Hi Stein,

I am the most happy with your counterweight because it is mighty difficult to in all honesty describe what I experience for the good cause of the Mach III becoming a bit more affordable. And this in the midst of people like you just having obtained the higher priced which should be for a good reason just the same.

I like to leave at at this and hope that people now have a well balanced description of everything.

Kind regards and thanks a lot,
Peter

PS: I will think about this cardboard because you may very well be right (and it is not the first time you are offering this suggestion ).

There :
Re: Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear Power Supply.

Hi there All,

In the OP I now rated the 12/24 equally to the 14/28 and the 16/32. But watch out : while the 14/28 may be marginally "less" (whatever that exactly is) than the 16/32, and the 10/20 has its specialty in a somewhat darker and more "heavy" sound which is very easy to like very much, the 12/24 seems to be the emphasis of the 10/20.

Right ...
What does that all mean and what happened ?
 
By accident I saw a 12/24 available against a "sale" price, so as a rightfully obsessed audiophile I bought it. I mean, nobody would anyway (as it seems after a small year) and without the experience nobody ever will. This, while this processor is significantly cheaper than the next-higher, the 14/28. I mean, 600 euros is a lot of money for something which could work and only was not tried. Also, I figured that would it not work out, I could stuff it into an ERP Server Chassis (my other life).

So I struggled ...
At first I thought it was a kind of fine once you spent the money and have some need to judge it as fine (haha) but merely and more over, Ciska here told within a minute or two that this showed "less sharp highs". OK, my attention did not really go there and I also could not really hear what she meant, but that in itself should be a positive. Maybe not only to her, but also to new Mach III customers.
But I wasn't so sure ...

After two days I couldn't bear it any more. The sound was too dark (too much the emphasis of the 10/20) with the notice that I set this 12/24 to 10/20 from about the start and that all the time I contemplated to set it back to 12/24. But I didn't like the hassle (reboot 6 times all together plus attaching the monitor and the like). Instead I put in a 14/28 to see what I actually was missing or what I should achieve with the 12/24 (not knowing how to do it).

So Yes, the 14/28 is more refined. But similar to the 10/20 once you are used to that a bit, you can see what now lacks there (in the 14/28). And G-D I couldn't like it any more. So Yes it is refined, but the 12/28 brings forward things which I couldn't describe really and which just are not present with the 14/28 playing. What a stupid stuff.

A day further it went as far as being fed up with the 14/28 and the 12/24 was dunked back in (someone over here gets crazy of this, because I don't ever do these things myself).
But No, I did NOT like it for the better. Grrr.

I tried all the XXHighEnd settings I could imagine to be of importance here, but it just did not want to help. And - psychological - psychological - psychological ... all this time I was thinking of this kazillion possibilities I would have with cascaded Lush^2 and Blaxius^2 possibilities.
But should I ? Should I really try to solve it by such means ? I mean, the ^2 cables were never attempted to solve issues. Only to improve sound, right ?

I dove into my notes about the Lush^2 and found this description at the 2nd or 3rd configuration I ever tried, and the very first I registered :

---

A: B-W & Y-R, B: B-W
This showed a super sound.
It completely changes the sound from a somewhat congested (too white) highs to ever so lasting colored cymbals. Btw, this is what I had in mind with it for a change (I found the highs too profound).
What came with it is a super fluid/liquid bass which sings and plays music. I actually never experienced the bass like that.

---

And btw funny, I only now read the last line about the bass. I never saw this when I selected this configuration because I went for the issue with the indeed too white highs.

---

Well, I was cured instantly ! Now I suddenly had this completely different presentation of about all, but with things being right. The highs were now like real metal and with the UN-finesse metal should have. Yeah, "un-finesse", what's that then. Well, that should be too silky and more going towards plastic (this is way too drastically put). Say that it reminds of the Silverstone USB3 card but then with a somewhat higher resolution of the "holes" (I assume that people know what I mean here, and otherwise too bad). It implies a more being present of cymbals and maybe especially hi-hats. They get a life of their own. Not really their own space (which is an other phenomenon) but less blended with the music and more played by a (drummer) person.

But actually it isn't about this, although it solved the problem. Man, it is about that BASS. And first off about that : about how now THAT plays in its own hemisphere. And yes, that seems to be more about "own space" as such, and for a bass this could be what I want with it. I mean, how often have I talked about the electric bass player who is on stage with his separate and personal(ly chosen) amplification and speaker system ? And how unfair is that to us, not being able to replicate that physically ?
Well, IMO this combination of the 12/24 and particular Lush^2 configuration does precisely that.

