MQN

Anything to do with computer audio, hardware, software etc.
taggart
Posts: 117
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 10:44 pm
Location: Cologne

Re: MQN

Post by taggart »

Aleg wrote: ...To be able to set affinity and priority from commandline I use taggart's tasker.exe program found here: viewtopic.php?p=51794#p51794 ...
Hi Aleg,
glad to hear that at least a few guys can take an advantage from Tasker.exe!
Setting priorities and affinities for processes when using MQn was exactly the cause I've made the program for. JPLAY does it automatically and I've always felt that it's a good approach.
Try also to set mqnplay.exe to "high" instead of "realtime". Some have found that it could be the better sounding setting, but seems to be dependent on the particular system.
Cheers,
Christoph
Aleg
Posts: 1381
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:26 pm

Re: MQN

Post by Aleg »

taggart wrote:
Aleg wrote: ...To be able to set affinity and priority from commandline I use taggart's tasker.exe program found here: viewtopic.php?p=51794#p51794 ...
Hi Aleg,
glad to hear that at least a few guys can take an advantage from Tasker.exe!
Setting priorities and affinities for processes when using MQn was exactly the cause I've made the program for. JPLAY does it automatically and I've always felt that it's a good approach.
Try also to set mqnplay.exe to "high" instead of "realtime". Some have found that it could be the better sounding setting, but seems to be dependent on the particular system.
Cheers,
Christoph

Christoph

Thank you for this very useful little program.

I did also try the high priority setting, but I have slight preference for the realtime setting. Sometimes if I find realtime a bit too much I manually switch to high (or to 2.59), but in general I find high a bit softer around the edges and a bit less direct, so prefer realtime. But anyone can experiment and find their own preferred settings. That's why I like your program and prefer it to fixed settings.

But thanks for the suggestion.

Cheers

Aleg
HDPLEX;picoPSU;ASUS Q87M;i7-4770T;PH SR7EHD;Server2012R2;Thesycon 2.24;
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sima66
Posts: 872
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 7:35 pm
Location: Canada

Re: MQN

Post by sima66 »

sima66 wrote:Aleg,
I was speechless when I tried last night! I just used the same "2.73 448" for 16/44 and "2.71 Time 1" for HiRez. The change was so big that It did not come to my mind to try or to change anything else!

Can't wait for tonight! ;-)

THANKS A LOT!!!
I have to quote myself, because, again, I made my opinion to fast!
Last night was a "Perfect Storm", I listened to some harsh recordings and when I ad Tasker.....wow the harshness was gone! Never compared anything, just enjoying the night.

Today I had chance and patience to do better comparations and I realized that Tasker is flattening the sound a bit and loosing a bit of details.
Smoother, but at expense of details!

Sorry for any confusion and again, this is just my opinion and my preference!
I5 4440+TXCOmobo+JCAT Femto-Intona-JKRegen+HynesPS+TeraDak ATX-820W=JCATusb=DiverterHR=Wadia 931/922(GNSC mod)=PassLabsXA100.5=2xValhalla=Stacked&moded ESL57+JAS SuperTweet+2MJ Acoustics Ref.I
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Aleg
Posts: 1381
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:26 pm

Re: MQN

Post by Aleg »

sima66 wrote:
sima66 wrote:Aleg,
I was speechless when I tried last night! I just used the same "2.73 448" for 16/44 and "2.71 Time 1" for HiRez. The change was so big that It did not come to my mind to try or to change anything else!

Can't wait for tonight! ;-)

THANKS A LOT!!!
I have to quote myself, because, again, I made my opinion to fast!
Last night was a "Perfect Storm", I listened to some harsh recordings and when I ad Tasker.....wow the harshness was gone! Never compared anything, just enjoying the night.

Today I had chance and patience to do better comparations and I realized that Tasker is flattening the sound a bit and loosing a bit of details.
Smoother, but at expense of details!

Sorry for any confusion and again, this is just my opinion and my preference!

