I want to give an update to this topic. I changed my setup. Now my pc is closer to my DAC. I tried different spdif cables between my Audio-GD DI and the Ref7. The outcome was, the best sounding cable was a 0.8m long digital cable from Van den Hul (digicoupler). Also a 1.2m long noname china digital cable sounded better than my 5m sommer digital cable. Interesting was, that coupling the DI direct to the DAC didn't sounded es good as with the digicoupler. I tested the the digital cables with my spdif test setup too. For that, a modified Pioneer PDS-707 is used. It has an digital out and input that can be switched. If I shortcut the input and the output with a digital cable, I can switch between the cable and no cable. So, the sound of a cable can be determined very good. The digicoupler sounds almost like no cable. Very neutral. I could well imagine, that there is no significantly better spdif cable available.
I think it is very much like Pat said before. You got to try yourself how different length of digital cable sounds in your system.

Great project mani! Someday, I like to do something like this myself. But before I need a house

I alwayes admired that peter leaves his forum open to controversial conversation and that he allowed people that sell competive products join the discussion sometimes (ar-t, jkeny...). This is not riskfree if you earn your money but there is also the chance of progress and in the end, exchange of information grows xx. Also it makes the forum more interesting.
I don't know where the line was crossed for peter to ban windows x in the first place. But comments like
crosses a line for me. I knew this forum as a place where discussions were made in a respectfull way. Everybody has a bad day, as marcin said but windows x seems to have these days more often then the average user. From the beginning he appeared, it was rather an ugly kind of discussion. I don't say he was completly wrong with what he said, it was more the way he did was unproductive.
So my point on this subject is, controversity, yes please. Rudeness please not.
Greetings Adrian

Is this a DIY project or is there a professional involved? Have you more informations about this project?

Interesting product. I wonder how it gets rid of RF without any electronic parts. It seems to be a transformator that normaly should stop only DC component.

my experience with adaptive and special mode is like that. Special sounds softer and with more 3D sound stage. Adaptive has a more powerfull sound with less resolution. Combining the sound of special and adaptive would be nice. The power and dynamic of adaptive combined with the resolution and 3D sound of special.

Did you tried scheme2 with mixed? scheme 3 sounds a little muddy compared to scheme2. In my system, mixed is still best sounding. I preceive the highs as more present with better resolution. Also all frequencies are more coherent.

I use sfs=220 with mixed.
You could try an attenuator like jkeny suggested.

It is definitly worth a try.
BTW: I like your signature format and copied it, if you don't mind

If there would be a sollution that fix the problem once and for all, I would do. I know there is when it is only about sound but there are some things holding me back. In the future I would like to be completely independend of a PC and OS. And there should be no possibility to tweak by myself, for my peace of mind.

It is a windows asio driver. It also improves the sound of the media player. There is nothing to do to make it work with xxhe. You can use engine 3 and 4 as usual. Only catch is, that the driver does not official support the Tenor te7022l chip. So every time I turn off the digital interface, I have to install the driver again. But the sound let me forget about this inconvinience. It is the only way to get rid of the windows volume control. I hope there will be another sollution or a better driver from ploytec in the future.
What I learned is, that a spdif interface should always have some driver that doesn't use windows mixer. It would be interesting if Ar-t legato, empirical off ramp, or wavelength wavelink would work with the ploytec driver. If not, for example the legato that doesn't has its own driver would never sound as good as it can.

I played further with the asio driver and got special mode to work now even with z2. Until now, my comparison between z4.1 mc and z2 was done with adaptive mode. I still would prefere z2 special over z4.1 mc special because z4.1 mc has the same disadvantage as compared to z2 with adaptive. It sounds to soft and not so clear. Most intereseting thing for me, changing to mixed again and using the same buffer size (and asio settings) as with z2, suddenly z4.1 showed what I missed. It is even more clear and detailed than z2. And I hope this isn't the late night effect again but it seems to be realy better now. I would be so glad if I can confirm this tomorrow (I could count one up for my first impressions statistics ). I have a good feeling about this.
Would be interested what you think about scheme 2 instead scheme 3. It seems to me, it can reproduce the highs more accurate. In earlier versions this was maybe to much but now it sounds crisp and clear. Less jittery.
Good night!

After having a new windows again I rechecked but found it like before. The main reference with which I check is "Friday Night in San Francisco". It is nost the best record but I am sure most people have it. I listen to how the guitar strings sound, especially when there are single notes by one single guitar. I know the sound very well and that sound I know is reproduced best by z2 with scheme 2.

Thanks Peter but I have made a system copy, so I can restore my windows. I realy liked z4.1 to be better, so sorry that I can not confirm my yesterdays opinion. But today I could hear a lot louder because it was not so late. Plus I was relaxed and not so exited by the new release. I have this "background" setting since today, maybe I have to check again.

First thing is, that since the asio driver I found out, that scheme 2 sounds now incredible good. The asio driver increased the dynamics and control and with scheme 2 it gets even better. Never before it sounded that good. I played around and think z2 is still better. It has more space between the instruments and every instrument has a teriffic dynamic and clearness. A single sound of a guitar string is an acoustical event. z4.1 MC is very close to z2 but in the end it doesn't gets there. The sound of z2 is in a way better than z4.1, like scheme 2 is better then scheme 3. So if you like "air" between the instruments and a flat sound, use scheme 3 and if you like "space" between the instruments and a dynamic sound use scheme 2.
A question btw: I optimised windows for background services, is that recomended? Using this setup and scheme 2, the computer gets slow like a snail. With scheme 3 the computer is a lot faster.