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826
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Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: 0.9z-8-3a PC freeze
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on: March 16, 2013, 06:58:19 pm
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Hum... Allow me  I rarely listen to many songs at a time, but yesterday I decided to put 4-5 songs and play unattended. XXHE was activated (red title, red border cover art, no UNDEMO). That was checked after the stop happened. It happened once. After I played series of 3 songs with a little higher Q1 (14) and all seemed fine. When it happened, I had: Q1 = 6, Q1x = 1, SFS = 12, Xtweaks OFF, the rest equal to my sig... Alain |
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827
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: 0.9z-8-3a
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on: March 16, 2013, 03:58:16 pm
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Alain, I think it all can easily be brought down to the highs not allowing to hurt earlier than sheer SPL in general. So, whatever the sizzle or snizzle or snoops you like for personal taste are there, and they do not hurt when playing really loud, it is good and maybe even reality (read : dialling out the sizzle would be the wrong thing). All in other words : All we may like for freshness or perceived sparkle etc. etc., is not the real thing when it starts to hurt at the real high levels. It is all not so easy; Take Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. I am not sure anymore, but I think that 0.9z-6 showed this as a way way underweighed album. There's just no bass in it with that version (and maybe a few earlier as well). However, this is with the NOS1 which is just so neutral that no color of any sort is added. This means that if the player doesn't exhibit the bass (don't ask me how that happens as a phenomenon), well, the sound is just too lean. And notice that this can be a quick observation from anyone new to the NOS1 ("I want more bass !"). But all what happens is that the front-end ain't right (XXHighEnd). The complexity emerges when we see that Sabbath Bloody Sabbath can exhibit this extreme lean sound while any other album you own doesn't do that. Btw, other examples of this are Heaven17 and Uriah Heep - Live. Or Frankie goes to Hollywood - Welcome to the Pleasuredome. Uriah Heep works well now for a longer time and Sabbath Bloody Sabbath the same. But at least the latter - with which I started out yesterday - now sounds as you expect from it, that fat Sabbath sound (don't look at the guitar especially when it's played, because you will be disappointed when you see the ease of the slow moving (half  ) fingers. I don't know what it is that causes some albums to behave like this while nothing is noticed from others but it must be about the highs which overwhelm the bass and when this is played loud to get something of the bass, your ears will be on fire first. And so in general : play very loud, and when the highs are hurting, it is not right. Btw, because of the slam which now is there, I again explicitly looked in each corner of the room - even with the SPL meter, but I can find no single spur of higher SPL in any corner anywhere. And strangely enough, even less so than before (with more low output obviously). This is how I can easily play at 100dBSPL without *the bass* hurting (no standing waves anywhere). All stays as in-tact and loose and separated as with normal volume levels. Yea, I think I am fairly happy with this version and my settings. Peter Thanks a lot Peter, it really helps me to have a better grasp of things. While I was dreaming about hi-fi a long time ago, there are many notions that I yeat have to better understand. When I first changed whatever speakers I had for the Tannoy, I was surprised to note important differences in the LF depending on the recording and I did not know what to make of it. With the different XXHE versions, these differences lessen, so an important part of it was about standing waves (I think). I also guess that with components of less neutrality, HF are still too prominent and create a false illusion of details, because when I listen more carefully to the voices, there is digital glare. I should have made up my mind about this, but like many other things in life, to be explained (like you did) finally triggers a better understanding. Regards, Alain PS: I wrote about this before, but anyway: Black Sabbath (Master of Reality) "Sweet Leaf" has a lot more "sparkle" with the Sanctuary Label than the Warner version. When I listen to it (Sanctuary version), the sound is so much more engaging ! |
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828
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Your thoughts about the Sound Quality / Re: 0.9z-8-3a
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on: March 16, 2013, 01:50:52 pm
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While I can't do anything for the moment (girlfriend still sleeping), I was wondering about one thing...
I always liked HF. The more presence of them, the more satisfied I was. But with digital glare and "edgy" sounds, all depends on the music style more than anything else.
You mention Black Sabbath... I like the "fuzz" (guitar) a lot. With more HF, I feel I can hear that "sizzling" noise a lot more than when it is (maybe not the right word) "tamed" or should I say "controlled". And I like that sizzling noise that comes from the guitar. This raises the notion of "neutrality" against "personal taste"... A part of me like the fact that there are no more edgy sound, but another part misses that prominent sizzling sound...
And since my hearing is not what it was, sometimes I would like to have a little more HF energy - a hard to loose habit I developped a long time ago...
Alain
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829
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Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Underclock "XXHighEnd PC"
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on: March 16, 2013, 01:36:28 pm
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Is it better to overclock, underclock or leave the CPU with it's nominal frequency ? I know it should be a matter of taste, since for people who can hear differences (I can't), but...
I use RealTemp to monitor the results of my adjustments with Xtweaks. It helped me to better understand what was going "under the hood" for the frequency, the load and of course the temperature.
As I understand it, if I see the temperature raising and it looks too high, I should adjust by revving the fan up or down, the CPU frequency, or a mix of these two. As for the load, I understand that it is better to leave it at 100%, preventing some potential variations in SQ right ?
Alain
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830
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Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: 0.9z-8-2 - Memory management
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on: March 05, 2013, 06:22:18 pm
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Oh yes, those peaks are always there. And the higher the SFS the further they are apart and the more "100%" they will be. This is why the SFS of 2 shows a virtual constant "low load".
Regards,
Peter
So this explains why I was recently seeing some peaks that I did not understand... I forgot to transpose the 192khz max upsampling with the 768khz. Of course, with 768khz, the peaks arrives 4 times faster... Alain |
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834
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: **Removed Switching Supplies from everywhere**
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on: March 05, 2013, 12:59:49 am
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At some point (but I am speaking to myself - happens too often these days), I wonder if all I am aiming in the right direction... I know that some people will mention that cables do make a difference (and they do in many circumstances), but the next question "Is it because something is wrong somewhere else ?" raises. If a cable does something good to a system, but nothing to another, it could be because that other is immune to a problem the cable corrects, or that part of the system has no problem to hide or "adjust"... I know that a PC is far from being a hi-fi component and I am willing to try many things to make it silent electronically speaking, but I also need to know if by applying something, I am improving the results or deteriorating something else... So actually I have a 2.5 SSD drive in an external enclosure, connected to my music pc through esata 6gbit (the enclosure is 6gbit, so is the cable and the pc esata connection). That drive carries the OS and XXHE - and is powered from a iFi audio iUSB power supply. The USB connection between the pc and the NOS1 takes its output from a Sotm USB 3 PCIex card. My next move will be to power my external music hard drive with a linear power supply. I also intend to get a balanced power, eventually have a separate small electrical panel with a separated ground from the rest of the house... Wow... I never imagined I would do that much some day ! To be crazy or not, that is the question Alain |
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838
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: Review of Nicks Tweeks
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on: March 03, 2013, 08:12:54 pm
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I understand. I was merely trying to find a way to overcome the inconvenience of having to open the case to reconnect a player... But as long as one is happy with the tool of preference, that is more important than the convenience (or lack of) of course. We rip a CD for a long time (I hope) Alain What about a externe dvd writer\player?? I use that for a long time now. Or do you think the quality is less with that? Hi Gerard My guess is that the quality depends on the brand and/or player, but could also depend on the connection used. I am not sure about this. But I don't think that the internal/external would be the reason why a player would be better or worse. I have a Plextor external player and one internal. 4 years ago, I was ripping with 4 players all working at the same time. I found that very useful then, but I am not sure I would do things that way again today... Alain |
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