http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/showpost.aspx?postid=2361232&siteid=17&sb=0&d=1&at=7&ft=11&tf=0&pageid=0

I must stress that I have shut off Windows Updates always.
You wouldn't be suffering from this, would you ?

As long as you are not using isoschroneous USB (towards the DAC) and synchroneous (the HDD) together, it's ok.

A SATA connected HDD incurs for power down of the HDD (which IMO can be set for uptime; I just did not try it). This by itself is just good.

Oh, I forgot ... when I play at normal levels, I don't hear the clicks. Not at 5-6 meters distance.
I will look into the gapless though (already for my own sake )

Because it is far from easy Leon. I think I explained that elsewhere, though in another context. (Re: Easily rename all your cover art....). That's for a next time. Okay ?

Anyway, thank you, my pleasure (yes, for you) and I sure hope you enjoy it (and I did not mean it badly really ).
Peter

Hi Johan,


Hmm ... I don't hear any spinning sound of the harddisk. The relais clicks, yes (probably 20 meters haha).


Not a realistic one. Currently, everything which is added will degrade SQ or not make it better the least while that - right now - is needed first. So effectively, no.


Both types of USB connection officially don't go together. The HDD connection will prevale over the DAC connection. That's how USB is organized.
Nothing to do about that.

Btw Johan,

HDD power down afaik cannot be controlled over an USB connection (for me one of the reasons not to want such a connection).

Well, for 55 minute tracks you don't need gapless. So that's settled.

Then, I have the same disks, internally connected, and indeed they (relais) click. What to do with that ? I don't know ...
It is true, however, that when they spun down gapless does not work. I always thought it would be a setting somewhere. In fact, I still think so. Could even be a jumper setting.


Less important for now :

1:
2:

Wrong ! But I guess you knew that.

... or actually : For Engine#1 and Engine#2, those being the only ones running on XP.
But people ... since I had to listen to this a bit for testing purposes ... get Vista if you love good sound ...

Okay. Gapless should not be worse that it was for #1 and #2 with WAVs.
SQ for FLAC cannot be different than for original WAV files.
When a FLAC is playing, a FLAC icon will show now. Just to inform you.

Additionally, when Engine#1 can't cope with the file size (64MB, or actually, the limit was put to 6 minutes), XXHighEnd will auto-switch to Engine#2 (and back to #1 after the track concerned).
When this happens, your selected Engine#1 will show in red (see below screen shot).

Although it was not reported, when Engine#3 (thus Vista) had played, switching to Engine#1 and pressing Play caused an error. This is (at changing the Engine from #3 to #1) replaced now with a message that the player has to be restarted. Please note if this is not done, pressing Play anyway will cause nothing to happen further.

Edit : Hmm ... I deleted a comment about the expected SQ by accident as it seems. By now I can tell : even more aggressive than 0.9p / 0.9q. So no good for that (Vista/Engine#3).

When you have one core only, there's no effect anyway.

Not so difficult when you followed all a bit;
When I say (said) this, I did not explcitly work on SQ changes. But is is clear now (and this is only since 0.9pd where it's just easily proved) that things beyond my comprehension change SQ too.

So you had an early night Chris ?

Thanks.

I know that when something is wrong in the software, repeating (very) soft clicks occur. Something like prrt prrt prrt prrt (say these 4 times are per second);

Yesterday I had this one time with the 0.9pd version myself, and it looks similar to what others have reported; once it is there it won't go away (but it will be reset when a next track starts), and you'll get rid of it at pressing pause-start or at changing one of the parameters which change settings in real time (like Invert, Q1 position (not priority !)).

It is my guess, what happens is this (derived from the knowledge of the software being wrong, which is not the case here) :

In one occasion the processor was not able to cope with the refill of the buffer towards the DAC (better : soundcard). Say, it went behind.
Because of this the synchronization between the knowledge of the amount the buffer is filled (the buffer of the 48 samples which is talked about more often), and how it actually is, is out of order. Now each and other time the buffer runs empty the DACs keep on repeating the last fed samples (or similar, but that's not important).
For the general sound picture you may not even notice it (but it is dead wrong obviously), and at more wild music you won't hear the clicks.

