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691
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Music Storage and convenient playback / Re: The Memory player
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on: January 18, 2008, 03:19:53 pm
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...I believe it cannot effect the SQ...my brain told me that most of it was snake oil.
Well, Telstar, your criticisms are invalid then. Just because you cannot believe something you "read" does not give you the right to criticize. You quoted something I wrote at the beginning of my post, referring to the first cics guide on audio asylum, not to your experience. If, however, you have tried specific examples of "tweaks" and have conclusions to the contrary, then that is a conversation I will have with you. But please do not comment on things you haven't tried. And BTW, you are not the only one who has built computers for many years.
I was commenting on a scientific basis. We know that music reproduction sometimes does NOT follow the physical laws. So I give you and I gave cics the benefit of doubt. -I did in fact compare my Corsair RAM to my Kingston RAM, both with the same manual latency settings and also comparing with each using the settings from their SPD. In all cases the Kingston sounded better and the difference was not subtle. I even performed blind testing with my wife, and she defintely heard a difference as well. I'm sorry you don't "believe" it.
It is indeed very difficult to believe. Excuse me, did the module have the same rating or you put the settings in the bios? i.e. kingston was a cas5 module and corsair was cas4 and you put both at cas5 (obviously u could hardly push the slower one). I'm assuming you did the test keeping all other conditions the same. BTW you speak of Kingston. Do you know the exact chips that they mount? Within the same model from a big manifacturer like kingston they can use different chips with different rating and they would sound differently like happened with corsair. Also, how many different motherboards have you tried? Maybe the corsair would sound better with a different chipset. I do not know the biostar mobo that you use, but it should be a G33 or older intel chipset. And generally intel chipsets are very good and stable. Anyway I can assume that your motherboard did not like the Corsair memory module that you used. I'm assuming that you used XXHE in Vista for this test. -I am in fact using a USB DAC (see my sig), and I feel that because it is such an entry-level product and probably very sensitive to jitter, that is the reason I hear a difference with every little "tweak" whereas most may find the "tweak" on their setup (with a "higher-end" DAC) to be too subtle.
Quite much has been told about the problems of the usb protocol and its suitability to transport the music signal. Your experiences and cics ones seem to sustain the thesis that USB dacs are very sensitive to. I think you know that the m-audio external soundcard is of quite low quality and probably does nothing to correct the jitter caused by the usb bus. Oh I have another question: it is powered by the usb cable itself or has a separate psu? Which is the rest of the audio chain? Thanks, I will check them out. I have two HDD and a dvd player to power in my HTPC so I could use one of those. Lately, I cannot do all the tests that you did, because for my needs I cannot have a fanless low-end system for starters and I dont want two machines, one for music and one for video. I need both the onboard and a discrete videocard. But I could buy a kingston module and another one and test it. I have a TwinDAC+ which has a good reclock and it is battery powered, but I'm tempted to get either an ESI or rme Fireface (both firewire) and use the digital spdif out instead of the USB. Peter prefers this setting. I do not know. Reduced jitter can be the reason for this. Some people on audioasylum says that the Fireface 800 sounds more airy and open than the FF400 (my pocket wouldnt like it), so in conclusion anything COULD impact SQ, but we are here to analyze what on a case-by case basis before saying like cics that everyone should build its computer transport that way. [Edit: corrected typo: soundcard for videocard] |
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692
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Music Storage and convenient playback / Re: Touch screen LCD cases and XXHE
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on: January 17, 2008, 09:54:55 pm
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Hello Peter, Thanks for replying. I think most of the current XXHE users use their computer transports for music only, therefore just remote control without anything visual would be good enough. But I want more from my htpc  I have two responses that seem not much related, but they are. The first may look kind of stupid and hard to judge for the real merits :
The Library functions of XXHighEnd and the Galeries in special, are created with one thing in mind : a huge amount of data to be managed. "Huge" means several thousands of albums Explorer already can't handle because of the time it takes. So whatever front-end you want to use, anticipate on these amounts. I do / XX does, and it does it explicitly. "Manage" means that you can deal with it for functional reasons, and only when you have thousands of albums loaded, you can start to see what I mean with that and it is from various angles (like what to pick, where to store, how to find, how to backup and a few more).
The necessary speed of it all is already a bottleneck for everything, although I did not examine other software, but I think I know.
I do not have thousands of albums. I think I have between 500 and 800. Anyway, media portal and WMP11 have already good search features, listing by genre etc. I havent done ax extensive comparison, though. I see XXHE similar to WMP, expecially considering the pc-looking interface. The problem for me is that it cannot be read from 2-3m in a 7" inches screen. Give me something like Classé Omega CDP and we start talking Even cics CMP (in the thread above this) is readable on a HTPC screen. When to my judgement XXHighEnd is far better in whatever area than anything else, or I know because of developments to come that it will, there is no reason to spend time on "interfacing" with other software. Mind you, there is no reason for *me*. Going along with it, is the logic of better spending the time on the functionality (etc.) this other software might be better at, than spending time on that interface, knowing that XX will be as good on the matter concerned, might it be sooner or later.
