I agree with these observations - I call it the 'holographic effect'. But I also think that PA can sound a little too 'fresh' (on my system at least). With Q1=30, I've increased xQ1 from 1 to 5 and this seems to have brought the tonal balance back from slightly bright to neutral. I've lost some of the holographic effect of PA as a result, but it's not totally gone.

I tried SFS=2 (and 60) and phase_strength=1 (with Q1=14 and xQ1=1) but again just too fresh on my system. So my settings currently stand at:

- device buffer = 4096
- SFS = 430 (straight contiguous)
- Q1 = 30
- xQ1 = 5
- phase strength = 0

On my 'Le Monster' PC, I'm getting zero glitches, dropouts or stops. And apart from having to wait a few seconds for XX to react (due to the massive latency), everything works nicely.

Mani.

Yes, PA definitely engaged. But I was just being an idiot - I quoted the DC offset at idle, and not when playing music. With PA engaged, the meters go off scale when music is playing.

On a side note: Bert, my Quads have transformers at their inputs, so aren't bothered by the amp's DC output. Would the gainclones care if they outputted >1V DC? I mean, in my case, with my Quads, do I really need an input capacitor on my amps?

Mani.

Hey Bert, this is way too high. My two NOS1s read between 0.5mV and 7mV on their respective channels.

???

Mani.

Bert, on my main system (Sauermann amps) I'm measuring ~15mV at the speaker terminals without PA. With PA it goes to ~150mV, but only momentarily, before going back down to ~15mV once the music starts.

When you talk about 180mV, surely this isn't at the output of the NOS1?

I'm asssuming my gainclones would have identical DC offsets to yours, no? So no PA with these until you get them 'upgraded', right?

Mani.

Hmm... will take a good listen to it later this evening.

Mani.

Sorry, I don't know. We really need Peter to chime in here.

I'm reluctant to paste this because it may not be relevant for the official 0.9z-7 release, but I've been following these intructions exactly for the five 0.9z-7 installations I made in the last couple of days:

Enter the received Activation Code in the field for it (under the PayPal button);
Click Activate;
Wait until the message "Done" appears.
Change the XX Settings such that WallPaper Coverart will show for Attended Playback;
Load one or two tracks in the Paylist Area and Play in Attended mode briefly;
Watch the yellow borders of the Wallpaper Coverart.
Stop playback and Quit XXHighEnd.
Start XXHighEnd and play again. If all is right now the Coverart shows red borders.
 
HTH.

Mani.

In case it's unclear what I mean...

Gerard, in your screen print the border of the coverart is yellow. My understanding is that it should be red if activation succeeded OK. Maybe you need to try activation again? But maybe wait for Peter to comment first.

Mani.

I didn't want to share my thoughts on PA until I had 0.9z-7 installed in my main system (in sig), and I wasn't going to do this with the beta release. But I've now installed the official release in my main system.

I thought I had one of the most 'musical' systems I'd ever heard - the Sauermann amps are special, the Quad speakers are legendary and the NOS1... well this is probably the most accurate DAC in the world. BUT Peter is right - even with these components, I now know I've been listening to distortion all this time. This was obvious the first second I listened to PA. I don't wear contact lenses or spectacles but I can imagine PA is like putting a pair on when you have bad eye sight but didn't even know about it. It's a revelation.

Congratulations Peter, and thank you so, so much. I second your Nobel Prize.

(Incidentally, I measured the DC offset at my speaker terminals without/with PA. The offset is around 12mV on each channel without. When PA is engaged, this jumps momentarily to ~150mV (accompanied by a small tick through the speakers) and then falls back down to ~12mV once music starts coming out of the speakers.)

Mani.

Hmmm... spoke too soon. Just got a stop, after about 45-60 minutes of music playing. I may try the Q1 factor at some point. But before this, I'll install 0.9z-7 onto Le Monster and see whether it fares better than the i7 860 I'm currently using.

Mani.

SOLVED! I just increased the SFS size from 280 -> 430

On my office PC (i7 860) with a NOS1, PA seems to work fine with the following settings:
- device buffer = 4096
- SFS = 430 (straight contiguous)
- Q1 = 30
- Q1x = 1
- PAx = 0

"Works fine" only relates to glitchless playback. The improvement in SQ is waaaaay more than "fine" (details being saved for another thread).

Mani.

Probably related to http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2156.0...

I'm getting a lot of stops when I engage PA. Interestingly, I'm using exactly the same XX parameters as I did with the last beta version of 0.9z-7 I tried, which didn't have stops with PA.

Mani.

I have now installed 0.9z-7 on four PCs. Three times out of four, I did not receive an activation code having made the PayPal payment. However, on all these three occasions, the second attempt worked fine - i.e. an activation code was given immediately after the PayPal payment.

If you get a 'contact Phasure' message after a PayPal payment, try the PayPal payment a second time. I am 100% that Peter will refund you any number of payment attempts you make that don't result in an activation code.

Mani.

I've just downloaded... and I can say straight away that I concur.

More thoughts in time...

Mani.

Peter, I've just got back to the UK but haven't yet downloaded 0.9z-7. Could I test the activation? Let me know...

Mani.