And then there was W7 SP1 (RC) ...

[PeterSt]

On an in between the lines hint from Marcin In the "W7 Pitfall" topic (I even blamed him for stirring the pot about it), I installed a fresh W7/64 and on top of it SP1 (Release Candidate). These are my findings after two days of playing Christmas Albums (not always the best) :
(let me dedicate this topic to Marcin who may be afraid a bit to post about it; we talked about it off line too)

The sound

First of all the sound is totally different compared to all what I heard before;
There's a nice dark brown bass, and it is way more profound than anything, especially compared to Vista. Ok, we knew that the bass of Vista isn't the best, but here basses have their nice own life. Also the veils of drums benefit of this, and while I earlier was happy that Vista made those veils nicely audible again (while native W7 did not do that at all), this W7 SP1 (RC) makes excel just that.

I am under the impression the sound is very clean;
Looking at this relatively from Vista, it may even be more clean, which is because this W7 is more fresh, and any "cleanness" jumps out more.

I do NOT perceive the "more dynamics" I heard from native W7 a few days back. I think this is a good thing. But, still there is a kind of "dynamics" from the more tight bass and slam. The slam seems somewhat less than from native W7 though, but to me it just sounds natural.

The highs seem clean too, but maybe with less colour than Vista. This is a difficult one, because for me it is back to the "close to the edge" thinking about the NOS1 which is "dangerous" in this aspect. Anyway, I went back from Core Appointment Scheme 1 to 3 just because of this. Scheme 1 overdoes it a litte IMO. But also to keep in mind : playing Christmas Albums from merely the 60's is a challenge within itself.

What throughout time occurred to me from Vista is a "jitter" thing. Maybe not really jitter, but a flanger and vibrato which maybe shouldn't be there. Btw, notice that XXHighEnd can have impact on this just the same, so it seems a software "control" thing. Now with W7 SP1 all sounds completely straight throughout. It (IMO) is this what makes distortion guitars sound realy good, although most people will know them as making noise only. Not true; When "processed" well, it is one of the most "airy" instruments, and the squariness of it can so nicely fill the room. Oh, for Christmass stuff this is about Lynyrd Skynyrd.

I always think that Enya is a typical test for a voice which can sound delicate, but which is a destroyer when things are not 100%. Well, I don't think I ever heard her so beautiful as she sounds now.

General observations

Let me tell you first that I did not do anything for tweaks. So, no "tweaks till death will follow" either. Nothing.
Even in this case, I/Os are hard to find. There are some, and although they are new and right now I don't know where they are coming from, you'd almost say someone listened to us, because all of the others are not there. To me this looks a kind of strange ... as if things have been shut down for this Release Candidate.

I can't compare much with the earlier W7 situation because I changed PC in the mean time. But, I did not notice any difficulties at playing.

Generally it looks like the priorities behaviour wasn't changed compared to the native W7, but I do notice that there's a difference regarding how the screen I/O is dealt with. It is not even difficult to let the system BSOD when moving around with things a lot while playing (at real time priority).

What sure *is* new, is that the sound may stop for a few seconds. This feels like "uh-oh, something is wrong or off a bit, let's recalibrate". This may be similar to not receiving "too many buffer errors" at format changes, which I always had before, but not now ?

Lastly - and this could matter for what I perceive from SQ - I installed the OS on a spinning disk.
Maybe this encourages for a new "revolution", but at this time I don't think the SSD does good. It's merely theory, but if you (would be able to) read back what I wrote about this in the past, then you'd see that to me this feels like an emphazation of things going on anyway. So, if something is not right, the SSD will emphasize it. Of course this implies that if something is good it emphasizes it too, but honestly - this latter can't happen. It should be non-sense, never mind I said it myself. Merely it will impeed for a sibilance, and what I always said about (continuously ?) accessing the memory cells is something which is still in my mind, and which may spread currency draw, but first the currency draw then is not right in the first place. Just theory, but also not to forget that I like the sound very much, plus it is completely different. That SP1 will contribute to that somewhere is without doubt, but that the OS not being on the SSD just *will* add to it, if I must believe myself at perceiving the differences in general, and of course at believing everybody for perceiving vast differences. But is it for the better ? that is what I wonder now.
Besides, my previous OS-SSD which was still in the system, turned into a zombie, and Google tells me half of the world is bothered by this, solved by new firmware which half of those people doesn't help at all. Maybe by now I'm just fed up with SSDs.
I will have one in allright, just for the Galleries and the speed of retrieving it.
Additionally I believe that the OS disk spins down, and if not today than tomorrow after finding the source of those few IOs I mentioned.

Addendum

While I wrote this originally yesterday awaitening Marcin's topic about it, I had an additional evening of listening to more normal (test) stuff. Well, let me add to the above similar to what boleary said in the other topic :
am sorta blown away by how good SP1 it sounds!
Can't wait till it's play time again ...

There is such a naturalness, and what I didn't dare say earlier in response to Mani's first listening experience with the NOS1 : I guess this brings exactly what might be lacking when listening to Vista. It can always go deeper, and it can always go "brown café" browner" (we call a "brown café a cosey bar with not too much light and damn good atmosphere and music).

So, Vista was the solution to a failing Windows 7, but Windows 7 SP1 is the solution to Vista which seems to smoothen too much. It is like all was there in W7, but with distortion. Now it is without distortion and all is the best (??).

