Thank you. The "sharing" is in the spirit of PeterSt, the founder of this site. He has spent years and countless hours helping all of us getting maximum sound quality from our PCs.


Choosing interface between PC and DAC is like opening a can of worms. I guess you are in the beginners phase in this matter. We have all been there. Like I said previously, the €3.320,- NOS1 DAC developed, build and sold by PeterSt/Phasure, is IMO the ultimate solution for both interface- and D/A-conversion.

On the other side, there are many, many more users of the €80,- XX, than the €3.320,- NOS1 DAC. So an “economical recipe” to the interface matter is still very much needed to the many users of XX.
-If you dig deep into the old posts on this forum, you can read about the journey through all the various interfaces which we have tried. It’s quite a long story…

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You should try the optical Toslink output from your PCs motherboard. Compare it with your HDMI connection. Do some serious listening test with various music. Share your result with us here at the forum afterwards!

The ESI Juli@ soundcard is universally considered to be one of the best buys, providing very high sound quality for a relatively low price. You can google it, and read praises of it from Hi-Fi enthusiasts all over the world. I am quite sure such a moderate investment will advance your sound quality a lot. Use it together with a RCA coax 70ohm cable (which can be purchased at a low price).

PS: Whats the name of your Marantz preamp/processor?

HDMI was quickly approached by audiophiles, but then burried and forgotten. The HDMI interface DO have a very big data rate capacity suitable for multi channel hi-rez PCM and/or DSD.
BUT the HDMI format lacks a dedicated clock link for audio, turning it into the most jittery interface of them all.

It's been discussed a lot in the past. Here is a short and telling link: http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/8/82566.html

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-The sound of HDMI? I havn't dwelled too much with it, but I did some SACD rips through a HDMI interface and found the sound to be somewhat soft with muted microdynamics.

The interface between your PC and DAC (Marantz preamp/processor) has a big influence on the sound quality.
-Bigger differences than between the 2 software players.

Buying the Phasure NOS1 USB DAC solves this problem + provides you with a SOTA DAC.

But if you are looking for a cheaper alternative, I would have purchased a soundcard from ESI JULI@: http://www.djdeals.com/esiJULI@.htm and used its RCA SPDIF output, feeding your DAC.

PS: Lots of ink has been spend here on the Phasure forum, discussing digital interfaces. Many different solutions have been tested.

But the launch of the Phasure NOS1 USB DAC and its propritary USB interface, defined "year zero" in the hard core congregation here at the forum, marking the day the digital interface problem was "solved".
-The lucky NOS1 owners has turned their attention to other areas, like split file size, etc.

Someone told me that the GUI of W8 is made for touchscreen, with large buttons, easy to operate, wether you have a large or small screen.

-If nothing else, it might make it easier to use as a remote control solution together with a smartphone, iPad,Galaxy, etc

I never tried my NOS1 with anything else than USB2, and I have used PE on a fixed basis for several months. All I can say is that the SQ is 100% pure and resolved. I am extremely happy with the sound.

 In fact I havnt done much "fiddling" with XX for the last 3-4 months, simply because it is soo damned good.

I know, a testimony like this isnt much worth, since it is not based on an AB-comparison. But I do know that I have some of the most revealing tweeters on earth. -A true linesource ribbon 220cm long, working from 800Hz up to 40kHz. Its wired with solid silver and driven by SOTA SS amplifiers and electronic crossovers. I can play veeeery loud without any fatigue. -If there where any nasties, I would have noticed.

To put this in perspective, the last 6 months I have done some serious comparisons between several balanced interconnects, and all of them failed in the treble, except two: Nordost Valhalla and a solic core silver/cotton DIY construction.

I'm gonna eat my lodspeakers front grill if you find anything wrong with the Peak Extension as it is now!

Dear jazz lovers, say hello to Radka Toneff, Norway’s greatest jazz singer. Her career was short. She committed suicide in 1982 at age 30, after the end of a turbulent love life with Arild Andersen (famous bassist who played on most of her records. He’s on ECM, too, BTW).

Some of you might know her from the classic Fairytales album with pianist Steve Dobrogosz, considered to be THE best recorded piano/singer jazz album in the world. (It’s been frequently listed/namedropped in Stereophile, Hi-Fi News, etc).

But today I had a wonderful evening with Radka from one of her other albums. I want to turn your attention to the posthumous album Butterfly, released as late as in 2008.

-First of all the album carries several of her best performances. Secondly, these songs were recorded (individually) by the national broadcasting systems of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. They are practically live recordings, with and without audience. There are few, if any, overdubs or post production. –In short, the sound quality is stunning and with good consistency from song to song, in spite of being recorded on different occasions. You can hear an unusual freshness and directness, not common with regular studio recordings. I guess the honor goes to the TV/Radio broadcasting staff, trying to capture the moment rather than mixing for selling. –This is one of my top ten most realistic recordings. (None of Diana Kralls albums are close to this level of performance or sound quality).

