Am anticipating having the time to set up some RAMDISC drives this weekend. Currently I have a 3tb drive with W8 loaded on a 60 gig partition and W7 and all music in the other partition. Questions:

1. When creating a RAMDISC partition to put XX on can I just copy/paste my current 9Z-8-1a folder from my 60 gig W8 partition into the RAMDISC partition or do I need to reinstall XX into  a new folder on the RAMDISC?

2. Will I be able to use the XX/Ramdisc drive, assuming I 'm also using a RAMDISC playback drive, in either W8 or W7 or will drive letters change and, therefore, be a problem when I switch between OS's? Hope this makes sense.

Mani, I hate it when that happnes!!!!! Not today but in the past it's happened 2x to me. Felt like a heart attack...

Joachim, I don't think the SQ differences between 7 and 8 are PC build related. I put mine together in April or may, 2012, and even with the latest 8 tweak, only desktop services off, the difference between them in my system remain substantial. In my system, the accuracy and transparent naturalness  of 7 is stunning--then add in the incredible pin- point though holographic sound stage and W8 doesn't come close (having only desktop services off is a huge W8 improvement.)  For the first time today after I applied the latest W8 tweak, I heard the difference in the sound stage bewteen the two OS's. Vocals in W8 are just too huge and puffy sounding!

Personally, I'm glad for the arrival of W8 and what it has meant  for the analysis between us of good sound via XX. It's times like these, when every log partially submerges when you step on it and feet inevitably get wet, that things are both frustrating and exciting. It's usualluy a sign of breakthrough being somewhere around the next corner. For me, I love being on the very cutting edge of computor audio and, because the actual experience of the wonderful sounds of music has so very far outweighed the few rough patches, I look forward to the "work' and can't wait to see whatever it is that lurks out there, around that corner. Time boys, gotta do the work and let it pass. It's worked so well so far.
 

Seems like the stops Alain describes are different from what Paul and I experience.

reading through this thread I'm convinced the x-tweaks are the cause of this stopping problem and not SFS. When I first installed W8 every track stopped half way through, even with a SFS of 430. And the stopping was as Paul described: music would stop, the gui would reappear and the "Stop" button would be highlighted. After I tried Mani's suggested W8 settings, which caused me to change X-tweak settings and hit the reset button, the problem appears to have gone away. However I expect that music will stop once in a while, which is what happens with W7 ever since x-tweaks were applied. With W7 I experience music stopping maybe once or twice a week--not very often for sure.

Jaun, sounds like a bad day indeed. It usually takes four or five days for paypal to credit my account.

Well my stopping issue appears to have disappeared. Volume up and PA intensity to 1 and, today, all works with a SFS of 430, which btw sounds very, very good. Didn't do anything to fix it.

Too much fricken' fun!

Hey Paul, isn't it down right weird that W7 now seems so different to us. What USB driver buffer size are you using in W7?

Have been playing XX for an hour in W8 with a SFS of 430 without any issues. Initially the first song in the first playlist stopped halfway, but I selected the second song in the list and everything has worked fine ever since, including playng different lists/cd rips/ albums. Two differences from last night: a. I took Mani's suggestion and set PA strength to 0, and, b. I'm playing at barely audible volume cause my wife is sleeping in the room directly below. Perhaps my stopping issue will reappear later today when I turn up the volume.

Peter, when folks here wake up I'll load the W8 USB driver into W7 and see if it induces the stopping issue, as well as see if there's a SQ difference.

Let me clarify my previous posts: when I talked about setting the device buffer to 16ms, I probably should have said USB driver and not device buffer.

Lastly, check out Peters W8 signature: XX is on a ramdisk separate from the OS and his playback drive is on a second ramdisK! Further he's using WiFi with a SFS of 270.....Holy sh*t!

yeah, right....

