I can find nothing about kernal streaming among the scant info I am provided by ASUS.  It does offer an environmental sound effect called "sewer pipe", among others.

Will the Juli@ card give me what I need to utilize the features of XXHighEnd? 

I have been happily using a Wavelength Brick and recently had it upgraded to latest 24/96 specs so I could play with Peter's new oversampling toys in XXHighend.  Today I just bought a used Benchmark DAC1 and should receive it in a week or so.  My goal is to try out the 24/192 oversampling and see if I prefer it.  Initially I will just hook it up to the coax digital out on my ASUS motherboard, which uses a Realtek device.  Do you guys think this motherboard will give me a sufficient quality digital signal to do a comparison with the Brick, or should I expect to get a much better sound by purchasing a separate sound card, like the Juli@, just for it's digital out signal?  I have done a bit of searching on this subject, both here and on other forums, but as always, there are many differing opinions.  If I can get 95% of the optimal sound quality off this motherboard, it will be enough for my initial comparisons.  I really don't want to invest in an pricey soundcard, only to decide I like the USB Wavelength better.

Very good, Peter.  I have latest version on both my computers, working well.  Only thing I have noticed (a VERY small thing) is the OSD time display doesn't reset the far right digit at each tick of a second.  The new number is superimposed over the last one, so by the time all 10 digits have ticked by, there is just a red square there.  This is on both computers.  I can live with this problem pretty much forever.   Thanks for all your hard work.

Thanks for the reply.  I'll just wait 'til your next version and then try it.  As for the 5 leds, when a security warning appears, I cannot simply cancel it.  So I click somewhere else on the gui, the warning goes  behind the gui, but it is still running.  After I try to load 5 pieces of music, I have 5 of these HDCD security warnings stacked behind the XXHighEnd gui, all still running.

The computer that plays the new version is  a VAIO laptop based on a Pentium M Processor, 1.73 Ghz.

The one giving problems is a Core 2 Duo E8500, 3.17 Ghz.

In frustration yesterday I fired up one of the players I used before XXHighEnd, but it was quickly evident that it didn't sound nearly as good as your creation. So take your time and get it fixed without giving yourself a heart attack.  It is always worth the wait.

I have played with the new version 09-y9 for about 4 hours with limited success.  On one of my computers it is working, but on my main music computer, I have yet to play a note of music. When I try to play a WAV file I get the Security warning about running HDCD.EXE and nothing loads into the playlist area.  After ignoring 5 of these warnings all the yellow lights at the top are lit, if that means anything.  When I load a FLAC file into the playlist area, the tracks show up without the Security warning, I can highlight a track but I still cannot get it to play.  For what it 's worth, on the computer that does work when I started up XXHighend, at some point I got messages about it registering or some such. I never got those messages on the computer where I cannot get it to play.  I have deleted everything and re-downloaded 3 times, to no avail. I have tried a 16/44 DAC and a 24/96 DAC - neither worked. And whenever it fails, I test everything by using another music player on the PC and I do get music, so it's not the stereo.

No hurry - I am sure you have lots of stuff up in the air with this release.  Whenever you can find time to suggest something, I'll try it.
Thanks,
Glynn

Hey Boleary - Thanks for the suggestion.  When you double click on the album, are you immediately getting the security warning about running hdcd.exe?

Help me please.  For the life of me, I cannot figure out how to get this thing to play music.  I don't use gallery.  I click on an artist in the left column, his albums then appear in the middle pane.  Before this new version I could double click on the album (or single click and then hit load) and then click on Play and I would get music.  Now when I try to double click I get the HDCD message. To get rid of this I click in an unused area and the message disappears, but is apparently still running.  (And are all of my WAV files really HDCD?)  Nothing ever appears in the playlist area.  How do I get an album pictured in the middle pane to play?

I know of nothing, but I agree that an iPad would make a great touchscreen controller for XXHighEnd - first thought I had when ipad was introduced.

While controlling XXHighend with a mouse works fine, there are times when I wish I had a small standard type remote control that would do simple things, like volume, pause, play, etc.   - just the things I can do with a CD player remote.  I want it to have the correct symbols on the buttons for play, pause, etc.  I really do not want to get one of the expensive large universal players with 100 buttons - that defeats the point of convenience for me.  Any one have any experience with a simple remote that can be programmed like a mouse through the computer to execute XXHighend Hoykey shortcuts?  Needs only a range of about 15-20 feet.

