Well Peter seems you got it more than somewhat right but it may be a bit too early for final conclusions!
After reading your initial post regarding the card, I gave it another try Thursday morning before heading out on a 2 day work trip. The sound, for the 3 hours I listened, was shockingly fantastic. Voices were no longer shouting at me, rather they were refined and articulate. They emerged from the music in a wholly natural way, being neither recessed nor too forward. On my trip I kept reflecting on what I heard and it just seemed improbable; made me feel a little crazy like I had imagined it. Maybe it now sounded good to me cause you liked it and I was just hearing it "differently?" Couldn't wait to get home.
Well I listened for about four hours yesterday, which included pulling the card for a while, and again the sound with the card was just great.
The biggest change with the card in is in the sound stage. When I first listened on Thursday I was listening to a Beethoven String Quartet. Without the card the SQ was very good but I was a little disappointed with the sound stage. It was a bit congested, though congested might be too strong a word: there was separation between the instruments but I couldn't quite point to where they were in space. The recording was the last disc in a ten box set produced by Philips. I was expexting better and blamed the recording because the "sound staging" here has been quite good, especially since I replaced three power cords. The stock cords to my subs were replaced with pangea ac-9's and the one to my amp was replaced with an AC-9 SE. Anyway, after putting the card in I was shocked: the sound stage completely opened up, inner detail from each instrument was everywhere, and I could suddenly see, if not touch, where each player sat. Rather than a blanketed sound it was a rich, lush sound that I had not heard before from my system.
I then played Heart of the Sunrise, Yes, no lack of slam here, and the vocals: awesome.
Conclusions:
**Assuming the card has finally burned in, if the sound goes bad again, I'll remove it forever. I just can't have it fucking with my head like this! If it has stabilized with the sound I'm now getting it will be a permanent fixture in my system (We, here, are unapologetic about using whatever shortcuts, tricks, special potions, home made room treatments for first and second points of reflection, etc. that improve sound quality for under a hundred bucks!)
**Remember how clear the sound was with 8e before attempts were made to take the positive aspects of W8 and put them in XXhighend with W7? To me when this happened the focus of the entire "audio band" shifted downward, and though the mid range and base may have improved, the higher frequencies have sounded rolled off. The female vocals just lost their sense of presence. However, this shift to a W8 sounding XXHighend seemed to be caused by a harshness in 8e that you purist types wanted to eliminate (You should have tried some fiber glass sound panels at the reflection points. Ha!
) Anyway, everyone who has this card should give it a listen on W7 with 8e. With the settings below, I'm currently in audio bliss.
Okay, now with the release of the "9" series all bets are off. Time to download and do some testing.....Are we having fun yet?
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