G'day all

I've been trying to resolve the occassional ( and yet ever present ) glitch/stutter I've been experiencing for some time now at the start of a track or midway through. This stutter happens regardless of file type played back, or whether the track is being accessed from a local harddrive or across my network.

I thought I had the issue solved yesterday after trying my latest system tweaks to minimise any interruptions, namely:
1/ Disabling Remote Assistance
2/ Disabling all the visual effects
3/ Disabling Windows Sound effects

I played about 3 albums through with no adverse effect but then it happened again ... 

There was one other thing I had been meaning to try and that was disable the Virtual Memory, and so I did that this early afternoon.

I'm pleased so say that for the last 8 hours or so everything is behaving nicely with no sign of those pesky glitches. I've been around PC's long enough now not to believe I've solved my riddle, but I'm quietly optomistic

So for those who are in the same boat as me with those glitches try running without virtual RAM and see what happens. You'll probably need 2 GByte or thereabouts of actual RAM to be on the safe side. You can bring up the Task Manager and also the Resource Monitor from within the latter to keep n eye on things.

Let's hear if you have success also!

Cheers

Russ

Many many thanks for the effort in getting MP3 supported Peter   

I've had an extensive listen this evening to a wide range of familiar tracks encoded at anywhere from CBR 320kbps all the way down to CBR & VBR 128kbps and I'm once again impressed with how you're processing this format !! Foobar is yet again a distant memory for me .. LOL

I tried some audiobooks which I have sampled at 64kbps and were unplayable, and it may well be the decoder you're using, but it's no big deal for those. I just mention it in case you haven't tried anything encoded at that lower bitrate.

Now for a couple of observations.

The function of moving from one track to the next is prone to a stumble now and then if using the transport buttons manually. It's almost as if the player forgets it has to start at the beginning of the next track requested and starts playing mid track close to the time it was at for the prior track. Hope that description makes sense.

The other noticeable difference playing the MP3's is that I needed to raise the Q1 level a couple of notches or increase the latency in the sound driver panel to prevent an occassional bout of stuttering/distortion. Not a major concern and may well be something you can address in the fine tuning of the internal decoding to WAV ( which is the way I presume you're handling things ).

All in all .... a jolly fine effort, and will save 100's of hours of needless re-ripping.

Cheers

Russ

ah-hah .... all makes sense when it is explained like that Peter. 

I learned a while back that it's quite often the most simplest of ideas that take the most work to implement, especially when one is referring to computer programming. PC's are basically dumb and have to be taught how to respond to all eventualities ... not always easy!

Cheers all.

Russ

An even easier way ( for us  ) would be for Peter to add a dialogue box to the program where we can specify the name of the album picture art ourselves. Or even a series of names. I have been using cover.jpg for a lot of mine and usually have that in a sub folder where I might include other info about the albums, such as reviews.

Something to consider.

Cheers

Russ

All is sweetness in life here 

I've being playing quite a number of familiar tracks and comparing FLAC to WAV and cannot distinguish between them. Everything I've tried so far has played back without a glitch. I've used dBPoweramp to create the FLAC's at compression level 8 , followed by a verify step.

Well done Peter !

Cheers all 

Russ

Hi Peter

I have a number of multichannel albums encoded in DTS ( they are in WAV format for those not familiar ) and i was pleasantly surprised to discover that XX plays these nicely also because it doesn't corrupt/resample the data. One slight problem though is that a number of my albums are at 48K rather than 44.1K and those aren't handled currently by XX. I seem to recall you mentioning in another thread that later versions of XX may suppose files encoded greater than 44.1K.

Is this a likelihood ?

For those not familiar with multichannel sound ( like myself a year or so ago ), there are some samples available to experiment with from Swedish Radio ... http://www.sr.se/cgi-bin/mall/index.asp?ProgramID=2446

Cheers all

Russ

Hi Chris 

I meant to update profile earlier but forgot ..oops.

I use an M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 card under XP but there aren't drivers for it as yet under Vista so have borrowed the AP USB from a mate in the meantime.

Have tried all manner of latency settings for it and noticed that as the Q slider is lowered to negative values, the latency needs decreasing to  minimum ( 128 ) to prevent serious distortions.

Currently happy with Q slider at 14

Cheers for any insights.

Russ

G'day Peter 

I haven't had much spare time of late to post much here but I have been following the threads and trialling the new versions as they become available, and I must say, this latest 0.9M variant is very very nice indeed. There is a new refined clarity and pinpoint accuracy of instruments that I haven't experienced before on my system.

There is still an occasional glitch in playback on my system that I think is likely unique to my hardware and drivers, or perhaps background tasks, which I still need to investigate. That being the odd occassion where a single note seems to linger, stutter like, before moving to the next note. It happened a couple of times this evening while listening to Joe Pass at Montreaux Jazz Festival 1975. This album is essentially guitar solo by Joe and each note is clearly distinguished from the next. On hearing these glitches ( and they only last about 1/2 second ) if I pull the slider back to replay the section everything is fine. If you haven't experienced anything like that it's as I said likely my environment here.

But for now ... everything else is sweet with the SQ 

Cheers

Russ

I've found BlackVipers site to be very helpful in the past for XP pruning, and it seems there is an update for Vista tweaks now

http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm

Seems I have to sharpen up my pruning shears too   

Cheers

Russ

Hi Peter

I've have mixed results with 0.9g obtaining a faultless gapless playback and can be summarised as follows:

• Using Engine#3, and accessing local SATA harddrives only, I can progress seemlessly between tracks of about 5 to 5 1/2 minutes duration. Tracks in excess of that produce a perceptible break and become more noticeable as the track length increases, as you might expect. Under the same conditions, using Engine#1 has NO issues.
• Using Engine#3, and accessing drives on other PC's on my gigabit network, results in a noticeable pause for ANY track duration. Note: this may be an issue with my network configuration running under Vista. I've noticed while doing file copying between my networked PC's and my HTPC when running Vista, that transfer is considerably slower than doing the same transfer running under XP ( same hardware ). It's possibly the additional layers of "protection" that Vista is using that is slowing things down, and is something I need to investigate. Using Engine#1, I have NO problems in continuity when accessing those same networked drives.

