Ok

Exaggerated emotional sound-experience: compressed vs bombastic. I definitely prefer the latter, a "live" sound. (Not saying which is wich).

Now with the nos1a maybe I should give win8 another try tonight...

Regards, Coen

P.s it should not matter, shouldn't it?

Hi there NOS1a owners,

Anybody notice a difference between Q5 set to 1 and set to 0?

(black wire connected and USB3 card connect to chassis)

regards, Coen

Full isolation is complex, you'll need separate supplies and adequate high voltage decoupling. The NOS1a already has that.

My take is that there is a major difference in ground path that affects the voltage differential between the PC and DaC (which has an effect on the total differential between DAC an amplifier). I presume that this will be more important now since noise is less of a issue.  With the mounting plate isolated or removed the chassis will as you say be connected to the USB ground via the PCIe motherboard connection and power supplies. When connected the USB ground will stabilize around the chassis potential rather than via the more resistive path of the PCIe...

Regards, Coen

I've pulled some chargers and lamps, no fridges, pumps or washing machines (yet). I did not notice a difference. Mind you that both amp and nos have in my case no PE connected. (both float wrt earth)

Peter and Nik, to be really specific about the word "chassis", I actually measured between the signal grounds (outsides of rca connector) of the devices. Imho this is in my case the best/only way to assess how the devices float wrt each other.

Regards, Coen

I've been listening to the NOS1a for a while now and I think I cannot add to the oohs, aahs and wows that have passed in previous impressions. They are simply true: the NOS1a is a fantastic machine !

I have to admit that it took some effort to arrive at the level of playback I'm listening to now, and I even feel there is potential for improvement by tweaking it further.

Before jumping into the USB cable swap '"tweak" I think I should warn new owners that I had to completely redo my power distribution. This is about the connection of the 'black wire', isolation of the PC USB card and most importantly the 'phasing' and grounding of the power plugs.

I can hear little if any difference in software settings now, but hear BIG differences in power connections. No doubt that the USB will add to that.

I'm sorry that you will have to discover the optimum for yourself since every systems power supply is different and will have a different optimal solution. Just be aware that it is significant.
One thing you will probably know already is that you will have to connect the components with the smallest AC voltage on the signal ground between them (of course leave the two powered on and unconnected). In my case this was a difference between 47Vac vs 11Vac just by inverting the power supply of the amp.

regards, Coen

Good thinking. There is a learning curve, but in the end all makes very much sense.


You bet! This is what started xx and what many settings like the Qs and SFS are all about.


The "upsampling" is actually an unavoidable part of the difital filtering that is needed to reconstruct the waveform. There are some fantastic sounding filters (see ' new filter requests' thread) that retain the direct and uncluttered sound of nos dacs. Still you will notice differences in sound when only experimenting with the pc/os tweak dials.

Regards, Coen

Hi,

I think your setup is up to the task. Three years ago I hade a quite nice xx setup running with an Atom and a 96Khz capable m-audio dac. With the free version you can get the flavour of XX and get an impression where it heads to. Yet I have to admit, there are substantial benefits in running the paid version and it might just need that to convincingly surpass J-river on your system.

Further down that road you might reconsider more memory (i might have a 4g stick lying around) or a new pc alltogether. There is tons of information about dialing in settings, you will discover yourself.

Now get the demo and let us know what you think of it

Regards, Coen

I guess 24 bit output versions of the Custom filter are also on the to-once-do list?

regards, Coen

Thanks,

No need for that now (maybe later today  ).

Regards, Coen

Hi Peter,

When I select 352KHz (8x OS) with the new updated filter I get the error message "filter 5 cannot start because of Filter Sampling mismatch".

Did I miss something?

Regards, Coen

"The possibilities are endless"

Yo.

Yo

= total silence.

tregards, Coen

Z1!

Hi Peter,


This does not seem to cure it right away. Maybe I have a still to low SFS like Gerard suggested. I am reluctant with this because some of the magic disappears when raising the SFS here. I will try values above 12MB. Do I recall correctly that the Q1 and Q1x also have to be raised?

I have to note that I heard the ticks right after the 'fresh install' of the filter upgrade package.


General advice taken, though I deliberately never play louder than -6dBFS.

regards, Coen

Thanks Gerard, but no success here. Maybe I have been to conservative  .

regards, Coen