I'm sorry for the confusion. Yes, of course, in my comparisons the SQ is best with XXEngine3.exe alone on its own core and all other processes (including XXHighEnd.exe) on the other core. (Although this is not entirely true, because there is one process which does not allow to be changed and that is audiodg.exe - so this process remains on BOTH cores).

I only mentioned the previous example of changing XXHighEnd to it's own core just so you would know how to duplicate the issue (of the gapless glitch). But for the sake of SQ, indeed having them each on their own core sounds best. But at the moment, to change affinity is a PITA when I am testing and comparing, because every time you click the invert box or change Q1 setting, XXEngine3.exe is recreated and always takes its affinity setting from it's parent process (XXHighEnd). So whatever you set it to previously doesn't stick.

But if you are willing to implement the option to appoint affinity along with the priority assignment - that would be BONUS!

BTW, can I take this opportunity to mention that I am finding more and more music that suffer from the pops & cracks resulting from checking the invert option. Have you made any progress on resolving this?

Of course I do (it's automatically applied). If you set affinity of XXHighEnd after you launch it - then when you start playing music, XXEngine3.exe launches and automatically adopts the same affinity as XXHighEnd (it's parent process). So you don't have to manually change XXEngine3.exe unless you want it to have a different affinity than XXHighEnd.

Uhh...ok. The simplest way is to CTRL+ALT+DEL and start Task Manager. Then click on the Processes tab (at the top). Then right-click on the process (XXHighEnd) and click on "Set Affinity..." In "normal mode" you'll see that both CPU 0 and CPU 1 are checked. (Don't ask me why they aren't referred to as CPU 1 & CPU2) Anyway, if you want to run a process on only one core, then un-check one of the CPU boxes.

Peter, when I said you don't give much credence to my "experiments", I was just joking and I was referring to our conversations about RAMDisks. 

Anyway, I just wanted to clarify something. Perhaps I used the wrong "terminology". But to be specific - my CPU is an Intel Core 2 Duo (E6600 - 2.4GHz).

Thanks for the response Peter. Since you were not able to duplicate the problem, I figured the problem was unique to something in my setup, so I started testing. And I found out what the culprit is. The glitch only happens with the invert box checked (whether or not "Double" is checked) and it only happens when XXHighEnd is running on only one processor. You see, I've been playing around with process priorities and affinity (with my dual-core CPU), and in my experimenting I had all my processes running on CPU 1 and XXHighEnd (& Engine) the only processes running on CPU 2. If I run XXHighEnd in normal mode (on both CPUs), even with invert checked, then gapless works just fine. So do you think the invert box is too CPU intensive for one CPU?

Anyway, sorry for the wild goose chase. I know you don't give much credence to my "experiments" (even though I can tell you this does affect SQ). And FWIW, I'm currently using an M-Audio Audiophile USB DAC, although I don't think that's the culprit, and the glitch happened with all music (and had nothing to do with diacritical marks or cue files).

Peter, I'm experiencing glitches with gapless playback. When I have the "Double" (Oversampling) checked, during the transitions from track to track, it is making a skipping distorted sound. It is not seamless or smooth at all. Is this just a limitation of the oversampling function, or can it be fixed?

Thanks.

You know, previously I had been testing (comparing) with specific music and perhaps got a little burnt out on it, but last night I decided to try out some different music (perhaps better recorded music). I was getting some scary detail and resolution. I mean wow! I went to Q1=-4 with the invert box checked and it became so much more 3D and transparent. As I said the detail and resolution was so scary, it was almost too revealing (especially on poorer recordings). As Dave said, I don't think anything was missing, but I need more listening time. But indeed, every other setting sounds "cloudy" compared to this. Dave, try the invert box checked and tell me what you think.

Peter, will you be implementing the option to go lower than -4? I'm curious what's out there. How much detail can I take.

Gerner, I'm also using Q=0 with invert checked and thread priority set to REALTIME. And on top of that, my DAC is sounding good with the (double) oversampling to 88.2 checked.

Peter, any chance you can implement capability for 24/88.2 & 24/96 files in time for version 1.0? There are some decent sites for downloading uncompressed 24/96 now. Would love to hear them through XXHighEnd!

Thanks.

Peter, I'm still getting the loud cracks with invert box checked (with version 0.9k) as well. I know Johan already mentioned it. I was just wondering if you have an idea if this can be fixed.

Peter - as I told you back in reply #16:
http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=134.msg695#msg695
I removed ALL the DLLs and Manifest file and still get the same error message.

I did it just for the sake of experiment and because Peter said:
"But in either case the priority of the Player could degrade the Audio Engine. So actually the prio of the Player should be as low as possible" (look in the 4th post down on this thread)

It's fixed!

Thanks Peter, I can now set thread (engine #3) priority to Realtime and player priority to Below Normal and it stays that way in Task Manager.

Good job. How odd that it doesn't work for you.

I'm using Vista Home Premium.

What do you mean? I changed it to Realtime with Task Manager no problem.

And yes, I check it while it's playing.

Hey Gerner - I thought you preferred 0.9h over 0.9d? But Peter says the Q1 setting similar to 0.9h is 24. I'm a little surprised you now prefer 7 or 15 (when Peter said the similar to 0.9d is 14). Clearly I haven't done as extensive a listening session as yours, but I'm curious to know if you concur with Peter's assessment of 24 being similar to 0.9h?

Since I preferred 0.9h over 0.9d, I began my brief listening comparisons at 24 and went up from there. As I said, it was a brief comparison, but after a handful of songs, I preferred the setting of 29 (and with the Invert box checked). Yikes! After I read your post, I went back and had a listen to a couple more songs and I found the setting of 7 hazy in comparison to 29. But I'm no judge of what is more accurate. Just what I preferred at first glance. Does this mean I prefer distortion? FWIW, My criteria was mainly detail and clarity and I mostly listened to Tori Amos songs.

Now I'm really curious what Q1 setting everyone else is choosing.