XXHighEnd - The Ultra HighEnd Audio Player
March 29, 2024, 04:03:43 pm *
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?

Login with username, password and session length
News: August 6, 2017 : Phasure Webshop open ! Go to the Shop
Search current board structure only !!  
  Home Help Search Login Register  
  Show Posts
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 ... 1046
16  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Tidal Login failed on: August 28, 2023, 02:32:16 pm
Hey Richard !
If you got married ... then I hope you didn't need to sell your boat. ;-)

There is a (slow) work in progress regarding Tidal. But as how it is now, it is not really possible to integrate it with XXHighEnd. But see the post from Rudolf above; that brings something at least.

Kind regards,
Peter
17  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: Tidal Max on: August 21, 2023, 07:48:54 pm
I think there is interpretation involved as well.

As I have a kind of proved (kind of !) that all can be done on ad-hoc basis by Tidal, they could execute the MQA "folding" just the same. But now it all depends on the Tidal "download app" which a. downloads and b. interprets what to do with it (example : MQA).

My own conclusions so far in this topic could be wrong just the same. We must really throw some IQ/reasoning at it.
18  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: Tidal Max on: August 16, 2023, 06:18:12 pm
Hey George, thank you !

For others : what you see below I still had on-screen, so yes, indeed that.

... But I may miss the point of what you are trying to bring across ...

In any event the files as how they will be on your HDD do not contain the data to "be" HiRes. Look at the files sizes in my previous post. The top part of the two lists is close to twice the size of the bottom part; the bottom part is just 16/44.1 (the top part 24/48).
For more reference below a screenshot of a "local" genuine album in FLAC with slightly worse FLAC compression.

So, despite of what you wanted to bring across, I see that the Tidal app upsamples just as the MQA prescription has been (thus not only for Roon and Hardware, but also for the Tidal app itself).

We are all hoaxed, and it is my estimate that some pay extra for that as well (my subscription still costs 19,99 for "Hires").

Super thanks !
Peter
19  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: Tidal Max on: August 16, 2023, 02:07:27 pm
Something is seriously wrong, and possibly Tidal doesn't know that themselves.

First a conclusion of what's below, because I don't think I knew this : it should be so that the Tidal MQA presentation always was done on the fly. Read : during the playback (download if you will) the album is processed and turned into MQA. This should be derived from the "fact" that the Album ID stayed the same (see below) while today no 24 bit file comes from it. You will believe me when I say that the bottom version was denoted Max.

It may be less easy to grasp that the original MQA album was 24/96, but see below to proved that (2nd picture).

So one hour or so further and I have not been able to find even one album that would be Hires, so what remains is the proof that the Tidal app plays them as Hires. So let's see how we do that ...
Well, no clue. I guess this starts with not being able to play anyway because of (a Tidal message) "There's a network issue - unable to play".
Oh well.

An intermittent other conclusion seems to be that with the one album showing Max and the other showing nothing (= "Lossless") both are always 16/44.1 for those cases I examined and this includes existing ones on my HDD which are 24/48 at the file level. I have no clue / hint about whether these albums now are album-originals (CD's) or that now all flaws over at Tidal's and that Album ID's have been mixed up or what not.

If someone is able to verify the playback rate of the Stevie Wonder album (see in the first picture below) by Tidal app means, please don't hesitate. This should not be done by something like Roon, because that will upsample by default, once it detects MQA (and that tag sure is still in there - it now implies the Max tag).

I suppose it is very well possible that all is now tweaked such, that all prior MQA playback now thinks it is Hires. Why ? well, because
a. It was MQA's prescription for a few years already that upsampling should be done 2x by standard (I just did not comply to that with XXHighEnd);
b. I heard that MQA lights still lit, but that the blue/green led comes not on any more.

Ad b.: This would testify that officially MQA was shut off, but that we are fooled as much as we already were. Just by full automation. You can't see it on anything. Yea, with XXHighEnd ...
Or download the files and throw some knowledge at it (look at the file size - play through Foobar and *know* that it s*cks to begin with or else you'd be sure to do something wrong (while you are doing it right).

Pfff


20  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: Tidal Max on: August 16, 2023, 01:06:10 pm
Hey Colin,

Great thanks - I can work with that.
But bad news - as expected ...
It is 16/44.1 or IOW, the stupid MQA stuff (not even the "good" stuff, because 16 bits).

Internally it is denoted "HiRes" opposed to "Lossless" (smart move) and it readily explains why I deemed many albums flawed-sounding - this will sound bad as well (because molested Hires and nothing is done to it by XXHighEnd now (MQA decoding is disengaged per new download means).

Of course this depends on your info, although I can of course check that myself too. Wait ...
Hmm ... that says Master, so where did you find Max ? I verified the ID :
https://tidal.com/browse/album/4157739
hahahahahaha, bunch of stupid ***sholes. Look below;

So my Tidal player proposed an update and after that voilá, the Master denotation changed to Max.

