Interesting pci card on the top picture!

How is the power going to enter the amplifier module? Theresoes not seem to be a lot of space left on the "backpanel"?

Nice wrk btw!

Regards, Coen

Since the NOS 1 does something to standing waves I think Peter has a good point to use XX and the NOS1 all the way and use the cleanest signal possible.

I think timing the standing waves on a sweep isn't very exact, but may lead to usefull results. You can allways check with a narrower range afterwards or on the specific frequency you found.

I guess you are planning to determine the standing waves with your ears. You might want to evaluate the sweep on different locations considering the bellies and knots of the resonances, especially with the LF. Maybe this is not neccessary with the NOS; I am not familiar with the mechanism behind the reduction of standing waves.

Would you like to share your plan and why you bother about them?

Regards, Coen

Horses for courses of course. With all measurements you've got to know what you are doing, all generators and measuring devices are able to provide some usefull information. You don't need a sophisticated setup to detect 1dB anomalies or 0,x% distortion of a loudspeaker or get qualitative information about the setup. You can match capacitors even with a capacitace meter that is 5% off, just don't trust their absolute value.
I've been able to minimise the distortion of my compressiondrivers by adjusting the lockingscrews of the diaphragm housing (!) while looking at the fft of a testsignal on my sound card. This saved a lot of time, otherwise I would have been running from and to my listening position to assess the sound quality, likely to end up somewhere unconclusive. The effect was a 6dB lowering of dominant distortions.

I am shurely not claiming that you can use such an unrepresentative measurement setup for very low level effects. Especially when you are going to use the most sensitive measuring device: your ears.

So I disagree that such quick and dirty soundcardmeasurements have no place in audio, you've  just got to know when they stop giving you usefull information. Assessing a high end setup on anomalies by ear is not one of them.


I completely agree!
Make shure you testsignal is of very high quality so you are not judging the testsignal  . If anything comes out of this, it would be interesting to know what difference a file with a different sample rate or wordlength would make...

Regards, Coen

No, not really. Only a testsignal is very boring!

Since the NOS1 is NOS, you will have to use/create a testsignal at a samplefrequency as high as possible to avoid sampling noise contamination of your testsignal.

The regular SDM motherboardstuff delivers a nice testsignal with 44.1k input becaus of the on-chip digitalfilters. Since you don't listen to it for enjoyment (if ever possible ) the mobo chips are fine signal generators for general purpose analysis (not the -90dB, 0,0x% distortion ones).

If you intend to measure the effect of the NOS1/XXHE on standing waves, obviously you will need testsignal files and play with arc-predict.

Regards, Coen

Switch the nos mode swith to normal dac mode first. Likely you will have to set the nosdriver to a mode that will support the testsignal.

Afaik arta supports higher bitrates en bitlength.

If this all too cumbersome: I used my mobo soundcard and a behringer mic without any problems.

Regards, Coen

If you are in need of simple testsignals, sweeps, noises and the like take a look at ARTA.

Regards, Coen

Do we have a copycat?!

http://www.audiostream.com/content/metrum-acoustics-hex

"A Dutch based company....."

Regards, Coen

I ran into some footage:

http://youtu.be/7BVlUVxiun4

"The DAC is a Pleasure NOS1..."

Regards, Coen

I have the odd experience that the detrimental effect of HDCD "on" is also audible with non-HDCD material.
When cofiguring a new XXHE version this is usually the first feature I disable.

regards, Coen

Check!

Well it seems like the instruments are concentrated to 1/4 of their original size (in attended playing btw). Their relative places remain the same. Like the old LP (big) vs CD (small) effect. At further listening I think it sounds also a bit disorganised, can't follow all notes of the insturments.

Listening now to TPI "Not the best" and I can understand the music again!

regards, Coen

I just had an incredible soundstage shrinking experience after rebooting into an "optimal" time performance index. Like being thrown back from the front to the backseat.

I have to get used to this sound. Most of you play with the optimal setting right? Whats your take on what happens?

Regards, Coen

This is what I hear too ("sfs" is important NOT "max sfs").

Regards, Coen

I've been playing with 8-2 with SFS of 220. This is the best so far.

No more stops or start refusals and the sound has consistency over playing sessions (I allways shut off the pc).

I also went back to "stop all services" activated. There was a lot more missing than just "grint".

Soundwise the low end is not to my liking -yet!?-. It suffers from restrained dynamics and the timing can be better (I know that it can!). I have no "holographic soundstage" experience (never did either), but I can support that there is a phenomenal instrument separation. Tone is also superb. Somewhere dynamics are lost though.

Regards, Coen

I've played 8-2 with SFS of 1, 1.5 and 2. Though different, this does not bring 8-2 alive so to speak.

I concur with Hein that 8-2 with "stop all services" off has more sparkle. In my brief listening I found character missing on voices, the violin and the saxophone. No grint if that is a word.

Regards, Coen

Peter,

Thanks for the reply, I have checked the stop all services button now.  As I interpret your instruction: reboot to "normal" os, uncheck "stop all services" and reboot again to "min OS" and play 8-2.
I will try this.

I forgot to mention something important about my 8e setup. That is that i find it -sometimes much- easier to follow the musical melodies of instruments that are mixed into the "background" or "sides". Especially when the main instrument (usually a voice) kicks in.

@ Hein, thanks for your post. Tonight it happened again. This morning I enjoyed Henryk Szeryng playing Bach on 8-2 with a very realistic and melodious violin, but tonight it would not even do for background music. WTF?! The strange thing is that on 8e I never am bored with any music (provided that I like it).

Lets see what we can do next,

Regards, Coen