Earlier this week I had some exposure to version 'y' but that was more at an arms length, ie. listening out of the sweet spot to one side, and I was more interested in troubleshooting the niggling bugs that had been introduced.

Well, today I had a chance to sit down and spend many an hour in my comfy recliner and critique 0.9y-1d in earnest, listening to a variety of albums I am very familiar with. I'm still using the same parameters I have for months now, and feel no need to change.

I now have to ask one question though:

Peter, what the hell have you done to the program to make it sound like it does now?

The level of control and articulation I am hearing now is remarkable! I thought SQ was pretty darned good with the last of version 'x', but this is on a whole new level. Everything has been tightened up, with the bass registers exhibiting the most startling improvement. Stanley Clarke is one of my favourite bass players, and to hear "Illegal" from his "East River Drive" album is a joy to behold. I'm hearing the nuances of his finger work on those strings in a way I have never experienced before. Spine tingling stuff!

Throughout the entire spectral range, I am hearing better definition of instruments, with more 'space' around them.

Whatever you have changed, and however you have altered it, deserved a big round of applause. It's no going back, regardless of the minor bugs still lurking.

You've introduced a dilemma though. Which of my many favourite albums do I queue up first to re-listen to in a new light!

Well done Peter !

Cheers,

Russ ( the Mad "Librarian" ) 

I was definately running 0.9y-1d at the time. I have each version in its own folder, and the temporary folder where the logs reside was under my 0.9y-1d entry. It's the first thing I did this morning after downloading it. If you look almost at the bottom of the "XX-20090816-093241" log you will see the path structure I used.

Happy huntin' 

Russ

 

Hi Peter,

before I start my extensive testing of 0.9y-1d , I thought I would quickly highlight an issue playing back files across my network, but didnt have time to report. I noticed it with 0.9ya and 0.9y-1c at least so I expect it may well have been in all 'Y' versions so far.

Engine3 brings up an error message then shortly afterwards the failed message. See below. Logs attached also.

Accessing the same files using 0.9x-7 worked fine.

Cheers,

Russ

haha .. I've be called that on numerous occassions. I love a good mystery and the hunt to get at the truth.

I try and put myself into your shoes and try and figure out what you need to "see" as you read the logfiles. Trouble shooting from afar must be one of the hardest PC tasks imagineable and one becomes reliant on the party at the other end who has the problem to be your "eyes". It isn't easy and what appears "bleedin' obvious" to you or I sitting in front of our own screen, can lead to feeling of frustration and helplessness when we can't see firsthand what is going on remotely.

I shall endeavour to keep a check on engine3's memory allocation also in future sessions.

While I'm thinking about it, yesterday while trialling a new version ( and I can't be certain which of the 'y' ones it was ), my screen had been powered down due to timeout in my powersaving settings (normally 5 minutes), and when I moved the mouse to wake the screen up, the album I was listening to stopped dead in it's tracks. I have never had that happen before. Needless to say I disabled the screen powerdown mode thereafter. I have had the screensaver disabled all along and had relied on the powerdown function to turn off the monitor. Perhaps a coincidence or yet another example of services interferring with playback.

It's beer o'clock here .... time for a movie for a change

Cheers,

Russ

I remember that .. haha

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=787.0

I had to go search for it .. the 'ol memory had forgotten about it.

Russ

Lengthy "twitter" ahead ... of value only to Peter I expect.

Thought I would take notes during the day while running 0.9y-1c.

