Thanks Mani that did the trick,

I had to do it about 20 times but then the program realized I would not quit so it gave in. And now I am listening and listening and listening

I have a problem with 0.9z. After installing the software I cannot get past the security warning for the programs like changewp, flac etc. . When i select run (uitvoeren) nothing happens. What could be the cause of this ???

Thanks,

Leo

Good morning Peter,

Don't forget my almost grey haired position on the waiting list for the DAC   

Great news that the production has started,

Leo

I agree with Fidelio that the Cantatis is quite a bit better than the Onkyo card

Well, if Cantatis feels that WASAPI is not what a wellbehaved driver should be able to do, that route is closed for now. Which is a pity as I think it is a very good sounding card....

This is the latest reply from Cantatis, their driver does not allow for exclusive mode.

Hi Leo,
 
The Overture 192 audio driver is a traditional Microsoft WDM driver and has been tried and tested for many years on Windows systems from Windows 98 onwards. This means that it is very robust, very high performance and is acknowledged as "bit perfect" and essentially "bug free".
 
The audio system in Windows Vista has a limitation in that it does not allow you to select a sample rate of 88.2kHz or 176.4kHz from the playback devices control panel so these are not available in the Overture 192 Control Application in Windows Vista.
 
Windows 7 does allow selection of these rates from the control panel but only at 16-bits so again, they are not available in the Overture 192 Control Application in Windows 7 (we gave you a "special" version of the application that allows you to select these rates at 16-bits). The Windows 7 platform is still in the process of being developed by Microsoft and the audio part of the operating system is still subject to some changes by Microsoft at this time so this might change.
 
Note that as the Overture 192 audio driver is a highly reliable and well tested WDM driver it does not support the new WASAPI interface that allows for "exclusive mode" access to the device driver so you must select the desired sample rate and bit depth using the Overture 192 Control Application and Windows playback devices control panel.
 
Best regards,
 
Steve
Cantatis Support\

So it seems we have to live with the 16 bit for the time being. Any ideas how to work around this, instead of waiting for Microsoft to wake up to 24 bit ?

Leo

 

Hi Fidelio,

it is in the attachment !

Leo

Well the helpfull folks at Cantatis prepared a special version of the software and drivers  for Windows 7 which allows for 88.2 and 176.4. Which is impressive treatment of me as customer I think. The only thing is that it is 16 bit as they state that Windows 7 does not allow for 24 bit with these frequencies.

quote:As in Andrew's previous email, Windows 7 only offers us 88.2kHz and 186.4kHz in 16-bit format.

If you want to get the highest quality out of your system then you can set the Overture card to 192kHz, 24-bit (and make sure you do the same in the Windows 7 control panel).

Windows 7 always performs sample rate conversion so your application should still work.

I don't think that is the way Peter sees it but I don't think I could find the correct wording to convince the very nice people of Cantatis (but still ignorant with respect to XX Highend of course )

So any suggestions for the reply to get them on the right track to give me and other Cantatis+Windows7+XX Highend users 176.4 kHz + 24 bits ?

thanks,

Leo

With the Cantatis card I get the Special mode working at Q1 = 4. Below that a horrible distortion. I like the SQ a lot in the special mode. So much in fact that I had to pacify my neighbours with a bottle of wine after playing too loud too long

Well Peter, you were right again...

I don't pay a lot of attention to the coverart possibilities in XX as the sound is what I am after . So I am an ignorant in that part of XX ....
I think I probably made a mistake in the setting XX  for the coverart. Maybe you can give me a one sentence solution again.
What is the problem ?
Below the 'Explorer' to 'Off' buttons a square with the cover is displayed (empty of course when no cover is available, for me the case for most albums). This square is too large and overlaps the righs side panel thereby hiding some of the choice buttons of the settings area. Annoying really and every time a new version is overwriting the older one this problem is gone. But after playing for a while it is back again...

thanks !

Leo

Hello Peter,

I think it sounds nice but it gives 'can't find track data' on a play list that worked with the previous version.

So I enjoy it one track at the time.....

Leo

Hello Fidelio,

I cannot get the Cantatis card going with upsampling, it seems that the Cantatis drivers will only work with fixed sample rates and 88.2 and 176.4 are not in the list I get. Any suggestions (again) ?

thanks,

Leo

ps
in 44.1 it is allready very impressive SQ wise

A very brief write up of my experience, just before I am off for a week of wintersport, so remarks and questions will have to wait a bit for my answer.
I compaired two sound cards from Onkyo , the 90 and the 200 ltd, and each with  44.1 files and with quad + arc prediction.
I used both speakers (ob Hawthorne enabled and ob subwoofer with 5 15 inch drivers per side) and headphone (UE 10 custom, really great !).
I am not really good in wording the impressions I have and the observations are biased by my preferences and equipment of course.
The cards were very new and I really had to let them warm up for a few hours after swapping them in and out. Only one slot available unfortunately.  The 200 sounded really horrible when cold, that did not change in these weeks. The 90 was less effected but also soundend better after a couple of hours of use. Maybe this will change with more weeks of usage.
I used a set of 8 songs for the comparison, going back and forth over the days and diiferent setups.
I think that the just stereo and cheaper 90 is at least as good as the more versatile and more expensive 200 ltd. With the 90 it occurred quite a few time that I forgot the task of judging and was just listening and starting other albums instead of the set of test songs. The 200 was less involving and fluid , imho.
And for me the quad and arc was really superior to the 44.1, more three dimensional feel of the instruments and more realistic small details, that for me are very important.
well Fidelio as I think you mentioned that the quad+arc for you is worse than the 44.1 files, you probably will  doubt on my findings about the 200 card. Sorry about that

Leo

How could I even consider to refuse this after your help ? 

I will let you know my experiences with both cards with and without arc prediction end of this week

I have not done a comparison with and without Arc prediction with the onkyo yet. As I was very hapy with it before with fireface 400 and Altman dac or the 'hongkong dac' I tried that immediately. And like the endresult a lot. But I will do that comparison this week and let you know

And as I have also the 90 card (above 300 euro I had free shipping and shipping was something like 50 or 60 euro so i bought both cards) I will get out the soldering iron as well and try some modifications on that one. Better opamps, burton perhaps,  or even output transformer instead of opamps.
great and never ending quest this is...