People report this, I think, since the Processor Core Appointment.
Also, there would be logic in this to happen, because while the sound engine is appointed to its own core, when it itself needs more (within the given time) than the one core can cope with ... you're out of luck, whereas without the Processor Core Appointment, there was the other core jumping in.

If you have these kind of clicks, please report it;
The fact that I had it once in xx days does not worry me. But if you have it several times during a few albums, it is not the way to go.
Please note that you should judge this per 0.9q (and up) were it for comparing with Appoint Processor Core shut off (the older versions were not completely correct in that). When you don't compare, you can use 0.9m-1 and up (BUT when you have 4 cores you'd need 0.9q anyway).


For techies reading this : No, I can't recover (nor signal) such a situation because of the way I deal with the buffers.


My judgement is based on one situation only so it may be premature. Otoh, I combine it with other people reporting similar (which is only similar (ehh, the same) when it is about the soft clicks as described).

Thank you,
Peter

Hi Chris,

Since you reported (here) that offloading your Dell with some tasks helped, I Googled a bit, and you might get it much better when you offload all the unnecessary sh*t the Inspiron loads in the beginning. However ... it will not be you being able to do that ... (there are no official options for it).

Then, when you know how to Google for it ... many people have the same problem as you have, although often it is hard to judge because people report similar for the Sigmatel sound chip which is in there but ... which IMO is not used in your case.
Anyway, the solutions vary so much, that I personlly would give up in advance. But that's me ...

Might you Google yourself, note that the e1505 is the same as the Inspiron 6400.

Anyway, if you are really sure that offloading helps, go to a shop and let them eliminate all the unneeded stuff at startup.
One thing you can do yourself for trials :
If you go to Taskmanager - Processes, there (supposedly) will be a sqsvr (or something like that which starts with sq) process. If it is there indeed, kill it.
Note that at a reboot it will be back.
If it helps I'll tell you how to permanently shut it off.
It incurs for much harddisk I/O at regular intervals (60 seconds after the PC has hybernated once), and if these kind of things (offloading) help you, this will help too.

Whether this all is the right path to go ... I don't know. All of this should not bother in the first place ... but what to do ...

Peter

Hi Chris,

As I noticed earlier (Check your Firewire connection !) this can make a difference anyway ...

Further, this is a difficult one. So, indeed I did not change anything else (for settings), and also it could hardly be possibly to check all in a few hours of listening. But as often, it is the "first notice" thing that makes you decide;

In this case I re-heard the sound of 0.9p which desturbed me for a longer time, BUT, since I was playing MP3's with that only (checking the SQ) I thought it was a flavor of the MP3 compression. Now I don't think it was (but did not re-check).

This is a difficult one because it seems (to me) that the stage is wider and all is more spacious, but -as I found- this can be caused by micro distortions. So, in fact that already is (or might be) an indication that something is "wrong" (better : not enough reality).

To me it appears that more heavy music, though the better recorded - and our Anouk may be an example, gets ugly from 0.9q.
Also there is Emma Chapplin as a high key opera singer, singing through more heavy rockish music, and her voice receives a digital flair. Minor, but noticeable enough.
Keep in mind that I never have let go my boosted highs, so it's more easy to notice for me (and if something is wrong, it gets really wrong from it).

The flair in the highs might be appreciated as more fresh at first glance, but when you play various albums for a couple of hours, they all start sounding the same ... a typicle characterization of a flair ...

But as said, I never changed anything for Invert or Q1, so maybe it is necessary to do that.

If I only could find the relation between random SQ changes caused by a program completely unrelated to producing the sound ...
But I guess it's time to find a means to make all unrelated.

Peter

Hi Leon,

*Is* this MP3/FLAC ?

If so, that's the reason.
I don't check for that under XP (but I should).

Ok, I'll try to implement it in the next version.

Peter