Just got XX working 'properly' again and tried these settings. Great, great sound. Thanks for sharing guys.

I think I've now got the best sound I've ever managed to achieve... ever. Not bad going seeing as I've been 'totally satisfied' many times in the past. And Paul I agree, the real stars are XX and the NOS1. I mean, my amps, speakers, cables, etc haven't changed since last week, but the sound was mediocre at best. Until I got XX sorted out earlier today. It's now just staggeringly real, and so musically engaging.

Mani.

I think I've figured out the problem that was preventing me from going below SFS=2.0...

I think XX somehow deactivated itself, whilst I was still in minimized state. This seems to have happened as I was playing around with XTweaks a week or so ago. Today I tried the 'wallpaper test' and was baffled as to why I was getting a yellow background and not a red one. So I re-activated and the red wallpaper returned.

I have no idea why the SFS would not go below 2.0 in non-activated mode. I'm assuming that although I've had PA set to '-' for the last week that I've actually had no PA since XX was deactivated.

Weird. But all is now working, and the SQ is phenomenal again.

Mani.

I'm still using W8 in my office. Switching Peak Extension to 'ON' has exactly the effect that you'd expect from previous PE experience. The edge is taken off the sound and it comes across as more balanced, and less annoying. It's actually quite nice. Unfortunately I don't have W7 on dual boot on this PC to compare, but I could live with this sound (in my office at least).

Could it be that W8 is actually more transparent than W7, and what we've been hearing are the side effects of compiler bug issues with PE='OFF'? Seems a long shot to me, but maybe worth investigating further. It's prompted me to sort W8 out on my main system again. I do have W7/W8 dual boot there, but for some reason, my W8 seems to have become corrupted - I think by physically disconnecting the HDD whilst in Min OS mode.

Will report back once I've had a chance to compare, but probably won't be for a while.

Mani.

I've had the house all to myself today (kids at nursery and wife at work) and have taken the opportunity to play around with XX for a while. Nothing amazing to report sound-wise, but I now have an issue that I didn't have before I started playing around...

Most of my listening has been done switching between CWI=0 and 1. I'm not totally happy with either and think the sweet spot is somewhere in between. So I started playing around with SFS too. It's been on SFS=1.0 for quite a while with no issues whatsoever. But I wanted to hear what CWI=1 sounded like with BL=43 and SFS=2, so I changed SFS to 2.0. OK, quite nice. I wanted to compare to SFS=1.0 again. But no music. Rebooted, but still no music. Back to SFS=2.0, and music again. Hmm.

OK, I took BL up to 85 again and SFS down to 1.0... and again, no music. Quickly tried CWI=0, but no music. Back to CWI=1 and BL=43. Still no music. Played around with some Q1 settings and got a few error messages (can't remember exactly what they said, but something like "914500 needs to be bigger than 1000000"). Back to SFS=2.0 and music again. Hmm.

I switched the PC off and went down to the basement. My liquid-cooling heat sinks were much warmer than I have ever felt them before. Certainly not 'class A amp' hot, but quite warm.

OK, it could be the brief time with BL=85 and CWI=0. But I've used these exact settings for much longer durations with previous versions of XX and the heat sinks have never been this warm.

And I still can't go back down to SFS=1.0.

Strange.

Mani.

Just tried taking Balanced Load from 43 back up to 85, as I had it before. I only played a few tracks and had no stops - but then this is usually the case with 43 too. However, I prefer the sound of 43. It's 'calmer' and less 'in your face'.

I'm still not sure about 'Cool When Idle' though. Even at BL=43 this seems to have a profound affect on the sound. When set to 0, the sound becomes silky smooth... but to the detriment of fine detail IMO. Set to 1, the sound opens up and instruments start vibrating and 'singing' as though they're alive. The only downside seems to be a bit of sibilance. I strongly suspect this has something to do with noise, either in the SMPS or mobo. I don't know which way this works though; is the noise higher with CWI=0 or 1? But the difference seems more pronounced with higher BLs (say 85).

In any event, with my current setup, I prefer CWI=1. Maybe if I had a linear PS my preference would be different...

Edit: Haha, when I'm sitting in my home study/office listening to the music playing (pretty loudly) in the main room, I think CWI=0 sounds more real - beautifully balanced and nothing annoying whatsoever.

Mani.

PS. Peter, many moons ago you mentioned something that was even crazier than your normal 'inventions' - a linear PS for a PC that was the size of a matchbox, or something like this. Did anything ever come of this? Your sig suggests you might already be using something like this. Are there any beans to spill at this point in time???

