Hi Peter cs,

Let me start with the best wishes for 2012!

Some month ago I did a speedtest on the hdds and those matched the expectations of data transferrates. The os and music discs are connected with sata2, nothing else than the nos1 on the usb side of things.
I did select 'ide' mode on my mobo that also has an old style pata connector.
Some xx versions ago I did some testing on ide vs 'ahci', but found little difference in performance and worse sound for ahci.

Another thing is the volume adjustment that -no surprises here- leads to lower processorload when multiples of 6db are selected. It also seems that mono recording exibit less cpu load.

I don't feel like putting much more time in this setup and have now some sandy bridge on order (i5-2500/ z68) that should do all xx tricks with two fingers in the nose . And on top of that with comparable power consumption.

Regards, Coen

New signature see below.

To avoud the clicks and drop outs @ 16x ap i run the player now at normal priority (was real time). A also learned to exit the nos driverapplication, this causes only more clicks and dropouts.

Unfortunately sfs is maximised by the music stopping out for a few seconds. An sfs of 140 works flawlessly. I experimented up to 180, which worked allright and even sounded better, but i get regular drop outs of 3 seconds.

I also changed the bios to enable hyperthreading before conducting the optimisations. Now there is a nice peak in core 1 and 2-3 spikes per interval in the other three cores. Base load reduced to 5% av. The sound gained some colour and freedom.

So it works yet (still?) suboptimal and i am not complaiming about the sq. 

Regards, Coen

Ok,

All drivers are updated and the 8 gigs are in and i can push up to an sfs of 144. This increases the time between the peaks, but has a negative side effect of sudden drop outs and skipped (smal) parts of the music. Dropping q1 does not seem to have an effect on the load.

Save for these interruptions of sorts, i think it sounds excellent. Too bad  it doesn't work properly .

With quad ap things get a lot easier for the pc. A much larger interval between peaks (still there) and a smooth ride through the tracks. Definitely a different kind of sound, all seems a little smoothed over, however very nice by itself.


Any suggestion what could be the matter on the usb side? With my pci soundcard i also had a rythmic peak but only in the 'left' core.
Minimised or not, it does not make a difference of the cpu load.


Q1 below 15 with quad-ap makes a difference in 'cpu baseload' from  average 7% to 3%. Sfs in pics above is 34...

I will update my signature (nos usb on 12ms and sfs of 144).

Regards, Coen

Thanks for the reply.

This whole 'cpu maxing out' thing since the nos usb was installed didn't make me feel confortable about getting the goods from it.

I will update the mobo drivers and expand memory to 8gb now i am running with win7 x64. Furthermore I can throttle down the AP and reduce q1 (now at 34 Mb) for an easier load.

It should be possible to run nos usb with an atom satisfactory, since Mani does it and finds little sound related objections (though he does have some practical issues). Actually the low powerconsumption enables him to use a linear psu (probably with some dc-dc conepveraion down the stream).

In this thread:http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1673.msg19195#msg19195


No idea of his cpu load and xx profile for this setup.

Regards, Coen

Peter,

Thanks,

A 'non clipped' pic 1 is how Scheme 3 would look normally, isn't it?

Is there any way to relieve the poor basterd form its cpu burden?

regards, Coen

Well changing the volume in my system is unfortunately still unreliable.

Changing the volume whilst playing music usually works after a reboot or restart of XX but runs into problems fast. Well problems... actually noting happens.
The little vertical bar below on the left side of the volumeslider (below #7) becomes green. Eventually XX stops with the 'Engine #4 not started in time' error. I have a hunch that it may be related to pressing the 'next' button.
If this vertical bar is white, usually the volume change occurs.

The work around I use is to pause the music and play again.

This could alle be related to limitations of the modest setup, yet I would really like this to be working with my nos usb now!

regards, Coen

Peter,

Here's one for you:

I noticed the processor not being used in a way I was used to. I allways have the taskbar ready to get some insight into performance or SQ problems.

What is happening I illustrate with the attatched pics.

Pic 1 is a picture of XX playing a WAV file with settings as in my signature after a fresh reboot.

Pic 2 is a screenpicture of XX playing a FLAC file directly after the WAV with same settings.
Is this the cause of the difference I have been hearing between FLAC and WAV???

Pic 3 is a screenpicture of XX playing the same wav as in pic 1 after the FLAC of pic 2 (same settings).
The right -wav- part of the processorchart is obviously different from Pic 1.   