I am not really sure how to describe the presentation as a whole; maybe it is about the specialty of being able to present umpf in everything where it is required (this even includes voices) without that leading to disco sound. This really gives the music a natural feeling with it never being too lean (thin). I think it will be so that the general character (nature) of it is still a "less sharp" highs which expresses in the very square representation (as in well-rendered transients) being more palpable. Snare drums feel more palpable and if you may attention to real life snares ... they are not so pain staking sharp (especially the maple wood ones are not). So this improves too; more wood (like the shell of the snare) where wood is to be.

So where does this leave current 14/28 and 16/32 owners ?
I wouldn't worry. I used the 16/32 myself for a couple months (a year ago when testing the then new Mach III). It is great. After that I tested the 14/28 - it is great (and I can listen to it regularly because almost everyone buys it and I sneak it in sorry, part of the job ).
But these are to-tal-ly different for sound. With that, the 12/24 is not a gadget either. And, the very first days (when it was not burned in yet, or my ears weren't) I dedicated it as very Rock oriented (suddenly all the AC-DC sounded great - no, superb with it). This did not change I think, but the rest now plays too. With more umpf. Less light-footed (and light-footed certainly is a virtue too).
I have been thinking about offering an "upgrade", which would be a possibility to exchange (replacing these processors is relatively very easy). But it still would be expensive, whatever *that* exactly is in this crazy world (of audio). Could be 1100 euros plus shipping. But you could exchange. This week this, the other week that. In the end you made a choice and indeed payed a 1100 extra for having the choice. It would require (!) a Lush^2 (but everybody has that, I think).
But do I advise this to anyone ? NO. The (for me psychological) problem is mere in what new Mach III customers to come should be offered. Would that be the 14/28 against more money with a kind of guarantee it is OK ? or would that be the 12/24 against 600 euros less with a 100% guarantee it is special but which you may not like ? ... or would that be the 1100 euros extra again so you can chose ??

One thing : people going for the 10/20 should seriously consider to spend ~300 more and pick the 12/24 ? Not even that. But (and now don't get confuses please) : people who think that for "descriptive reasons" they should go for the 10/20 against 950 more for the 14/28 (let alone the 16/32 which is 1400 more), should go for the 10/20 *and* the 14/28 (not 950 more but 1100 more - not a big deal). Thus with the "descriptive" reasons I mean : if you go for the more dark sound which inherently is better for rock-alike music, then the 10/20 suffices and is normal, while the 12/24 is 5 fold that and could be too much of it. So all what you are doing is contemplating between the more refined sound of the 14/28 (or 16/32) and the somewhat more "heavy" sound of the 10/20 or certainly more heavy sound of the 12/24 together, against about the same price.

OK, I better stop.
Peter


PS: The 16/32 is reinstated, assuming odd production problems with it (6 months or so ago) to be behind us by now.

A:B-W&Y-R, B:B-W

I am playing with this for something like 10 days now and I love it. Btw, this was IIRC the 2nd configuration I tried judged it as "Super Sound" but went on to a next (eager as I was last year when the Lush^2 was new). 5 weeks ago or so I announced that I should revisit this one, and so I finally did.

The reason for going there was a different one than "just do it"; I did it because I suffered from a too white sound (cymbals) and found the description to this configuration which told that the cymbals receive more color of it. Aha ...
And that worked out.

My story is more complicated than being about the Lush^2 alone (I will write a post elsewhere about this) but I am quite confident that everybody should try this config.

Peter

Laurence, maybe not. Or generally not, I estimate.


I suppose the question is odd, but what would happen if we'd force the automatically applied (right ?) 5 again to 14 or anything else "too high" ? Can that technically be done ?

Thanks,
Peter

Correct, I'd say. But I don't think that by now the Playback Drive is used any more to imply something with a best sound. The reason to use it changed when time passed ...;

First off, a lot of people indeed use the RAM-OS Disk, or otherwise use an "Mach xx PC" which utilizes that (thus same story).
Next, indeed the playback from a RAM disk emerged more explicitly underway (while this has been possible from day one) with the parameter (Playback Drive) suddenly playing a large role there. Thus indeed, denote a RAM Disk, and you should have the best situation/environment for the better SQ.
Then, what sneaked in along the lines (but which 100% was my target for it !) was the elimination of the possible (or probable) difference between WAV and FLAC. Say that the Playback drive is a specially formatted - but also most specially treated device when written to it - that it acts as a buffer which rules out the difference between WAV and FLAC. However, the sheer fact of this special treatment turned into a life of its own, and the difference between WAV and FLAC was not talked about any more (which did not happen really in this forum anyway, but elsewhere it did massively).

Lastly, the usage of two PC's, one to hold the music (Music Server PC) and one to play the audio (Audio PC) eliminated the use case of the Playback Drive, because the Alwas Copy to XX Drive should be in order in that situation. This is so the LAN can be shut off during playback.