When XX will have skins that will have text that looks good, not like a windows program and be readable at 2.5m of distance, then I won't have need to use a different frontend. I do like things simple. I will surely prefer to use only XXHE to play music. Ideally it'll be launched from the main window of mediaportal (play music), not from windows taskbar. Touching the screen or, sit, with my harmony. Again, this sounds stupid but it is my strategy anyway. Not enough time to do it otherwise !
Let me try to give an example of which I hope I won't offend anywone but the developer who seems to be vanished anyway :
People exist who like MP3Toys as a front end. So there's the question : could XX not be controlled by it (because Foobar can and blahblahblah). So yes, I could make that. But man, software like that is so much outside my own standards (for decency) by far that I would degrade myself (or (future) XX) by doing it. So I don't already for that reason. More important though is that those who want/use MP3Toys, apparently don't see the "problems" you'd have when using that instead of XX itself, all ending up in me solving those problems which really aren't of my interest apart from you being that customer of mine. Also, I *know* that interfaces are the most hard to create and maintain, and most often something not working anymore is beyond both parties knowlegde and blame (like : "hey, it doesn't work with Vista SP1 !").
I dont know what is mp3toys and I have tried many media centers, vista one, meedio, and other 4-5. basically everything that is available for windows and linux (yep, i tried that too, in a virtual machine). So far, mediaportal is the best. It can launch external applications (altough one plugin is bugged in vista), and I use TheaterTek for playing dvds and divx, since it is the best player and has memory. I do find the SQ with asio and a better plugin than the original close to (without exclusive mode, until I replace my terratec on the test pc). Girder is a paying software. Before I will need to use it I hope XXHE will support infrared commands. There is another utility which is free but is less powerful. The Harmony itself can mimic windows media center remote, which makes easy to use most interfaces. I'm really eager to see XXHE respond to my Harmony. I know, a command line interface doesn't seem much (work), but when it's there it should be there for the good reasons. In fact I can tell you it's already there, but the means to exploit it for *my* reasons are not, and that's why you don't have it. At the time it is freed to you, yes, you could use it to let front end software control XX, but let's say that's a coincidence and it won't be supported.
I do not understand why. TheaterTek for instance has a command line interface to launch it ant it works very well and users like it. If It hadnt maybe I wouldnt have bought it. Coming to the second part of my response, and I think this is less stupid, my before mentioned "good reasons" would be remote control, and might you not know, this is a whole world of knowledge and experience in itself. Since you mention Girder it might be so that you have good experiences with that in the HTPC/Movie environment, where btw 50% of my roots are too. The very major difference is though, that with movies you have OSDs (On screen Display) and you can see what yo are doing. Audio playback however, inheretantly works with the smallest device possible, that coincidentally being very close to you otherwise you can't see anything, that by itself urging for touching the screen since it is under your nose anyway.  Now what ?! This is a subject I couldn't work out so far myself. I do try though, if you'd only know that the Asus mentioned earlier in this thread is one of the attempts to find out, a Philips Pronto is another (talking about costs  ) and yesterday the postman brought a Harmony. At this moment I think it comes down to a most simple form : infrared remote control with any random generic programmable remote (think of Harmony like devices), and XX accepting commands as smart as we can all think of. How that makes us selecting albums/tracks without a visual ...  ... but if you'd compare it with a normal CDP, well, then yes. A normal cdp has a vfd screen that shows some data. Some have cd-text feature. A HTPC frontend can and must show more information. For instance, another mediaportal plugin shows the lyrics of the song that you are playing (it retrieves lyrics for about 60-70% of my songs and store them on my computer): that is very nifty, expecially for those of us who are not english native speakers. And I want to see everything from distance. I do not want to power on the TV to read it. Maybe in one year from now all this will be taken from granted by the users of XXHE, maybe not, maybe just some. I wanna dream the perfect interface. |
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693
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Music Storage and convenient playback / Re: The Memory player
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on: January 17, 2008, 09:12:14 pm
