For now this doesn't leave my mind;

Thinking of the +2V/-2V story, I think I am able to build in a check for too large voltage steps happening.
Yes, I will test it myself.

For now, and for others KEEP ON KEEPING THIS IN MIND !

... and maybe for more reasons than indicated here :

So, second response ...

hybride, this indeed is serious. Ok, not to withdraw any of my sad feelings, but this is literal part of the Release Notes :


so on that matter I tried my best. However ...

The "why" is important here. And I know, not for you ... not this time. !

In between lines : I had it myself in three occasions or so, the last time yesterday at going from one format (like 96/24 to 96/16) to another the player can't deal with, and for which I did my stinking best to capture the situation. I wrote about it yesterday ...

Does this help you ? no, still not obviously.

The real (kind of) response is that one should be over-careful not to try this on material you actually don't know, or don't know how it works out within XX. And I can't emphasize more on the FACT that Microsoft herself does not comply to the RIFF (blahblah) Audio (Red Book) rules, with the example of WMP rips on one side and playback via WASAPI Exclusive Mode on the other.
And then there's also errors on my side ...

In the area of playing without a preamp there are dangerous dangers. One of them is the loud clicks, which were discussed yesterday I think, at the DAC settling at 88.2 or 96 KHz. At least with my DAC this is so, that most probably always have been so, but never came out as the loud unattenuated click because of ... well, it just being attenuated analoguely.

I want to write more, but it doesn't help you.
I can only hope a wire went loose ...

First response : you are allowed to shout as much as you want. Special occasion.
No, I won't put smileys, because this is far from funny.

A second response is coming up.

I don't think that can create the loud cracks hybride is talking about Gerard.

I explained this elsewhere (release notes on 0.9u-0 I think) :

This is not 0dB, but (as I say) clips the DAC. The byte order will be wrong, and e.g. +2V jumps to -2V in one step. The DAC can't handle that.
Try to set the volume at 0dB and notice that it's way louder then ... 

Btw, in that file the data will be wrong.

But ... but I don't know what you mean !!
If I 'took notice" of something, I must have forgotten. Help ?

Guys (and Gals ?),

More or less derived from the happenings as expressed in Interesting Q1 & .9U-2, and no matter how short noticed (and with few responses) this is so far, I think it is time for a Q2 slider (noting that Q1 is not being called Q1 for nothing all the time ) ...

It will be a most complex attack to get good sound, uhmm, better sound again. I'm fairly sure it will work out.
But are you up to it ? Isn't it too soon ? Shouldn't we wait a bit ?

Don't say "No !" too quickly, because "adjusting" XX to achieve the best sound will get more complex again;
Each new version of XXEngine3 (!) would take a new dial-in of this Q2 with no linearity and no logic in its relative positions, the other parameters still playing their own roles. In fact it would be nothing for myself, and somehow I want to get used to the latest SQ first, already not knowing whether I should change Q1 ever again (and I have never been much able to find the best setting of Q1 myself, and merely copied orther's behaviours already because a kind of lack of time in trying it all out ).

On the other hand, I can see now that it is needed, since at this moment we are under the (say "needed") influence of XXHighEnd again. IOW, I will not be able to retain the SQ as how it is now with any upcoming version, and were XXHighEnd will be changed for sure.

Btw, I think Q2 can be a self-calibrating thing, but it will need much experience with it to get that far. Think in terms of many months.

Oh well, maybe I don't really have the question to you, but I merely want to announce something for a next version with the bit depth stuff and such almost done.
 
Peter

FYI (all), Russ reported offline that 48000 Hz works again with 0.9u-3.

Thank you Russ.

Thank you VERY much for your testing *and* special testing capabilities.

I guess I'm starting to learn Andrey. I think I already told you that I could sense what you meant at the first 0.9u version. Yesterday suddenly all was back to far more "normal" as how things came to me, and this is why it didn't take me long to "change my signature". It's a kind of a 10 second decision.

Of course we now have the problem again that the sound is now superimposed by the player (XXHighEnd) instead of the real sound producer (XXEngine3) being able to do it alone. 0.9u-3 is a rather "full featured" version though, and the only near by functionalities to add are 176400/24 (and 16) / 192000/24 (and 16) playback. So, may something be destroyed for SQ in upcoming versions we can fall back to 0.9u-3 for a longer period I think (wasn't 0.7d such a long lasting version ?).