And so tbh I myself never bothered about the Playback Drive any more, since what ... 6 years at least ?
If you use one PC for both storage and playback, it's a whole different world. But you shouldn't do that ... (all present in the Audio PC - or connected to it for that matter, deteriorates).

Regards,
Peter

Ah, Thank you Colin. This can be useful to others indeed.
Allow me to rephrase this all somewhat so it can be related to the normal situation (I myself have trouble reading this back but I know what you have done - I think ) :

Tablet (or Laptop) RDC to -> WiFi -> Router -> WiFi -> Music Server PC with WiFi RDC to -> Ethernet cable -> Audio PC
(a bit tongue breaking this, so I hope I put it right)
This situation does not allow the Internet to see the Audio PC (and the other way around), which is good (but if necessary can be realised by means of making a Bridge between the Network Adaptors for the cable vs the WiFi respectively).

The bold part is a kind of unique - at least I never heard someone doing it like that. It relates to the fact that one does not have a Music Server PC with two LAN ports (typical for a laptop) while it has WiFi (again typical for a laptop). So the whole point : the Music Server PC here is a laptop ...


... which I think should read as : The Music Server PC now needs to hve one Ethernet connection only.

The mere crucial one reads here :


So Colin, you already told about this perfectly and I have nothing to add. But what I should sneak in anyway is the sheer "impossibility" to find this as a reason. I suppose I would have thrown all out of the window in such a situation. So, very well found/done !

Thank you for sharing this.
Kind regards,
Peter

Hey Anthony,

Storage Spaces (Direct) might do similar for twice the amount of disks/SSDs. At the same time (but in the end its objective) it is RAID-1 (mirror) or (IIRC) RAID-4 (RAID-1 with parity, that requiring more disks/SSDs again but never mind this).

Storage Spaces (Direct - which is from WS2019) is cool in the sense of that it really works under the hood for safety (say that it is 100% transparent to you, the user) and is all software based (like normal Mirroring via Manage - Disk Manager). Storage Spaces Direct goes way further because of how it exploits ReFS (but it can use NTFS just the same), how fast it is (I don't really notice write latency) and how it can utilize storage media of any type and size or format at the same time, unlike normal mirorring (normal RAID-1).

The only thing Storage Spaces provides for you (apart from safety in general) would be the one logical drive (which you can make afterwards on to / over your current disks - combine e.g. G: and H: (and more) into one S:), but you will lack all of the other Gallery functions (eh, obviously). Also, working with the meta data (which is what XXHighEnd's Galleries are) allows you to put that on a fast SSD (up to ultra fast like with NVMe) that in itself providing super speed for everything, because really everything works on Galleries, except for loading the real tracks after search/selection and copying Original Music Data (because these obviously require the real music data). A derived example would be that where I use my "fast SSD" for 10 years or so by now, today I could replace it with 5 times faster NVMe (or 10 times or 20 times when I'd arrange that in an array of SSDs with striping etc.) and all it requires is copying the (in my case) 120 GB of mata data and happily continue one hour later, now at super speed.

The latter does have an example in Storage Spaces because if I would be able to add the extra storage required for it (double the original size you have, see beginning of this post), you a. just add the disk(s) (which Storage spaces will fill for you from the ones you added as the original half) and b. Storage Spaces will always use the fastest means at retrieval - which will be your newly added modern disks. Additionally (but it would be the same thing) if you in 10 years of time replace your old original slow disks with again faster means (just take out the old and put in the new with some definition changes), Storage Spaces (or Windows if you want) will start to use that, automatically.

On a side note, I would never use a Spanned or Striped volume (which exists since ancient history) for critical data, because which you lose one disk, you'll lose them all right away (with Spanned you may survive the remaining one(s)). This is asking for trouble. But then I also never used more than RAID-1 in my life, just because it is slower up to ultra-more slower on the write times. This reflects my objection against NASes as well. RAID-1 is faster, especially with the proper (RAID) hardware. Storage Spaces Direct is also faster for the same reasons, especially if you'd apply a Three-Way mirror (now you need 6 disks instead of your original 1).

There's really fun in exploring this all in the realm of SSDs instead of HDDs because of a. no "Elevator Seeking" applies to SSDs (which is why we'd "duplex" HDD's) while SSDs really allow for parallel access if the Controller allows for it OR when the data lines to the CPU are direct (not via e.g. C600 chip set) and each processor core/thread deals with it in parallel (totally useless with HDDs).

I recall this (performance stuff) is my specialty and actually my life. And regarding this I may tell that XXHighEnd not using a database whatsoever (serving my 54K albums) has been deliberate right from the start (see if I could do it).
And of course ... very first ERP system on networked PC's ... (1987, 12MHz XTs (120 of them for the first implementation) on two 33MHz AT File Servers).
OK, I better stop.