As a bonus, the last picture shows nothing next to the albums while prior to the update more than half showed "Master" next to them.

So as expected, Tidal is fooling us all and I guess it won't be so that they saw that I can see through all (XXHighEnd can), and thus they banned XXHighEnd as a software player from Tidal. I do like to think this though. bye

Question is : how do all formal Tidal players work with this ? have they all been banned ?
How does the existing MQA hardware go about this ? The album is exactly the same as it was (you could do a compare, Colin) so that hardware (but also software players) will happily show it is still MQA.

In the end it is not the best example, because we should have a 24 bit one. But now I know how this works, I can inject those myself a. to the new environment and b. to the Tidal app.

More in a next post.
21  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: Tidal Max on: August 16, 2023, 06:27:03 am
Hi Colin and everyone,

A bit late with responding ...

I made good progress yesterday. The general consensus is that I was finally able to create an environment that allows comparison (meaning : all in good shape from within XXHighEnd). This now also allows to observe what "Max" does or does not.

Having said that, I don't even know yet how to recognize "Max" as such. This could be the most simple "look at the Sampling Rate, Peter !". Sure, but I like to have the examples first. When I have a couple - or know how to find them via the Tidal app - I can run the Spectrograph as usual (from within XXHighEnd). So if you have suspects, don't hesitate to post them here !
I think I told about it elsewhere, but if we have a new way of knowing how to observe certain data, it will be a matter of laying out the workflow as how I go about it myself at this moment. This means (for short cuts) that XXHighEnd can not search and integrally create the Library Area with Tidal albums as how we were used to, but they still will be there and, for example, show the latest (New) albums ready to play. Below an example of my New library (most people won't even know about the New feature as per last 2.11 super vague Release Notes), which just shows over my good old 2.11 Audio PC (Mach III in my case) without any bit of upgrade - put there yesterday. So the workflow is about how to create that in such a way that it is downwards compatible with all we have. And regardless of Max (which may or should work just the same), I have that now.

And for the best fun again : You can see it never stops and how I never get around with a new version, because now I finally have this going, it is Max which tempts again or a next new step first. I am also quite definite about something else (or actually not) : this Cloud stuff does not work out at all because a developer like me will always be behind the facts and things just stop working underway. I think elsewhere (in the realm of Tidal) I talked about how I killed the Amazon integration because of the very same, but already more than 10 years ago ... today this still happens. Tidal changes things, MQA comes about, MQA disappears, Tidal changes prior to that, and now Tidal changes again (with the Max thing, FWIW at this moment). The ERP environment (my main job) bugs me the very same. If the main tools are not "on premise" as how it is called, then it is up to the Gods how your company will survive the next month with the grilles (?) of the vendor(s) involved. I have *that* still all on premise, but it means that there can't be progress or else I have to do all myself within that shielded environment. Tidal is very similar, while they even cut me (XXHighEnd) off (say because I kept on going my own way, including not doing what MQA prescribed). In the end I will lose that - in the end all the customers will lose. But still not yet ...  Thank you !

Peter
22  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: Tidal Max on: August 09, 2023, 12:17:05 am
At this moment all is too vague - and even worse than how it was with MQA alone. Probably this just *is* MQA as per reports that people's MQA DAC lits blue or green or whatever MQA colour.

Tidal itself is not to be trusted, like them just ditching software that can decode MQA which they or someone don't like ?

All 'n all I am waiting a little till the dust drops. But I will also try examples and see what comes from them technically, but also audibly.
Keep in mind that this is about the Spectrograph thing again and that you could do the same tests as you did (with so much efforts) before. If you only have that download means first (and I think you have that).

I am not sure yet how to approach this. I mean, if it would be decoded MQA, it should be possible to compare it to MQA-decoded files we decoded ourselves (IOW, the Unicode files again - you know about it all, Colin).

Notice that I don't/didn't trust the Max stuff from the start.

Best regards,
Peter
23  Ultimate Audio Playback / Playback Tweaks and Source related subjects / Re: MQA in Administration on: July 22, 2023, 07:30:41 pm
Hi Tore,

I have been working on something on and off, and it is in the stage of CoverArt not wanting to show.
When I see a minute, I am working on it.

Regards,
Peter
24  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Can Windows 10 14393.0 be added to my 2016 vintage RAMOS drive? on: July 16, 2023, 08:59:26 pm
Nice to read all that feedback, Steve.

Glitches I never received with XXHighEnd. So this must be / have been some external situation. For example, I can imagine that if you don't play from RAM (accidentally), the VHD OS file may incur for anomalies. But a too long shot already.
Fact is also that you shouldn't leave it in because it impedes. This is in general (consumes power) but it also might incur for interrupts by the OS. This is because officially it is taken out (actually by OS means) but meanwhile it is - or could be the hardware that asks to come back again (it is hot-plug organized).

