I realize I've been careless with this. Keep Lan is Unchecked, I did however not play unattended and made a connection with the IP address of the music PC.

If I read the "persist" button tooltip correctly XX will bring up the LAN again after unattended playing when it is checked...

When the LAN services are present, XX can collect the files from a shared directory on the "server PC" right?

regards, Coen

Hi Alian,

Thanks for the response.


This is exactly how I have set it up now.


This is also the not executed plan, but:


This is also my concern. Who will be issuing the IP numbers? This is of lower priority, for now I don't really need the internet and music will be local to the win 7 " host".


This seems to be a distinct advantage for SQ in win8. SQ wise the music started to flow but overall it is not on par with win 7 yet.


So: keep Lan services "on" and Persist "off".

Because of the RAMdisk you do not need the LAN when playing?


regards, Coen

After some moderately succesfull powerplug reorganisation I managed to get the RDC thing going, with much less fuzz than expected.

Both pcs have a gigabit ethernet port so no crossover cable was necessary. Fortunately I have the win8 pro version for the music PC so enabeling RDC access was a matter of a couple of clicks (in maximised OS to have all network services available). Setting up RDC on the "server" win7 (atom) PC worked in one go, unbelievable  .

Because this worked so well I unplugged the KVM connectors from the audio PC.

Now at first it sounded like the regular win8 sh*t, only worse, but booting back into min OS seemed to be the magic bullet.
I cannot believe it myself but I think I hear actually music being played by win8. For the first time in this room. To be shure I am not fooling myself I will let it play for a couple of days and see if I am still percieving this.

Now the next thing on the plan is to strip the music PC. That will include transferring the music Disks to the server pc and play the tunes from there. Now I wondered how to make the connection from the audio pc to the server. Do I really need the LAN services in min OS for that?

Regards, Coen

Since I found a couple of cables in the box and connected them in the last days I have come up with some first impressions. I played a variety of music with 1.186i on Win7.

- 1 m audio grade usb2 cable: thick congested sound, no refinement. This cable does well on my Ifi nano though.

- Standard 1,5 m Phasure Usb2: nice balanced and refined sound.

- 5m ICIDU packaged usb2: not much different from the 1,5 m std cable. If anything I think it sounds a little softer/gentler on the ear. This is the newest cable.

Short listening on win8 did not alter abovementioned observations.

I have some shorter cables (50cm) but I could not manage to make adequate contact as also the 1,5m USB3 male-female extension cord refused to work properly. No luck with usb a to usb b adapters either. Result: No phasure driver or a lousy contact with a lot of errors.

The 5m is vey practical so if i still like it next week it stays in.

Regards, Coen

Ok, so the daisy chaining of rdcs is documented on this forum?


This will shave off another 10 watts. The e series don't have a gpu do they? In my case the bios will default to the igp, don't know if it will be for the better...

Regards, Coen

Just to be shure: that is wifi to the access point router and then via the LAN to the music PC or does it assume a server PC that is not part of the LAN? I guess Wifi dongels do not fit in the minimal audio PC setup...

regards, Coen

Hi Peter,

Thanks for thinking along. First things first of course, and those can be done at any time!

I might be back on the forum for the RDC which I never put to work (got the dongels though).

regards, Coen

If we assume the USB link between pc and DAC is sufficiently isolated wrt noise, only the PC "contamination" of the powerline remains including the hypothetical win 7 and win 8 "signatures". Imho this can be dealt with by a fat battery pack and an inverter or better some DC-DC converters that power the PC directly. I'd rather put the audio PC on batteries than either the DAC or amplifier. Along the road I've looked at this several times, it shouldn't be hard to do, my PC is consuming less than 50 watt at all times.

Did you do something special to isolate the LAN of the server pc or is it standard Ethernet practice?

regards, Coen

Hi Peter,

The importance of these "tweaks" cannot be underestimated and I did not take serious notice about them being crucial to win 8. I realize that there is a lot of work to do on my suppy lines after reading your last post. In other rooms for instance there are SMPSs connected to my audio ring. Also I can improve upon PC leanness by moving disks to a server and the disabling the monitor.

Still it is very possible that the audio PC, which has an SMPS which causes hard to kill HF on the line, influences the power amps.

regards, Coen

Thanks Peter,

I have been thinking about my speaker balance. The last time I voiced it was in my m-audio thuneau pre-xx days. It could very well be that that sound in retrospect was more similar to win7 than 8. I remember that even small changes in slope and co point made an enormous difference.

I am also not excluding the possibility of interaction between the PC psu and the psu(s) of the "power" amplifier. This is a very likely candidate both via the USB ground wire (wich is connected) and the ac power line.

I am encouraged in this line of reasoning since some of you notice far little difference between settings. It must be somewhere in my setup.

It takes a little thought how to properly tweak the low-mid-high outputs. There already is a negative slope from 12k downward and some dips and ups in the midrange,etc,etc. this is not a quicky!

Regards, Coen

Thanks for the trouble Peter,

Things are very different in here with the Q5 settings. I must have some "leak" in my system that makes the PC and some software settings audible. Most likely not via the NOS1a but through something else; prime suspect is the pc.

I am still puzzled why you experience a difference between the two OSses and prefer win8 over win7.  From my perspective win8 sounds truely horrible.

Regards, Coen

Hi Peter, same pc, same bios, same xx version, same devices disabled in the os device manager.

Regards, Coen

While thinking over what I wrote above, it occurred to me that the sound presentations of win7 and win 8 somehow make sense.

That is that one can think of a recording containing a certain intensity of the instruments.
Now if we "blow up (like a balloon)" this sound it would get less dense, bigger and vaguer but allowing for details to appear and develop: hence the WIN7 sound.

Otoh, if we would concentrate (in the vertical plane for arguments sake) this recording everything becomes very intense and clear with very good localization, but intense tones can get too intense and obscure nuances (and musical information is lost): hence the WIN8 sound.

At my place of course.

Of course I have no clue about why/how this take places, but the NOS1a is not immune to it.

regards, Coen

I forgot about the WIN8 quirks (like the stopping) and after some forum reading a few reboots and playing with the settings to get error free playback, I finally managed to play a couple of complete tracks!

Wow, what a laser beam focus...and how little height that beam has.  Actually, after a little accommodation I wondered where all my musical details had gone and where the naturalness and where the easiness, etc, etc. Why do I stop each track? What a total lack of listening enjoyment.
Ah, deja écoutée.

ASAP back to WIN 7 with its imperfections and now I hear Miles playing tunes on the trumpet again. What a beauty and relief!

Now what about Q5...

regards, Coen

Maybe OT, but in reaction to your previous post:

Not even having a Orelo with FM settings, I completely recognize the soundattributes you discribe about Windows 7. Never thought it had anything to do with the OS.

I've been trying to 'fix' this darkness with my power cables stuff and XX settings. I've come a long way and sometimes it sounds truly fantastic and sometimes like total cr*p. I attributed the dark sound to my interlinks (which I kept in to compare).

Now let's try win8!

regards, Coen