Hi,

I am using XP engine#1

it sounds better than anything I have ever tried on PC.
I'd almost given up classical, like Bach, nut now I tried it with XX pd. And it revived it. Engaging...

Andrey

Hi,

Even in XP engine #1, where I do most of my listening,
The sound of pd seems great to me I think better than before. (I think I've listened all of them)

Andrey

I checked on the net for prodigy driver and on the screen shot did not find how to monitor digital out through analogs. So reflashing may not help. It is up to you.

Here links to prodigy drivers
Korean site : the first link
http://www.audiotrak.co.kr/kr/customer/Dprodigy71.php

Another link
http://www.esiforum.com/show.asp?db=at&t=at1&mode=0&msg=2359

I would first read about prodigy drivers for Vista before trying to reflash.

I've sent you a PM too.

Hi All,

I would like to know your thoughts about the following.

Let's assume that you have one PC connected to internet. You activate the XX on it. And the PC gets broken, destroyed, or STOLEN.
You don't have any other PC in your "household". And you did not backup or lost your CDR with a copy of activated XX.

As far as I understood form the "activation how to" "explanation" in this case there is no way for Peter to identify that you is you. And you lose your license and money and will have to pay for another license. if you would want to, of course.

After getting a new PC you will install all your software back without having to pay for it again. But you lost XX license forever and need to pay again.

Is that right? What am I missing?

Andrey

Hi,

Try reflash it to Prodigy 7.1 and use its drivers instead.
I personally tried it for XP, and the drivers and control panel a lot better for Prodigy 7.1.

I have a Esi Juli@. First I tried it with analog out as you did with space.
Then I realized that it is not exclusive anв not bitperfect, because it reponds master volume.
Then I chose Spdif out in the vista audio panel as default device.
I got no sound first but I noticed that in ESI panel I see that the SPDIF volume does not respond to master volume in vista.
I then just clicked on monitor button in ESI panel so that I can monitor what's going on the SPDIF through analog outs.

And viola, I have an exclusive mode for ESI SPDIF default device and monitor it via analog outs.
Changing master volume in Vista does not affect the volume in analogs out. And of course SQ is much better now.

I took a look at the Space panel at my XP PC and did not find a way to monitor SPDIF through analogs.
So I think you should google for Prodigy to see if its drivers allow you this. And if yes just convert Space to Prodigy (I did it myself couple of times).

Good luck
Andrey

I tried it. did not help.
I even tried to unzip clean copy to another PC ant try to activate via LAN. did not work either.

What else can I try?

Hi,

I have just tried to activate XX on another PC LAN connected to my PC where I have XX activated (versions d,j,k,n,o,p all activated in their own folders).
I copied the folder from my PC to another. then run XX from that PC and entered the path to my PC as described in activation how to.
Then I hit activate button, message "Path is OK!", then "Activation will be taken from that PC" or similar showing up, and then Activation failed shows up, it quits and I stay in Demo mode.

What am I doing wrong?

Andrey

Hi,
I was listening to 0.9p for 2 days now and compared them with 0.9d and j.
Funny but the 0.9p on XP engine#1 sounds the most "soothing" to me .
I will try couple audiophile terms here: it is easier to follow a particular instrument (I may say more detailed even), while the sound stage got expanded to almost total breakdown into left and right channels.
But the main thing is that I can listen to 0.9p much longer without discomfort. I will stick to it for now.

Did not try it on Vista yet.

Andrey

Hi Peter,

If you ever plan to go back to XP version of your player and do something for XP users, I would like to add one more thing to our wish list.
It is the file size limit for Engine #1 of 64 Mb.

Thanks
Andrey

One more thing.
I already read your first post about your friend Carlos a week ago. It was another thing proving that I am in the right place.

Thanks
Andrey

Off topic, can't resist:

Movies!!!!!!!!!!! yes you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! you made me laugh aloud actually. 
And what is worst of all is our russian doubling of the soundtrack where you don't hear the actors and hear russian doublers ...
Add the bad work of the sound engineer (do not confuse with soundengr ). I hardly can wait till the end of the movies. A kind of self punishment I know.
But recently I was in San Diego (Hey Dave! I am going back soon) and watched Bourne Ultimate. It was great. Now I know how good sound can be in movie theatres.

End of offtopic.

Definitely Vista sounds better (in my terms (no paranoid && closer to vinyl )) than XP no matter what player I use.
And of course your player sounds best of all.

So Vista+XXHE is way better than XP+XXHE!

Unfortunately I did not have much time to evaluate it thouroughly. But for now the most difference for my setup was using q1 setting 14 and both priorities Normal. I tried Thread priority set to high but went back to Normal.

Don't want to make conclusions about XX versions on Vista so far.

Andrey

But the way I come to conclusions like one version (player) is better than the other is as follows.

I listen music at work as a background. You can call me but I simply get paranoid when the sound is not right. I experience anxiety attacks. And after an hour of listening to a bad player (and I blame it all on jitter I get in the end) I get an urge to get the phones off my head and runaway.
So I cannot describe it in terms of soundstage, sorry, I just don't have the systems most of you, audiophiles, have.

So the less discomfort I feel the better player is for me. And also I remember how my vinyl records sounded back in 80-90's. I spent so much time listening to it in the evenings before going to sleep and enjoying it very much. So the closer the player to that the better.

About five years ago I started to recollect my music collection I had back then. And of course in mp3 . Then bought an entry level hi fi system. Played around with interconnects and cables. Realized that cd player is very dependant on the CD print quality while the data on it is the same, and I found out that here is jitter. Then I realized that I need lossless from off PC to my system.
Then my sound card was not the best one. Then not every player sounds good and everything in OS influences the SQ. Then tried Linux with its ALSA and mplayer and xmmplayer and jack. And actually the fact that there are too many variables on the PC made me sad . But I did not want to return to a CD player.

Then I read somewhere a forum post that somebody (it was you Peter) stripped down linux and ran his own very light player and that irregularities in supplying data to the sound card dac is as important as (results in more) jitter. Then I thought to myself that's a way to go. But did not have time to go there myself.

And now I see that You finally found a way how to overcome all those variables that influence the SQ on the PC side.
Congratulations on that!

The last thing I tried was Slim devices SB3 and it does not compare to 0.9d. BTW I did some blind tests with SB (which I shared to slimdevices forum members) where I could tell flac codec was working inside SB or a pure wav stream was playing. So I think I can hear something even without a great analog tract. I did the tests in my shure 210 earplugs

It was all to show how I tell a better player (to me) form worse.

Thank you
And I hope I did not give you a headache with this post

I myself prefer 0.9d engine #1.

Tried from d upto o, with enigines 1 and 2. For now d and engine 1 is the winner

Andrey

Hi,

Anyone using XX in XP?
What do you think is the best SQ version/engine# for playback on XP?

...failed to find such discussion here. Most people talk about Vista and engine #3.

Andrey

Please correct me I misunderstood you.

So adding flac to engines 1 and 2 will influence the SQ while adding it to engine 3 will not.