Peter

Hi there Keith,

First off, get yourself a fast SSD (something which reads 550MB/sec is good enough). Assemble that in the Music Server PC (the PC where the music is attached to - your drive D:, F: and G:).

Format that SSD with the smallest cluster size (512 bytes).
You can give it a Drive Letter of Z: (others are allowed just the same, if you only don't use D: or X: in combination with the RAM-OS Disk (in your Audio PC - Stealth III in your case).

On the SSD, in the root, create a folder with a nice name, e.g. \Galleries.

Take very good care that you have the organization of your "Original Music Data" in the way XXHighEnd prescribes it. I'm saying this because after this post it will not as easy to change folder structures as prior to reading it. Main rule : have a main root folder in each of your music drives (like MyMusic).

Now go to one of your music drives, select the Library Area (via the [ L ] button in the top of XXHighEnd) and select a few albums for a test. Right click on one of the now selected albums and choose Add to Gallery :


When you click Select you will see a screen similar to this :


... with the notice that in my case the Z: drive as a see it from the Audio PC (Stealth) refers to a C: drive in the Music Server PC (\\ST02 in my case) which in your case will be Z: as well (because that's what your new SSD will be named as per the above instructions).

Done ? then from here on you could set your Music Root in Settings like this :

and when you now refresh the Library Area, you will see appear the few test albums you just put to the \Gallery folder. Notice that the [ M ] button at the mouse pointer below, selects the Music Root.


Watch out : I assume no further structure in your music folders and which is not necessary either. However, you woould have the chance "today" to apply this structure, by making e.g. a subfolder in your Z:\Galleries : \Folk. Above you see that I did that. Now you could select per genre in your pile of music, and put it in a Folk folder. And Rock. And Classical and ... everything. Here :


which you'll find back in the left pane of XXHighEnd (Library Area active) :

Now, NOT assumed that you are going to do this, this will be your further procedure :

1. Make a complete volume (Drive) with music data appear in the Library Area;
2. Select all the Items in there;
3. Put them to your Z:\Gallery\ Gallery Folder;
4. Undoubtedly be hopelessly confronted with many things wrong in yout folder structure (the system will give messages BUT ALSO observe your XX Log File with errors !!); work through it until no errors appear and you'l have all nicely organized after it, meanwhile.
5. Back to #1 for the next volume/drive with music.

Notice that #3 can be re-done for a same selection when needed (it may be tough to find where you were at the hassle with #4).

When all has been worked through, you will have all your music accessible under one Music Root.

Watch out once more before you start :
It will be very good behavior when you make this general root like e.g. this :
Z:\Galleries\General\
why ? well, because later you WILL be using way more facilities with sub Gallery Folders. Like Demo and Nice Stuff which is where the other Root Buttons are for.


with here a glimps of a new feature in the next version, which is very cool and which makes all super-fast accessible ... *if* you define a few more things ...


... but then of course your must have the Gallery Structure a kind of structured and have a structure like (e.g.)
Z:\Galleries\General\
Z:\Galleries\AIF\
Z:\Galleries\Ambient\
Z:\Galleries\Audio Tests\
and not at the same level as where the latter 3 are, also all your music. Read : keep your Gallery Root clean.

Take good care with trying this all out and know that all can be manipulated back and forth but only through XXHighEnd. E.g.:


IOW, doing things behind the back of XXHighEnd and you will destroy the "database" (whle there isn't any) and things will mix up hopelessly (I myself would not be able to repair it).

Eh, have fun ?
Peter

This topic has been moved to XXHighEnd Support.

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=4163.0

Haha !
Thank you, Richard.

Peter

I am thinking of the build-up of capacitance. It could be similar to "us" needing to reboot the PC once in a while in order to sustain a good SQ. I don't know ...
Does your DC-Offset remain the same throughout the days ? you could check each day before a first play session.

Regards,
Peter

Stanley, then I am afraid you have an other kind of issue. Some groundloop thing somehow. Try whether Switch#3 on your NOS1a/G3 matters. But generally, wheter a different Protective Earthing helps.
We could also send you an other Lush^2 to see whether that helps, but ...

Regards,
Peter

Stanley, does it help if you connect all the wire at both sides ?
(I expect not)

And otherwise it is time to send it over. I suppose it can happen something is wrong, never mind we test them all (happened one time before).

Best regards,
Peter

Hi Stanley,

The normal procedure with NOS1a/G3 is :

- Boot PC (if that was necessary for some reason);
- NOS1a/G3 does not connect;
- Switch Off NOS1a/G3 and switch On - connects now;
- DC Offset is now wrong, so witch Off/On with Switch#2.

This is 100% standard. Leave out the switch Off of the NOS1a/G3 and nothing works.

And then still something can be with your Lush^2 ...

Peter