XXHighEnd

Ultimate Audio Playback => Your thoughts about the Sound Quality => Topic started by: boleary on January 05, 2016, 01:20:47 pm



Title: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: boleary on January 05, 2016, 01:20:47 pm
Set SFS to .02 --lowest setting possible-- and I was able to play redbook at 8x upsampling without an issue. Sounded fantastic. Have to increase the SFS for Hi Res. In the past when I went lower than .36 with red book I'd have issues, clicking noises, but they have, it seems disappeared????


Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: PeterSt on January 05, 2016, 01:40:06 pm
Haha, I guess I need to allow for lower again.

Coincidentally I have been working on that a few days ago. In the program I mean. So now I gradually am lowering the SFS for Windows 10. Yesterday I was at 0.10 and I don't know yet how more low I can go. But 0.10 wasn't possible before. Day before yesterday was 0.11 and yesterday sound better again (at least that is how I perceived it).

Still, W10 is inmensely more slow. I mean, starting up XXHighEnd takes two times longer at least, compared to W8. And there's this strange difference in processor frequency speed (I forgot, but IIRC W10 goes down to 220MHz where W8 shows 430MHz).

I hope this is not off topic, but since I began explicitly working on enabling the lower SFS for W10 *and* it now sounds better the lower I (can) go ... (without Intona it started to bite).

Please keep in mind that I changed the program (say 2.05). So supposed that your 0.02 coincidentally is at the limit, then now I expect something like 0.005 to be your limit.

Peter


Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: boleary on January 05, 2016, 01:59:48 pm
Thanks Peter, will download the latest version tonight. Was hoping you would set the program so the SFS could go lower than the .02!


Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: PeterSt on January 05, 2016, 02:06:44 pm
Brian,

The latest version does not allow any lower SFS than you have there. Or more honestly - a little (because I started my "lowering project" a couple of weeks ago, continuing that 3 days ago, afer 2.04 came about).

2.05 will be the real thing for that, but 2.05 will only be at the OS-from-RAM supplied disks (which you ordered). I expect the disks (SSDs) to ship next week.
For the normal public it will be 2.06 and by then it probably is March with in between some other festivities. :hips:

Peter



Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: KnB on January 05, 2016, 09:47:35 pm
On my xx pc I can go to 0.05, 0.04 gives noise.
Could not go that low without Intona. What an improvement  :)


Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: briefremarks on January 17, 2016, 05:18:05 am
Trying to understand if the general recommendation is to go as low with SFS as you can with reliable playback?  I'm still on W8 with SFS at 4.00.  I have tried lowering it, and can reliably play with it lower, BUT I have not liked the sound.  Low SFS on my setup sounds smeared (loss of focused imaging) with more reverberation in a bad way.  I'll try again with some testing over the weekend.  Wondering what experiences others still on W8 have.


Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: PeterSt on January 17, 2016, 10:19:17 am
Ramesh,

I forgot but I am almost sure I had it on 4.00 with W8. This is for a reason of course although maybe only my ears determined it. So I also forgot what others said about it. But all talk is in the forum ...

Careful, because it took a small year before there was consensus about W8. So all (talk) prior to that is not reliable (mine also not).
The moment I started to talk about "switching supplies" (and them removed from the room), things got stable and judgements became reliable.

Peter


Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: Scroobius on January 18, 2016, 09:28:24 pm
Quote
I'm still on W8 with SFS at 4.00.  I have tried lowering it, and can reliably play with it lower, BUT I have not liked the sound.

It is some while since I have been on W8 and IIRC I had SFS at around 4 then. However now on W10 I am at SFS 0.12. Previously on W10 I could not get SFS below around 2 without the sound developing a hard edge. However, I installed IMDISK (RAMDISK) and ran XX in RAM. That made a difference in that I could run at significantly lower SFS without the sound getting edgy. I have not attempted to go lower as it sounds fine now. Also with RAM OS coming soon I am not inclined to fiddle with settings.

Paul


Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: doublelife on March 01, 2016, 02:00:18 pm
I'm just wondering in the 'Settings' menu where SFS is specified, why would you want to put both a lower and upper bound value in, rather than just a single low value (as low as your system will allow)?

Paul


Title: Re: SFS: How low is too low?
Post by: PeterSt on March 01, 2016, 03:42:14 pm
Hi Paul,

Good question; hopefully the answer is also good :

The Max right away reserves the contiguous memory (at the first time playback is initiated for the boot session). If that would not happen, you'd be unable to let grow the SFS later. Thus, during testing what SFS you like best, you must be able to "play around" with it (set some larger, set smaller);
Once you have found your setting (more definitive, say) you can set the Max equal to the SFS setting itself, as it will consume the least memory then (the amount reserved is now equal to the amount used).

Do notice that the Max itself may influence SQ, as you can sort of force the system to be low(er) on memory by means of setting a crazy high Max SFS.

Regards,
Peter