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Hey guys, please don't put "cics" down. I have emailed with him many times and he is actually a really good guy. We collaborated on a few ideas when he was putting together his "Art of Building a Computer Transport" manual and it is definitely not ridiculous or silly. The hardware settings most definitely influence SQ. Please do not make fun of it, especially if you have not tried it. I used that "manual" as a guideline when I recently built a new computer, and the difference between my old computer and this one was night and day. (And that includes using the same software, settings, and DAC) The improvements really come in the form of much "cleaner" power supply. As I said, I used the same software settings (with XXHighEnd) and on both I aggressively disabled many processes/services and other little tweaks and used the same DAC. So in comparing, the only difference was the hardware. Trust me, it was not subtle. What a great improvement in SQ. Anyway, as for the cMP (memory player), I did try it and indeed it does not work with XXHighEnd. "cics" is dead set on using XP and foobar 0.9.5 and this is where we have a difference of opinion. But that does not make it any less of an innovation. Indeed he never tested it with Vista nor XXHighEnd and I told him I don't think it will be very effective with XXHighEnd (because XXHighEnd already effectively does most of what he is trying to accomplish). The one thing he accomplishes with the "memory player" that I like (and which is most controversial and I'm sure to hear about it from you guys) is something I experimented with: After I begin a playlist with XXHighEnd (unattended), with Process Explorer open, I suspend all the svchost and lsass and explorer. This renders your PC virtually dead, with only the music playing. What a nice improvement in SQ! When my playlist is done playing, I can resume all those services and return to normal. Mind you, this is a truly dedicated audio only PC and I do not do anything else with it, so if it's dead while I listen to music, I don't care.  Hi Edward. I criticized cics and I will explain you why. I didnt want to rebut point to point what cics affirm that I believe it cannot effect the SQ. So i didnt on Asylum. I read the original thread of his recommended transport and after awhile i couldn't continue because my brain told me that most of it was snake oil. First and foremost, are you using an external soundcard? I'm expressly referring to a firewire one, because the usb protocol is quite flawed and therefore providing a cleaner power to (some parts of) the computer can attain an improvement to the SQ. The new ESI is quite cheap, around 200€, just a bit more than the Juli@ he is recommending and would IMVHO remove all the problems about cleaning the power source. I build computers for myself and friends for many years. Here is my reply point to point to cics recommendations. -RAM: it consumes so few power that it cannot interfere with voltages and pollute the power delivered to the pci bus (where is the soundcard in cics build) Did you try changing this ALONE in your new setup? 1:1 vs other ratios depend on the chipset and the motherboard, it could be that some aggressive setting could make the system less stable, but not the brand, please - Kingston or Corsair with the same specs cannot make a computer transport sound differently. -All other hardware tweaks (discrete graphic card, fans, HDD powered externally) do influence the SQ only for internal soundcards and MAYBE at a much lesser extent usb. The improvements comes from three things, not only the clearer power: (1) noise, (2) vibrations and (3) polluting the pci power. I'm also pretty confident that an internal pci-e soundcard would be much more resilient to such problems (i.e. asus xonar, that is also enclosed in an isolating box). -Software recommendations: those are correct, although Vista is a much better OS regarding memory management. Disabling indexing service and automatic defrag is enough for me. Diskeeper is much smart and it does not interfere for me with sound reproduction. P.S. You can also try using an UPS that also filters the power line, that should help the PSU to have more stable voltages. P.P.S. Out of curiosity yesterday I went on granite website and i didn't find any psu. |
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694
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Music Storage and convenient playback / Re: Touch screen LCD cases and XXHE
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on: January 16, 2008, 07:48:33 pm
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What I was doing before, was looking at all by means of RDC (RDP), so looking at the screen of a remote PC (the one where the music is actually played). When such a device is directly under control of a "tablet sensitive OS" (like XP/Tablet, or just Vista) stuff like scrollbars, close boxes and some more, are relatively large. In fact large enough to be controlled by fingers. What remains is that such a device should (IMO) be used only to control a remote screen, and *then* this does not work ...  I know that one can set the LCD screen as secondary screen (or primary if that matters) and the tv as the other, with a graphic card with two dvi ports it shouldnt be a problem, i.e. there can (and will) be different resolutions. Second step, I need to setup girder and the Harmony. I wanna control XXHE mainly with my remote. i dont think it is possible to make XXHE a plugin of MediaPortal, exp because it is a paying software, but maybe i can browse my collection with it and then launch it when i select an album to play. Does it accept command line inputs? It should *wink* Third step, if the above does not work, I would need to use Girder or similar software to make XXHE work with the remote. Having it touch-screen compatible would still be the best IMO. Do you think to have attained an excellent, SQ, on par or superior to vinyl? I guess you do Then you could dedicate most your efforts to adding features. Lastly, I hope to have a remote device like kaleidascape has for both music and movies playback. I do not know any pocket-pc that is nice and ergonomic enough for this task yet. I'm sure that you have more experiences and have tried various combinations but i'm very picky with ergonomics and user interfaces. |
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695
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Music Storage and convenient playback / Re: The Memory player
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on: January 16, 2008, 07:36:12 pm