Just to reiterate my pertinent hardware:
ASUS P5Q3 m/board
E8500 CPU (3.16 GHZ OOB ) overclocked to 3.82 GHz on standard voltages.
2 x 2GB sticks Corsair 1333MHz CAS 9 Ram
ESI Juli@ using SPDIF to external processor ( Integra DHC 9.9 ). Driver version 1.05 (32bit)
Gigabyte HD4850 ( 512MB ) video card
VISTA Ultimate - no service packs installed
Primary drive is Seagate 1.5TB, partitioned as follows:
   1 x 30GB Primary ( Primarily for Video playback )
   1 x 30GB Primary ( Spare for future use and testing )
   1 x 30GB Primary ( Music playback - XXHE installed on this and is very spartan )
   1 x 30GB First Logical ( XX Galleries exclusively )
   1 x 1277GB Second logical ( Adhoc Data storage )
Music storage drives consist of 3 x 1.5TG Seagates
Using AHCI for SATA operation

=================================================================================================

Session 1: Ahmad Jamal ~ It's Magic

Unattended
Stop Services, Running Time OSD , OSD Text all ticked
Start Engine3 during conversion , split file at size 100MB
NO covert boxes ticked
Scheme-1 , Nothing , Nothing

As expected, no covertart showed after GUI disappeared. Album played from start to finish and then brought the GUI back again as expected. I noticed a few ( maybe 3 ) brief pauses during play and were well spaced apart.

Closed XXHE down and moved logs to separate folder.

=================================================================================================

Session 2: Acoustic Alchemy ~ The Beautiful Game

Unattended
Stop Services, Running Time OSD , OSD Text all ticked
Start Engine3 during conversion , split file at size 100MB
Show as wallpaper , Show Back , Show mirror Back all ticked
Scheme-1 , Nothing , Nothing

After I pressed PLAY, track 2 in the list onwards were progressively highlighted in blue and just before the end track was highlighted the GUI disappeared and I was presented with the Coverart and album back as it was available.

No sound was forthcoming, and no progress timer. The OSD was not showing either, apart from a slither of the lower text showing just above where the task bar would appear.

I ALT-X'd to bring back the GUI to see what was happening. The progress slider was well advanced into the track. I closed the GUI down again. I noticed the box area where the track timer normally appears ( the red text ) was just a white box. The OSD text was missing completely (ie. the slither of text at the bottom had been cleared). I waited till what I thought should been the end of the track and ALT-X'd again.

The playlist was showing the first track highlighted in blue and the progress bar was at the extreme left.

Clicked on the close button and was jumped back to the coverart.

Alt-X'd again and this time clicked on the stop button.

Closed XXHE down and moved logs to separate folder.

=================================================================================================

Session 3: Acoustic Alchemy ~ The Beautiful Game

Unattended
Stop Services, Running Time OSD , OSD Text all unticked this time <--------------------------
Start Engine3 during conversion , split file at size 100MB
Show as wallpaper , Show Back , Show mirror Back all ticked
Scheme-1 , Nothing , Nothing

After I pressed PLAY, track 2 in the list onwards were progressively highlighted in blue and just before the end track was highlighted the GUI disappeared and I was presented with the Coverart and album back as it was available.

Taskbar showing as expected and no icons showing

Album started playback

Played from start to finish with no apparent pauses ( although the nature of this album makes it a little harder to notice that ). At completion of album the GUI popped up, showing track 1 highlighted in blue as expected.

Before closing XXHE down and starting another session I thought I might now go and tick the STOP SERVICES button and see what happens. The XXDat00**.dao and UnicodeTrack00**.wav files are still present in main XXHE folder at this stage.

Clicked PLAY. The playlist tracks were highlighted much quicker this time as expected, and then the GUI disappeared and I was presented with coverart, and then ...

Album started playback from beginning. No runtime timer as expected and taskbar has disappeared. Played first track fine and went to second smoothly. Will let it continue to completion.

Played to completion and brought GUI back up as expected.

Ticked "Running Time OSD" , then clicked PLAY. <-------------------------------------

GUI disappeared, coverart appeared, runtime appeared, and sound happened ! Will let it run till second track then stop. ( There are just so many times I can listen to the same album over and over again .. haha ). Track 2 kicked off OK ... did ALT-X to bring back GUI.

