The reboot is required by the AV program itself to shut off one of its processes.  This process then remains shut off until the user turns it on again (which again requires a reboot).

The AV treats its other half dozen or so processes differently: one can choose to turn them off effective immediately for various lengths of time, the maximum of which is "Until next restart."

I haven't yet tried just turning off the process that requires a reboot and seeing if XXHE will take care of the others by itself.  Will let you know if that works.

BTW, you have permission to quote that bit about "Peter knows what he is talking about" in discussions with family members, except I think I know what the reaction would be.   

So it looks as though our lesson for today (and every day  ) is that Peter knows what he is talking about.

There could be an entry in the XX log, but I wasn't able to identify anything that called out what was happening when XXHE wasn't able to shut down the remaining services.

Somehow Win Defender and Firewall had managed to get themselves turned on again, so I turned them off, but that wasn't the problem.

No, of course it was the AV.  Though it complained that I was "unprotected," only one of about seven running AV processes was actually turned off at the time.  And they make it a PITA to turn everything off, since 6 of the 7 are only off until the next reboot, while the 7th *requires* a reboot to shut it down.

So I set the one process to stop as of the next reboot, rebooted with OS minimized, then turned off the other 6 processes at a sub-level of the AV UI.  Whereupon XXHE was able to stop all the remaining services within a couple of seconds and begin play.  And yes, Peter, it sounded even that much better - I was glad I persevered.   

So it may require some fiddling each time with the AV UI (and more to turn it back on again for when my wife and stepson use the desktop), but sonically it is worthwhile.

Now for some work in the yard, and later the multimeter to see whether hooking up a more powerful amp might allow use of PA.

Will look for it (hope I can recognize it when I see it).


Well, I wonder about that.  The AV UI certainly indicates its functions are being shut down (throws up a dialog saying "You're now unprotected" or words to that effect), and I can check of course with Task Manager and/or ProcMon to confirm.

Of course I would be happy if the AV is not the problem, since I generally like it, though as I noted before I am not overmuch worried about viruses (more about when others are using the computer than myself).

Yep, no problem.  Will see if I can be any more successful on my side before then.


Will do.  Now that I have talked about how careful I am, it will be a bit of an embarrassment if my speaker cones wind up in the opposite wall.  But I would post a photo for everyone's enjoyment if that happened, so it wouldn't be a total loss.   

Hi, Peter.  You know when I say "try," I mean with all the precautions mentioned in the user documents.  (I mean, I've got the multitester, so why not enjoy using it?)  Both the multitester and the old amp are sitting in the same room as my XXHE rig, so it would not take much time to employ due precautions and then test.

As far as services, I can assure you (as you already know) XXHE sounds so much better than Foobar any comparison is absurd, even without being able so far to stop the remaining Win services.  I can think of a couple of things to look at before confronting whether to uninstall ESET.  One is making sure Win Defender is not running, as I mentioned.  Another is turning off the services in Windows directly, one by one, until I see whether there are any that refuse to be stopped.  Could you provide something like a list (or a link to a discussion of this in the forum?) of other services that ought to be stopped for best SQ; or is it easier the other way around (here are the few that absolutely need to be on); or is this impractical, as everyone's environment is somewhat different?

Well, shutting off did not work.  Want to look to make sure Win Defender isn't running, because I'm reluctant to uninstall this AV (nice low resource usage, calls no attention to itself generally, except with the installation of -7).  May decide to live with whatever SQ difference there might be between stopping remaining services and not doing so.

Quick question about Phase Alignment: Anything in your experience that would make PA more palatable to my amp?  Have tried lowering volume to -22.5db, with no change - amp's protection circuitry still kicks in.

Have thought of using the amp as pre-, and hooking it to my former amp from the downstairs system, a 100wpc model; but that might be rather massive power into my little bookshelf speakers.  I have visions of speaker cones hitting the opposite wall.  And it may make no difference to the N22's protection circuitry's reaction to PA whether it is being used as an integrated or a preamp.  Easy enough to try, though.

It's ESET NOD32, version 5.  It really hates XXHE.  I can't finish the download of the compressed installation files or run the install unless I turn it off.  It's a fairly common (and very good) antivirus, so I'd be a little surprised if no one has mentioned its distaste for XXHE to you before.

No particular problem telling it to stop while I'm playing in "minimize" mode - have a hardware firewall set up at home.

I have the same with the #2 line - minor irritant, I've just developed the reflex of clicking on the "2," which brings the line back where it should be.

For the SFS (any other?) text overlapping the settings area, just wondering if you happen to have Windows text size in your display settings at 125% or 150%?  XXHE does not deal with that gracefully at this point.

Hi, Peter.  Same PC.  "Minimize OS" works fine as long as I don't select "Stop Remaining Services."  If I do select that and then try "Minimize OS," the dialog comes up that says to wait for the services to stop.  Then one of two things happens - either I wait for the dialog to go away and it never does, or I click OK after a while and nothing more happens until I grow tired of waiting, bring up the XXHE window again and unselect "Stop Remaining Services."  (Edit: Want to clarify that I never tried "Stop Remaining Services" before this, so I don't know if it is any sort of regression.)

For Phase Alignment, you're correct - if PA is not activated, everything works and I hear music.  If PA is activated (I've only tried the minus, since phase is not inverted), then the cover art shows *~* and the player UI indicates the selection is playing, but the power light in my amp dims (doesn't go out entirely, but the light output is less) and no music comes from the speakers.  The amp does have a couple of different types of protection circuitry, and I think it probably is not liking what it "sees" from PA.

Using Minimize OS with "Stop Desktop Services" and "Stop WASAPI Services" works nicely.  But turning on "Stop Remaining Services" will keep XXHE unattended mode from ever starting - or at least from starting for as long as I've been prepared to wait, over a minute.

Am I simply not being patient enough, or is something not working right?

BTW, just as an aside: Can't use Phase Alignment, it seems.  I'm thrilled with the sound provided by my current settings on a very rudimentary system, so I'm not feeling a great loss, but I was curious what it would sound like.  Have all the requirements, and player cover art shows Phase Alignment activated, but my amp is very low powered and it appears the protection circuitry is kicking in.

Well, sadly I won't have the chance to experience Phase Alignment on the main system downstairs with the Spectral Amp that certainly passes DC (point of pride for them, really) that I'm not going to change.  But with my humble upstairs system (better computer there anyway) I would like to attempt it.  First I need a multimeter, and searching Radio Shack's inventory online doesn't turn up a lot immediately.  Anyone have a suggestion for a not terribly expensive unit available in the USA that would fit the bill?

Thanks.

Edit: Think I've found one at Sears.  What fun, the chance to play with something that will either give me fabulous sound or ruin my amp and speakers.

Oh, it's bad, very bad.  ;-)

But hey, that's what's needed, isn't it?  That "nothing will work" for a few, so that everything will work for everyone?

Jud

Would be very pleased to beta test.  It's something I enjoy a lot.

Began with Galleries; then Unattended; then WAV instead of FLAC; then Minimize OS; finally, the priority adjustments.  Galleries made it possible to use Special Mode.  Each change after that produced another gain in sound quality.  No stability problems now, and very happy with the sound.

Well actually everything I described happened with only one album and one album cover loaded in XXHE.  So I suppose I have already fulfilled this condition.   


Will do.  Interesting, I notice Mani's sig says he's using adaptive mode.  Best SQ, or some other reason, I wonder?