Well I retried Intona with 14393 and its a no go. I'm back to settings SFS 120/120, clock res .5ms, Q1 10.

Intona is not right with 14393 but probably with anything. Seems slow and undetailed.

I played a favourite track from Aurora - Daddy Trane & Cousin Wayne.

This old recording(recorded 1988) released by Denon 1993 stands the test of time.

The recording is excellent, great double bass, drums and sax. Cymbals really shine.

Robert

Alain remove the Intona and listen. This is not caused by 14393 but is made worse. I'm not going back to 10586 yet. Whatever's wrong with 14393 will be solved I'm sure.

I had reason to remove it while upgrading a mod chip in my DAC and it definitely seeded doubts about its overall sound benefits in my mind.

I always have a problem with adding more wires and boxes between components. More connections/wires are problematic, less has always been best.

Ultimately the benefits of Intona should be incorporated in the DAC if these prove to be the case.

Robert

I havn't commented because I'm still undecided.

But I am trying Paul's suggested settings(not sure which OS he tried this on, his sig says 10586) SFS 2/120, Q1=1 with 14393 and think I prefer them to SFS 120/120, Q1=10.

I have also removed the Intona temporarily. Even though the Intona does some good things I suspect it also throws a veil over the music.

Not dissimiliar from my experience with power filters and the Silverstone card.

Certainly since returning to no Min OS Base and back to RAM OS in 14393 it has become more buggy. Now I get odd errors(hard error box) but it still plays music.

Anyway I would like to listen to music and not the settings before I go mad!!!

Robert

Thanks that's exactly what I wanted to know.

Robert

When you run Ram OS do you leave the settings as set as per what I describe and not touch the apply button for normal playback.

I'm not trying to go back to any former settings.

 

Hi Peter,
           Under "Use Settings" the boxes have BL 43, NR 100, CI -, SP 0,
Cores 1.

After playback(Min OS RAM) when it returns to rest the numbers in the ( 0 ) are the same but the top one BL is 100. I push button apply and it returns to 43.

Is this necessary? When in BASE OS I always set everything before setting Min OS. Then run in RAM OS.

Robert

No, but I now have 32GB. Even with expanding XX Ram space to 18GB, running an album of say 7 or 8 tracks at 24/192 only leaves 145MB of space in C drive with 14393. All runs perfectly so far.

Recommend you add more Ram if possible, Windows is only going to get bigger over time.

Robert

Further to Benchmark driver software I went back to have another crack at installing software from File explorer and after opening Benchmark install file properties and ticking unblock box it all worked perfectly.

I do notice two things upon returning to min OS Ram XXhighend. The first time it loads into Ram, OS says there is an error and it all reboots. The second attempt is successful. This has happened twice now for me on first bootup into Ram. After this it works everytime.

Also once booted into Ram the screen flicks on and off 2 or 3 times then settles. Running XXhighend after this works everytime.

I've left the Ram at 18g hasn't been a problem so far.

For anyone running Ram OS its worth upgrading to 32g Ram especially if you play Hi Res files and upgrading to 14393. Windows OS's will only get bigger.

Robert

I expanded my Ram file(Xxhighend) size back in April 30th this year according to your instructions to 18GB. This is what I have now. At the time you did not recommend to go bigger than 18GB.

Robert

I have already expanded my Ram OS from the first time you put it up.

My question is should this not be expanded further to say 20g?

Peter,
       I have the Benchmark Dac driver in the D Drive installs folder.

I think it is because of 14393 OS.

First I opened this file and clicked on setup file. It clicked away but did not install. I tried this 3 or 4 times but did not work.

Not sure why but I opened the Device manager and the benchmark location was registered but had a warning sticker.

I opened the properties and proceeded to update driver which worked. I also had to do this in the sound, video game controllers for the Driver. After this it all worked.

Robert  

Peter,

Download and installation of new OS went well according to your instructions.

Had problems with adding Benchmark Dac software through File explorer, wouldn't work. Finally installed using Device manager from Control Panel.

Had issues with file permissions re music file server probably my fault here but sorted finally.

Xxhighend 6b Ram running and in min OS all great. Sound seems further refined.

I notice after loading the largest 24/192 album I only had 170MB left in the C drive. It did play all tracks with no issues.

Task bar no problem I've just shrunk Xxhighend so icons are visible on desktop.

I do have 32 g Ram and was wondering if I could make it larger than 17.58g or now 15.1g(14393)? I've had no problems playing tracks and albums so far.

I have requested to enlarge OS by email so whether this is part of it.

I notice you run clock res at .5ms now but sig shows 1ms.

Regards Robert

It is an interesting read. I have always thought Wave files were better than Flac not huge though the difference. I always download Wave where I can.
They say metadata has a negative influence also. I have not played with that. But when ripping CD's I don't bother adding covers.

I don't use album covers in Xxhighend music playback. I'm only interested in the music. 

Robert

Yes more of everything and a background quietness less hash, less edgy.

Robert

Certainly is differences in ripping scenarios.

In the early days I ripped using dbpoweramp as it was fast on an i3 laptop with a DVD drive.

Since comparing re ripped CD's using EAC on my new i5 desktop with a Blueray drive. These new rips do sound much better more detailed.

I can only guess that it all makes a difference. How far one wants to go is the question. As we know the better the music file the better the sound.

So one should be using a Professional grade DVD/BR drive, a dedicated linear powered i7 or Xeon processor with optimised ripping software(including OS) and no other processes onboard or working during the ripping stage.
In fact disconnected from the internet.

Its the old story in the days of CD's I compared US, German, Australian and New Zealand pressed CD's and what do you know they did all sound different with the same music. My pick was always the German pressed, this also applied to DVD's. This was supposed to be the technology where there was no audible difference as they were digital!!! Australian were the worst.

We are always going to get differences but worth pursuing better sound.

Robert