Peter- Sorry, but I will hopefully never sell my amps - I built the amps and preamp from Bottlehead kits.  Yesterday I went to the Bottlehad forum and asked about adding passive outputs to my preamp, got advice, and added them.  So now I have passive putputs that retain volume and balance control, also keeping the active part of the preamp to drive my long Sub cables. At this time I have 2 resistors in the passive chain, and it's the best I can do.  The passive signal gives me a lower moise floor and more detail, but even with all controls at their highest, I want more volume for loud rock n roll.  So the preamp remains, although I can now do passive lstening just by switching a couple of cables, whenever I feel like it.  And it was your advice that led me to do this, so thanks.

Next I want to pick up an 24/192 DAC to see if I like how it works with XXHighend batter than My Wavelength Brick, which does 16/44.  Can a USB DAC deliver true 24/192 perfromance when used with XXHighend or should I look for an SPDIF DAC?

Well, Peter, I have continued to rearrange things and after a couple of days I will agree that my system sounds better when I remove the preamp entirely.  With my 16 bit DAC, I have too few volume choices, but I could listen enough to appreciate the improvment in SQ.  Of course, things are never this simple.  I am very perceptive of channel imbalances, and have installed a volume control in my preamp that also gives me remote balance control, and using tube amps I have enough channel imbalances to need to make balance adjustments on almost every album I may play.  So to be able to adjust the channel balance without my preamp, I have sinned a bit and have placed an EVS Ultimate Attenuator at the input of each amp.  This is a shunt passive control which places just a single nude Vishay resistor in the signal path.  I know you hate the idea, but this does give me the ability to adjust the balance, and frankly, I hear no degradation in sound from having this single resistor in the signal path. In a perfect world, yada yada yada.
Another issue is that I use 2 subwoofers, each with a built in amp.  I should be able to create a dual output for each channel of the DAC, so this is no problem.
But to get better volume control, with smaller steps, I need to switch to a 24 bit DAC.  So here is my first question.  Do I need 24/192 to take advantage of the quad oversampling?  I might as well get something that lets me use the oversampling while I am making this change.
And my second question at this time: is it possible to incorporate a balance control into XXHighend, or must this always be done in the analog domain?
Thanks, as always.

Hi Peter - Thought I'd start a new thread on your suggestion that I simply remove my preamp from the playback chain.  I did so today using a passive I built a couple of years ago (it has remote volume control     ).  First though, I tried to use the volume control on XXHighend.  My Wavelength Brick is a 16/44 NOS DAC - the volume control on XXHighend really worked poorly with it - sometimes not working and then suddenly changing volume.  Also, too few steps.  As I read the Tooltips, I believe you are saying I would have better results using the volume control if I had a 24 Bit DAC.  The Brick can be upgraded to a 24/96 Wolfson chip, but it is not NOS.  In your opinion, would an upgrade improve my sound and also allow me to use the volume control of XXHighend or is it more important that the DAC be NOS?

By the way, the sound today through my passive is quite good, but I have played with these things over the years and found myself happier with the increased dynamics I perceive as being a benefit of an active preamp.  I will run the passive for a couple of days and then switch back to an active preamp to see if this bias of mine still holds true (for me).

Ultimately any longterm decision has to involve a remote with both volume and balance controls.  I installed a Welborne Labs unit in my Bottlehead preamp and find I use the balance control all the time.

I was using adaptive mode.  I believe that one's preference for the different modes will be very system dependent.  My preference for Engine 3 was based on using my Bottlehead III preamp.  A week ago I purchased a 35 year old Sansui CA 3000 preamp. Hard to believe, but it sounds very good - in some ways worse than the Bottlehead, in some ways better. But it retrieves so much low level detail that with KS-Adaptive it is almost too much detail.  I wish I could figure out how to modify my Bottlehead to have the best of each.  But if I have to choose, I will take smoothness and tone over detail.

After much listening, I prefer the non-kernal streaming mode and engine 3 on my system.  The detail of engine 4 is nice, but when a cello comes in I just much prefer Engine 3.  A much more resonant mellow sound, which I find easier on my ears.

So sweet!  Thank you very much.