So many options ...

Haha, yesterday I switched to the Mach II because of an issue with the Mach III I could not solve before play time (and I was losing play time already ). At first I used the Mach II "as is" and instead of not liking the sound I thought a. to be lucky to have sound at all (with the III out of order) and b. I was gong to try the direct input (without Phisolator) so I didn't care much.

Something happened which made it an interesting listen for the remainder ...

I fumbled a bit to connect the Lush to the direct input (in the blind - who organized the inputs that way ?) so it was clear that I was doing "something" while it also was clear that I was using the II now because we both together had been working on the issue of the III.

The music was playing no 10 seconds in this no-Phisolator situation and I was thrown a "BRIGHT !!".
Usually in such a situation this is always followed by an "or too loud perhaps" which is the logical conclusion often, as the louder the more harsh when the highs ain't right. My response to that : "well dear, it can't be the too loud because I am 6dB under par at this moment". And FYI, I already did that because the first 30 minutes with Phisolator made me do that (it really sounded to loud).

Ciska kept on being persistent that I played louder than other days and without real intent at first, I started to play music I played the past few days and asked what the actual difference was she heard. I heard only flatness BUT which was lifted a bit because of the brightness and she now kept on being persistent that there wasn't much difference with the past days. But mind you, I played music which should exhibit the sparkle and tinkle I spoke about yesterday and without that exhinit in the same music it is just "music" (in this case it was Yello's last studio album).

Strangely (not at all) enough because she could not espress what was different, she started to tell me what I had been fumbling there : I connected the Clairixa.

Right. And I couldn't have thought of a better way of telling you the exhibit over here because many of you know very well how the Clairixa sounds in comparison to the Lush. So *that* sound comes forward when I use the direct input, with of course the Lush.
It is all a step backwards, unless you like the preciseness of the Clairixa of course.

---

Don't be confused about the text above; this was about the direct input vs Phisolator input and not about the Mach II vs the Mach III - although the discussion over here went on about that very subject once I told what I had done. But this is for the Stealth III topic (later today).

Let me add explicitly her repeated words : brighter - more clear. There was also something about more layers and better left right movement (not sure whether we should call this left/right separation because the separation as such would be a negative (not integrated)). Fact is that this was about elaborating what she heard for positives (once the music was fairly flat and not about smashing cymbals) while actually she was negative only. "Too bright and too loud ... for sure too loud".

I will continue with hopefully more interesting stuff in the Mach III topic.

Peter

Mani, agreed !

Maybe there's something in my tuning of the Mach III which I obviously did with Lush and Phisolator. And to keep (in the back of your) mind : the Mach II is really showing a completely different sound; ultimately different. And as you may recall, this exhibits mostly in the highs. And now it is there where the difference occurs with the Phisolator in or out. Maybe no coincidence.

Nobody dares to try it ?

Regards,
Peter

Hi Mani,

Regardless of same mains/PE (but it is),

Right from the first second (seriously) this reminds me of a poor USB interface; too much bass and hardly any highs. The bass is annoying in the end (which is after 5 minutes ) because not sufficiently delineated (it's messy) and whether you perceive the "highs" thing fully depends on what you have squeezed out of highs in the first place. On this matter it already starts with the extra-extra I have here because of the Stealth III. And that extra-extra (highs) just completely disappears. Of course this can be good to you or anyone's ears and the "sweetness" as you describe it could be a thing to like, but by now such sweetness means deafness because of the stuffed ears feeling coming from it, your brain knowing there is more.

Apart from this explanation, for me it is just a most clear exhibit of poor USB. It is also the most tricky matter because everybody would be inclined to think it is better. I talked about this in the very same realm when the NOS1-USB was about to be born and back at the time it was a pitfall for me too.
On another matter it is nice (for me) to experience that something (the Phisolator) which was worked out in theory and actually was never audibly tested for its merits really (no A-B comparison) works out so well. OK, in this system with these ears.

I sure think that others should try it too. It's a night and day's difference.

(with Phisolator in)

Net, I think it is the other way around, but this could be a tricky thing to observe rightfully. If anything, the transients are completely different - or work out completely different (this is why I just said "net"). If you'd play music with a lot of tingles and bells and crackle, then this is just not there. It almost lacks completely. This tells me that transients are too much softened. That this in itself may let work out e.g. a snare drum "better" is something else, and if so indeed, it should be something else which can not follow really. Hard to see this really "deadens" but the sound will become dead as such (not enough life in it).
Nice semantec word games ...

Kind regards,
Peter

No.
Where Defender runs (and even keeps on running in MinOS) is a complete mistery to me. I never had to disable it but this sure does not count for everyone.

Thanks for trying !
Peter

Hi Arvind,

- Pull the short cable from the U input;
- Move the Lush from the I input to the U input.

You can leave the short USB cable be as it is at the other end (no need to completely remove it - it does totally nothing now).

Kind regards,
Peter

Hey Mani,

Interesting !
Of course, me too has used the Phisolator input from the start ... using the Clairixa. Never looked back at that when the Lush came about - just like you.

