Wow Peter, I think you read way too much into that (and perhaps too much inbetween the lines). I was not annoyed nor offended and most certainly meant no disrepect to Andrey. I was trying to add a scientific complement to what Andrey was saying, but I suppose in the end maybe something came out wrong. That is the price we pay for text messages. There's no substitute for HEARING someone speak and WATCHING his manner and expressions. It's a good thing I didn't become a literary writer (with this much misinterpretation going on).

I'm sorry Andrey, your theory and explanations lost me. I thought I was just helping by adding clarification to the "burning" process. Oh well, I guess you already know everything and there's nothing else I can contribute to this topic.

Good luck with your voodoo.

Andrey - you act like the process of "burning" a CD-R is actually "recording" something and therefore "records" the jitter spectrum of your system onto your CD-R. That's not what is happening. An uncompressed WAV file on your computer does not contain "jitter" information. When you burn that file onto a CD-R, the data is a 100% bit-perfect copy. Jitter is only what happens during playback. Now if you read the file back as a data file and then streamed the audio out of memory (like a "memory player") then the fact that the pits and lands vary in length does not matter, hence it would be like playing music from a computer transport. But conventional CD players stream the audio of the CD in realtime, hence the variations in length of pits and lands will add jitter (in addition to the jitter already inherent with this CD player and the signal it outputs).

Let me also say, there is no CD burner in the world that can burn a CD-R with perfectly shaped pits and lands (zero jitter). (That would be equivalent of playing music from memory or a computer transport). And even if you had a perfect CD (with zero jitter), the playback chain - from the laser to the power supply to the clock/oscillator and all the way through the signal - would still introduce a jitter (spectrum).

The only thing that's going to change the amount of inaccurately shaped pits and lands on your CD-R is the capability and accuracy of the laser (of your burner) and accuracy of the speed of the spinning disc, and the quality of the blank CD-R. By multi-tasking your burning and playing XXHighEnd, the only impact this will have is on the buffer of the CD burner, which will either result in buffer under/overrun or a more/less accurate speed of the data transfer (in conjunction with the speed of the spinning disc).

So to sum up, I think you are confusing two different culprits of jitter. The only jitter that physically exists on a CD, is the inaccurately shaped pits and lands. The music file itself does not contain jitter information.

Well, some other "jitter" expert can chime in here and add their knowledge. But the way I see it, the playback (as in XXHighEnd) is about the jitter "spectrum" (which I think you are referring to as the "type of jitter"). But what I'm referring to is the physical jitter on the CD, which means the amount of lands and pits that are not the precise length they're supposed to be. The varying lengths cause the timing inaccuracies (jitter).

When you burn CDs with your computer (assuming you use the same drive and same CD-Rs), the only difference is this physical jitter I'm referring to (and also BLER, but that's another story). Not a change in the jitter spectrum. (Which is the effect of your playback chain).

Now, Andrey, I have a very open mind and I am not quick to discount anything. And I have heard many "interesting" theories in my time. But I have never heard an idea like this before! Forgive me while I pause to laugh a little . . .

OK, now that I got that out of the way . . . jitter is very easy to measure on CDs. (Mind you, I didn't say it's extremely accurate - just said it's "easy" to measure). You can use Nero CD/DVD Speed with BenQ DVD-Rom Drives and it will chart the amount of jitter on a disc (as a percentage). However, the lowest it will go is 7%. Or if you use certain Plextor drives, you can use a great utility called PxScan:
http://www.alexander-noe.com/cdvd/px/index.php
This utility will chart the jitter as a value (such as 1200). No one really knows what this value correlates to, however we know that a value of 1300 is considered LESS jitter than 1200. So the only thing of value with this test, is to measure a handful of discs, and simply determine which is lowest.

These are two examples of what you can do on a PC. But if you want better accuracy, you can always send your disc to be analyzed by AudioDev CATS CD Analyzer:
http://www.audiodev.com/?id=2088

Could be an interesting experiment. Of course, you know that a Plextor Premium will give you the best results and that the brand/type of CD-R you use will also affect the results.

Yes, I agree Gerner. Especially with the Q1 slider at 14 (with Invert checked).