So it's now 11 p.m. and I'm off to bed. Had the day off today and started XX fiddling at around 9 a.m. Final results:

W7, SFS 2 and device buffer at 8ms is just so much more palpably real feeling. In my system, where it gets harsh is pretty much where live music when suddenly too loud,  can sound harsh, or so it seems to me (Give Eva Cassidy, Autumn Leaves a listen or the first movement of Sibelius', Symphony #1, any version but Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra & Leif Segerstam is my favorite) I think Pedal once compared the W7 sound to kodachrome film-which I took to mean a very vivid realism in the sound. W8 never quite gets there, though it's very detailed and, in my system, in some apparently less important way (than the vivd realism of W7) it seems to have a softer more pleasant sound. My final W8 settings ended up at SFS of 2, device buffer 16ms.

If I had my druthers, I'd have our developer work on the heebegeebee's of W7 rather than those of W8 cause there seem to be fewer of them  

Hey Mani, its really interesting how the detail remains with the higher SFS in W8. I guess that's part of what i mean when I say the difference between a SFS of 2 and 430 is small compared to W7. Next time you are in the mood for fiddling, set the device buffer in the XX " device control panel" to 16. Be interested in your impression.

I must have a conflict somewhere that keeps tracks from playing all the way through with a SFS of 430. Changing the device buffer didn't help.

I think I'll spend the rest of the evening with W8, no more A-Bing today.

Like everyone so far, the first sounds of W8 made me feel "Wow." After a while of listening I began to hear the midrange, I think that's what it is, sound fat or bloated, regardless of the SFS. Reverting back to W7  I instantly felt what Bert described earlier: W7 sounds more natural, less colored and, therefore, I think, more like music. But what is it about W8 that it gives such a great first impression? I want that too!

I think W8 addresses a kind of harshness in W7 but at too high a cost: the midrange is now too "wide."

Here, the area of harshness in W7 is relatively small and best controlled with volume and, as I learned today, the device buffer size of the DAC. Because I am able to play up to 6db, with some tracks, too loud, I have taken to being very careful to find the most "accurate" volume. When I really take the time to do that neither harshness nor a muffled sound are significant issues in W7. I've begun to makes playlists using an SPL meter some guy was understanding enough to give me. See pic below.

W8 has been challenging at high SFS settings in my system. Every tune stops half way through. I've tried many tracks so I've had a good listen to the 430 SFS sound. One thing that strikes me is that the difference between high and low SFS's in W8 are not nearly as significant as they are in W7. In my system there's not a lot of difference between 2 and 430, whereas in W7 the difference between 2 and 430 is like night and day (2 being day!)  .

Trying to get tracks to play through I started playing with the device buffer sizes. Doing this I discovered another difference between the OS's. In W8 higher sizes up to 16 thinned out the fat lady. The mid range becomes leaner and to these ears, W8 improves. W7 does just the opposite, the sound gets a bit fatter and/or smoother with higher device buffer settings. If it doesnt, please stick a tag on me: certifiably crazy. I've spent a few hours on this today.

My favorite W8 settings as of now are device buffer @16, SFS of 100, Q1 @16 and xQ1 @2. Everything else is either as Peter advised in this thread or as in my signature. Very W7ish, might even be better than W7 the more I listen. (I've been trying to write this for a few hours...... The red "Warning" at the top of my "Post Reply" page says 8 new replies have been posted....maybe you guys have this figured out? Guess I'll go check.   )

Okay, I was just wondering if you tried W8 with a SFS of 2 and compared it with a SFS of 430.

Joachim, I know this sounds crazy, but my first impression of W8 with SFS of 430 is that it sounds harsh compared to SFS of 2! Have you tries SFS of 2?

Nah, softest is the word I would use because there is a relationship between the way we percieve both sound and touch. Softest captures that relationship best. Just my 2 cents....

Saw this film the other night. Better than fiction. On so many levels, it inspires by revealing the power of both music and the musician, even when the musician is unknown in his own land  and made  mythological in another. I ordered the soundtrack, but you must see the film first. It just came out on DVD in the US.

Thank you Rodriguez.