Going to try that tonight and will report !
Best regards,
Peter

Nice to hear from you (like this), Rudolf.

Kind regards,
Peter

Hi Robert,

Well, if you like to do that, it would be the fastest. And then without changing anything really, try XXHighEnd.

Or wait for whether Gerorge maybe finds the culprit after all.

Or, if you intend a reinstall anyway, first try to restore the current install to the oldest Restore Point you can find and see whether that maybe helps.

Best regards,
Peter

All right Anthony, thank you for the feedback.
Best would be to solve it but I have no idea how "settings" as such influence this. Again, I have never heard of it.
I'd still opt for something with the disk organization. But then you must recognize you are using something not common for storage.

Best regards,
Peter

OK Anthony, I wasn't the smartest yesterday; I used your link and next saw one album only - the MQA and thought that was all (). Now working on the other.

... which again plays but now also with Track 05 at the correct speed.

If you go to the folder where all is stored and observe all what's there, you should see the same (odd) characters in everything. So not only the track title (= file name) but also in the .mtt meta data. I suspect it is different somewhere in your system. If so, consider an "odd" disk organization.

Not sure what you can do with it, but know that the "=" in the track name is a replacement of something which can't be stored as/in a file name (could be ":" or "\"). So if that fails somehow, then, well, all fails. I never ran into such a thing but maybe in your system ?
As an extra check you may observe the Wallpaper Coverart - the back of it (see below). If it shows wrongly there it probably *is* wrong and exhibits what you experience.

Is playing the track solely Attendedly sufficient to copy the behavior  (click play on that track) ? - I tried Unattended as well starting with Track 04.

Best regards,
Peter

And allow me, because I think it can be relevant :

Below is what George received initially (!!) from his XXHighEnd install. The remainder - very similar of not the same as Robert experiences - happened after "resetting" the XXHighEnd install data (RightClick on Save As etc.).
Also see the attached .txt file which is the content of the error after clicking the "Details" button.

This error in itself I recognize, but I can't tell what incurs for it in this situation. I'm contemplating an error message to put forward about No Sound Device found or something similar (without XXHighEnd showing actively because this is about the Install (I think !)). The bringing forward of the message now fails with the error presented (below). This situation can be called a bug in XXHighEnd and it can only be solved when I can mimic it over here.

All 'n all it is a bit of a complex situation.

Peter

Summarized :

Yes, it is quite confusing, also because the help George offered (or tried to via referring to his emails) didn't ring belles really because it requires his elaboration in the topic in here PLUS it assumes that Robert indeed eliinated the same from his OS installe. Mind you please : Robert, indeed it looks like your sort of half-cooked tried to eliminate things from the OS and you shouldn't No-thing. At least that is what George is suggeseting, him knowing quite sure that it is about one of the things he eliminated. Now, with the help of his emails, this is the conclusion of that :

Reinstall the OS and let all be as it is. Now install XXHighEnd.
Works ? then my contribution : then you can eliminate things piece by piece until it stops working and next hope you can set it back. Of course start out with making a Restore Point.

So do notice (and George, correct me if I am wrong) :
George too could not solve the problem and he has no real idea what was eliminated from the OS that causes this issue. George reinstalled the OS and after that has been very careful.

Additionally I tell you guys that you should leave the UAC alone, unless you can predict for 100% what it does. The UAC is required to run apps and when that is not alllowed, you plainly get those literal errors (depending on what you do). So respect both : do not eliminate anything and let UAC run.
Also to be hopefully clear : Sliding the UAC slider to the bottom is not shutting off UAC as how XXHighEnd accomplishes it. So XXHighEnd is worse on the job. Read : when you'd use the Stop button in XXHighEnd for it, I guarantee that nothing normally works any more. The slider is a bit up to you, but may imply the same depending on the "app". And if not today, then tomorrow (new W10 update).

Hope this helps now ?
Regards,
Peter

PS: George, the W10 PC I have here is also always on (but see next sentence), but did not receive this update yet. The funny thing with it is that it's set to receive the update in "quiet hours" but in those hours it is always off (for the purpose). So somehow this seems yo help against updates ?
Btw, this PC (laptop) is a normally bought one and has never been part of some fast ring etc. experience. Otoh, it has been updated numerous times. Some times each day of the week.

Anthony,

It took a while because testing it takes time, especially when that track 05 is denoted MQA but internally is not or so, that resulting in a running track time which is double - 17:10 (it will exhibit slomo sound although I did not listen to it).

I see nothing like file does not exist, but in the log file a "File did not arrive in time" appears when the SFS setting it not large enough (it requires 4 in my case of 24/96 testing without upsampling), so mybe yiou refer to that. Anyway, the track normally plays but it iss not correct.
Do notice that this is the MQA version and that the normal version is not available on Tidal that I can find ...

Regards,
Peter

It isn't so that the "next week" just started, right ?

Hey Anthony,

I am quite confident that this is about this strange capital O in that track name. Not sure how to copy with that with "tweaking", but looking into it now ...

Regards,
Peter