FYI : *Everything* (each line of code) which is changed is documented per date so I should always be able to go back. However, this is theory only, because when it is needed, I'd to eliminate functionality accordingly. As you know, this is why UnAttended Playback was introduced (the functionalities are in the player (XXHighEnd) only), but per 0.9u much was changed in the sound engine itself, due to the support of all the sample rates, bit depths, padding and all. The impact of that is as huge as we experienced, for the largest part for the better, but for that smaller part ... well, not.

Andrey, I am not a phychologist, but I tend to think that this time (with UnAttended) you are not sure that it is jitter causing the uneasiness. Just the way you speak about it tells me so. If I am right, would you be able to express what it actually is you sense, taking out jitter explicitly as a cause ?

What springs to my own mind is "sibilance". Sibilance of a same type all Class D amps show. Some very high frequency layer. Like a 2,4GHz clock influence. Hahaha.


I am not sure what further high schools it takes to work it all out, but the fact that some of you couldn't play the Q1 so low anymore without crackles, has never been solved really. I just did not do anything I am aware of, but it happened anyway. And now it's changed back INCLUDING a vast improvement of SQ. And mind you, my Q1 never left its -2 setting, so it's not a SQ change from changing the Q1 in my case.

Also, IIRC it can well be that the time that people started to report that Q1 didn't influence all that much anymore, is the same time that the Q1 couldn't be as low for many. On that matter here's a small prediction : from of now the Q1 influences as much as before again ?


Peter

Huray for hocuspocus !

I can't be sure whether things go together, but at the numerous testing with the track end problems (as was reported yesterday) I *had* to play Attended and in the end I changed my signature ...
IOW with this, we can have the coincidental situation that the influence of XXHighEnd itself creates a good (jitter) signature.

What I perceive from it is a less stressed sound in the cymbals opposed to UnAttended. They got better again IMO.
Btw, an IMO good album to always incorporate in tests is Get Yer Ya Ya's Out from The Stones. This is a most flat dull sounding recording, which gets better and better with subsequent versions of XX.

Anyway, I wonder what our jitter geek(s) think(s) about the jitter at Attended playback ?

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.

As the reports of today show, 0.9u-2 would play only one track at Attended Playback Mode, ending with the message "No track given" (and two more messages). If all is right, this has been solved.

Similarly, changing the time position slider during Attended Playback resulted in the wrong time point commence of playback. This too, has been solved.

Because of all the combinations (where all is related to sample rate and bit depth), mainly the first mentioned above took quite some hours of testing tonight. It looks like all was captured now (while before the impact of this was just forgotten, *and* was not applicable to UnAttended Playback which was used lately only, for SQ tests).
While severe testing may take longer than tonight only, it looked like better to have a possible 90% only solution for something which doesn't work at all with 0.9u-2 (which honestly looks more like not working since 0.9u-1).

Untested too, is the now explicit support for 48000/16 as well as 48000/16 with "DAC is" at 32 bits.

Dang Dave ...

Well, that normally happens in Demo Mode ...


200 Kms ...

The latter for sure, but without that still.
Explanation is (too) difficult though, and I'd rather awaiten my own approval which -this time- takes more than a few weeks of listening.
It's merely a reasoning why things are wrong otherwise (using analogue volume) than any tricks being applied, although the means the digital volume is applied is all the way legit in the first place (you could call that a trick as such).


Yes, these theoretical reasons definitely exist, but I'd rather that you (or anyone) first testify yourself that the results are as I intend (i.e. "WOW"), than creating placebo's all over that won't help anyone including me (or the other way around ).
Please keep in mind, this is a "way off track" theory, that made me start doing it anyway, and since it worked out for me (placebo !!) I so far think I'm right.
As you know, audio is  difficult, and the last thing I'd want is everybody just wanting to hear the same as e.g. I do. There's too much copying on the Internet already, and I want not only myself to stay far from that, but "you" just the same. No way to learn otherwise !
So far, all bits and pieces brought by some of you, are in 100% line of my own perceivement, and they are all but one on the positive edge. The exception, so far, is the lower bass end (as was brought by SeVeReD), and exactly that I recognize too.

I know, a great deal of these things you want to know because you really can't try it currently, but at this moment I really don't want to be all mighty while things are so much different that I keep on being in doubt myself what's wrong and what's right. You could say that *I* need the confidence from you all to be 100% sure. Only at that stage I will, say, "order" you.
I hope you can understand this (as well as the good cause).

Peter