Here is an appetizer from the album on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QAQIWgWesg

It’s a rare album, so hurry up if you wanna buy it: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001O12TIA/ref=dm_dp_cdp?ie=UTF8&s=music
 

My guess: The easiest way to make XXHE capable of DSP is to provide for "plug-ins"; A kind of digital loop where the user can load whatever (correction) file he wants.
-It can be EQ, room correction or even low-/high pass filters (for active XO). I think Foobar has it allready.

The filter itself has to be made outside of XXHE, with some other software available in the market.

-Can you do that, PeterSt? (Digital active XO is high on my wish list)

Oh yeah, this is a stunner on LP.
I have it as a SACD.

I am pragmatic about these format matters. I have about 3000 CDs ripped to hard disk. It’s my main music source. Hi-rez is only a supplement, with perhaps 30 titles sounding outstanding. (But the number is increasing). So my CD ratio is 100:1.

What counts in the end is the sound quality, whatever format. Phasure has taken 16/44 playback to such a high level, it is almost unbelievable. If the marked knew its performance, the NOS1 DAC would sell in thousands.

I am eagerly waiting your new discoveries. (Every night when I go to bed, I fantasize about “those cymbals brought more forward, without sounding too brash or harsh” which you announced for the next XXHE version).

Relax, Peter - your work cannot be compared with Monty’s work. You are aiming for the sky; he is aiming for the ground. With XXHE/NOS1 DAC you are trying to create the best possible sound quality in the world for the relatively few connoisseurs of high end. Mr Monty has created and advocates Vorbis, a lossy format for low-rez streaming audio in the mass marked.

The arguments in Mr Montys blog post circles around “how bad can things be done without audible degrading”. He is advocating mediocrity. You are pushing for perfection.

Basically all his blog post is a contradiction to your work. Here are some examples:
Red Book CD is good enough as it is today, applied with standard oversampling technology.
Music signals below 20 and above 20k has no relevance for people.
Sound differences don’t exist unless they are proven in ABX.
ABX proves that people doesn’t discern between CD and hi-rez.
ABX proves that people doesn’t discern between MP3 and CD.
Etc, etc

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I think Mr Monty wrote his blog piece badly on purpose. Applying a very black/white perspective he has managed to provoke the high end community. His article is linked everywhere and made a big impact. He is probably having a good laugh now.

I dislike people who are pissing on my passion for highest fidelity sound reproduction. That’s why I wrote my previous post, pointing out Mr Montys malicious propaganda.

XXHE can do that to you.

PS: I gave Rain a listen tonight, drank a pint and blinked heavily, but couldn't provoke any tears. Guess I miss the memory factor...
BUT through XX and NOS1 it sounds very good, with lots of instrumental details and acoustical information from the recording session. Must be one of the better LZ albums, soundwise.

dBPoweramp allready has a batch converter.

With the advantage of a qwert keyboard and after a good night sleep, I can deepen my view on this so called “article”:

I found 2 interesting parts:

1. The tech talk about IM distortion. Which is an audible factor for owners of faulty constructed amplifiers. –Stable amplifiers with low distortion and bandwidth up to, and beyond 100kHz is easily achievable in regular AB transistor amplifiers these days, if the designer wants to. The “faulty” ones in this regard are to be found among tube amplifiers and class D amplifiers. Owners of such should aware, ha-ha. But pls don’t deny high resolution music formats just because you have a low tech amplifier… 

2. The physical mechanics of our ear and the reference to the Fletcher and Munson curve is also interesting read.

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The rest of the blog post by "Monty" I find to be malicious and highly biased propaganda.

Mr Monty happens to be Christopher Montgomery, who has spend the last 15 years developing and advocating Vorbis. A lossy music compression format competing in the marked with such as MP3 and Apples AAC. In fact, the blog post is a direct attack on Apple’s iTunes. So much for his credibility.

Monty is a low-rez guy. If you read carefully all his blog post, and the sources he lists, they are mainly from the “objectivist” camp living in a simplified world.
-They don’t trust individual listening experiences. Subjective listening only becomes objective when run through a ABX process with multiple repetitions of the same piece of music.
With this kind of mentality and ABX method, they find no difference between 24/96 and 16/44. Also there are numerous ABX tests showing no difference between lossy MP3 and CD. So there you go: Lossy MP3 is as good as 24/96! Say no more.

Mr Monty is a malicious propagandist because he omits known facts, which I am sure he knows very well. This man has spent 10 years programming and writing algorithms for his lossy music format. For sure he knows that our hearing is not only a physical matter (the outer mechanical part of our ear). Just as important is the psychoacoustic part. How our brain analyzes and percepts. In this field the scientists are only scratching the surface. There is so much going on in our brain, processing sounds, etc.

His analogy to the eye is quite misguiding and irrelevant. Especially when it comes to performing comparisons. Comparing A and B with sight is easy, because you can watch (let’s say) 2 photographs side by side, in real time.
But you cannot compare 2 pieces of music simultainsly. Both A and B must be heard one at a time and “stored” in your memory. Then compared from memory. It’s a completely different story, which Mr Monty elegantly avoids to mention.

