squeeze/Space platform. So my idea was to perhaps create convolution filters and apply them via HQPlayer, mainly to make some subtle frequency response corrections without heavy processing.
I’d really love to hear about your experiences — especially HQPlayer vs Squeeze “as-is,” without filters or complex tweaks. How do they compare in terms of overall musicality, openness, and naturalness on the K50 or other models?
And even more interesting would be that everyone who is interested in the HQPlayer omit the Roon Server. We all now know that Roon as a server can change the sound significantly. How does HQPlayer/HQPlayer vs. Roon Server/HQPlayer sound? Or Squeeze/Squeeze vs. HQPlayer/HQPlayer? That would be interesting. But I don’t want to test it either. HQPlayer avoids most of them because of their user interface.
I had done a number of comparisons with HQPlayer v4 and then repeated them early on with v5. In each case, the source files were created by PGGB, so upscaling was built in, so to speak. As such, I disabled what I could in HQPlayer so it would get as close to possible as a passthrough player. There is apparently no true passthrough ability though with HQPlayer, but I think I got as close as possible to it.
I am pretty sure I posted on here a while back that I had expected HQPlayer to get a lot closer to Squeeze with v5 as it sounded better to me than I had recalled with v4. Unfortunately the difference was larger, most likely because of how much more transparent my system had become. While I don’t recall specifics, Squeeze was better in all the ways it’s been known to be better than the other software options on Antipodes. I would probably rank HQPlayer without filters above Roon and MPD though.
I agree completely with @kennyb123 though to be fair, I have never used HQPlayer. But I HAVE used Roon, Roon+Squeeze (as emulator) and have also used Jplay which in my view has a decent interface (better than Squeeze but not as good as Roon to be sure).
I have the K41 server and K22 player and in my view Squeeze resides at the top of the food chain followed by Jplay, followed by Roon+Squeeze and bringing up the rear, Roon.
In percentages, I would say Squeeze is about 8% better than Jplay and 12-15 % better than Roon.
12-15% better than Roon?? OK, then Roon doesn’t need any further sound optimizations. 15% is nothing and falls under the category of “personal taste”. Percentage-wise, Squeeze/Squeeze is 75% better sounding than Roon/Roon. Percentage-wise, Squeeze/Squeeze is 70% better sounding than Roon/Squeeze.
Opinions are just that : opinions of personal views and taste. Such views cannot be measured and are not empirical . Enjoy what you enjoy and choose whatever sounds best to you. Personally I’d love it if Roon could improve their SQ. Please wake me up when they do.
I got it working that way too. You can also use the 30 minutes to test HQPlayer (standalone). Without Roon, HQPlayer sounds significantly different—less muddy. To test it, you only need to scan your library once and then you can try out certain songs. I’m not sure yet about the app, or whether I still need to purchase a license. The app seems to be paid as well.
Hi everyone, I’d like to try out HQPlayer (standalone), including using the HQPlayer Control app. I want to test the player/configuration without Roon and compare it to Squeeze. I’ve selected HQPlayer in the dashboard and downloaded the app to my tablet. Do I need to purchase anything else (license key, etc.), or is it enough to simply select the available options in the app? Will that complete the HQPlayer subscription, meaning I won’t need a separate license key? I hope I’ve explained myself clearly.
Hi, yes, I’m aware of the 30-minute limit. I was only concerned about the app and the potential double costs. I’ve apparently discovered that there doesn’t seem to be an Android app anymore. The HQPLAYER client is only available for Apple. I wanted to test HQPlayer exclusively: the server/player (HQPLAYER Stand Alone) and its own app. No Roon server involved. And then compare that to Squeeze/Squeeze. Wird hochgeladen: 1000056756.png … Wird verarbeitet: 1000056755.png …
I’d be interested to know what version of roon people are comparing. It has consistently sounded better after every update over the past yer or more … the cumulative benefit of the last three updates is quite alot based on my listening criteria.
I am using CX Oladra with a few enhancements, and the player is Devialet Pro (Roon + Roon), and my network is very resolving/low noise. I havent tried HQPor Squeeze because I dont know if Devialet accepts them - I dont think so.
