I love it when you just inject these tiny 'throw-aways' in your body of text, as if they're totally inconsequential.

Anyway, looking forward to participating in the W8 revolution.

Mani.

You give us the knobs and then ask us not to play with them?

Anyhow, as I said in my 'edit', I'm now at higher SFSs and like what I'm hearing... even though I started with SFS=2 (not to my liking - too forward, a little like WASAPI).

Mani.

I'm all up and running with W8 - no issues whatsoever (though I haven't installed the BT dongles as yet).

Well, it's certainly different sounding to W7. With my W7 settings (in sig), the sound is a lot more forward. Initially it sounds more detailed, but I'm not sure it'd be listenable over a long period of time. Increasing the SFS helps but seems to 'dullen' the sound very quickly. I need to spend a bit longer playing around with settings. (BTW, these comments apply to the music PC in my office - I have W8 all installed on my main system too and will give W8 a spin there later today.)

Thank God for the W7 shell - on first bootup you are at a total loss as to what to do.

EDIT: Increasing the phase strength from 0 to 1 seems to help. Currently listening to SFS=430, Q1=30, xQ1=20... and quite like the sound. Too 'thick' and bass-heavy with phase strength 0, but much more balanced with 1.

Mani.

Blu-ray ordered from Amazon. Looking forward to watching it. Thanks for the tip.

Cheers, Mani.

Hey Jud, still haven't gotten around to trying W8 yet. I guess it must be today if I want to save some dosh.

But you know what, I'm just not that bothered. It seems a lot of hassle for an uncertain return. If I get my annual UK tax return submitted ahead of time (deadline midnight tonight - yes, I leave things until the last minute) I might bring myself to trying it this evening.

But I really appreciate all the effort you others have put into trying W8 first. I promise I'll do my bit with W9...

... But maybe Peter will have learned how to program in Linux by then. Wouldn't that be totally cool? Not XX the playback software, but XX the complete OS. TOTAL CONTROL OF THE SOUND... finally!

Mani.

Actually, there is! If you have an Alpha, an Esoteric D70 or a PMII, the HDCD light will come on with 24/192(176.4) material...

... provided these files have been recorded on a PMII, as no other ADC will encode HDCD at any rates.

BUT the HDCD decoding in XX should not detect the HDCD flag at these rates. So having it set to on/off in XX should make no difference.

Mani.

It's not really how I'm hearing things. I have a slight preference for the 16/44.1 vinyl recording over the CD rip. Oh, I forgot to mention: you need to disengage HDCD in XX before listeing back to the 16/44.1 recording - hdcd.exe isn't very clever and thinks HDCD peak extension has been used, when it hasn't.

In any event, the 24/176.4 recording is much better than the CD rip... at my place at least. Maybe you need to get some better amps... haha.

Mani.

Yep, that's what it is.


I just told Audiogate not to apply any filtering, and that's all. The dip from 15KHz to 22KHz on the SACD is identical to the dip on the CD. However, after 22KHz, the noise builds on the SACD due to the noise-shaping.



Yep, certainly not the best. But it's the reason I chose this track... to show that the mastering is the most important factor, before format.

Mani.

Hey Peter, I agree 100%. What do you think I meant by "no signal over 15KHz"? I was talking about the original master, and therefore all of the versions too.

EDIT: On the graph that Peter showed, it's clear that there is output from the cartridge all the way to 30KHz, but no signal on the LP. So it's just noise from 15KHz to 30KHz at about -84dB.

Oh and the cartridge cost me about the same as a NOS1!

Mani.

Nope, no signal over 15KHz or so. It does make you question the wisdom of putting a 16/44.1 master onto SACD - but I guess your equipment appreciates the HF workout.

Mani.

EDIT: for completeness, I've added the vinyl 24/176.4 recording spectrum.

The 'winners' are... GerardA, Christoffe and of course Peter!

The order was:

File 1 = CD
File 2 = LP
File 3 = SACD

What's interesting for me is that these were all derived from the original 1990 digital master, which from the spectra (not shown) is quite clearly 44.1 (and almost definitely 16 bits). Why the massive compression on the CD? I have no idea. There seems to be a little bit of compression on the SACD, whereas the LP doesn't seem to have as much (or any).

FWIW, I prefer the sound of the vinyl. I know it's from the same digital master as the CD/SACD, but to me it's simply more satisfying to listen to. Is this due to the lesser compression? Or perhaps a euphonic effect caused by the inherent distortion in all LP replay? I don't know. But what I do know is that even XX and the NOS1 can't 'polish the turd' they've put on the CD.

As so many people have been saying, we're stuck with what the mastering engineer did and no format is going to be able to improve on that.

Mani

Thanks Coen. Anyone else want to have a shot?

Mani.

Here are three different files:
- my 16/44.1 vinyl recording
- an SACD rip (using a PS3 and then converted to 16/44.1 PCM)
- a CD rip

Can you guess which is which?

Mani

Hey Peter thanks for this.

I think one of the issues that many of us have is that the whole Vista-W7-Vista-W7SP1 debacle is still in our memories. When the SQ is 'good enough' with W7SP1 it's hard to get motivated to try W8. But I'll take the plunge next week when I'm back home. If I go for the cheap upgrade path, is a clean install an option? And if so, would you recommend a clean install?

Mani.

Yep, daily limit of 1GB, so just 5 24/176.4 files plus a few of the others.

Mani.