Hi Adam

That's just fine. What you describe as its effect, the smoothing of the sound, is not what I percieve as its effect in my setup, so apparently it works differently in your setup.

Edit:
Try changing the priority from realtime to low and back again, in Taskmanager/Details/Right mouse-click / priority during playback. You get a sense of the effect of priority when alternating the two extreme values, and see which you like best.

Cheers

Aleg
HDPLEX;picoPSU;ASUS Q87M;i7-4770T;PH SR7EHD;Server2012R2;Thesycon 2.24;
JCAT USB;Sonicweld DiverterHR2;Naim DC1;Chord Hugo;Morrow Audio MA6;Naim NAC-282,SuperCapDR;NAP-300;
AQ Cinnamon;GISO GB;Netgear Pro+XM21X;Cisco SG300;NAS-ZFS.
sima66
Posts: 872
Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2013 7:35 pm
Location: Canada

Re: MQN

Post by sima66 »

Aleg wrote:
sima66 wrote:
sima66 wrote:Aleg,
I was speechless when I tried last night! I just used the same "2.73 448" for 16/44 and "2.71 Time 1" for HiRez. The change was so big that It did not come to my mind to try or to change anything else!

Can't wait for tonight! ;-)

THANKS A LOT!!!
I have to quote myself, because, again, I made my opinion to fast!
Last night was a "Perfect Storm", I listened to some harsh recordings and when I ad Tasker.....wow the harshness was gone! Never compared anything, just enjoying the night.

Today I had chance and patience to do better comparations and I realized that Tasker is flattening the sound a bit and loosing a bit of details.
Smoother, but at expense of details!

Sorry for any confusion and again, this is just my opinion and my preference!

Hi Adam

That's just fine. What you describe as its effect, the smoothing of the sound, is not what I percieve as its effect in my setup, so apparently it works differently in your setup.

Edit:
Try changing the priority from realtime to low and back again, in Taskmanager/Details/Right mouse-click / priority during playback. You get a sense of the effect of priority when alternating the two extreme values, and see which you like best.

Cheers

Aleg
Aleg,

I tried right click on Mqnplay and I changed to Real Time, but after I checked again it was back to "Normal"!

Sorry for my incompetency!
Adam

EDIT:
It does not save the changes! Do I have to do that every time I start MQn? Soon as I start again it's back on "Normal"!
I5 4440+TXCOmobo+JCAT Femto-Intona-JKRegen+HynesPS+TeraDak ATX-820W=JCATusb=DiverterHR=Wadia 931/922(GNSC mod)=PassLabsXA100.5=2xValhalla=Stacked&moded ESL57+JAS SuperTweet+2MJ Acoustics Ref.I
4SteinHarmonizers;RR777;Tellus;StillpointsUltraSS
Aleg
Posts: 1381
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 8:26 pm

Re: MQN

Post by Aleg »

sima66 wrote:
Aleg wrote:
Hi Adam

That's just fine. What you describe as its effect, the smoothing of the sound, is not what I percieve as its effect in my setup, so apparently it works differently in your setup.

Edit:
Try changing the priority from realtime to low and back again, in Taskmanager/Details/Right mouse-click / priority during playback. You get a sense of the effect of priority when alternating the two extreme values, and see which you like best.

Cheers

Aleg
Aleg,

I tried right click on Mqnplay and I changed to Real Time, but after I checked again it was back to "Normal"!

Sorry for my incompetency!
Adam

EDIT:
It does not save the changes! Do I have to do that every time I start MQn? Soon as I start again it's back on "Normal"!
Hi Adam

The start-command, timeout, the extra tasker lines and pause and exit all have to be put into the MQn.bat because they need to be run each time mqn is started.

