I thought to create this topic to share our mutual experiences for the best places to get coverart (album pictures).
Please take into account that a 300x300 picture can be used rather well, but that larger pictures really are better, *and* will be explicitly used in future XXHighEnd versions. Obviously the pictures should be of the best quality. Their filesize is irrelevant, since lossless audio files are so much bigger anyway (say 700MB for a CD and 200KB for a good picture).

I myself come up with these :

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amazon :

Generally good pictures of good size. Search is a bit awkward, and it relatively takes much time to get to the large size picture.

Discogs :

A good escape for dutch titles, often not found on Amazon. Good pictures of good size and quality which can be found fast. Searching itself is something to learn here, with paying attention to the indications that *you* searched wrongly (miss one character and you get a list of unwanted results).

Slothradio :

Never really used this yet, but it may be the fastest *if* you immediately find the picture of the size you like. It's obvious that this doesn't find them all. Start with this one, and have the other on-line as well, might be a good option.

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Note : Be careful to save the pictures in the best quality, which would be "100%" and "1:1" once in the JPEG save program. Do note that these both are not the default, and saving with these settings make the filesize grow. However, do not go like this, and the picture will be (significantly) worse. Remember, the filesize of the pictures are really irrelevant.

Ok ok, I read it.

Well, the only thing I can say is : You mention the exact same phenomena everbody comes up with (including myself), so you don't need to be afraid it will be gone when you wake up later. You will discover more too.

As for the volume you mention (and you should put those things really overhere), there's no volume control in XXHighEnd, and any "louder" perceivement is due to higher dynamics. Just watch for that, and whether that could be right ... When you're ready for it, compare it with Engine#3/Double ...

Btw, we're going here. My own fault.

I edited my before post. You were quick.

Btw, I'm not going to browse other forums and have my info scattered. Hope you don't mind !

You must be as late as I was a few hours ago

Just make a screen copy, or when that inconvenient, start with typing the first two lines only (that usually is enough).

Even if you have it going by means of smaller files, I'd still like to know the error so it can be solved.
Do note that your RAM is too few for the requirements (to stay out of all trouble you'll need 2GB for Engine#1 and #2 and then you'd be able to run tracks as long as one CD).

Edit : I think you used Engine#1 and tried to load a virtual track of 64MB. It can't have that on XP. (it's in the Help.htm). On Vista it can.
You'd be having an Out of memory error then.

Hi Rupe,

The only thing I could say is that it's a decent connection, it (the Fireface) reclocking the data (eliminating jitter) at the other end of the SPDIF cable. Besides that it's a very convenient device (soundcard) for making audio connections (or recordings).
I don't think you should put more attention to this than that it's "approved", with which I only want to say that other soundcards might be as good. I'd sure have an external one though.

Be careful with the internal High Definition Audio Device, because this would be (to my guess) a sound device controlled by a Class Driver (which is a general driver supporting many general things for sound, but not the specific for dedicated sound devices), and the only one I bumped into on a laptop wouldn't work for Exclusive Mode which is what Engine#3 uses.
I know, a confusing phrase, but since the general advise is not to use internal soundcards at all, you could just scr*p the phrase. 

If you're not bothered by the price of the Fireface, just get it and you're good.
If you are not bothered by the price *at all*, get the Fireface800. 

This version should solve the problem (for those running Vista Business (other ?)), that XXHighEnd starts, gives the "Demo" message, and then immediately quits.

Do not register the DLLs included. Just put the lot in the XXHighEnd current directory and give it a go (XXHighEnd.exe).

Note : Currently it was NOT tested nor checked, whether this "install" might bring anomalies to those users not having problems before;
This counts for Vista as well as XP. When you suddenly have problems, please post !

This version, for Engine#1 and Engine#2 is prone to sound different. The chance that this really is so, is small though.

Thank you for sharing !



There's a 0.9d version coming up in the next hours. It could be so that it helps your, but officially it shouldn't matter. But :
In 0.9d there will be some sort of error message for sure. Please post that here.
But before you do that, could you look in your Windows folder whether you have a DirectX for Managed Code folder hanging in there ? (below screencopy is from Vista, but that doesn't matter).


For now, yes. In a future version at least the lossless formats will be supported, and your cue file is just a good idea (hence, why not).
If you want to continue on this, please post it in a separate topic.

Peter

Status update :

As it turns out, at least Vista Business just does not contain the Framework DirectX features or Managed Code, but worse ... it also doesn't want to have it ...
This means no DirectX update will get in the necessary stuff, and here we are once again in what's called the DLL Hell.

Throughout the day I've been working offline with JohanZ to nail down what it all is what it (Business) wants to have, and after we worn out eachother a few hours ago Mercman came around so I could freshly start to wear out him while I was dead already.

Right at this moment the last things are sorted out by Mercman, and a new version will come up soon, or maybe a couple of hours later because I have to sleep first.

