I use version 09-y7. The newer versions don't work. I can not choose KS-modes or the engine, for both of my soundcards (USB/SPDIF and RME Hammerfall HDSP9632). If  I play a file, the player starts but after some seconds it tells that there is no file.
In version 09-y7 I can just use enginge 3 but this is not your fault. It comes with that driver I think which has a windows avoiding kind of KS included.
I played with the q1 slider. After setting it to "0" I feel it could be very good. It is with less "grain" ("grain" probably exaggerates but I know no better word..) Comparing to the PD-S707 with a Bach CD I would now prefer XXHE. But that is just for today. These impressions change so easily.
My latency was about 120-130us before I reinstalled the OS. Now it is about 140us. I have not shut down any services so far.

Hi all,
as I mentioned in an other thread, I like to build a dedicated PC-system for audioplayback. So now I have to decide how this systems has to be build.
One theory I read about is, to tune the system to a very low power consumption (the CMD2 guys). They advice some parts they think are very good for a pc system. If theire theory is right, a very simple Intel Atom based PC should be ideal (but they do not advise such a system..). The whole system of Atom Netbook has a powerconsumtion of 10W! Thats incredibly low. On the other hand there is XXHE, using a lot of ram and need some computing power to run. So as I like XXHE more than the CMD stuff I should of course build a system that is capable to run it. What is your opinion? How should the system be build? I probably do not need the computing power for upsampling because I eventually will buy the ART Legato, which is designed to 44.1khz only. And BTW: Peter, what are you cooking in your lab? Should I wait for it?
Thanks and Greetings
Adrian

Some time went by and I have further made some experiences. So I am sure that the CD's are read "bitperfect". I think no one of you guys will be suprised but I had to make it clear to myself. As someone has advised, I ripped a cd, burned it and then ripped it again. Copies were identical.
So further I made a new installation of my OS and I might improved the sound. I guess there was some trouble with my soundcard driver before. I made a comparison of the three CDP, Pioneer PDS-06, Pioneer PD-S707 Hoerwege and the Meridian 200 again. this time all three on my hifi system, which is better then the system I compared the drives before. Me and my colistener are the opinion that Pioneer PD-S707 Hoerwege ist sounding the best, then comes the Pioneer PD-S06 and at the end the Meridian 200. After I reinstalled my PC i can say that the PC setup sounds better then the Meridian 200. A decision for the other CDP has not been done. One plus that the PC via XXHE has is the very good dynamics and detail. But it still sounds a little bit grainy if I play with XX. This disappears if I play the files with WindowsMediaPlayer12 but dynamics and basscontrol is gone as well. I use a ploytec USB driver for my usb/spdif device so Mediaplayer playback is improved.
I will try to improve the PC playback. Next step will be a dedicated system and a new USB/spdif converter. Probably then I get a clear winner in the transport battle. For now it is not over.

The Accuphase can be used as CDP, as DAC and as Transport. So he compared the digital signal from the hiface directly to the digital signal from the transport on the same "DAC".
Hoerwege builds some nice DAC's (I owned one) and he is moding CDP's. I think hi is well known in germany and does good work. My USB/SPDIF converter was not a cheap one. 120€ I payed a year ago. It is not asynchron but well made.

Thank you very much!

Yes I know him. Bert, you, some other guy and me had tried a lot of different softwares and discussed all this computerplayback in berts forum. Then you started to develope XXhigh end. Bert developed his new DAC and from this time on the discussion about PC-playback was done in your forum. From time to time I was visting your site to see whats going on.

It would be that simple if I could visit you but the travel is probably very far. I am in Hannover sometimes but it is still far to netherlands I think?

Yes it is like this. But it depends on the settings made in EAC. I just changed the setting of using C2 error correction. So I got one file with and one without that option. They differed in almost every singel bit. I will do this test again to be sure. The problem might be, that if you use the C2 error correction, EAC will not read the data twice. My CD-Drive claims to handle C2 errors but if I test that ability with EAC, EAC sais it can probably not do this.

I often feel like that. (The digitalcabel-connectors experience was not of that nit-picking type. It realy cleard things and I now know how important the impedance matching is. But I completly agree with you). If I understand you right, you and bert stoped to develope together, because you couldn't compare anymore as you had different DAC's? That is a good point. For a long time, I just used the computer as transport and always compared those things like playing from ram or not. If there is nothing that stays constant you could compare to, there is a danger running round in circles. Now I use the CDP as a "constant" to compare with. Sometimes I think, "yeah now my PC sounds very good". It often takes a while to realy hear what is going on. And at the end I am always back listening to the CDP. Probably it will change with a even better USB/SPDIF converter. But as you said, that is not the "real" sollution.