My suggestion about using Taskmanager is done during playback.
So you:
1. start mqn.bat (either with my additions or the original) and get your music playing.
2. Start taskmanager (while music is playing ! )
3. Go to tab details and locate mqnplay.exe in the list.
4. Right-click on mqnplay.exe and click your mouse on the priority item and it will show 5 options from low to realtime. Take note of the original value, if you ran my adapted mqn.bat it should show realtime priority, if not than the adaptations were not put in properly or you didn't use my adapted mqn.bat
5. Click on low and then apply and click on the comfirmation box. Listen carefully what low priority does.
6. Right-click on mqnplay.exe again and choose realtime priority, and listen carefully what is different to the previous low priority. All other priority settings will fall somewhere in the middle of these effects.
So this is just for quick comparison of the effects of different priorities.

For normal playback you need to use my adapted mqn.bat file because the priority and affinity settings need to be applied each time mqn is started because it will not remember the settings after the command window has been closed. So take note that you have copied all the lines from "start mqncontrol", the timeout, the 3 tasker lines to the final pause and exit statements.
If run properly you will see 2 open command windows, the first with the listing of the selected tracks and the confirmation messages from tasker and the second with the file load counter from mqn. Both need to be kept open during playback!!

Could you confirm you see all this happening in your setup?

Edit:
A few pictures of how things should look:
1. MQn started with adapted mqn.bat shows 2 command windows:
Image

2. A view of the priority listing in Taskmanager/Details/Right mouse click:
Image

3. The confirmation windows when changing priority setting:
Image

Cheers

Aleg
Last edited by Aleg on Sat Feb 15, 2014 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tony
Posts: 3144
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 2:36 pm

Re: MQN

Post by tony »

Miss this stuff for a few days and it is amazing the 'new' options that pop up.Look forward to trying that. Many thanks to Taggart for the various bits he has added over the last year, I think we all really appreciate his work.

Had a quick listen to Pearse's system pre scalford and using MQN with hires compared to my laptop using 16bit the hires sounded very poor. This seesm to be an issue with hires material but Pearse noted that 16bit sounds much better than any hires on his system.

Another strange anomaly was the alarming difference between a track played from USB key and from SSD. We just tried something(good) that Pearse had not discovered yet! and my laptop with ciunas was more pleasant to listen to compared to the zuma/linear etc. Once on SSD the qualities of Pearse's set up shined through. Not sure if this applies to others or is just a quirk of Pearse's set up. I still only use a HDD using a wireworld usb cable to rear port of my zuma. Have a small 128gb SSD must try that out a bit more.
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nige2000
Posts: 4253
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 10:47 am
Location: meath

Re: MQN

Post by nige2000 »

the +5v on the usb ports is noisy no matter what way you power the mobo
all drives must be supplied direct from power source as it picks up noise going through the motherboard
sd card player, modded soekris dac, class a lifepo4 amp or gb class a/b amp, diy open baffle speakers based on project audio mundorf trio 10's
tony
Posts: 3144
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2010 2:36 pm

Re: MQN

Post by tony »

nige2000 wrote:the +5v on the usb ports is noisy no matter what way you power the mobo
all drives must be supplied direct from power source as it picks up noise going through the motherboard
Accepting the logic of that explanation would explain why I do not experience that problem using the hdd. But maybe I would benefit from a mini usb cable to usb without power going through it? Don't want to butcher the wireworld one but might try it with a cheapo
GroupBuySD DAC/First Watt AlephJ/NigeAmp/Audio PC's/Lampi L4.5 Dac/ Groupbuy AD1862 DHT Dac /Quad ESL63's.Tannoy Legacy Cheviots.
nige2000
Posts: 4253
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 10:47 am
Location: meath

Re: MQN

Post by nige2000 »

i give you a better conundrum

were playing the tracks from ram so why are we hearing differences?

thats what kills me,
much of audio pc doesn't make sense,
we cant be limited to sense or reasoning
everything must be tested
pita
sd card player, modded soekris dac, class a lifepo4 amp or gb class a/b amp, diy open baffle speakers based on project audio mundorf trio 10's
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