XXHighEnd

I've had W7 sitting on my shelve for since Monday now .... but I'm too scared to change 'perfection'.  Ah ignorance is bliss.  But the devil inside me says ... 'but, but... try it...'

PS
I think AUDIODIDAKT is the devil speaking inside my head... out, demon out.

LOL :prankster: :veryhappy:

Its a lot of work, I know, but we have to move forward, haha
Don't know for sure if it sounds better, but I think it does, so if you are in for challenge.............

Some back ground: I have had so much trouble with Vista (NOT XX RELATED), I fully trust W7 as the better OS.
Especially with SSD, really it is better and sure faster. (Peter will be joining us soon)

Roy\\\

Sunshine, moonlight, goodtimes, boogie

I never tried Vista, rather stuck with XP Pro.  Compared to XP Pro Windows 7 is a BIG improvement.  It is smoother, much faster and more stable.  In terms of sound quality, it is noticeably better than WinXP Pro (I've been using Samplitude as a player before getting XXHighEnd). 

But....I'm having issues with 0.9y4 on my Windows 7 music server - you can see my other thread detailing the issues.  Peter is working with me, but right now I can only use engine 2 and even then I am getting errors and it takes multiple attempts to get a file to play.

Welcome earflappin,

Cool nickname btw (this what you experienced first time hearing xx, I guess) haha

Peter will sort it out together with you, I know for sure.(all problems will be sorted out)

Then you will experience Engine3, that is the real deal.

Grtz Roy
 

Thks Roy!  Yep, I am very confident that Peter will work through these issues.  I have been very impressed with his responsiveness and communication skills....I think his technical skills speak for themselves!

I can't wait to hear engine 3.  BTW, does Arc Prediction only work on engine 3?

BTW, are you running 0.9y4 on Windows 7?  If so, what has been your experience?  I'd feel better knowing if other Windows 7 users are experiencing the same issues.... otherwise, there might be a config or machine specific issue on my server.

Best,
David

All works flawless here, (I am on latest version, with W7 RC build 7100, yes)

Very happy with how it sounds.

Different set-ups can cause different problems. (don't worry)

My friend is here to listen to some music, for a couple of hours.
So have to go............

 :whistle:

Just wanted to note that I now having 0.9y4 running flawlessly on my Win 7 Pro 64bit Zalman music server with a Lynx AES16 card with 64 bit driver.  And it is the best digital I've heard.  Using the unattended setting makes a very noticeable improvement.  And I prefer using the Arc Prediction on CDRB...to my ears it greatly improves sound quality....one has the very real sense that detail has been added back on these 16/44.1 recordings.

I want to thank Peter and Roy who were of great help in helping me not only get it running, but understanding the optimal set-up parameters.  I'm going to read everything on this site to accelerate my learning curve. 

BTW, I want to be clear that the issues I was having had nothing to do with XXHighEnd or Win 7, but were rather in selecting the correct AES16 PCI card channel in the XXHighEnd Settings.

Anyway, I would definitely recommend the move to Win7....  This is Microsoft's best operating system IMO.

David, thanks for the feedback.

I hope I didn't overdo the promises about the Alpha and everything.
From now on it will only get better at learning your best settings. Maybe it stops somewhere before I find something new, but I'll keep on trying to be ahead of you.

Regards,
Peter

Thank you Peter.  I am so happy I came across XXHighEnd.  The future of computer audio is so full of potential and its clear to me you are pushing the envelope very hard.  That's great.  16/44.1 with your Arc Prediction algorithm is a definite breakthrough in the SOTA IMHO.

Well, I hope you can run quickly because I've already implemented HotKey, tweaked my Windows 7 using your Vista Dead guidance and my own experience with tweaking Windows, and have an e-mail into Berkeley to find out how to turn off OS on my Alpha DAC. 

BTW, is there the potential for a "zero" jitter interface between the computer and DAC?  The Berkeley guys regard their AES/EBU interface as superior to Toslink and coax - my ears agree.  They told me that they opted not to include support for Firewire or USB out of concerns the necessary circuitry required in the DAC would be too noisy and degrade SQ.  However, they do have a HDMI connector for a future interface.

I've read about your NOS DAC and thoughts on interfaces.  I'll be staying tuned to those developments.   ;)

And SeVeReD how is progress on W7 install ?

Hi guys,
I'm still alive and checking the boards here even though I've been quiet.  I haven't setup W7 yet.  Will do when I get more time ... which is being taken up by a new flame.  I must say, part of why I think she's falling for me is my stereo, hehe... now thats a twist I like.  ahh and she likes it loud.  XXHE for the win or she'd be running for the volume knob.

Here in Holland we say "hard". :swoon::):swoon:

Anyway, your new flame is noticable allright. Great !!