The soundstage got wider/bigger, there is more detail/resolution and it is more fluid. Defintely better than 0.9m-1.

That's a good call Russ. I actually meant to include that link in my previous post as well, but forgot. Indeed I did use their information. And since you reminded me of it, I was thinking that I was a little conservative in my "pruning" and decided to see if I could get a little more aggressive. I ended up disabling 5 more services with no ill effects. In fact, it was a very nice improvement in SQ. I'm including screen captures again for those that would like to compare (showing only 11 services running). (Bear in mind I am not using any network/internet functions, so those are disabled).

Well. . . let me just start off by saying that messing around with Windows Services can be risky business. I disabled a service one time (don't remember which one) and it rendered my computer dead. I had to reinstall Vista. I am not an expert in Windows and don't want to be held responsible for any mucking around that you do. So the information I'm providing here is strictly an example of what works for me. Everyone's PC may be different, especially laptops, so if you choose to parttake, then go at your own risk.

OK, now that I got the legal mumbo jumbo out of the way - let me also refer you to the resource that I used as a reference:
http://www.tweakhound.com/vista/tweakguide/page_8.htm

There are a couple ways to launch the Services control panel, but here's one:
Go to Control Panel and double-click on Administrative Tools - then double-click on Services
You can change the Startup Type by right-clicking on a Service and then left-clicking on Properties
So, what we are referring to here is changing the Startup Type to Disabled.

So just for example I am including a couple of screen captures. One that shows my Services console. If you click on the Status tab at the top (twice to show the arrow pointing down) and then it will organize the services to list everything that is started at the top. As you can see, I only have 16 services running. And the next screen capture shows my Task Manager with the processes displayed. If you want to compare yours, be sure when you display that you click the "Show processes from all users" tab at the bottom to see everything running.

Let me just add a couple of other items that affect the SQ. Go to Control Panel - double-click on System and click on Advanced system settings. Under Performance - click on Settings and then click on the Advanced tab. Be sure "Adjust for best performance of" is checked on "Background services". And also below that change your Virtual memory settings to "No paging file".

Well. . . let's just say I have disabled many unecessary Windows services.

Do you dare venture in to such territory? 

I think I mentioned this before. I also felt that the detail I was experiencing (with 0.9k) might have been inaccurate (or crazy exaggerated in certain frequencies) and it did sound (dare I say) a bit too digital (or maybe what you refer to as squary).


That's exactly the impression I was getting while playing around with 0.9m. Phew! I thought maybe you forgot to activate it or something.

OK, well, thanks for the explanation. All makes sense now.

Wow Peter! I was just looking at the screen captures that you posted. Is this on your Audio PC?!

12409 Handles, 620 Threads, and 48 Processes !!

By comparison, I have running 3962 Handles, 220 Threads, and 25 Processes. You should think about streamlining.

Hey Peter - you haven't replied to my last response, so I was just wondering where you stand on this. I just tried version 0.9m and you have done good things here. However, the SQ with Invert checked is still different than 0.9k. In some ways I like it (0.9m) better, and in other ways it lacks the detail of 0.9k. (Of course, when playing 0.9k, I have manually set the priorities and affinites the same as 0.9m achieves automatically.)

So I was wondering, is the Invert function in 0.9m the same as it was with 0.9lb, or did you make further modifications?

BTW, with 0.9m and Invert checked, there is no crackling and gapless works. Success.

Yes. I only compared them with Invert checked.

However, I did (very briefly) try 0.9lb with Invert un-checked (in comparison with it checked) and I almost could not tell a difference. The impact of checking Invert was less obvious than it is with 0.9k.

Well, the crackling (with the invert) is now gone, but sadly the SQ is not the same. It has gotten worse (more "cloudy"). I prefer 0.9k (with the Invert checked).

I think that's precisely what the Invert box means to me. I never thought it had anything to do with phase (per se), but what I hear is tighter focus and crazy wild dynamics.

Indeed I looked at a few of the songs (with a WAV editor), that "crackle" for me with Invert checked, and I can definitely see that there is a lot of clipping. I started going through a whole bunch of songs from my library, randomly, and so many songs contain clipping. What am I supposed to do about that? I don't hear the crackling with the Invert unchecked.