Also he simplifies the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem. Mainly because increased bit depth is not only a matter of wider dynamic range, but also a more accurate calculating of the tiny amplitudes. Shortly put, for those into fishing with nets: More bits create a bigger net, but also a net with smaller masks. It captures more fish (bigger net) but also smaller fish (smaller masks). 

And what about square waves? Many music instruments are full of both DC- and square wave signals. That’s why we hear them as “real”. And that is a large reason why we hear them as “reproduces” on records. Because neither the format nor the hardware has enough bandwidth. –This is also a gross omission in Mr Montys piece of propaganda.     

There are numerous statements from well respected music engineers that higher sampling rates and bit depths improves the sound quality. And this is of course when they record and compare from the same source. 16/44 is not the threshold of our hearing, as Mr Monty falsely advocates. To paraphrase Mr Churchill I would say Red Book is not the end, but merely the begging of our sonic journey!

I have done quite some research in this matter. If anybody is interested I can post some links from recording engineers, discussing the limitations of 16/44.

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Much of the first generation of hi-rez music was made shortly after year 2000, when DVD-A was launched. Most of the effort went into the formats 5.1 surround sound virtues. They dusted of the mastertapes of the old top selling albums and made some very good multichannel releases. But they didn’t pay same attention to the stereo versions on the same disk. Some of these are cr*ppy sounding with heavy compression, which at that time had developed into ia decease among mastering engineers.

I guess some hi-fi enthusiasts have developed skepticism towards hi-rez, due to bad experience from such 1st. generation releases. But you cannot judge a technical format, based on wrongly usage. That is quite obvious. Let’s be patient, and let the format develop.

I have several good hi-rez recordings and they sound wonderful. More alive and more “natural” than Red book which in comparison has a slight “artificial” signature. A kind of subtle “dryness”, even if the recording is very soave, soaked in a glorious “tubey” sound signature.  (It’s hard to explain, sorry).

PS: My amplifiers have flat response from 0 to almost 1MHz, with near immeasurable distortion. In fact my playback chain is entirely DC-coupled, from NOS1 DAC to my loudspeakers, including the DC-coupled active crossovers. 

What a stupid blog post. It reminds my about those who state that "there are no audible differences between cables, because there are no measurable differences to speak of". Or who claims that "there cannot be differences between software players or computers if both are bit-perfect, etc etc bla bla"

For this purpose, ABX sucks. Rapid repetions in an ABX test is doomed to end in a nul result. ABX is close to useless for finetasting in sound. You have to listen for longer periode to various music without stress.

He also advocates oversampling. The NOS1 DAC is all about avoiding oversampling.

Several recording engineers has stated many times that when recording from the same source, higher bit/sampling (than redbook) sounds better.

Even ripping your LPs sounds better in 24/96 than 16/44.

Unfortunately articles like this creates more confusion.

Of course, the difference is not that big, and some CDs sound spectacular too. And some old recordings sound bad whatever format. But that doesnt change the fact that a modern well recorded album sounds better in hi-rez.
-The sound is more "fluent", microdynamics are more "real" and there are more nuances even in the bass. It is the tiny aspects of sound reproduction which improves.

(Sorry for faulty spelling. I wrote it on my phone sitting on the loo. A fitting tribute to the blog post reference).

This sounds very interesting.

Generally speaking, the "voicing" of the treble and the "character" of the treble is very critical in a system. Every seasoned Hi-Fi enthusiast knows this from swapping cables, adjusting toe-in of loudspeakers or modifying passive X-Overs. Differences as small as a fraction of a dB, is detectable in the treble range, a range where our hearing is most sensitive.

Anyway, I have made several improvements to my system lately. Apart from the NOS1 USB DAC (a big step up!), I have tried out a lot of cables, various loudspeaker positions, room acoustic treatments, active XO settings, etc, etc.

Now I am really, really, happy with my sound quality. BUT, my system is so low in colorations and distortion, that I welcome a slightly more "present" treble.

It is completely wrong to say that present version of XX is soft or dark sounding. It is not. I love it, being sooo natural and pure. Several guests have called it the "best treble they ever heard".

But personally I think there is still something missing compared with real life. I always thought it was the limitation of the media/recording*, but if Peter has a "trick" I am very curious to try it.

To put this in perspective: I tried some pure silver/Teflon IC with rather thin conductors. They did have a more lively treble, BUT at a cost. It took away the focus from the holly midrange. After some days I got tired from "listening to treble". -So the effect has to be subtle.

Perhaps 0.9z-7 will be another step closer to truth? I can't wait to try it out!

*I have heard a few horn systems, including Peter’s system, who does manage to project the treble in a slightly more lifelike way, than my ribbon tweeters. If  I can close this gap, I would be very happy.

Wow, this is exciting stuff!