Anyway, both of you guys, thank you very much for your efforts, and Johan, I hope I didn't cause you a burnout by this !
Sometimes these things are just impossible to sort out on the developer location. Thanks !!

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Maybe I should apologize for this stupidness, which was really unforseen. I'm still not sure how official it is that this DirectX stuff (for dotnet framework managed code applications) is not contained in Vista Business. Google just brings too much around this on Audigy and related things, so it's hard to find a proper page about this.

Note : This most probably is not related to those who have similar issues (Demo - quit) with XP. The solution might be the same though.

By this, do not draw the conclusion that XX is a DirectX player. It is not or at least partly not. It uses Device Enumerations and some more from it though.

For those who have this, please use 0.9c and report back ...

Edit : ... which has been removed quite some hours ago, because it already brought sufficient info to proceed on. See next post.

By now a few people reported that right after the message "XXHighEnd Demo" the player quits. This can happen in XP as well as in Vista.

Although I have an idea what this may be about, I have no clue on what's really going on at those systems having it;
0.9c will bring an error message on those systems where this occurs. Would you please :

- Provide a screencopy of the error message;
- Mention the exact OS and version you are using.

I presume that you performed the steps as mentioned in Install notes and getting an Activation Key, no matter whether you think you already have that. Please note the importance of the latter, because it looks like (for several people) that the reinstall of the according does help.
If you don't want to go through this trouble afterall, please post the screencopy anyway, but mention that you indeed did not exactly perform the steps implied. I'll at least know that then.

I hope together we can bring this to an end soon.

Edit : Removed the zip because it's nailed down (a new version is coming up later).

This is just presumptions :

In the "kernel" of any audio player, many many things can go wrong. In fact, it would be one of the major reasons why I started XX.
Now, since it is not so difficult to prove that Vista makes a mess of things at upsampling (Test track with distortion which isn't there... currently we do not know what goes wrong more ...

Note that there are two kind of glitches as such (or as how we could address them) : the sound stopping for a very short while (actually a dropout) and the sound "sticking" for a while with the same sound (samples).

The latter is very easy to incur for if the programmer did something wrong.

Note though that you didn't listen through headphones yet, so you have been listening to the same as I do overhere. I didn't hear glitches through loudspeakers and Vista upsampling, so you did not either because of that (!!).

If it's not clear, it's not important I think.

Thank you Gerner. According to the above this shouldn't matter, but again all comes down to listening through the internal speakers or headphone;
If there are the glitches just the same, the other Firewire card isn't going to help.

So Chris ...



I actually don't see you explicitly answer (or respond to) on this one.

Do note : depending on your hearing capabilities, ind *if* you can hear slight glitches here too, you just might be listening to what Vista's "KMixer" makes form it. You *will* be listening through this KMixer this way, and we already know that for sound quality it isn't right. But personally I wasn't looking for glitches through headphones, so maybe they are just there.



Parallel in waiting for another Fireware PCcard, it might be useful at this monent to get a bunch of those in the picture below. Note you'd need the Mono version (this *is* important).
You can also buy a couple of leads doing the same. A pro audio shop (with pro synths and keyboards etc.) will most probably have them.
It will prove wether things go wrong after the Fireface or not. Thus, if with analogue out there are no glitches, it's the Fireface communication with the TacT.

Btw, those plugs are always very handy, just because you can do many things with the Fireface, but then you'd always need these.

Here's a card of which the word goes that it works : http://www.supermediastore.com/ads-technologies-api-601-pyro-card-bus-1394-dv-for-notebooks.html#description

Gerner uses it into his Fireface400 from (I think) a Dell laptop running with Vista.

I think a bunch more of you getting this message without anything further (player immediately quits) , without me knowing it.

Well, working on that right now ...

Hi you audiophool ! 

Let me try to give some you some answers ...

Most important I think :


Yes, since any USB DAC would.
For XP you'd have to use Engine #2 (not Doubled because the DDDac supports up to 48K sampling rate only).
For Vista you can use any engine, but only #3 would be bit perfect.
Note : For XP I really can't tell whether it would be bit perfect because you'd need a digital output on the DAC to measure it. Some say it is ... (from theories only).

Your nos-DAC would be allright from the nos-principle, although it always will be you judging that. The fact that you chose it, says enough I think.
I do not know by heart how many bits your 24 chip DAC supports, but IIRC any (dual) tower below 1 m may stop at 14 ...
But maybe you can tell ?

For your 8" screen I'd have to change something with the width of the shown titles (vs the shown album picture), but if you can wait a bit, that will be there.

Best would be to have a dual boot system. Why ? because to me it is not 100% clear which of XP/Vista produces the best sound. They are very different anyway, and although Vista is more accurate, XP tends to be more natural (what to do with that ?). Do note, however, that Vista's Engine#3 has to be exploited yet. So best would really be to be able to choose.


For a few that still happens though, but I'll help till I drop.
When all is settled a bit, everyone should be okay.

If you've more questions ... I hope I can answer them.
Peter