Hey Klaus,

Oh ... that digital volume control is waaay better, you know that I know ...
But indeed not with 24 bits.



Regards,
Peter

Hi Elias,

Thank you for jumping in.


Maybe not to discuss this, and merely to put it in the context of us audiophools hence everybody knows what he/she can head for :

I don't think anyone with great care for his audio payback would want or should use software (aka digital) volume control. Note the "great care" though, of which I know that the people in here (say, this community) are about that to the highest degree. "They" hear everything, and so to speak, an i++ sounds different than an i = i + 1.

Now, unless you have a very dedicated / tuned set of amps allowing for 24dB attenuation max, 24 bits is not enough. Even 32 bits would allow for 48dB attenuation only without any losses, but, that would suffice with not too crazily over-powered amps. For me anyway (33W into 114dB @8Ohms and always playing loud).

So, using 24 bits with 16 bit data for digital volume control, honestly is not an argument IMHO.

Besides playing (original) 24 bit data - which seems "useful" enough to me to need 24 bit support in XXHighEnd - things can get rather complex;

First I'd say that using a 24bit DAC with 16 bit data, this DAC theoretically will be more (Voltage) stable at the 16'th bit. So, an advantage.
Next, however, I would be using a sigma/delta operating DAC then, which is far from my personal likings (and principles around XX) : non-oversampling.
Third, the first might not be true because of the 1-bit operating, me now not knowing whether there's advantage/disadvantage and if so, where.

Elias, I only responded to your implied "24 bits is better".
If that would be a ladder DAC (and for me without filters), yes.

Regards,
Peter

Ah ...
Hmm ... Well, I never bothered myself with these kind of things. But I guess I should. And (for me) there's also just the LAN.

Note though that the wireless (Wifi !) connection can incur for much more misery than a normal cable connection. E.g. it could well be that from there all your CPU useage came (comes) ... and it certainly can cause "hickups" in sound (them possibly ending up in distortion). This is my experience by hear-say.

Now the question is : what do you mean with "offline" ?

This is just a warning for those struggeling with their amounts of data, and it all not fitting on one HDD :

From of the next version (0.9t) there is no good reason to "span" harddisks to one large volume. And in fact, it would be wrong strategy. Why ?

There may come a time that you bump into over 2TB of data. Now, at least for Vista/32 it must be assumed impossibe to create a (spanned) volume of over 2TB by means of normal Windows Disk Management (external RAID solutions is another matter).

Note : I was warned in advance that it could not work, and as ignorant as I am, I did not believe it. Instead I tried to prove by means of Google that it can or cannot work, and came up with "can" only, or anyway no proof at all of the opposite.
And thus I tried ...

So be warned : When you attempt to create a volume larger then 2TB, most probably starting off with existing data like a spanned 2 x 1TB harddisk and then adding a third, you *will* loose your data.

At first all looks okay, but after a reboot the volume can't be mounted anymore, and there is no (normal Windows) way of getting it back.
Yes, I used the GUID partioning, and since all tells it should work, I guess it's just a bug and nobody tried (or reported it on the Internet, and  where more "normal" situations of large data would be setup by means of RAID).


More arguments not to do it :

Spanned volumes are more dangerous for loosing data than normal volumes, like RAID volumes are even more dangerous.
Then, with the upcoming 0.9t there's really no need to do it, since XXHighEnd will create one logical volume from all the disks you appoint.

Peter

Anyway, this more real solution is coming up now, as well as some more goodies.
Ah, and collecting it all at the speed of light (what about 1 second for 2500 albums).
Or 2 second search in 30,000 tracks.

Actually there is ...
The digital volume of either of the digital outs on the Fireface can be changed ... (by means of the Mixer).
Let one of them stay at 0dB (that one would pertain the best quality). Also, never go over 0dB, so only lower.

By heart I can't tell whether this is possible for the SPDIF device. So maybe for the output you want to control you must use two ADAT channels (left/right).

HTH
Peter

Can you please share your settings ? (also please put the most important stuff in your signature )

Hi Leif,

I just checked, but at Attended Playback as well as Unattended Playback it just works ... And I checked all Engines ...
So what exactly do you mean ?

Note that it is by design that when no sound is playing, just nothing happens at Next (not even selecting the next track; I did not see the usefulness in that).

So ?

The bad one : http://www.audiogear.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?key=Adpt-2RcmRcff&preadd=action

The better one : http://www.audiogear.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?key=ADPT-2RCFRCMRTGLD&preadd=action


Not selected by sonic quality, but by physical strength. The first is a "loose" type (but the most common).

Peter

Yep, that would cause it.
Further, please see my before post ... Sorry for now ...

Answer to both questions : that's correct.

But now I wonder ... Why wouldn't it be possible to Y-split the output channels of your current DAC ? RCA Y connectors exist, but be careful to buy two good ones.
Ahh ... uhh ... ohh ... your TacT is the amplifier as well, right ?

Hardly imagineable. Exclusive/Shared by itself is not done "in" the DAC. It depends on how you mean to say it though;
If the DAC just isn't capable of receiving 16bit data (at 44K1), it just can't connect to the program.


And indeed that would solve it then.
It will be the next main subject (or project if you like). Padding only is rather easy.
But after I finished with what I'm doing currently. () I'm first going to work through the pending bugs.

If you say "but under Vista it doesn't want to go into exclusive mode", what exactly do you mean by that ? How do you know ? messages ?

I can't imagine how that Spooler service can shut down several times. Maybe you talk about some other message as I think ? Or maybe it starts itself again ? (maybe it can, I don't know).

Also, did you try it with all priorities to normal ?