Hi Mani,

First of all, thanks for a good read during my Sunday morning coffee.

Then, does a soundcard change the bits ? yes, of course it does when you digitally attenuate with 1dB !
The mistake you probably made is that where XXHighEnd allows for digital attenuation, you thought you can do it with general digital pots ?

Wonder o wonder, the digital volume in XX does *not* change the bits, although you'll loose some (which latter by itself happens with all digital volumes).
And keep in mind : there is no way it is allowed to let a normal digital volume loose on 16 bit material.
Also not to forget, is my stating that the digital volume from XX makes SQ *better*, which by now (since the Release Notes concerned) people may have forgotten, or don't dare to use with the pre-amp out of the way (but there's always the combination including the pre-amp) ... so be careful what you actually compare.

I think this is sufficient to answer your question, and testing this is easy : listen through e.g. the Fireface with XXHE at -0dB and the Fireface at -6dB, and the other way around. The other way around should win, and the first gives this veil (I just recognize that).


What interests me though, is how you came about the exact -1.0dB setting getting things to work with HDCD. This hardly can have been a guessing means ...

Then, parts of your enthusiasm may have forgotton your original objectives (mentioned under 1) and 2) which somehow ran into playing HDCD encoded CD's which may be normal to you because of the D70 being able to decode even with XX playing (??), but which obviously (??) confused your setup and objectives. Or ?
Or IOW, why use a HDCD for this ?

Also, both feet on the ground, I think everybody knows that soundcards make a difference. No need to work that out, and no need to improve this for your test (generally, yes of course). IOW, your test would be about things including soundcards making a difference (hence deteriorate), because it is just about this. Is the P70/D70 better than XXHighEnd/D70 ? which just includes all needed for playback. If the P70 wins, then it be so. If you don't want that, start tweaking the PC side.

Of course you knew all this. But maybe you didn't realize that the comparison wasn't done right ...

To be ahead of things ... be prepared for hearing other things than, say, two months ago with less experience. So, indeed your P70 might win. But if it does, I tell you this (which I apparently do anyway, hahaha) :

I have been listening through the Fireface as DAC the last days in order to get 192000 etc. alive. This was the first time I had to listen through the Fireface somewhat more seriously, because 192000 too must sound good throug XX (mind you, this is different from testing Quad for which I need the FF just the same, and which is about apples and oranges always because I just don't listen to native 44.1/16 through the FF and can't compare anyway). So, native 192000 (which just exists) sounded with a special character to me, and actually I liked it. More liquid, more liquid bass especially. So ...

So yesterday I though to spend a whole evening listening through the FF with 44.1/16, but couldn't stand more than one track really. No pepper, no salt, no tapping feet, no nothing. So I thought "what the h*ll" and changed back to the nos DAC. Wow, what a difference does that make.

What is the message here ?
Well, actually something I didn't know myself; The differences have become so huge between oversampling and non oversampling, that I may wonder what you oversampling guys actually perceive. You may know that I always liked nos, but you *must* know that I, say, tune XX around that. I mean, I only listen through nos. And, what may improve on nos, may not make a difference on os. I just don't know.

So Mani, just in case the P70 will win the contest afterall, do not forget to rent an nos DAC and try that briefly.
My P1 (+ Audio Note) lost two years ago ...

Oh yes. Those kinf of things happen all the time (but they may stay away just the same).
It can be restored (all becomes nornal), or just stay.

Edward, don't get psychologically influenced by this. Of course this *was* so, but not anymore.

What happens though is that with Mem unchecked there's pre-processing which wasn't there before. This spikes one of the cores to 100% (you'll see 50% with two cores), and it will be (during) this time that playback gets interrupted.

Remember that I told you that it looked like the system is influenced such that the priorities / time slicing doesn't work properly anymore ? I think I for myself proved a few days ago this is just so.
First the system got "deteriorated" to a level even under Windows 3.11 (I saw that one time before), and buttons almost looked like Dos. Then there was no way the track loading would not interrupt playback. Playback could hold up track loading, but once track loading happened, playback stopped. Single user processing ...

As you know, you already *set* your system (more or less) to behave like that. It is my theory that the processing just takes too much (or takes too long) to let it be unnoticeable.
Remember, the trackloading happens at the lowest priority already, and can't be influenced by you (but the "opposite", the playback thread, you can). If you come to the conclusion that you don't like this net, I can only advise you to check the Mem box. It will then be a tradeoff between more accurate playback because of the coding, versus your stuff that indirectly does the same.
But as said, it's my guess that a reboot helps.

Btw, I just tested and retested ... nothing wrong here with Double as well as normal (used The Wall from Pink Floyd for it).

Lastly, don't hesitate to go against all. We'll work it out.


PS: Might is help you, I'm using Core Scheme 3, and actually never try anything else anymore ...

I just realized ... you say that this happens with Double, Right ?

Ok. But what you don't know is that either could hold up the other.

Did you try the reboot now ? 99,99% chance it helps.
Edit : ... for the hicups !

Were the clicks gone in u-11 and now they are back ?