Clicked STOP. Ticked "OSD Text", highlighted track on in playlist, pressed PLAY <-------------------

GUI disappeared, coverart appeared, runtime appeared, OSD test appeared and sound happened. Will let it run till second track then stop. Track 2 kicked off OK ... did ALT-X to bring back GUI.

Clicked STOP, clicked CLEAR, shut down XXHE and moved logfiles to separate folder.

=================================================================================================

Session 4: Al Stewart ~ Year Of The Cat

Unattended
Scheme-1 , Nothing , Nothing
Show as wallpaper , Show Back , Show mirror Back all ticked
Stop Services, Running Time OSD , OSD Text all ticked
Start Engine3 during conversion , split file at size 100MB

The above is the same as start of session 2.

Clicked PLAY, coverart, OSD text, then running time appeared ( in that order I think .. it wasn't instantaneous for all three components). Sound happened, however I think I detected a very slight pause ( or perhaps a very brief silence ) right at the start of playback. Can't be 100% sure though. First track played fine, went to second track OK. ALT-X'd to bring GUI back up. Clicked STOP. OSD text disappeared as expected. Cleared playlist, shutdown XXHE, and moved logs to separate folder.

Rebooted

=================================================================================================

Session 5: Al Stewart ~ Year Of The Cat

Unattended
Scheme-1 , Nothing , Nothing
Show as wallpaper , Show Back , Show mirror Back all ticked
Stop Services, Running Time OSD , OSD Text all ticked
Start Engine3 during conversion , split file at size 100MB

Same scenario as above ( session 4 ), and I did this time detect a slight  ( missing ) gap at the start of playback. Track 2 started ok, so ALT-X'd to bring GUI back. Clicked STOP. Clicked CLEAR. Moved logs to separate folder.

=================================================================================================

Session 6: Acoustic Alchemy ~ The Beautiful Game

Thought I would try this scenario again as it failed earlier on in similar(ish) circumstances. Perhaps it is the album length ?

Unattended
Stop Services, Running Time OSD , OSD Text all ticked
Start Engine3 during conversion , split file at size 100MB
Show as wallpaper , Show Back , Show mirror Back all ticked
Scheme-1 , Nothing , Nothing

It all worked fine this time .. aaarrgh ! ( I'm also beginning to hate that first track .. hehe ). Will play till second track and see what happens.

Second track kicked off OK , so ALT-X'd to bring GUI back. clicked STOP , then cleared tracks, then shut down XXHE and moved logs to separate folder.

Might try some hi-res albums shortly ... time for lunch first though

=================================================================================================

Session 7 ~ Donald Fagen ~ Morph The Cat @ 24bit/96KHz

Unattended
Stop Services, Running Time OSD , OSD Text all ticked
Start Engine3 during conversion , split file at size 100MB
Show as wallpaper , Show Back , Show mirror Back all ticked
Scheme-1 , Nothing , Nothing

All working fine

Played through till end without any aparent errors.

Cleared playlist and queued up:

David Sanborn ~ Time Again @ 24bit/96Khz

Started playing fine

Played through till end without any aparent errors.

Cleared playlist and queued up:

Grover Washington Jr ~ Winelight @ 24bit/192KHz

Clicked PLAY, it switched to showing coverart of previous album and was immediately replaced by coverart from 'Winelight', the OSD text was showing, BUT NO runtime OSD and NO sound. Let it sit for a minute or so and ALT-X'd to get back to GUI where it showed the progress slider well advanced along. Clicked STOP, shutdown XXHE without clearing playlist and moved logs to separate folder.

=================================================================================================

Session 8:

Started XXHE again, and simply clicked on PLAY. Same scenario as above .. NO sound.

ALT-X'd to get to GUI, progress slider had advanced along, clicked STOP. Closed XXHE, moved logs to separate folder.

=================================================================================================


Time to call it quits for a while. Will continue later today and over the weekend keeping logging running in the background. Hopefully these will be of some assistance in figuring out what's going on.