For the memory - maybe don't bother; First of all this is just (my) theory and/but secondly I coincidentally tried it because one DIMM went bad in my server board (I had 6 of them laying around for Hexa config), and after 3 weeks of being annoyed I bought new non-ECC and all was good again. But mind you, this is after having set settings for that non-ECC situation which built up in ... 5-6 years ? This includes all kind of ^2 and ^3 cable settings. So it possibly is just what one was used to. And don't ask me whether there are 1 million or 2 million+ parameter combinations (including cable configs) ... it is all just crazy.

I'm sure you are good ...
Peter
25  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Can Windows 10 14393.0 be added to my 2016 vintage RAMOS drive? on: June 28, 2023, 06:20:08 pm
Haha - Steve You ...

If the PC boots that slow, it's the wrong BIOS you are using. This is really the reason why I had to stop with the Mach III (say Mach IV) - the later Scalable Xeons only run on new boards with general BIOS instead of ASRock's own BIOS (or maybe by now I forgot the exact combination as it must already be 3 years ago I last tried).
The current Server Board used in the Mach III is still available I think (I still bought a couple 2-3 months back) - but at USD 500 or so (ouch). That boots under 2 minutes, but get the right processor (they are EOL for 3 years indeed).
The speed of HDD vs SSD really does not matter one bit - the loading is way too slow anyway.

Steve, you *must* use MinOS *AND* remove the SSD after booting. You will see ... (no need to buy a new DAC yet).

If you use a server board, do not use ECC memory. Sound will become cr*ppy because of that. And use the memory at the lowest speed, which means that you need to find that first (like 1433 or whatever it exactly is). Processor the same thing : use it at the lowest speed bearable (like around 500MHz). Switch off two cores if you have sufficient of them (see Boot Menu at the bottom). Switch off Turbo Boost in the BIOS.
There is so much more and most can be arranged for by XXHighEnd. Switch on Hyperthreading so you can achieve lower clock speeds in the first place (namely half).

There is much more to respond to (in your nice post) but let's say that PCs are a big mystery. A lot is related to how USB works, and you can see that by means of the crazy differences on the configs of the Lush^2 or Lush^3.

Kind regards,
Peter
26  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Can Windows 10 14393.0 be added to my 2016 vintage RAMOS drive? on: June 21, 2023, 06:13:28 pm
Sent you an email Steve !
Peter
27  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Can Windows 10 14393.0 be added to my 2016 vintage RAMOS drive? on: June 19, 2023, 09:39:48 am
Hey Steve - long time.

Yes, 14393.0 is quite "ultimately" better. But it is also more robust towards XXHighEnd (or the other way around).
The best description for 14393.0 is that it is more consistently sounding over various music types (and albums as well). More smooth - less digital. This latter allows for interesting different XXHighEnd settings (because all is inherently more smooth, you can dial in more extremes without them disturbing).

Small issue (kind of) : If you don't have 14393.0 on your RAM OS Disk, you will also have a more old XXHighEnd. And *if* I would be able to add 14393.0 from the distance, then still that upgrade is needed as well, and I've always thought that people shouldn't do that themselves (for RAM OS).
So I think the better option is this :

You obtain a new RAM-OS disk against cost only. This is the disk, the little work and the shipping (say that this totals to EUR 160 including PayPal costs).

You will then have the exact same 10586 with possibly even the same XXHighEnd version in there (but it could be a few versions newer).  The 14493.0 which also is in there, will contain XXHighEnd 2.11 (this is the latest version).

Let me know whether you currently have a HDD or an SSD. This matters for the memory size (both more and less than you currently use, won't work out and the storage type determines the memory size).

We could make it tomorrow and then you'd have it on Thursday.

Kind regards,
Peter
28  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Windows 11 ? on: May 20, 2023, 11:25:37 pm
Yes. But if you ever obtained 2.x then it's still for free.

Peter
29  Ultimate Audio Playback / Phasure NOS1 DAC / Re: NOS1 DAC with BlueSound Node on: May 20, 2023, 11:23:13 pm
Hi Dave,

There's an S/PDIF (coax) connection looming in there, but not more than that, so No. sorry.
In the very first incarnation S/PDIF was there, as a kind of gadget. Then with the first upgrade I asked everyone (individually) whether they wanted to keep that connection, and 100% said No.

I should not worry too much because everything "streaming" doesn't sound too good. So the DAC might be the same, but it still won't sound good.

Regards,
Peter
30  Ultimate Audio Playback / XXHighEnd Support / Re: Windows 11 ? on: May 18, 2023, 06:53:59 pm
Hey Hey Telstar,

All beyond 14393.0 (W10) is a dead end. This is mainly because I can't keep on "trying" for any new version to get it going. This with also the prospectus that the newer sound worse.
Together with this, 14393.0 is still as good as it ever was, so there is just no need.

Anyway W11 won't work for you because it won't go into MinOS. sorry

Kind regards and nice so see you again !
Peter
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 ... 1046
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Powered by SMF 1.1 RC2 | SMF © 2001-2005, Lewis Media Valid XHTML 1.0! Valid CSS!
Page created in 0.465 seconds with 12 queries.