Hi there Maxi,

No, nothing changed explicitly with Phase. But, it always has been so that changes in SQ can be dedicated to Phase "perturbations". Do not think about "out of absolute phase" (which would be a 180- degree change) but merely think about changes all over the place and in a fashion which can't be grasped.
This sounds worse than it is, because it always has been so. It is only that it never really has been given a name.

Kind regards,
Peter

Btw, with this setting, maybe for the first time I perceive a very genuine punch in the electric bass (for the string pluck).
Now I am confident that about all the people in the world may say that they had this 50 years ago already, but for those with the open baffle Orelo MKII (and Orelino just the same) this is just a tad more special; This is related to the seemingly impossibility to do so because of the lacking back chamber (no counter pressure). Still this appears now very well possible. So something in that area is now so ultimately fast (?) that the air itself provides this counter pressure. At least that is my idea with it.

N.b.: This is indeed relatively easy for a speaker with cabinet, but the enormous difference is the distortion level. Not that people should suddenly worry about this (you are (honestly) just used to it), but those with a speaker with cabinet can maybe envision how difficult it is for an open baffle speaker too imply the same literal punch. Well, as what has been proven with so many other things by now, it can all be controlled by very different means than we ever back could imagine.

Btw, this reminds me of the somewhat more turbulent times that Bert applied a change to the speakers, which I could do in software (always bit perfect). But the other way around just the same. So yes, really many things happened with the cooperation of all of us.

Happy New Year !
Peter

Hi Richard and Ramesh,

Ah, great. OK, so I will see if I can get the software to cooperate to have the lower SFS values with all else the same and nothing breaks.

Great thanks for your feedback.
Peter

Thank you very much for that feedback, Tore !

Yes, I can imagine this ti be very true. When I used the Mach II for an evening (described in that other topic) the very first I got rid of were those "new" settings. I ended up with that set with SFS=140.19, which to me feels in the same direction as what you currently use (as seen in your signature).

Kind regards and happy New Year !
Peter

Thank you very much, Ramesh. Really, really nice to read.

Happy New Year to you too !
Peter

Robert, that's set at "the same" (thus also 0.69). I don't know whether it makes a difference (it will be less convenient because at some stage you can't test the larger number unless you first reboot).

Regards and Happy New Year !
Peter

Well, although the story has been told already from an earlier similar experience, today I like to repeat it but with more emphasis, if possible :

Last night was the most painful of this year.

As you may have read in another post from me an hour or so ago, yesterday my Mach III suddenly did not work any more. All right, I tried something which only worked for a few days and apparently that was long enough (never mind what it was . Anyway, because this was right against listening time, it couldn't be changed back. But I always had my Mach II somewhere ...
That worked within 5 minutes (I actually love the RAM-OS Disk principe for that !) so off I went.

My perception of if was super positive in advance and actually I kind of felt ashamed already because what would happen if now my Mach II would sound better than the Mach III ? I mean, this could the most easily happen with so many things changed since last May or so. New  software settings I just found two days ago (see topic in Sound Quality), Lush^2, Blaxius^2 ... and indeed, right from of the first tones I was told that the sound was "softer" in the sense of "more palpable". My response : Yea, I hear that too, but mind you, this is the new settings I applied only yesterday in full (session). So I think you hear that. Anyway, I hear it too.

And this was about the last positive to mention about the Mach II.
It was one-big-struggle to get decent sound from it, which I could not achieve by any means (but I left the ^2 cables as they were). So I ended up with finding music, which was so un-articulate that I would not be bothered by the inability to perceive what's said in the lyrics.

The previous time I had to revert to the Mach II for an evening, the latter mentioned was not so obvious. Or at least not that I recall. Now, however, it was (brain)painstakingly painful to not being able to hear what's being sung, while your brain now is used to be able to do that in unsurpassed fashion. Strange.

Anything without lyrics even more so was painful because all was grey and smeared and, well, dead.