My flame does to  ;) Only i turn it to the right and she to the left... Hmmmm   :scratching:

 :rofl:

alright alright, that too.

Today I did make a start to install Win7 64 bits version. I had some troubles to start the installation process on the SSD because I did not burn the Win7 ISO file on the lowest DVD write speed! Yes there more people having the same problem. "Trying to install Windows 7 and get hung up after clicking the "Install" button on boot-up using DVD. It loads for a bit, then tells me a CD/DVD Driver is required and can't be found" 

After some time I start with the last installation of the soundcard drivers "Audiotrak HD2" .......f...k!....Strange but true I can't manage to install the drivers. I don't know why. Simply nothing happens after a double click on the .EXE. I did a test on a XP machine (without the soundcard) same result. The installation proces didn't start.....suggestions? At the moment I'm back to Vista (another harddisk) listening to XX!

Hi Johan,

I am not sure whether this can be because something thinks it is installed already, but I experienced similar the other day (Vista). I can't recall how I got around it and if I did; possibly I threw the particular BS out of the Window. But :

You can always try to install the drivers manually by means of rightclick on the device (from within device manager or however it's called) and next go as manually as possible (which for me always succeeds at a second attempt only, because it all looks so upside down -> look for the "Have disk" option). In the end point to the location where the (.inf files) and drivers are.

The above may not work either.
But by then you will have spent so much time on it, that you can go to the Internet and download the again latest drivers. :)
Start with the .exe again (the one you had before could have been corrupt, which quite often happens).

...

It all works, thanks!
First thing I did was to install an driver manager, to make shure that all drivers (64 bits, win 7) are on the system). And I did found the trick to install the Sound Card driver manually.

Still having small hickups in the sound, external harddisk activities, ... but all sounds still very good! I need more listening time.

One problem I have is  Autohotkey. I will continueing in that specific post. See http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=724.msg8222#msg8222

Johan

Hello Peter,
today I finished the installation of W7 x64 and XXHE.
Everything runs fine and SQ is SUPERB. :)

I found 3 issues that need to be looked at.

1) Running Time OSD does not work properly. It shows for .5 second and then it disappears. I remember that somebody else had the same experience.

2) Scenario: running unattended, stop and exit XXHE. Now the artwork folder of the last played track does not go away, it stays on the desktop. I have to change WP manually to get rid of it.

3) The sound is sometimes contaminated by ticks and clicks. This happens in both attended and unattended mode. In my opinion these are caused by Windows, for example when I switch to the next track the same ticks are audible. As I said, this happens in both attended and unattended mode. I never experienced this in Vista, so I suspect it is some setting in W7, or XXHE allowing W7 sound to come through???

I hope this helps,
Cheers,
Eric.     


(mod: removed pending tag)

Thank you Eric.


More people had (!) problems with the Wallpaper, but in the end solved it. I never understood the problem well.
I recall someone say the other day that the Wallpaper has to be defined as "Tile" to let it work properly ?
If this is the solution for you, please let me know. Matbe I can do something about it.

The ticks/clicks thing slowly starts to be recognizeable as a W7 "feature". Not good !
But I expect something with the priorities going weird, which would be the propblem for the OSD timer as well.

Time to get W7 myself I guess.

Peter,
I did some more testing. The soundticks coincide with disk/processor activity. So for sure it is caused by W7, even after I performed all the tweaking virtually to dead steps.

Good news: a remarkable and nice thing that I found is that the latency checker now shows an average of 100 microseconds. That used to be around 1000 microseconds in Vista!! (similar to what you have, if I remember well)

Eric

If you happen (just that) to see more relations to whatever it is, please do not hesitate to tell them. The more I can learn from it, the better I can anticipate on things not having W7 myself yet.
Side note : ... which is because no dutch version is (was ??) available yet, and the fact that I ever started with a dutch version (Vista) keeps on hunting me. And I really can't start from the beginning again (because of the numerous development tools installed).

Nice that I am not the only one with the stupid "standard and consistent" 1000us.
Ok, was. :)

Thank you Eric, as always.
Peter

I am using Win 7 with XXHE 0.9y-4, Empirical Offramp3 ,---> Pre Tact 2.2XP but I can not set Q1> 10. Can You help me?

Hi Châu,

This just normal ! Or at least for the current version and W7 it is. It may change in 0.9y-5.
Besides, the higher Q1 versions usually do not sound better. Also, especially USB can't go that high anyway (distortions).

The same counts for the lower side ... often Q1 under 0 does not work well. It depends on the soundcard / DAC.

All 'n all you can only operate within the bandwith Q1 doesn't bring distortions. When it does, you just crossed the line of what the soundcartd/DAC allows.

I hope it is clear !
Peter