As I'm only using a single HDD for OS, XX and music nowadays, I have the HDD set to 'never' spindown.

Mani.

Hi Adrian, you can still find the details of the Magtech here: http://www.sanderssoundsystems.com/products/amplifiers/magtech-amp.

I like it. Right now it's driving a pair of Celestion SL600 speakers in my office. These are about the same efficiency as yours by the looks of things. I haven't really done a proper comparison between the Magtech and the Sauermann or BD-Design amps I have. I suspect it sounds more weighty than either of these, but perhaps a tad less transparent. It sounds substantially better than any other class AB amp I've ever heard. Certainly it's capable of driving any speakers I've tried it with to crazy levels with simply no fuss whatsoever.

If I were in the market for a commercial amp to drive a pair of inefficient speakers, the Magtech would be at the top of my list.

HTH.

Mani.

Just to add another data point, I get these messages about once per album. There are some occasions when I don't get them during a whole album, but these are rare.

I haven't played around with any BIOS, OS or XX settings whatsoever so can't really help Peter find the problem. My machine is pretty quick, although I don't use hyper-threading or over-clocking. The OS, XX and music files are all on a single spinning HDD.

Might using a RAMdisk help?

Of course it'll be great when Peter gets to the bottom of this. But quite frankly, the sound is soooo good right now, I don't mind the occasional annoyance of having to restart a track.

Mani.

I've just installed 0.9z-8-2 on my W7 HDD... and absolutely love the sound. I mean, there is no way anyone would think this is digital. No way. Totally smooth, and yet with all the inner detail you could want. No edge whatsoever. But I'm right down at SFS=1. Higher SFSs smooth the sound off a little too much.

I need to reinstall W8 on my other HDD to make a comparison. But quite frankly, I'm not in much of a hurry to try this.

Whatever you did Peter, it works for me 100%. Thanks so much.

Mani.

Edit: Just another point. I'm pretty sure my room is being energized in a totally different way now. There don't seem to be any standing waves and yet I'm getting a lot more vibrations coming up through my seat than I normally have. I think this actually adds to the enjoyment.

Hey Paul, I'm currently out of town and intend to try 0.9z-8-2 when I get back. I do actually have 0.9z-7-5  loaded onto my W7 work laptop and it works amazingly well with my Dragonfly DAC - perfect for when I'm on the go. But I'm a bit reluctant to try 8-2 in case I have a Bert-like incident - simply can't afford for anything to go wrong with my work laptop when I'm out of town.

Will definitely share my W7 vs. W8 thoughts over the weekend. Meanwhile, hang in there.

Mani.

I recently came across this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBR3kS4e_wk

I know everyone's so busy nowadays running around, and this video is a whole hour long, but I strongly urge you to take a good hard look at it.

He starts off a bit slow, but then gets into his stride. He talks about problems with PCs that no-one really understands, issues with delta-sigma converters and a whole bunch of other stuff that's relevant to us.

I'm sure you, like me, frequent these boards not because you love PCs, but because you love music and want to hear it in its full glory. Watch this video and learn from someone who knows what he's talking about.

(Although I have to admit that I still don't understand the bit about vinyl having "120dB dynamics". I'd love an explanation from someone who does.)

Mani.

Hey Nick, what's a 'disc format upwards reinstall'?

Mani.

Of course, it could well be totally the opposite - that I'm being lured by the dreaded 'false details' that 1 might be introducing.

In any event, it's interesting that this setting has such a profound affect on the sound. And it may well be a big factor as to why people are hearing W7 and W8 sounding so differently, if it's set to 0 in W7 and 1 in W8.

Mani.

Guys 'n' Gals,

Those of you who are currently in a position to compare W7 to W8, here's a piece of advice for you. When you're using W7 make sure you have 'Cool when idle' in XTweaks set to 1 and not the recommended 0. I know it says 0 is better, but it's not according to me. 0 sounds dead in comparison to 1. I suspect it's because our PC switching power supplies are working overtime when it's set to 0, and kicking a lot of cr*p back into the mains. Dunno. In any event, if you set it to 1 you'll then be comparing like-for-like with W8 because you should keep it to 1 in W8 for now (a bug or something).

I think this should cure any issues with W7 sounding dull in comparison to W8. It does here at least.

Mani.

Haha. I know it's been said before, but the NOS1 is easily the cheapest component there (much less than the cables I'm sure) and yet I doubt the sound would have been as impressive without its contribution.

I wonder if they were using phase alignment...

Mani.