My mood got so bad from it that I actually had to cut off the preparation of dinner I was working on.
Yea, sounds silly, I know.

---

With the above - and which is not exaggerated anywhere - I once again want to bring across how super-much the Mach III bring to music and which - as it now turn out - does all on its own. So nothing was changed for environmental matters (no changed cables etc.) but it sounds even more like a drag than I recalled and for which I out of all was 100% prepared (because of the earlier experience). But not.

Might it matter for someone : this is about the 14/28 set to 10/20 Mach II against the 2640 (10/20) of the Mach II. So both (set to) 10/20 and it is thus really not about that.

As you hopefully know, this is not about selling something (also note that Stein - see a few posts back - is currently waiting for his Mach III to finish ). It is about the sheer guarantee that you miss out if you think that your Mach II is good enough. Well, OK, it is as long as you don't know better, just like I (and so many others) used the Mach II in all happiness for two years. But how fast do our brains adapt to newer situations. It is unbelievable. Really.

Peter

Destructive you ...


Richard, we will send you a new one. Same length ?

Best regards,
Peter

Here we go again ...

I an copying from my current settings :

---

Ehm ...

So the text above is from around 6pm yesterday (today it sat still in my browser, and while I tried to obtain the data from my Mach III PC, nothing responded. In itself this is an other story, so I will let that be for an other post, elsewhere.
Fact is that this is from yesterday and that it does not try to outbetter Richard's post. with new settings.
So continuing :

---

Q1 = 30
xQ1 = 5
SFS = 0.69
Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1
Core Appointment = 3-5
Nervous Rate = 10
Wallpaper On, no OSD feautures
(Driver NOS1 Control Panel buffer : 16ms.

This gives a complete different presentation again, and actually a more known from the past. But better again, IMO. Notice that this is a bit tough to judge, because so many things changed by now, hardware-wise. But main charactirestics :

- Unsurpassed better bass;
- Complete 3D behavior with about everything extending sideways from the speakers (more left than the left hand speaker, more right than the RH speaker).
- An again "more speed" perception but which is more palpable than the higher SFS settings (seems contradictory).

Fun for myself : I reasoned this in advance. Something like : Okay, after 10 years or so PeterSt maybe understands his software (approaches).

The new thinking is actually the smaller SFS again for reasons of better spread of noise. Think "overwhelming" the existing still present noise. I did this by leaving all else as it is

The trick is how to get there with the settings, without ending up in the same we already used for "years". So I only wanted to have the SFS down.
Well, that does not work because in "consistency" the software was (once again) not written for the contradictory settings (like large on one hand and small on the other).

Experimentation learns that an SFS of 0.69 is about the smallest one can get, but somehow taking into account the 0.19 thing (which undoubtedly makes no sense, but we arrived at that a little while ago), with the thinking that 1.19 is too large, so I applied half of the increase with 1. This gives 0.19+0.50 = 0.69.

This does not work because the volume now does not want to change (OK, one time). Now Q1 has to be further down and I did that in steps of 30, hence only adjusted the xQ1. 5 of that appears to be the minimum that all still works (7 works mostly but not always and 6 I did not try). Also, e.g. 1 does not give a better sound (the contrary). And thus :
Q1=30, xQ1=5.

This works, although there is always a small stutter at the volume increase.

The sound is so new and refreshing that I personally wonder what we have been doing lately.

In retrospection what Richard comes up with (which I thus only learned today), we can see a similarity in the Q1 needing to be lower. And to be honest, I started digging into the settings because actually 100.19 did not satisfy me either. Richard calls is smearing and it did not come to me like that, but my mentioned "buzzing" remained, which clearly is lesser with the SFS going higher. But the higher did not suit me any more either and thus something else had to change.