Greetings
Adrian

I think you are right....I will have to do this sometime, even if something in me is saying "It will not bring me there".

There was a guy in this forum using a Accuphase DP65 CDP and he also got an Highface reporting better sound from his CDP...

This is just a tweak. I do this only for "research" purposes. If I like to compare two ripped audio-files I do this via PC and with my CDP because with the CDP the sound of burned audio-files is still better than with direct playback. Probably I need a better USB/SPDIF converter. But it will cost again 140€(The Highface is in Germany of course most expensive) and I have lost the confidence that it will be that much better. I use the PC for a very long time as transport, long before it become popular. Always trying to get the best sound out of it but it still doesn't play music.

That is clear to me. But the point is, the burned CDR sound is more like the PC-direct playback. I prefer the original CD, and so I guess something is lost during the processing with PC. I know everythings should be perfect with PC but my ears, and the ears of everyone I showed this said no. Thats not how it should sound. Most people prever the CDP and the original CD.

I think it does. There are two kinds of errors. The one that creates glitches and the error that effects soundquality. fore example: I ripped the same Track from the same disc with the same drive and just set in one case the C2 hook and in the other not. In both cases there are no glitches but the data is different. Nearly every single bit (Hexcompare). The sound is different too. So something goes wrong but from listening to the files I can not sure tell what sounds better. So couldn't it be possible that EAC "thinks" it has everything read well but there is some kind of systematic error?

I know. And I wouldn't say that this does never happens to me. This is probably the biggest problem at all if you try to improve your sound. I just experienced it with the wrong digital connectors (RCA) I used. I swiched to BNC and a lot of things changed. In this case to the better. It is subjective in the end but in some cases you can explain why it is better. So BNC is clearly better than RCA, technically. There are people measuring this.

It is a Pioneer PD-S06. It is not one of that very expensive super highend players but I could not find anything better. At the moment I have a Meridian 200 here. It has a clearer sound, a better defined bass and shows slightly more details. This is what I thought when I heard it the first time. After some days it was clear that there is something wrong. Instruments just does not sound like they should. The one thing, that the Pioneer makes good to my ears, is the ability to has a very fine and airy sound and at the same time every instrument is coherent in it's place. There is no fuzzyness or digital sound at all. Espacialy if you listen to acoustic instruments you get a incredible feeling for what the musican is doing. Every hit on a drum will sound different and just natural. Weakness is bass pressure/control and the space between the instruments could be better. Until now I compard it to Jungson CD-5, Teac VRDS-25, modified Pioneer PD-S707 and the Meriadian 200. No one could beat it at last. Also tried an Apple Laptop against it. That the sound is thin with PC is also strange to me. But as you said, it has a better control. The most players I compared to the pioneer had "more Bass". My speakers have rather more bass (In the frequency response plus 2-3db from 100-40hz). So producing a thin sound by replacing the pioneer, that is not very strong in bass, is not easy. But I also don't beleave I have a major mistake in my PC setup...

Thank you  for your answeres!
Greetings Adrian

Thx for the link JohanZ. I found more information in the net and it seems that most people are not using the C2 correction. It is not a very reliable feature. In my case my LG BR-Burner says it had C2 but even with my most scratched CD EAC tells me it has probably no C2 ability. So this might be the reason because I get different results with and without C2. Hence the version without C2 should be more right. Getting the same bitidentical results from two different drives ripping the same CD with no C2 could be a strong evidence that EAC works propperly. The problem is, I still don't like the sound. Even burned on a good CD-R, with EAC and all offset settings set right for my burner, the sound is different from the original. Sound from this burned CD , as I told before, is similar to the sound when I play it with my PC/USB-SPDIF converter. So could the copy be better than the original? Technicaly yes but it just sounds not as good. I read from other people, which tested Foobar-ripper and compared to EAC. Files were bitidentical. There are two options: 1. Everything is fine and CDs are ripped accurately. Or 2. There is something wrong and "everybody" is doing it in the same way. This is unlikely. I heard from a reliable person, that even a Linn Klimaxx could not beat his CD-Transport. I have no problem beleaving this because of my own experinces. But where is the Problem with ripping/burning CD's? Some people, even from high end magazines, claim with some burned Cd's they get a better sound than the original. As I told, a could not affirm this.