I haven't noticed any change to the sound quality between this version and the previous few 

BTW ... may I suggest a little ergonomic change to impliment if you haven't already thought of it? Being able to double click (left mouse button ) on a playlist entry to start a track would be so much easier than having to hunt for the play button each time.

Cheers for now 

Russ

Well I finally got my Vista Ultimate partition sorted out in my dual-booting HTPC today and had a very enjoyable afternoon and evening listening to my system with a newfound clarity that I have never heard before

I quickly settled on using #Engine3 with DOUBLE/UPSAMPLE in version 0.9d as the best for me. I am using the motherboards builtin sound device ( ASUS P5B Deluxe ) to feed my Sony processor ( via coaxial SPDIF ) as there are no Vista drivers for my M-Audio Audiophile 2496 card .. grrrr!!

This new engine #3 under Vista has opened up the soundstage even further from my initial XP trial, and yet has even better definition and pinpoint positioning of instruments. The first track I listened to was 'The Race' by Yello ( a track I'm sure a lot are familiar with ), and the sound was uncanily 360 degrees around me. Never heard it like that before. Spooky actually from a 2channel recording!

Lots and lots of favourite tracks followed for several hours, and each one had a level of clarity and dynamics I had not experienced before.

I ran into a couple of bugs during my listening session which I will make note of in days to come if they reoccur, but one that does come to mind is a few occassions where a track started out with a very noticeable buzz superimposed on it. Not a constant buzz per se but more of a distortion of what appeared to be the higher frequencies of the track. I first heard the issue during a solo guitar track and thought it might have been unique to that track. I simply stopped and restarted the track and all was fine with not a hint of the buzz/tizz. It happened again later on with another different piece of music, and again, a stop and restart cured the problem. I'll listen out for any other occurrences of this buzz and make a note of what the system was doing leading up to it, but at this stage my Vista partition only has XXHighEnd and TheaterTek installed and will likely remain that way for some time to come.

Time for some sleep ... there's more listening awaiting tomorrow

Cheers for now

Russ

G'day Gerner,

thanks for the welcome

I'm not sure whether I can give a definitive answer to the phenomenon of standing waves being reduced per se, but I do perceive better control over the lower registers also with XX. This manifests itself as tighter control of instruments such as bass guitars and the kick and tom drums for example.

I still recognise the underlying unique characteristics of my listening room ( I'm referring to it's room modes and resonance now ), and something has changed to make it 'better/more controlled' in my mind.

Do you have some examples of music that demonstrate more clearly what you are experiencing with regard to these standing waves? It may help me to focus on what you are hearing.

I'll be taking XXHighEnd over to the guys who designed and crafted my speakers early next week for their opinion and objective assessment. I think they will be as excited as I was on first listening to it. I'll be using their recently developed fully active speaker system and I'm sure they will reveal all the new subtleties and more that I've been experiencing with XX

Exciting times indeed!

Cheers and happy listening

Russ

Hey Peter

There's also my centre speaker to match ( http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/benny/Misc/Centre.jpg ) using the same Seas Excel drivers. Those are 10" bass drivers BTW. The tweeter's are Orca Design's Raven R1 ribbons. I feel very privileged to be living in the same city as the guys who designed and built these for me as I was able to pop over to see them progress from their embryonic state to the works of art they now are.

Yeah .. the Hafler has been in constant use now for 15 years or so and has such a comforting sound, like an old favourite jumper  that has patches in the elbows .. LOL. I suppose one day it might get put to rest, but that day will be when I migrate to fully active speakers I daresay.

Well it's almost 3am over here and time for bed. I've got more playing to do tomorrow as I explore the hidden mysteries of Vista.

Cheers and happy listening

Russ

G'day Peter, and greeting to all forum members, from OZ

Sincerest thanks for the reminder via a PM on TT's forum ... I had been meaning to follow up on your product for some time but it kinda slipped off the radar.

I've got an open mind to most things audio ( and life in general ) and wasn't expecting a great improvement, if any, over my player of several years now, Foobar2K, but boy oh boy .... was I ever wrong on this one !!

Upon firing up XX for the first time and listening to some very familiar tracks, it was if someone had suddenly lifted a blanket from in front of my speakers. The improved dynamics together with the new found clarity of the mids and highs were quite evident  and I settled down last night to many many many hours of discovery. I kept thinking to myself "hey, how good is this, and i've only just started to familiarise myself with the player"

My main speakers are very neutral and revealing ( http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/benny/SGR/SGR_Octagons_Raven_R1_&_SEAS.jpg ) and helps to perhaps explain why it is easy for me to discern the improvements that XX brings to bear over Foobar's way of doing things. For those interested, my audio chain is via an XP OS ( C2D 3GHz proc and 1GB ram ), using an M-Audio Audiophile 24/96 PCI sound card, into a Sony TA-E9000ES procesor via coax link, and from there to a Hafler XL600 amp on to the speakers.

Up to this point I've had no interest in anything Vista has no offer from a HTPC perspective, but upon reading some threads in this forum, I think i'll be splicing in another partition to my HTPC and giving it a whirl to see what further improvements that may bring to XX's ability.

I wish you all the best for the products future Peter, it truly deserves the fresh approach you've created. I'll be doing my bit to spread the word among my aussie mates!

Back to experimentation for me .. I won't be far away

Cheers all

Russ