Hi Michael,

Warm welcome to the forum. I’m sure you’ll be very happy with the equipments/support provided by Peter & above all the high level of SQ you will be enjoying in the times to come.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

Congratulations on the successful launch of the Mach III.


Just a few questions:
-Does it support RAM OS disk
-If yes, can the disk be removed after booting.
-What max ambient temperatures can the PC handle.
-Power consumption in comparison to Mach II.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

So I take it that the time taken is appropriate to the present PC set up.

Thanks for the support.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

The first tests, which had the 17 min track is Iron Butterfly/In A Gadda Da Vida.

The second test with the same album in FLAC & MQA was Natalie Merchant/Tigerlily.

However Tigerlily MQA at your end took 65 secs as compared to 78 secs with me indicates that the time taken is not radically different.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

I think you mean the same album in FLAC & MQA, it’s Natalie Merchant/Tigerlily.

Core appointment is 3-5
Player priority is Low
Thread priority is Realtime.
Balanced Load is 52
Nervous Rate is 18

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

In addition to the above trials, I prepared streams of the same album in FLAC & MQA. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be from the same master as the track lengths are slightly different, but not by much. The longest track is just over 6 mins.

Playback with the FLAC started in 13 secs whereas the MQA took 78 secs.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

The album (FLAC) is 36mins/6 tracks/longest track 17 mins. Last track is the 17min track.

Test 1: Unattended/Long track in last position.
Playback starts in 15 secs.

Test 2: Unattended/ long track in 2nd track position.
Playback starts in 15 secs

Test 3: Unattended/only long track in playlist
Playback starts in 13 secs.

Test 4: Attended/only long track in playlist
Playback starts in 10 secs.

Best regards,

Arvind

10 secs for a 17 min FLAC track.

Hi Peter,

Similar FLAC album takes around 15/20 seconds to play. However at the start of first session even a FLAC album takes around 45/55 seconds.

“Boost at start” is active.

“Log activities” is off.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

The MQA albums, which take long time to play, are all normally not more than 50mins with the longest track being not more than 10 mins. However it still takes 1 to 1.5 mins for playback to start, even after vol normalisation.

The free space available in C: drive is around 2.5GB.

The tick seems to have gone away after setting balance load to 52, however I still need to listen to more albums to confirm that.

Best regards

Arvind

Hi Peter,

There are a few issues with MQA playback.

Firstly after hitting play actual playback takes 1 to 1.5 mins (Unattended). Is this normal?

Secondly quite often one or two tracks don’t play from the album & when I bring up XXHE I see that playback has stopped. Now these same tracks if played attended have no issue.

Thirdly I do hear ticks while playback, not in all tracks but randomly in some & inconsistent. My X Tweak settings are balance power 43/Nervous Rate 18. Rest of the settings are as per signature.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter & Zheng,

Re preparing the stream seems to be the next best thing to do. I’m sure this should sort out the issue in this album.

However it brings up another question, whether a playlist consisting of MQA & non MQA tracks can be played on XXHE?

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

I came across a strange problem while playing CSNY\Deja Vu MQA 192 from Tidal.

The first 2 tracks played normal. The third track the speed reduced significantly. I tried playing the tracks again, the first 2 tracks showed input sampling freq of 96, however the third track showed 48, which probably explains the reduced speed. However this time the third track didn't play (even at the lower speed) instead a msg popped up.

I am attaching 2 images for your ref.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

Understood it. Even before I read your post, I had set the fx to x16. So all seems ok for now.

Thank you very much for your support.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

All working well with 2.10c upto MQA 96, however with MQA 192, I am still getting input sampling rate 96. This is even with new prepared streams. Playback of the MQA 192 streams is ok, but input shows 96.

Best regards,

Arvind