Hi Mani, that's the VMWare of music production - the music environment is simulated or created in the studios. Sometimes that works beautifully, but too often not. I think that the best records are created if a modest environment is used. I do not think that the best ever components are necessary but the clever combination of them. Another point is the date of expiry for new music. That has decreased constantly in the last 40 years and the demand for high quality with it (the exception proves the rule). I read somewhere the phrase "sufficient quality". That's the matter. If there is no demand for highest quality it will be produced as needed. Can we expect conservativeness from the recording engineers under this conditions?

Georg

OK, I send it to department placebo 

Georg

I find another Windows SQ setting which seems to be worth to try out: Setting the process priority from foreground to background. Gives better separation of instruments in my system.

Georg

Sometimes I had to do similar things as George. Then I did some actions with the XXHE configuration settings, entered the activation code again and shut down / restart the system.

Georg

Hi Carsten,

did you order a new activation code for Windows 8? The Windows 7 activation code does not work ...

Georg

Hi Paul,

the TM loudspeaker principle surely benefits from the xxhighend software. A lot of years ago I owned a pair of IMF TLS 50 and was very satisfied - until I moved to another location. I got a lot of resonances in the new room and sold the speakers. It would be interesting to hear them again 

Georg 

As posted before there have been some glitches with shutdown and booting Windows 8 again. Sometimes the ramdisk appears, the SQ was terrible or the Metro appeared unexpectedly. Even shutting down via command line did not work. I have identified the hibernate mode as the cause. Sometimes it was functional for no reason. So I disabled the hibernate mode completely using Windows commands: powercfg /H off. This deletes the file hybernate.sys completely too. From now on everthing worked flawless.

Georg

Yes, give credit where credit is due 

Georg

I will never use that sh*t VGA again. Without thinking about I connected the TV to the PC via the VGA interface. What a big mistake! When the monitor is connected via DVI the music is more analogue again and the locating phantastic. Many thanks for the reminder of the DVI interface 

Georg

Hi Nick,

I changed to a passive Seasonic PS too - it's worth every cent  . Because the mounting holes of my computer case are at the top I turned the case upside down and turned the HD and DVD too. That works fine! Sooner or later I will get a new case

Cheers,
Georg

Hi Nick,

it seems that different clock frequencies for the mobo components are useful and that the correlation depends on the mobo itself. I tried the settings with two mobos with different equipment (RAM, graphics, etc.) and there are different values necessary. So it's an individual finetuning ...

Georg

Thanks Peter, thanks Nick,

it's easily switchable. So I can try a new hardware config or software version with input capacitor at first  . I found the Blackgate seller in Japan and another source in Europe and will order a pair.

Georg

After trying out a lot of things with 0.9z-9b and Windows 8 the system seems to be very stable and the time has come to ban the input capacitor. For the case of accidents it's easily connected again. Additionally I connected in parallel with the buffering capacitor a styroflex capacitor on the amp board which works beautifully for the heights.

Georg

Hi Arvind,

I can easily understand your disappointment - it's a nightmare to get the system right with Windows 8.  The hardest step is to leave behind a wonderful individual sound with Windows 7. We all expected another step in this familiar environment. But it is not there anymore - you have to find the paradise again! Trying hard the last weeks (sqeezing the PC environment, installing a separate mains supply, using shield fabric and more) I'm exploring my system the first time from the ground up. At the moment I'm feeding the Metrum DAC with 20 bit data - as Peter supposed some time ago - and I never expected the improved SQ. Aditionally it was necessary to set  clockres = Nothing and set the right Q5. Actually i have found a new stable environment with beautiful SQ.
So don't give up and try some unconventional things, even if they will appear foolish in the retrospective.

Georg

Hi Peter,

I was more than once disappointed the last days when using XXHIGHEND and tuning Windows 8 - it's good to hear that you are experiencing the same issues. I observed another phenomenon: I used a ramdisk (imdisk) actually again and found that after rebooting Windows 8 the ramdisk was visible(existing) in explorer. That was not intended! After deletig and initialiszing again the SQ was really good again. Actually the drive is not shown anymore with all the hassles you write before. Maybe there is some mixture of "clean" shut down and "buffered" shut down.

Georg

P.S.: It did not help that I've bought a Dutch Windows 8 version to squeeze out every SQ bit