Not to offend anyone here, but in my experience of working with IT people, "they" can be difficult to communicate with.  I would say, take an engineer and then remove any sense of perspective and this doesn't come close.   

They don't suffer fools gladly that is for sure

The whole IT business is layered between users and the chaps that produce the goods and those layers are simply in place to allow "simple folk" to communicate with "the ones that know". 

The effort and concentration to get stuff to work is very fatiguing so if they lack the social graces who cares as long as they deliver?

I installed more memory so my total is 8gigs and my SFS settings are:

SC = 320
MC = 320
M = 500

I was moving towards SC as the one I liked the most but with the big SFS for mixed the tide is shifting to mixed.  Just spent the afternoon listening to mixed and it was a close call between the two and it was becoming difficult to split SC from MC so more listening required.  I used the Beatles song "Oh Darling" as the reference between settings and the difference was very easy to hear especially as Paul growls his way through the song.

 

I think this is close

I think Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773), had a nice way of putting it:


 

Had another listen last night and was looking to find the max SFS for the different memory configurations and managed 120 with SC.  When I first listened to it I thought "Oh no, too much like z-4-0" but I gave it a little more time and then decided to get the Q1 setting as low as possible, for me this is 8 bits and just by doing this the edges were taken off (Q1 is back in the game).  Let me add I Like the bass now too the way it supports the whole experience is superb 

BUT who cares about all this tweaking when I can't stop my feet tapping, on a few occasions I was having difficulty sitting down as the urge to dance was so great (Any DJ with this player will be a sell-out success overnight!). This was followed by the urge to sing and join in and on two occasions I burst into tears.   

My wife joined me on two occasions (both to bring me a cup of tea  ) and she failed the "can you sit with your feet still" test on both occasions.

XXHighend has moved from the technical to the emotional plane wow, well done Peter I think we have our first candidate for version 1.0 status.   

Just my first impressions after only 1 hour listening to MC and I have to say my headache has been cured. 

With z-4-0 I found it to be too "cutting" but the latest version has all the detail but doesn't hurt 

For me this is a big step forward, well done Peter.

What type of mouse does this apply to?  USB and/or the dedicated mouse/keyboard port?  I have the USB mouse/keyboard and don't find any difference at the moment.

Brian

I would agree with all that has been said BUT my head is starting to hurt, something has an edge that goes away when I stop the player.  There is something not right for me yet so will have to try more combinations to see if it becomes less stressful.  Small SFS and straight contiguous with max time does present the music as very realistic as performer is in your room, each breath can be heard but for me there is a residue.  Perhaps in the daylight and a fresh cup of coffee I will find the right mix of settings.

Chaps,

I have had the courage to remove my pre-amp and drive my amps direct from NOS1.  I was nervous but it all works fine, no pops or bangs from NOS1 and not having the preamp gain the XXHighend volume control stays well within the green.

Brian

Chin up Peter, you are doing a fabulous job which we are all grateful 

Perhaps we need a big knob on the front of XXHighend that we adjust from "1:1" to "1:?" and we change it depending on what we like and what we are playing, perhaps if we had two they could be called "Bass" and "treble"   

Brian

I think Peter said something about the OS maybe "keeping an eye" on the SSD memory cells as an overhead that did something that wasn't there with the hard-drives?

over to you Peter...

Hi all,

I have joined the lucky band of early adopters for the NOS1 DAC, does it live up to the hype?
YES it does! 

OK a little more detail, first, I've been following the XXHighEnd and NOS1 development since Bert kicked Peter off his forum     

I wouldn't call myself an avid hifi nut but after years of searching for the holly grail of sound reproduction I stumbled upon Bert's forum and built the Oris horns with Onken bass units, I then stumbled upon Allen Wright's site, spent a day with him in Zurich and then built his DIY version of the DPA300b amps.  The pre-amp came from Bert as did the TwinDAC+ and I was a very happy chappy.

So I was content with my lot but why go for the NOS1?  Just curiosity I guess and with the almost "try before you buy" option it was reasonably low risk and of course the XXHighEnd software is optimized for the NOS1 so a no brainer to at least have a listen.

Well what does it sound like?  In my system before NOS1 it was if I had been listening through a curtain draped between me and the speakers, or like listening through something thicker than air (dense air maybe  ). 

I listen to the NOS1 and the music has no cloths on!   

The first thing I noticed was a headache, don't run the NOS1 without up-sampling with 16/44.1 material 

After selecting all the correct starting point options I immediately wanted to play everything I have just to hear them for the first time.  With the NOS1 I do hear everything and there is a certain pleasure in knowing this is "as good as it gets".

Thank You Peter a job well done!
Brian

I have to agree, as said before, W7 SP1 has "more" bass than Vista SP1 in my system but I lack the correct words that I can use to describe it so I just use other people to point me in a direction that I may or may not like and either outcome is OK.   

I usually use Peter's sig details as this pointer but at the moment they don't make sense, Qs = zeros, 64 bit latency and SFS = 1,0 unless you have 09z-4   

I would just like to congratulate Gerard for having a super clean and tidy listening room!   

I daren't show my wife this photo as compared to yours my room is closer to the aftermath of an hurricane, so I won't be posting any similar photos. 

I must console myself, I read a review once that suggested that if the sound was allowed to diffract from many obstructions it created a more 3D sound, and that's my story and I'm sticking to it.