Two more things:
- same situation in unattended
- same situation when XXEngine3 is stopped before the "pic 3"

And pic 1 and pic 3 situations sound different!

regards, Coen

Hi,

I also experienced some strage phenomena wrt bit identical files. My theory that sound differences are due to the different ways the bits are stored on the harddisc. As shown above both the ripping software as the hdd it is stored (and transferred to) seem to matter. Ultimately we should verify if the files end up the same way in the memory.

Furthermore any sampling to a higher rate may 'remember' any wrong sample for quite some time. Theorethically a few dropped or wrong bits are not audible. I wonder if you hear any difference just playing plain nos (no ap or any sampling enabled).
In this light padded 'zero' samples could very well influence the sound as they might influence the memory allocation as well.

Interesting stuff indeed!

Regards, Coen

Imho the original post of this thread was all about the redbook capabilities of the NOS USB.

I can now testify that the discussion hires or redbook is rather academic in this perspective. Some of my better redbooks sound finer that any hires recording ever did on my set.

Furthermore, technically I am not convinced that more DR and more ultrasone information make any sense. This is not wrt our auditory system but rather the limitations of the recording and reproduction technologies. Potentially the increase in linearity (needed to catch a signal in >20 bits) is the most prominent reason that hires can sound better.

regards, Coen

Well let's say that i sometimes suddenly get connected to the universal intelligence. Like finding the solution to that pita cryptogram when i am in a dull businessmeeting.

Just kidding. It must be my mind breaking in to the kharma of the nos1.

Oh....and there are a lot of hints in your posts of this thread though.

Something else has intrigued me for a long time and that is why sometimes mono-ised stereo recordings (100% x-feed) exibit detail and substance that i never or hardly hear in full stereo. That observation would vote for option 2 imho.
Secondly let's not forget that lps (records) only have a very limited stereo separation (like 40db) and can sound super dense and spacious. Infact my tt setup sounded wider and deeper than my previous digital (before nos).

I guess it has to do with someting not being quite right in the stereo recording/mastering process and x-feed correcting for that.

My 2c on this matter.

Regards, Coen

P.s. It is great to learn that tripping is possible without tubes!

 

I have an audio pal who used a common cathode resistor and capacitor for botch channels on a simple tube amp, hereby implementing some x-feed per design. That amp sounded spacious as hell, complete psychedelic mushroom stuff.

If we are in the same territory i can imagine the 'trip'. Never got it working satisfactory in my setup though. I am not as gifted as my pal in getting these things to work.


Regards, Coen

Ok this sounds like some x-feed tweak to me, but I can be entirely wrong.

For the health of the forum members i advise to release deatails asap. I can see some members igniting on pure anticipation.
I believe i am not worthy of this tweak yet since i am still breaking in my nos.

Regards, Coen

Still lagging behind Claude, I also obeserved the dip is sq around day 10. Thin, no bass, no soul, something to get sad about.

But this morning i observed an improvement in timing and definition, so we are in the lift up again! Very promising indeed.

Regards, Coen

I posted the link to michael greenes site in the spikes for nos thread. This guy has a holistic view on vibrations wrt to sound reproduction. Mechanical, airborne (sound) and electrical vibrations all interact in the confined space we listen music to. His theory is to improve or altere sound by tuning (harmonising?) those vibrations to eachother.

If you find Peters posts sometimes a little cryptic, the ramblings of mr Green will confuse you beyond imagination. Pictures of his tools and way of working are much easier to understand. They may appeal to those who ever opened their cd player to find it sounding better or ones that have experimented with the torque of the screws that hold their gear together....

Anyway, i think this direction of thinking holds some truth about the working of tweaks (for better and worse!) from a vibration perspective and no I am not a tune disciple.

Regards, Coen

Peter,

Thanks for your vision on this process.

For shure just being "on" counts for a major part of the burn in. Though i have an impression that actually loading the parts by playing music adds to this effect.
This is no voodoo imho: especially parts like capacitors are only conducting when an ac signal is fed (this holds also true for decoupling caps).

I burned my black gates "off line" in a special burner applying an low voltage ac rectifier with one diode (a little dc + significant ac ripple).

The nos starts of with a pleasant refined rounded and non impressive sound (until you focus on the low end). I missed the dynamics and high end that appears after a day or something. And it kept on turning until monday. I have quite the same experiece with running in the black gates "in situ". Only at the last hours the open up and give all their good. We will have to be patient.


Regards, Coen