I guess it's psychological...

Most of my PCM needle drops were made with a Pacific Microsonics Model Two. I sold this when I'd finished recording the albums I wanted. But I was never really satisfied with any of the results.

Last year I bought a Thoress phono preamp - wow, this is a nice piece of kit, and much better than the Rotel RHQ-10 I'd been using. And there have been some major changes to my turntables too. So, I'm looking to redo 100 or so albums (at least). I know the Tascam will not be able to match the PM2 with PCM. But with DSD128, there will be no filters in the ADC path, and I suspect the results will be better.

Of course, if I go the DSD route, I'll be in the exact same position as you.

Maybe we could get Peter to build a DSD128 to PCM converter into XX? I mean, he doesn't seem to be doing much work nowadays 

Mani.

Hi Paul, welcome!

Argh... this is going to be so difficult. I've never tried converting DSD128 to PCM but did try DSD64 to 24/176.4 (and 16/44.1) with Audiogate. I was disappointed with the results. I think Weiss Saracon is considered one of the better software converters, but I've also heard some 'concerning' things about it (can't remember any specifics though).

I wish Jussi would make an off-line version of his real-time software converters - I suspect these would be the best. Until then, maybe you could think about using HQPlayer purely for the DSD128 playback and XXHE for PCM? The only concern I have with feeding the NOS1a with HQP is the volume control. I haven't done it for years now, but the last time I did, I got some horrible noises coming through randomly. Not an issue if you're using a preamp, but pretty scary if you're going directly from the NOS1a into the power amp.

Sorry I can't be of more help. But this is of real interest to me also because I'm just about to embark on more needle drops and am toying between PCM and DSD128 (using a Tascam DA3000).

Mani.

Hey Peter, quick question: does the XXHighEnd PC come with 16GB of RAM also? I assume it does, but it'd be good to know for certain.

Mani.

A #2 and a #3 for me please Peter.

So if I understand correctly, these boxes can be used at the output of any DAC... or any line-level device for that matter. Correct?

Mani.

Haha... sounds like the approach I'm using with my AC mains. I knew I needed to lower the impedance post isolation transformer, and decided to employ a PS Audio P10 simply for this purpose (not sure if its 'wave regeneration' is helping, but its not the reason I bought the device).

So your New Device is simply lowering the impedance of the NOS1a and giving options for current delivery?


This has always been my experience replacing a powerful amp with one that isn't really up to the job of driving the speakers adequately.


So your New Device is a line-level device and not actually directly connected to the speaker?

Mani.

Thanks Peter.


See shot from my 'working' PC below. I think this shows that at least one of the memory sticks in my office audio PC are corrupt. Oh well, I'll just use W10 from disk for now.

Mani.

Hey Brian, thanks for the idea. But you must have been lucky. Just tried the same thing and it hasn't helped. Even tried changing slots but to no avail.

I wonder if I have one or more 'bad' RAM sticks. Unfortunately I don't have any spare and am reluctant to buy some new ones on the off-chance they might work.

Anyone else have any ideas?

Mani.

Hi Peter, I'm trying to set up RAM-OS on my office PC. I have exactly the same issue that Joachim had (see pic and shot below). It seems that my 16GB of RAM is just shy of the required amount. I haven't loaded anything onto the base disk (not connected to the internet anyway).

Any ideas?

Mani.

Edit: You'll notice that both Joachim and I got exactly the same message: total sectors calculated from partition table (26621952). This seems suspicious to me.

One of the downsides of having a system that makes everything sound utterly listenable is that... you tend to listen to everything!

I've just gone through Led Zep I and II over my morning cup of masala chai. I started on III but thought I'd better get down to some work - will get back to III this evening (and probably IV too).

Man, there's so much great music and musicianship in there. Doing a search on this forum, it's clear that many people already know this, but I thought I'd share anyway... just to give LZ a 'bump'.

And the SQ is pretty good too. I have the 1993 boxed set ripped to my NAS. I and II sound really clean and fresh with great dynamics. The bass is every-so-slightly lacking (like all recordings of that era seem to have), but it's certainly there and very tuneful. III seems to be flatter and a little more compressed (the first couple of songs at least). But still better than many of today's offerings.

And if you haven't seen the Kennedy Center Honors to LZ, you need to see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEly-0VLMsA... And make sure you watch right to the very end.

Mani.

Edit: It just occurred to me that my post makes it look as if I've just discovered LZ. I've actually been a fan since I was 15 or so (late 70s).

Hi Joachim, I'm busy for the next week or so, but will definitely take a look at this once I have my feet back on the ground.

Cheers, Mani.

No, no compression as far as I'm aware. Certainly, I never specified any when I set the Storage Space up. Looking at the attachment, the available space is exactly what you would expect with a mirrored drive.

Mani.

UPDATE... just in case this happens to anyone else...


Well, this has been a really strange issue. I cannot for the life of me find any difference between wav files that the ReFS-formatted Storage Space is happy to accept and those that it's not.

But what I have found is that if I convert the problematic wav files to flac, they transfer absolutely no problem. And this process is very, very fast - it's taking me an average of 10 seconds to convert and transfer a whole album.

Mani.

Haha... maybe it's something I've just dreamed up.

I remember reading through the Tidal tutorial a while back and coming across the idea of downloading the music from Tidal in the music server and getting it ready for the audio PC. I'm calling this 'pre-loading'.

And I'm sure Peter is doing things this way right now... with Tidal at least. Is this correct Peter?

Mani.

Not necessary, for sure. But bring in Tidal and pre-loading in the music-PC (server) and perhaps more cores now make more sense?

I'm currently using an i3 in my music-PC and may switch to an i5 or i7 if I find I need more speed with pre-loading. But I haven't started playing with Tidal or pre-loading yet - not even sure how to do it...

Mani.

Hi Juan, I totally understand why you would want to make your music-PC silent, because it is currently in close proximity to where you sit, and you use it directly for controlling the audio-PC. But making PCs silent introduces considerable costs.

Please bear in mind the solution that I've adopted (based on Peter's recommendations and the thread that KnB started). My music-PC is full of HDDs and fans. No problem because it sits well away from my listening room in the basement. It is connected via a direct ethernet connection to the audio-PC. My audio-PC happens to sit in fairly close proximity to the music-PC, but quite frankly it could be 100m away because the ethernet connection would still work fine. I then use my work laptop to create an RDC connection to the music-PC. This setup works so well.


In my setup, both PCs share the same 'dirty' AC mains line. But what I've done (which I'm not sure anyone else has tried yet) is to have the rest of the system (NOS1a and active Orelos) powered on a totally separate (and as isolated as possible) 'clean' AC mains line. It is the Intona USB isolator that then has the job of keeping the two lines galvanically isolated to prevent ground loops. This way, you can continue to use as many switching devices as you want.

So Juan, why don't you simply place the music-PC in a totally different location and save a lot of money in the process?

Mani.

(Edited to make more comprehensive.)