Hi Lee,

Since I already had XXHE running very well under Vista64, I gave up on trying to run XXHE under XP.  I felt that I was a lone wolf and everyone else, including the developer, was using Vista or Win7.  Now if PeterSt strongly declares that XXHE sounds better under XP than Vista, I might revisit the XP install.

However I am a firm believer that players can sound different under different OS and using different device drivers.  Hence I recommend first choose the player, then the best OS for that player, and then test out the available device drivers starting with either the latest or the one highly recommended.

If you follow my advice you will use cMP/cPlay running under XP and XXHE running under Vista.  Since you also use a Mac computer you should try AyreWave and Audirvana to compare the SQ against Amarra.

How will the modded HiFace connect to the BADA, how ugly does it look and how much does the modded HiFace cost?


Won't this experiment just vary with your choice of cable, whether USB or SPDIF?

P.S. - I thank boleary and earflappin for the links to the excellent HiFace reviews.  I can't think of a better way to spend $150 on computer audio.

Besides the obvious check box selections, what is Double or Quad with No Upsampling?  Aren't the Double or Quad modes upsampling modes by definition?  And why would a music player allow an unwitting user selections that may harm the electronics?  Unless these selections provide superior sonics to some users I would have thought these combinations would not be available.

Mani - what are you using to capture and plot these measurements?  What is the significance of the ordinates from -70 to -20?

I deleted some and then all of the files in the Phasure directories to see if that would solve my problem, however still no luck.  I assume you have your hands full with trying to address any issues with the new release of 0.9y-6 under Vista and Win7.  Perhaps XP will always be a lesser or forgotten OS for XXHE.  I will give it a rest for now and try again on a clean XP computer when my Juli@ card arrives in a few weeks.  In the meantime I will send you a separate email since I don't seem to be able to undemo XXHE under XP and perhaps that is limiting my abilities to get things working.

I thought the HDCD light on the Berkeley DAC was a convenient, though indirect, flag to show whether the digital playback was bit perfect or not.  Upsampling may or may not sound better, but it is not bit perfect.

No success with 0.9y-6 and XP.  I get an Initialization error that states "Proper Initialization FAILED, so further errors WILL occur.

0.9y-6 will not allow me to select an output device.  I get an unhandled exception that occurs in XXHighEnd 0.9y-6.  However under the Analysis tab several devices are listed from which to choose.

It doesn't work in At Attended either.  I assume this is something minor to fix.

Thanks Peter.  I did not see any KS devices listed so I assume I either need to change the Lynx AES16 driver, the version of Windows, or both.  I thought perhaps there may be another reader that has XP and the Lynx AES16 that could say what driver has worked.  I have a Juli@ card on order for another XP computer that I will try first before messing with the Lynx drivers.  And it may still be too early before there is a general consensus on the best version of Windows for XXHE.  Hopefully I will have something more to report before the end of February.

Peter,

The three log files are attached (the other two log files are attached to my previous messages above since after posting I did not see them attached to this message).  The device I used was Lynx AES16 Play 1 (emulated).  I also tried the seven other choices Lynx AES16 Play n (emulated), where n=2-8.  What device have others seen with the Lynx AES16 card and Win XP?  Thanks for your help.

Unlike version 0.9-y-4 that at least plays, the latest version 0.9-y-506 does not run under XP.  Trying version 0.9-y-506 results in a Microsoft Visual C++ runtime error that states XXEngine3.exe has encountered a problem.  This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual way.  I also get another error message that states Fail - Engine #4 did not start within the expected time.  The X3PB log file, which does not say much is provided below.

Load Thread (1)
Restart
-01
-02
-05
-06
-06a
-06b
-06c
-06d
-07 (Stream Status)
-09
Start KS here

I had 0.9y-505 running nonstop for several days now on my Vista computer with no problems, that is until XXHE had to do a format change from 16/44.1 to 24/88.2.  So I had to restart play on the first higher rez file and playback is continuing.  However, this may not be a new problem for me as I seem to recall having to restart play on earlier versions of XXHE.  This is a minor quibble.

But I am having no luck with 0.9y-505 on my XP computer.  Except for the GUI, version 0.9y-4 runs fine with my Lynx AES16 and XP, but of course this is using Engine1 or 2.  Does anyone have 0.9y-505 running on XP or am I wasting my time?

Thanks for the above post.  I was able to get digital output with Engine4 and my Juli@ using the driver mentioned above on my Vista64 computer. I had assumed I was limited to analog output from my Juli@ and Engine4 and without this guidance never would have tried switching from my previous v1.04 driver.

I'm glad that this works but with so many possible drivers I am starting to wonder not only which driver works but which driver provides the best sound.  Is this something I need to explore or would I be wasting my time?

Now I need to explore whether I can get Engine4 and my Lynx AES16 card to work together under Win XP.  Any recommendations that may save me time would be appreciated.  I look forward to spending serious time listening instead of configuring and I really appreciate the opinions of those who seem to know what works with XXHE and what sounds best.

In the meantime, those of us who have been around for longer can perhaps more readily distinguish the differences between Vista and Win7, which should make it easier for novices to chose which O/S to ultimately end up with.

Okay, are there any final conclusions and recommendations as to the choice of O/S that provides better SQ?

So what are the choices of PCI soundcards for Engine 4? and which of these will provide analog and digital output?