@audiofun
apologies for the truncated reply to your question. I went with Roon and a lifetime subscription in 2015. I had also been an early adopter of Pure Music and dabbled in Hqplayer. A friend/audio dealer set it up and I am not even remotely qualified to discuss hqplayer other than to say I thought it sounded great streaming from a Macbook pro at the time.
When I bought the Nucleus + a few years ago it replaced the Macbook pro feeding my dac. It was quieter but maybe a little less interesting than the previous setup. The Innuos Zenith to my ears sounded better than the hqplayer feeding dacs via usb. I thought Lumin sounded tinny and veiled. I was feeding several different dacs: Chord Dave, Nagra Classic, Totaldac d1-tube plus a few others. Eventually settled with the Innuos feeding an Aqua La Scala Optologic dac. The Aqua Linq streaming via i2s to the La Scala is a game changer if you enjoy R2R.
Aqua is releasing an Hqplayer module for the Linq this fall so I may stick my toe back in.
Regarding your setup, Ive only heard your dac once several years ago in an unfamiliar system. Your usb fix sounds intriguing and congrats on being able to overcome what so many manufacturers have been unable to. I believe the usb out of the Innuos to be exceptional but the ethernet into the Linq and the i2s from the Linq to the La Scala to overcome usb’s limitations. YMMV.
The Boulder 866 version with the inboard dac/streamer is exceptional. Hearing it fronted by a Lumin you havent heard it yet. In that system I sold my audio research reference pre and ref amp and replaced it with the 866 driving wilson sashas. My aqua setup is in another setup currently along with an audio note meishu tonmeister silver or a leben cs600x driving devore o96’s.
in short, hqplayer sounded very nice but i believe the improvements in roon combined with overcoming the inherent limitations of usb and clocking challenges presented by usb and a computer make hqplayer less necessary to achieve exceptional sound quality.
apologies for the truncated reply to your question. I went with Roon and a lifetime subscription in 2015. I had also been an early adopter of Pure Music and dabbled in Hqplayer. A friend/audio dealer set it up and I am not even remotely qualified to discuss hqplayer other than to say I thought it sounded great streaming from a Macbook pro at the time.
When I bought the Nucleus + a few years ago it replaced the Macbook pro feeding my dac. It was quieter but maybe a little less interesting than the previous setup. The Innuos Zenith to my ears sounded better than the hqplayer feeding dacs via usb. I thought Lumin sounded tinny and veiled. I was feeding several different dacs: Chord Dave, Nagra Classic, Totaldac d1-tube plus a few others. Eventually settled with the Innuos feeding an Aqua La Scala Optologic dac. The Aqua Linq streaming via i2s to the La Scala is a game changer if you enjoy R2R.
Aqua is releasing an Hqplayer module for the Linq this fall so I may stick my toe back in.
Regarding your setup, Ive only heard your dac once several years ago in an unfamiliar system. Your usb fix sounds intriguing and congrats on being able to overcome what so many manufacturers have been unable to. I believe the usb out of the Innuos to be exceptional but the ethernet into the Linq and the i2s from the Linq to the La Scala to overcome usb’s limitations. YMMV.
The Boulder 866 version with the inboard dac/streamer is exceptional. Hearing it fronted by a Lumin you havent heard it yet. In that system I sold my audio research reference pre and ref amp and replaced it with the 866 driving wilson sashas. My aqua setup is in another setup currently along with an audio note meishu tonmeister silver or a leben cs600x driving devore o96’s.
in short, hqplayer sounded very nice but i believe the improvements in roon combined with overcoming the inherent limitations of usb and clocking challenges presented by usb and a computer make hqplayer less necessary to achieve exceptional sound quality.