first time taking room measurements

Nick B · June 04, 2025, 09:42:23 PM

I bought a UMIK 1 mic recently and just downloaded some free measurement software from Focus Fidelity. The measurements are necessary as I will be buying a license for HQ Player. I am reading the user manual tonight and it's 25 pages. It seems straightforward enough, but taking measurements doesn't get me excited. It's just necessary to optimize the capabilities of HQP and my first exposure to DSD. My Holo Red streamer and Holo Cyan2 dac are apparently an excellent fit for the HQP software. I have a friend helping over the phone with the measurements and then he'll be applying the filters in HQP.

I expect to get started tomorrow or the next day.

P.I. · June 05, 2025, 09:24:03 AM

Quote from: Nick B on June 04, 2025, 09:42:23 PMI bought a UMIK 1 mic recently and just downloaded some free measurement software from Focus Fidelity. The measurements are necessary as I will be buying a license for HQ Player. I am reading the user manual tonight and it's 25 pages. It seems straightforward enough, but taking measurements doesn't get me excited. It's just necessary to optimize the capabilities of HQP and my first exposure to DSD. My Holo Red streamer and Holo Cyan2 dac are apparently an excellent fit for the HQP software. I have a friend helping over the phone with the measurements and then he'll be applying the filters in HQP.

I expect to get started tomorrow or the next day.

Looking forward to your journey

mresseguie · June 05, 2025, 05:38:54 PM

Nick,

I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on HQ Player, too. Could you speak a bit more about this JPLAY? Why is it special/what does it do for your music enjoyment?

Michael

Nick B · June 05, 2025, 07:23:51 PM

Quote from: mresseguie on June 05, 2025, 05:38:54 PMNick,

I'm looking forward to reading your thoughts on HQ Player, too. Could you speak a bit more about this JPLAY? Why is it special/what does it do for your music enjoyment?

Michael

Michael,

I think of HQ Player as the poor man's version of doing equipment upgrades and lots of room treatments. I've read some very positive things about it's capabilities and the software cost is very reasonable. Having moved at the end of 2022, I realized how much "stuff" I still had. So the thought of buying and placing various room treatments in my living room/listening area, wasn't very appealing. Should I ever be fortunate enough to have a dedicated listening room, then I would certainly consider room treatments rather than controlling room anomalies through DSP.

I have always been curious about the DSD sound, and again this is an inexpensive way to expose myself to that. My system currently sounds very, very good just playing 16/44, but again I just want to have different experiences in sound reproduction. I've not had the good fortune to be able to go to a good dealer, a friend or an audio club and experience these things. I think one of the criticisms of DSD might be a slight softening of the top end. I hope to find out soon enough whether or not that is true. I have a friend who is very experienced with HQ Player and will set up the appropriate room correction filters and give me some advice as to all the other filters that are available and how to implement them. If I didn't have his help available, I wouldn't attempt getting into very complex software. I installed HQP tonight, but I'm not sure that I dragged all the folders and files into the Apple applications folder. I need to doublecheck that.

Oh, I nearly forgot. As to JPLAY, I would not have thought that a simple player could make such a nice improvement. After all, it's just a remote control of sorts. But apparently the designer Marcin designed his software to retrieve the song in such a way to make it a lesser burden on the system, and since the processing requirements are less, it improves the sound as a result. Now this is just something that I read recently, and I'm not certain I've repeated it completely accurately. I have no intention of going back to Roon right now. I own the lifetime licenses to both products and can easily switch back-and-forth on the Holo Red streamer.

I find that JPLAY digs a bit deeper into the soundstage and better resolves that detail. It was rather surprising and startling as to the difference, at least in my system. I have focused on very low noise throughout the system so I am now able to hear these subtle differences.

Nick B · June 05, 2025, 07:24:59 PM

Quote from: P.I. on June 05, 2025, 09:24:03 AM
Quote from: Nick B on June 04, 2025, 09:42:23 PMI bought a UMIK 1 mic recently and just downloaded some free measurement software from Focus Fidelity. The measurements are necessary as I will be buying a license for HQ Player. I am reading the user manual tonight and it's 25 pages. It seems straightforward enough, but taking measurements doesn't get me excited. It's just necessary to optimize the capabilities of HQP and my first exposure to DSD. My Holo Red streamer and Holo Cyan2 dac are apparently an excellent fit for the HQP software. I have a friend helping over the phone with the measurements and then he'll be applying the filters in HQP.

I expect to get started tomorrow or the next day.
Looking forward to your journey

Well, I'll admit it took me a while to get to this point 🤷