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Hahaha, I don't even need to click that link to know what is behind it. Do you want to destroy your PC ? go ahead ! I tried it (three weeks ago or so, when that thread appeared for the first time (it was deleted the first time)). No. What this does is completely crazy, but in order to ever understand what I mean you must try it (make a backup first). The cool thing is that his environment can support XXHE No way it can. Maybe I should have made a remark about that in that thread, but actually I don't care. The guy behind it is, say, a kind of commercial for his own product, and I could do that too. But, looking at "The memory player" as he calls it, this is only a thread to the existing one you referred to earlier, and this is IMHO over the back of others. It may be personal that I don't like that. There is no single one way that XXHighEnd could drive another sound producing kernel because of the way it works. Besides that, think of it : where XX creates an environment for itself (Core Appointment, Priorities) the first it would do is destroy the environment of that "memory player" which it so carefully created for itself.  No ... I don't think he ever tried. Btw, might it be the idea that his player makes the sound of XX work (so, the other way around) ... that would be the very last possible. On another note, I think what he is doing in the base is right. But also, it is the opposite of what XX presents : the most simple handling for the best sound (anyway that's the idea ). I posted is as a bit or provocation, as it was this thread for starters I had read his posts about hardware settings influencing the SQ and found it between ridicolous and silly. I think that using an external soundcard, USB, or even better Firewire would eliminate all interfecences (like the Fireface, but today I found also a new ESI that retails for under 200€). Then one can build its htpc using the true and proven cooling and noise directions (that can be found on silentpcreview, not on audioasylum). But if someone do NOT want to use an external soundcard nor interface their dac to the USB channel, some of those advices can be useful, because they can reduce noise pollution. I prefer to build my HTPC with fans and to leave it on 24/7 (suspend mode) and I would never trust it to be fanless. Besides, his underclocked E2x core can work fanless safely, but not a E6x or Qx. Etc, etc. Regarding XXHE I think that it is the other way around, i.e. his program would launch it, rather than foobar or winamp. I have some doubts that it can work properly on vista. In conclusion the only thing that I like is that he managed to use the touchscreen of the zalman case (which is different but not too different than the one used in my soon-to-be silverstone cw03). I do need to do a lot of trys and I will bother u much more next month when the QX9450 should be in stock. |
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699
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Music Storage and convenient playback / Re: The Memory player
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on: January 04, 2008, 09:55:55 pm
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Hehe ... well, don't worry. XX plays from normal RAM more than any "device" I know of. So, no dependence on cache from Vista (nor XP), just playing from plain RAM here. Just to give you some insight ... the major challenge starts when you do not want to load the whole CD into RAM in advance but per track (it would otherwise take time, memory, peak cpu cycles) *and* (!) all needs to play gapless at the same time. Performing some FLAC/MP3 conversion on the fly, dealing with Cue files ... it's all just another dimension. If you then also understand what happens with UnAttended Playback (what that does to SQ and), combined with the control still available ... then indeed you get the grasp of what 5 times the money means. But it's a hobby, right ? Thanks,  Peter Considering the ram usage of XXHE I thought that the whole cd did NOT go into cache. Also because it takes a few seconds to start playing (anything) some sort ou caching was undergoing. I have never tried unattended playback. I had problems loading my whole library and I'm going to play again with the latest release (I stopped at s-1). Because of Intel delaying the 45nm quadcores I'm on wait for about one more full month and therefore not in a hurry to try every single version of the player. BTW the Memory Player is not exactly like a HTPC, they just took the case of one, it's more like a DAC with a HD and some flash memory. Not worth remotely the pricetag anyway. Soolos' device was more of a computer, and overpriced like hell too. |
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705
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Ultimate Audio Playback / Music Storage and convenient playback / Re: Touch screen LCD cases and XXHE
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on: December 25, 2007, 01:23:52 am
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I don't think any touch screen as "we" intend for the job here will suffice, unless you use a pen to touch. I mean, all will be too small for fingers anyway.
Also, but this may be very personal, I don't think it is the way to set it all up. No matter what, you will be "squeezing" the playback machine (for disk space or other matters) and need an external display anyway (for larger jobs to do). Again, it will be personal.
Below you see my current touch device, wifi connected to the playback PC which is wherever it needs to be (near to the stereo equipment) and which is as large as it needs to be.
I have a wireless keyboard, wireless mouse and a Harmony 895. But for choosing the music (90% of the time album or composer), I like to browse the library of the htpc. I like the interface of MediaPortal and they made a nice plugin to use almost all touchscreens. I think that on this matter XXHE interface needs some improvement. Unfortunately I had to delay the completion of my HTPC because Intel delayed the penryn quadcores Q9300 and Q9450 (i'm getting the latter) to february-march, so I cannot test any touch screen functionality yet. |
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