Now suppose Richard could try this briefly and he agrees without doubt, then I will unconditionally make the software work so it accepts the lower SFS settings (like 0.08 etc.) together with the other higher settings. And then we will have a SQ improvement for the next XXHighEnd version ...
Btw, I think those lower SFS settings can already be utilized, if only the volume does not need to change. But I never really listened to that, as not being able to change the volume leads to nothing.

And ... Thank you, Richard !
Peter

Ha !

From this small family all the best wishes to the extended family and that the upcoming year may bring again more than only a few software updates (which latter should arrive even sooner than next year).

Christmas time is always a measure for how on (or off) par the sound now is; those oldies usually sound better each year and for me the comparison is an objective A-B because of the long time between it, each year. Well, I recall last Christmas (2017) as a moment when it suddenly did not work out for the better. I never found out why and just forgot about it when Christmas was over. This 2018 Christmas Eve, however, surpassed all other Eves by miles and without any doubt. New since last year are Mach III, Lush^2 and Blaxius^2. It is unheard how all sounds so very "normal", never mind from 60s or 50s. Whoa, the "100 years old" starts to be in sight.

How can it actually happen that it goes on and on.

Now back to that software ... 

Happy Christmas everybody !
Peter & Gang

Hei Tore !

Thank you for sharing and great that your Avantgardes will last for an other 10 years.

Best regards,
Peter

Ha !

So, you dirty (old) man, it looks we should be happy that this wasn't bought including installation.

First off, like you say yourself, there will be a relatively significant burn-in in order.
Next, please take into account an even longer warm-up time in general. So like I said elsewhere, this seems to have increased from ("my") 20 minutes to maybe double that. Maybe not for the good listening (this starts at ~9 minutes over here) but for the ultimate, yes (and it assumes everything to be on 24/7 to begin with).

Is this related to the bass ? I actually can't tell. But if you can exchange with your other Lush^2 (was it broken in on the same configuration ?), I'd do that. The combination of the two is not to be underestimated and when two together requires a burn-in ... I actually can't remember a (customer) situation where this was in order. For myself not either. Could be extra-bad at first.

Don't forget the (BIOS) tweak that the 14/28 processor is set to be a 10/20 (set to 10 cores instead of 14). I did not do that for you (although you might have expected it). But don't tweak too soon and give burn-in is chance first.

Best regards,
Peter

Haha

Robert, Q1=30, xQ1=20. So nothing changed there.

Regards,
Peter

Hey Stein,



I will try to read your post tomorrow with a fresh mind; tonight it makes me too dizzy. Haha.

But but an attempt for a thorough answer : the Mach II and Mach III don't resemble anywhere SQ wise. I mean, it is not related to CPU cores among them. I could also say :

The number of cores (hence the CPU) in the Mach II may matter a little (which even could be a psychological thing) while they matter vastly in the Mach III. You could say : that more detailed the Mach III brings forward the music.

The fact (?) that a 24 core running on 20 cores only sounds better than the 24 running on 24, should be related to "more general resources" available for 20 cores vs 24 cores. Regarding this, think of all the processors of the Scalable family actually running against their "tops", but the one does it with more frequency and the other with more cores. In the end all perform the same but with different means and purposes. Now, things suddenly change when you have available the same resources, but shut off a few cores (but not too many for reasons beyond the scope of this post - *but* which means you can't do this with a too low core count processor).

The 12/24 seems to be in the middle of everything and in my theory it doesn't make sense really. And if you think it does, my advice would be most certainly to take the 10/20. Or try the 12/24 it as the first person ... (if it can be obtained easily - the 14/28 is fine on that these days).


Yes, I would agree on that. *If* I could be thinking of it.

Kind regards,
Peter
 

Hi All,

After trying the SFS of 80.19 for a small week, I noticed that too many albums received a "buzz" (as in buzzing sound). Not all, but some. I also think that the 80.19 is better than 140.19 (this could be personal, but say that the sound is a tad less "exaggerated" with 80.19).
I am now on 100.19 for a couple of days and it could be the best of both worlds ...

Peter