This is exactly what XX does!

Mani

Haha, this was only ever a hypothesis and I made it clear that it could just have been a total coincidence. In any event, I shunned the hypothesis as soon as I discovered there seems to be an inverse correlation between the optimum SFS and the CPU power.

Now it could well be that larger files do actually require larger SFSs, but testing this with all the variables at play might prove really difficult.

Mani.

For anyone who's interested, after quite extensive listening, my 'new' SFS values are:

35 - for non-upsampled 16/44.1 material
50 - for non-upsampled 24/176.4 material
50 - for QAP upsampled 16/44.1 material

These seem to be the 'Goldilocks' values for my system as it currently stands.

If you haven't played around with SFS yet to see how it affects the sound, then you should... asap...

Mani.

It's great when 'our' developer finally starts listening to what we're saying

I think this is important:


But let me be clear - when I say "perfectly happy", I'm really only talking about 16/44.1 material with no upsampling in XX. Hires and 4x upsampled material seems to require a larger SFS to sound right. (BTW, I wrote this before I knew what SFS Peter uses.)

The minimum SFS seems linked with the CPU power in some way...

Mani.

Peter, here's your homework for tonight: read http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1368.0

Mani.

GREAT! I can sleep well at night.

If it transpires that there is a major issue with QAP and 24 bit files, one that impacts negatively on the SQ (as well as creating intermittent ticks), then I may have to totally re-evaluate my findings in the '16/44.1 vs 24/176.4' thread.

Mani.

Sorry, I probably wasn't very clear to begin with.

I get ticks, as described, under two conditions:

1) when using my recorded 24/44.1 files with QAP
2) when using 16/44.1 HDCD files with 'Decode HDCD' and QAP

I'm pretty certain that this has nothing to do with my HW and that this is an issue with XX, for all the reasons I've cited above. Ordinarily, I wouldn't care too much about this. But if it affects playing back HDCD files with QAP, then I think it's more serious.

HTH.

Mani.

I've just tried QAPing an 16/44.1 HDCD file. With the SFS set to 12MB, I'm getting ticks every ~9s!!! And every ~60s with SFS set to 60MB.

The ticks are virtually inaudible. But they are easily seen on my DAC's level meter, peaking close to 0dB!!! On the left channel only.

I'd recommend that you DON'T use 'Decode HDCD' and QAP with an HDCD file... especially if you play at loud volumes!

Mani.

Time to give up on this 'non-issue'!

I've just tried QAPing a 24/44.1 file with my Weiss AFI1... which is capable of outputting both 24 bits and 32 bits (the RME is only 32 bits). The ticks are still there, irrespective of the output depth.

BUT...

I've just tried QAPing a 24/48 FLAC file (from Society of Sound) and... NO TICKS WHATSOEVER!!! So, it really is an issue with XX QAPing 24/44.1 WAV files (I don't have any 24/44.1 FLAC files to try, and quite frankly, I'm not particularly inclined to now).

Peter, are you using a different version of XX? (Have you fixed any hdcd.exe issues in your version, because I think this is linked? EDIT: in the sense that hdcd.exe creates 24/44.1 files.) I'm pretty certain there's a problem with QAPing 24/44.1 files in 0.9z-2...

In any event, it looks like my HW is OK... phew!

Mani.

Hi Roy,

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried 2 and 4 cores, with all the different appointment schemes in XX. But the ticks remained.

I think the easiest way to figure out what's going on is to simply try a 24/44.1 file with QAP on another PC. I'll hook the FF800 to one of my other PCs and see what happens.

Actually, anyone who downloaded my files from the '16/44.1 vs 24/176.4' thread can help here. Do you have the ticks when you play the "native-16/44.1" file (which the recording SW actually saved as a 24/44.1 file) with QAP?


How do I do this?

When I installed the SSD for the OS, it was a 'clean install'. I'm assuming the install initialised and formatted the SSD using NTFS. For the second SSD, I initialised it and formatted it as exFAT.

In any event, a WEI score of 7.4/7.9 suggests that the SSDs are working OK.

Mani.

Already done!

I think I've optimised things as much as possible in the SW.

And I'm not sure I can improve things any further in my passively cooled, no-moving-parts, totally silent PC... FWIW, here are my 'Windows Experience Index' scores:
Processor 6.5
Memory (RAM) 7.6
Primary HD 7.4

But if you have any ideas, please let me know.

Cheers,
Mani.

(Latency attached - playing a 16/44.1 file with QAP.)

I think you're right Marcin, it doesn't look like a hardware issue. I've just installed another 90GB 'Vertex 2' SSD; so there's now one 'fast' SSD for the OS and another 'fast' SSD just for XX. And the loud ticks are still there!

(I had already done the things you suggest, and of course 'tweaked W7 to death'...)


Yep! Every ~9s with a SFS of 12MB, and every ~45s with a SFS of 60MB. Sometimes, they're quite hard to hear when there's a lot of HF energy (cymbals, etc) in the music. But they're clearly visible on the SW/HW 'level meters'.

I still have the 'slow' SSDs that I replaced from the PC. I'll put these back in and see if the ticks disappear. If the ticks are there, then I can only assume that I missed them before.

Of course, 24/44.1 files are almost non-existant in the 'real' world, so this just shouldn't be an issue. However, I remember hearing exactly the same ticks (from my left speaker) when 'Decode HDCD' was on and a 16/44.1 HDCD file was played in XX with QAP. My understanding is that hdcd.exe converts 16/44.1 HDCD files to 24/44.1 files. The fact that there were ticks with these seems too much of a coincidence to me...

Mani.

I'm not sure if this is the best place to put this post, but...

Having replaced my previous 2x 30GB 'slow' SSDs (100MB/s sustained write - one for OS and one for XX) with a single 'fast' 90GB SSD (250MB/s sustained write - for both OS and XX), I now have a very specific problem:

When I record from vinyl, the recording software saves 16/44.1 rates as 24/44.1 files. With my previous setup, I had no problem applying QAP to these 24/44.1 files. But now, I get a loud tick coming through the left speaker at the beginning of playback and continously throughout, whenever data is transferred to memory. It doesn't matter if I use 'Copy to XX drive' or not. Nor does it matter if the split file size is lowered right down to 12MB.

To put this into context, it is NOT a big a deal at all - I don't need to get these files working with QAP - QAP works perfectly well with all 'normal' 16/44.1 files. But I'd like to know what has changed that could be causing this... Before, I could apply QAP to these 24/44.1 files and it worked fine.

Mani.

So, I spent a couple of hours installing the new SSD yesterday (option a above). Any improvement in SQ over my previous 2x slower SSDs? Well, I'm not really sure. But I'm happy with the SQ I'm getting from XX - although I was before too!

I think it's time for me to stop the PC tweaks now...

Mani.

'Balanced Interpolation' - Peter, have you ever worked for a marketing company? You'd be good!

Let me ask the question that we all want to ask (but perhaps are too 'afraid', knowing how many things you've got going on right now): when can we get our hands on a final production-version NOS1?

Meanwhile, have you given a prototype to anyone to try? I'm convinced that one of the reasons XX sounds so good is the continous feedback you've received from 'us' users every time you've implemented something new. I know that this is so much easier to do in SW than HW, but having a cadre of NOS1 'testers' before it goes into production might prove a smart move. I, for one, would be happy to pay the full price for a NOS1 and receive a prototype for now, until the production version is available...

Mani.