Going forward, from February 28th, Roon will require HQPlayer Desktop 4.16.2+ which means what I'm going to be showing below with Roon streaming to the Windows version of HQPlayer Desktop 4 on the Celeron will be a no-go unless you run the Ubuntu/Linux version. When installing HQPlayer 4.14+, there is no warning that it's incompatible, the machine will simply not start the HQPlayer Desktop program.ģ. Most Celeron machines including this one and older processors cannot be used even though apparently the more recent Ubuntu/Linux builds at least to the current 4.17.1 still run for now without AVX2 instructions. For some reason, since HQPlayer 4.14, the AVX2 instruction set is needed.

If you're using Roon, I would argue the upsampling options in Roon are more than good enough if you feel that your DAC isn't doing a good enough job!Ģ. Simply put, most audiophile listeners will not need it, nor care, nor feel that it's beneficial. Three points to be aware of before we start:ġ. With that out of the way, let's see about installing HQPlayer Desktop 4 on this computer. No issue with heat (remember, this box is fanless). In fact, over the last couple weeks, I've turned down the Intel power envelope even further on this box:īy the way, after about 25 minutes with 100% processing, the machine is just merely warm. I think these days it's a good idea to be mindful of the general 'footprint' we're leaving in this world! For many Roon users, one way of taking advantage of processing power is by using HQPlayer from Signalyst for high-quality upsampling with digital filtering, and possibly even PCM-to-DSD conversion.īefore we start loading up HQPlayer, I want to remind everyone as per the previous blog post, I'm actually 'underclocking/undervolting' this Windows machine for the sake of keeping energy consumption low as a 24/7 device. I mentioned in the previous article that it might be fun to consider utilizing the processing power of the little fanless box for audio. A tip: K-Lite Codec Pack works very well, it can even play MKV/MKA files with lossless TrueHD-Atmos like the 2019 Beatles Abbey Road BluRay rip which I know will trip up some HDMI hardware. It works fantastically also as a little fanless HTPC for movies with 4K video and audio bitstreaming. The computer is relatively powerful for just an audio device handling Roon streams 8GB DDR4 RAM, a 2.0+GHz turbo Celeron J4125 quad-core CPU is certainly much more than needed just to basically get data from the gigabit ethernet and shove it to USB or HDMI for playback! Hey folks, a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I've got the little MeLE Quieter2Q Windows 10/11 computer in my sound room these days used as a low-power (<10W) Roon streamer capable of 2.0 and 5.1 multichannel.

Hqplayer on laptop