For my next listening sessions I might try a different PROC scheme. I've been using scheme-1 for months and months now without any issues. Perhaps these new versions warrant a change to scheme-3 to share the load. Is anyone else running scheme-1 WITHOUT any problems with version Y ??

All log files are in separate "sessions' folder in the attached zip file.

Cheers and beers,

Russ

My impressions also

I'm currently compiling some notes on a series of listening sessions with accompanying log files. Hopefully will have them ready for you Peter while you imbibe your morning caffeine intake.

Cheers,

Russ

I shall continue my quest in the morning. Have been up since 5am this morning and my eyes are hanging out of my head.

 

Russ

Still seems a bit of hit and miss getting the Ahmad Jamal tracks to start. Stopping and starting XXHE and requesting , say track 3, might be successful. Another attempt might be greeted with silence.

I think there needs to be some structured testing to all of this.

Peter ??? Let us know what you want done specifically ( ie. which boxes to tick and which not ) if that helps.

Russ

Next album: Ahmad Jamal ~ It's Magic.

Same settings as above, though this time I put a tick in show wallpaper.

When the GUI disappeared the coverart appeared but NO sound forthcoming. I let it sit like that for a minute or so, then ALT-X to get GUI back and the slider progress bar had advanced to halfway thru the track, which suggests Engine3 is doing something at least. I closed the GUI without doing anything else and after what i thought should have been enough time for the first track to complete, brought up the GUI again. The progress slider was now at the start but track one on the playlist was still highlighted in blue.

Time for some logging Peter ??

Russ

I have the HTPC running the 0.9y-a version , and just played a 24/96 album of Zoot Sims & Al Cohn, in unattended mode.

I unticked all the CoverArt boxes and have ticks in all the Services and OSD boxes, together with unticked Start Engine3 during conversion.
Needless to say no coverart appeared but it did start.

It has just played the complete album from start to finish, however, a few times throughout, maybe 3 or 4 , there was a brief pause in sound .. something around 1/4 to 1/2 second at a guess.

I shall continue testing.

Russ

I shall have a play after nocturnal munchies and report back.

One other thing I noticed this afternoon is that if I queue up a single file ( and perhaps a few ), when it comes time to display the "mirrored back" panel, that the list contains entries from an album in a previous folder and otfen in a later folder. It's as if XXHE has looked at the folders before and after the track you are asking to play, and listed those also. This results in the ^^^ and +++ showing in the left panel. Weird. I'll try and take a screen grab to illustrate later.

Cheers,

Russ

Good morning Peter ...

better make that first cup of coffee extra strong today .. hehe

0.9y-1 is proving rather problematic during unattended play. Most times it will stop at the end of a song (which appears for the majority of the time to be after the first track) and then refuses to come back to life. I've even had it refuse to start playing when the GUI disappears. In those instances sometimes the folder art is displayed and othertimes it isn't.

Attended playback, from the limited time I've used that function, appears to work as planned.

The sound quality is still as exciting as ever, and since I haven't been spending much time in recent weeks actually listening to music, just reinforced how good it is

Hopefully this glitches are the result of timing issues.

I can swamp you with logs if you need them, but figured you have a plain test machine set up you use to trouble shoot new versions. But you're likely aware of these issues anyway. This post was just to let you know I'm here with some spare time to help nutting out these problems.

Cheers,

Russ

Peter, To assist in nutting out the error I'm getting, I've attached some short log files.
I simply switched logging on, queued up an album, started the first track to display the error message, then skipped to the next track, which brought up the error message again, then I shut XXHE down.

Cheers,

Russ

Next issue:

ChangeWP brings up error messages in both attended and unattended mode.

My desktop is set at 1440 x 900 res. Have tried diffferent settings in the folder display size but each time XXHE starts up it brings up the two messages below. The folder art is displayed OK in the left panel of the player GUI, and can even see the correct folder art across my network, so I'm guessing it's to do with ChangeWP not being passed the correct path info.

Onwards to the next issue

Cheers all,

Russ