This is not XX crashing, it is one of the sevices stopping. Did you never had that before ? Anyway, it's "normal". When this happens, click away the message and stop/start playing.
If it keeps on happening, change the priorities of the player.

If it can't be dealt with ... hmm ... then it must be you youreself ? hahaha but I don't expect that.

I think I started myself talking about requireing more from the PC. Whether this is true or not I don't know, but two days ago it needed a reboot for me to get that solved. But there's more variations to this;

Can you tell, does it interrupt the last track (near the end), or is it right in between of both ?
If the first, then it's the PC. See if a reboot helps and please let me know.

LydMekk, after you wake up, could you try to rephrase to dutch, so I can understand ?

Ok, the first PM I've received already shows the (kind of expected) problem : "Administrator" which I check for, is spelled differently per language. Thanks very much.

I can only say : keep on posting those log files, so I can anticipate on all the different translations.


Please keep in mind (this is clear now), when you receive the message you will *not* be able to let your system have the settings as intended. This can not be seen (hence checked by yourself), nor could I by means of a program. It can be seen by me by means of "errors" though, but these errors are kind of standard in several situations (with the example of driver services not being able to influence).

Thanks,
Peter

From the Release Notes of 09u-12 :

When Administrator Rights are (presumeably) not set properly, a message shows so at startup;
Quite some users get this message, while all was done to set things right.
Now, when the message appears, a log file XXAdmin.log will be created in the XX folder with a contents that might be of use for debugging;
Post the contents of that file, or send it by PM if you think that confidential data might be in there (it can). From there we may proceed on solving this problem.

It is strongly advised to not use your system without a preamp (or the pre-amp at max volume for that matter) if you or your speakers won't be able to handle a situation that e.g. the file contains wrongly formatted data or otherwise - because of which cracks may emerge with an energy beyond imagination.

The following changes have been applied (all Engine #3) :

• Added support for the following sample rates / bit depths :
  
  - 176400/24 (untested !)
  - 176400/24 played with a 16 bit DAC (untested !)
  - 192000/24 (soundcard buffer can be at 128 samples)
  - 192000/24 played with a 16 bit DAC.
  - 352800/24 (untested !)
  - 352800/24 downsampled to 176400/24 (this produces a lot of noise and is probably not good !) (soundcard buffer can be at 128 samples). The switch to downsampling happens automatically when the DAC doesn't allow for 352800. With 2GB of memory, track length can be 12-13 minutes.
  - 384000/24 (untested !)
  
  Edit2 : Removed Edit text about the noise in 176400/24 downsampled not being caused by XX. It just is !
  
  The 352800 and up can not be played with the Mem checkbox unchecked !
  
  The 192000 and up will not play two subsequent tracks. The reason for this is unknown, but could be the file data. The unavailability of more than one album of either type, prevents proper analysis so far.
  When this happens, "XXEngine 3 stopped working" will be shown.
  
  All the "untested" are because of the lack of examples.
  
  
• The DAC Test (Settings Area, bottom choice of Dac Is) stopped working in one of the previous versions; this has been restored.
  
  
• The DAC Test has been extended with above mentioned sample rates.
  NOTE : It can well be that the Test reports support for 352800 and 384000 while this is not so. Probably this is because something does not take into account it could exist.
  
  
• Double/Quad with the Mem checkbox unchecked was broken in the last version (because of an inappropriate message). This has been fixed.
  
  
• When Administrator Rights are (presumeably) not set properly, a message shows so at startup;
  Quite some users get this message, while all was done to set things right.
  Now, when the message appears, a log file XXAdmin.log will be created in the XX folder with a contents that might be of use for debugging;
  Post the contents of that file, or send it by PM if you think that confidential data might be in there (it can). From there we may proceed on solving this problem.
  
  

Excuses in advance when something is broken !

Anyway, I am serious about Vista and the (jack) sensing. Try to plugin headphones, and you'll see they become available as a device. Plug 'm out, and it's gone again. I head similar with my DAc by means of switching of the amps.
This never happened in XP.

You aren't telling that your DAC is *not* in the fridge, do you ?
AFAIK we all have our DACs in the fridge. Try it !
It might solve your mute problem too.


Can't your supplier help on this ? It might be a known problem for the DAC ...

... or maybe you didn't think it is funny.

Assuming you are using Vista : this is one of the great features of Vista (Active Sensing or something like that). I have that when I switch of my amps. Or better, I *had* that with the former amps I had.

I assume this is a matter of earthing somehow, and you must try to trick Vista. IOW the powerdip (or peak, whatever) should be detoured to something you DAC can't notice.
Like with me, it will be your amps passing through the "click" (I think that can be proved by the battery operation still suffering from it).

If all is right, you can see it happening by the device just disappearing (or getting into unavailable status) from the list of sound devices (rightclick on spekar icon and "list of devices") when it happens.


If this is not Vista, then I don't know.

May you not have seen it already, 2L uploaded the B.Britten for 96/24 stereo now : http://www.2l.no/hires/index.html