Hi all,
so I have some interesting findings. I upgraded my usb/spdif card and my CD-Transport with a new digital cabel with true 75 bnc connectors. Now I can use the BNC input of my DAC without adapter. Especially the sound from my CD-Transport improved significantly. After things has settled, I made some experiments  again which I made in the past. One of them was to compare sound from different EAC settings. I compared:
1 No Accurate Rip without C2;2 Accurate Rip without C2;3 Accurate Rip with C2.
Sound differences are rather small. Some time ago as I made the test the first time I prefered 1 and 2 to over 3 but could not realy tell if 1 or 2 should be better. After I checked the files with hexcompare it was clear they are identical. Now as I repeated the test I am not sure anymore if 1 and 2 is realy better than 3. Shouldn't 3 be better than 1 and 2 because of the error correction data that is read from the cd? What settings do you use?
And now to the more interesting part. Bevore the new cable and tests I thought CD's are read well be EAC but now I am not sure if that still holds. I compared riped files burned on a cd to the original. I do this because it sounds better (better resolution, less digital) than when played directly from pc. The files burned to cd sounds a little bit thin compared to the original. The original CD has a more full bodied sound which is much more involving. The soundsignature from the burned CD is the same thin sounding one I get when I blayback the files with my PC. So this thin sound should not come from the burning process.
Could it be, that we do not get the true Data from EAC? A hint is that the data differs if you use C2 to the case if you use it not. This can be shown by hexcompare. Is it possible that we listen to the correcting algorithm of EAC insted to the true data? I mention this because I made experiments with different drives that show there are no differents in the files if you use EAC with the same settings but different drives.
Greetings Adrian

If you see how the Model Two is build compared to the Alpha DAC, it seems rather unlikly that the Alpha DAC can keep up with the Model Two. It would surprise me if it does.

I just read something about digital (spdif) output from Network players. Sound quality ranking seems to be (worst to best): Squeezbox Duet,SonoZP90,T+A MP, Linn Sneaky DS. So, it is getting expensive again. Since I refuse to modify stuff by myself, I think about the Legato from ART http://www.analogresearch-technology.net/LEGATO.html It should be one of the best usb-spdif converters. Costs are 500€, so it costs al lot more than a HiFace. Some guy compared a Hiface against a Legato. There is no big difference. Bass seemed to be better with legato. But you never know...for now I still don't know what to do. But the Network player idea is not so interesting anymore.
If I had the money I would probably buy a Linn Akkurate DS. But 5000€ for Hifi-gear that is looking like a Mainboard with switching PS??? I rather stay with big Transformers and big Caps

I burned the tracks on a cd. They repeat in the form A.B.A.B.A.B.A.B on the disk, so that the influence of the region where the track is burned has no influence in mean. So I sat on my listening position and changed the tracks without moving at all by using my remote. I could not hear any difference. And in the moments when I thought there could be one, I should have checked blood preshure and pulse to compare the tracks scientifically. I think they sound identical. It  makes perfect sense now
Greatings Adrian

I have to take my statement back. I compared the two files ripped with a plextor dvd-rom and the lg blueray with a software called hex comparison. The files are indentical. There is no difference. So I fooled myself, sorry.
Greetings Adrian

I have done a lot DIY. Also electronics but I am care full with this. At the end it has to work everyday without bugs etc. I had a selfmade DAC with accupacks and sold it because of the recharging problem. Sound was great.
What is your opinion on the soundquality of the squeezbox compared to the xx-hiface combi?

I just found it on my own Very nice what he says. But I have not the best experinces relying on his findings. But if he is right about the soundquality then I gues even xx highend with good usb-spdif out will be not as good. In my ears a CD transport still has some advantages (not over all, but I don't have the very best) over pc-playback in soundquality to my ears. So if squeezbox is better than any CD-Transport it must be better than xx-highend.  But I gues this must be tried to find out.

That might be just what I am looking for. If the spdif signal is better than with my pc-usb-spdif solutiont, I could realy think of buying it. Probably I can tweak it a little bit with better oscilator etc.. damn, I must always think of something like this...
thanks for the hint!