Just played Anne Sophie Mutter - Carmen Fantasia (HDTRACKS 2488). It was so good I had to replay the whole album one more time. Every track is a sonic beauty, like the music is. This record used to have some edges here and there, but not anymore. I played it at full volume and enjoyed every second of it. Startling realism.

This is WITH PeakExtend. Will try some albums without PE later on. Whatever settings I have (messed up) I can definitely live with this.

Great work Peter! 

Hello again,

I am back in the hot spot. After some hours sleep and replacing alcohol with caffeine, I am clean and sober with fresh ears, curious to hear if the magic still remains.

And it does!

W8 + 09z-9b is superior to W7 + earlier versions. The new sound is cleaner, like removing a veil between the recording and the listener. More direct, dynamic and detailed.  Also tonally I notice less coloration in the treble. Having the benefit of active cross overs in my system, sometimes with certain records, I feel like changing the treble level +/- 1dB. But now I can play them all with same level. So clearly a coloration has been removed with W8, which sounds more homogenic, but without homogenizing the music! In my experience the benefit of more homogenic sound is that you can play louder without fatigue, which is the case with W8-XX now.

OK, back to the intention of this thread: My settings.

First I started with copying PeterSt settings. Then I changed a little bit. Then I changed more settings and got lost in the process.* Haha.
In the end I got frustrated about the Q-settings, so I changed to KS-mode: NORMAL, bypassing the whole “Q-engine”. Right?

Never the less I find the SQ more or less constant. The W8 seems to be quite “robust” in this matter.
Maybe, maybe, I could wish for a tad more “smoothness”, but I am not sure. I love the “honesty” of the present W8 sound.

-This comes from many hours of all kinds of recordings; From Deep Purple to Bob James Trio, from Redbook to 24/192.

But if I could wish for something (apart from being able to play the piano) it is a beginners guide to the XX settings, explaining the Dummy (me) how the settings works basically. Pleeeeeeeze


*PS: The important settings are unchanged, like Minimize OS, PeakExtendON, ClockRes=1ms and SFS=100MB.

O Boy!

I don't really know what happened here tonight. Fiddling around with the settings was probably to the worse.

Nevertheless, after a couple of hours "something" kicked in big time. The SQ is very transparent, clean, tight and dynamic. Never had such dynamics before. I cant hear any downside, though. It is just sooo pure and resolved, with new details heard in the music and scary dynamics.

Makes my ribbon/dynamic loudspeaker system sound like a well made horn system.

Me like W8!

PS: Forgot to tell I'm listening at much louder levels than usual. Several dB's more. However I do it because I CAN play louder without strain or usual fatigue. The latest XX on W8 is probably that more clean sounding.

Dear,

After successful install of W8 I am keen on tweaking my XX to the max. The first thing is to get the latency correct. Right?

From the Phasure USB Audio Control Panel, I set the USB Buffer Size = 16ms. Also I can read from here that latency is 3840 Samples.

But when returning to setting area ("output") in XX, the top 2 choices are 3072 or 4096 samples. But no 3840.
-What to do to have matching values?


PS: After some fiddling around with Q-settings, the Phasure USB Audio Control Panel shows latency of 3528 Samples. How to land on one of the values in the settings menu of XX? (4096, 3072, 2048, etc)?

The benefit of an optical USB-cable is that it breaks the ground loop between PC and DAC/Hi-Fi. This is good news, especially for those with wideband transistor amps. The bad news is that in each end of the optical cable, there is an opto-converter driven by typical switch mode wall warts, which themselves introduces distortion. So, in this field there is no guaranty for success.

OK; Say Ave Peter three times and renew your license, and your sins will  be forgiven.

Thanks for the advices, guys. Great help! Now it should be plain sailing for my brother. I just tell him to read through this thread before starting the installation.

-Windows tell you to download their Upgrade Assistant software and follow it's instructions. See link: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/upgrade-to-windows-8

I guess this is the path the majority of users will follow, unless there is a *better* route of upgrading?

 

Time for me to jump on the W8 wagon and catch up with you guys! My brother is in town for the weekend so I will have present all the competence needed.

But which version? The standard or the PRO?

Also, is it ok to follow the (by Microsoft) recommended upgrade path from W7 to W8?

-Probably many XX users pondering about this right now, so some guidelines would be nice.

Thanks in advance :-)

Back on track!

Lately, family and work have occupied my life, leaving little time to fiddle with the Hi-Fi for many months. However a couple of weeks ago I finally got around to do something I have planned for a year: Trying out new loudspeaker positions in my living room. And, wow, what difference. What improvement!

My previous set-up had the speakers placed quite close to each corner in the front of my listening room, creating a very big and spacious sound field. But with a somewhat “polite” character.

After moving theme 50cm out and away from the corners, the sound has improved dramatically. Now, it is extremely dynamic and transient. It turns out the nearness to the corners created too much early reflections and cancellations in the midrange. Now I have a much higher direct-sound ratio.

The improvement is not subtle. This is the biggest step up in SQ I ever have experienced in my system. Whatever music or quality of recording, now I feel a rush of adrenalin, the way the microdynamics and impulses hits me like a machine gun. Seemingly there are square waves buried in even the worst sounding recordings giving life and sparkle to drums, bass and guitars. 

As an afterthought I realize that the old setup was simply not good enough to appreciate the potential of my NOS1 DAC and the resent XX updates. Still in 0.9z7-5 version, I really look forward to the big leap of current versions.

Also, in hindsight, I can see a reason WHY I didn’t spend much time in front of the main system. It was simply not involving enough. But now, after the changes, I have been glued to the hot spot almost every evening.

The moral of the story: If your listening mileage decreases over time, there is probably a rat hidden in your system somewhere.

$98k speakers seems like a fair match with the NOS1! 

Congratulations with the splendid review in 6moons. Finally some weighty acknowledgment from “the outside”.

But we - the owners and users of XX/NOS1 - didn’t have to wait for such a review to appear. We knew already for a long time that your technology is State Of The Art.

-The early years of Phasure parallels the faith of Led Zeppelin’s early career: Their tours outsold The Rolling Stones by 3:1. They broke the attendance records of The Beatles and all of their 5 albums where in the charts simultaneously selling in millions. The music was groundbreaking and the concerts were legendary. The fans knew it and showed their appreciation. But the music press and the mainstream media didn’t have a clue, both ignoring and failing to understand the greatness of LZ. Not until 1975 did LZ receive the universal praise they deserved.

Anyway, kudos to 6moons for their “discovery”. For sure it will help spreading the Phasure gospel across the audiophile world!

Thanks for your consern, boleary. -The Sirens song analogy came to me while watching Ice Age 4 together with the kids!

Indeed, the 0.9z7-5/SFS2 draws me into the music like never before. Just being totally seduced tonight by the wonderful CD Missouri Sky by Charlie Haden/Pat Metheny.

If SFS=2 is wrong, then I dont want to be right!

SFS2 = Fujicolor?! (-Anybody remembers the "better than real" colors of Fuji photo film?)

After upgrading from 0.9z-7 to 0.9z7-5, the initial SQ impression was somewhat underwhelming. Then I followed the consensus on the forum, reducing SFS from 60 to 2, and voila!

The improvements from 0.9z-7/SFS60 to 0.9z7-5/SFS2 are not subtle.
0.9z7-5/SFS2 is simply put more attention-grabbing. It pulls me into the sweet spot like Ulysses was drawn to the Sirens!

The improvements are similar to upgrading your power amplifier: Bigger soundstage, each instrument has more presence and slightly cleaner/less gritty sound across all frequencies. But the biggest improvement in my system is probably the bass, which now is better in all ways: The mid bass is more dynamic and rhythmic, while the deep bass seems more extended and controlled. Listening to familiar trio jazz recordings I notice new low frequency notes from both the piano and the acoustic bass.

Can’t wait to return from the mountain cabin to my stereo at home for some more hours in the sweet spot!


PS: Seemingly trouble-free operation with no clicks or buffer error counts.

So, we got the Height and the Width. Only thing missing before placing the advance orders is the Depth and the Price....