But I also think we must be careful;
As I said earlier, to me it feels that not all is there in W7. Similarly it can't be the final Release Candidate. I won't say all is wrong, but some too obvious things are, and it may happen that the RTM version contains sh*t we don't want again. Moral :
Get it now. You will need an official W7 (and can't upgrade from another version, nor won't it install on a beta or something) and it will be active until November 2011. Of course within the hour Marcin will come up with his W2008/SP1 (RC), and depending on the result of that it may be a more tough (and $$) job to get. So let's awaiten that too (I too can install it, but I don't want to loose any second on installing OSes at this time, and rather listen to these great sounds). Anyway, it should give you a more or less guaranteed good sound for the (almost) next year, and not to forget : I applied zero tweaks (and use a spinning disk for the OS, but which *only* contains the OS, and nothing else).

Maybe I come back on it all, but I don't think so. It's just too good ...

That's all for now ! - and thank you Marcin.
Peter

[Marcin_gps]

For me it's just less jittery and makes sound more enjoyable due to lack of sharp edges, which, I believe, nobody likes. Listening to anything else is very frustrating for me at the moment.

Regards,
Marcin

[boleary]

What's surprising is that its so good "out of the box" (no tweaks, internet running with all the antivirus, etc); it beats my somewhat tweaked vista set up.

[AUDIODIDAKT]

Great finding Marcin,

I'am still on w7 (mostly), will try update current os with RC1 SP1

Otherwise i will do a clean install on seperate spinning disc

This must be good, to be honest I currently dont like vista or w7 (both have their own problems and likings)

So my hopes are very high now, yes yes


Foundation, foundation, foundation, foundation

[AUDIODIDAKT]

Peter or Marcin,

Did you tried special mode (ultra low latency)
on (less good) bad recordings ?
\
\
Roy

[PeterSt]

Played the whole evening with it and had no reason so far to move back to Adaptive Mode.
... for the first time.

Played Ambient as well as a few other genres. All at 64 samples of internal latency (512 device's) and heard no single click or tick.

But here too ... tempt the system with e.g. converting a bunch of tracks during playback and NO click or anything at all, but sound will stop at some stage and won't come back.

I still have the feeling that someone has been listening to "us" ...

[Marcin_gps]

I hope you  believe me now and I'll write this one more time - SP1 is just the beginning and I'd say that it gives about 50% of overall SQ possible. (100% is my reference with everything tuned, re-checked on 2 PCs). I guess it's hard to believe, but I'm very confident that's the case

Marcin

[AUDIODIDAKT]

Played the whole evening with it and had no reason so far to move back to Adaptive Mode.
... for the first time.

Thats what i like to hear....
 

PS: Keep stiring the pot marcin, haha
 

[PeterSt]

I guess it's hard to believe

Mwah, the only thing hard to believe is that you know what 100% is.
Or will be.

Was ?

[Windows X]

Let us hope official SP1 will bring even better SQ. The improvements is promising to be comparable to generic cd transport. I must say SP1 RC sounds pretty damn close to highly optimized Linux platform (too bad decent cards are all for Win/Mac and no love for Linux but Async USB).

I think it's hardware issue that caused SQ being inferior to hiend CD transport making it sounds lifeless and not as involving as I can hear from today's standards of hiend CD transport and Vinyl.

P.S. I'm not suggesting that music server will sound inferior to decent CD transport in every system. It's only what I perceive in my system and what I have heard so far.

[Marcin_gps]

My headphones 'disappeared' on my head, sounds coming from all directions with great depth. There is nothing a bit wrong or 'kind of wrong' in the sound. (Beyerdynamic T1 /w RSA Apache + RME-AES32 and dCS Elgar Plus) I never thought that dCS could sound so musical and silky smooth. Remember my post from 2 months - I couldn't stand its dry, mechanical manner.

Windows X, one more time, refer to my post and ask yourself if you have everything totally under control...


Marcin

[Windows X]

I have everything except IRQ affinity applied and a lot of other things besides what you posted improving greater than IRQ but gap is way to wide that IRQ alone can fill that up.

Not that I didn't try IRQ but my main system has single core while subsystems have dual and quad core to give it a try. Improvements from IRQ isn't as effective as other tweaks I told you though (depends on OS configuration too).

I did PM you it was dramatic improvements and yeah I'm IT geek tech so it'd be obvious that I tried this in my workstation platform as soon as it's released. But it's not enough to pull "life" out of music. I'll try and see if better hardware mods can help it. My last resort is getting Mykerinos AES/EBU with separating power supply to 3 units for board/hdd, audio and RAM/clock with all caps/diode/etc. replaced to premium grade and CNC aluminium casing with resonance free vibration control design. Hope I don't have to go that far. It would cost me $20k just to make it and little more I can get Esoteric P3/D3/G0rb lol.

I didn't meant to say music server can't sound good. It sounds really good. But Esoteric P-05 sounds way too good for its price and P-03 and P-01 take big step each so it's pretty much impossible for music server to beat any of them right now.....not even with $20k DIY music server from techinical view from specifications and parts.

However, in real listening, some $100-300 sound card with digital output can out-class $10-20k CD Player for some people too. So just stick with what you like. I'm sticking with my music server over P-05 though because it's still sound that I can live with.

[Marcin_gps]

It's impossible to squeeze good SQ with a single core IMHO and IRQ affinity settings are crucial, very easy to overdo and ruin everything so it needs many hours of dull A/B testing, but it's worth.

Cheers,
Marcin

[Windows X]

Marcin, I tried IRQ with all possible good configuration in multi-core setup with decent PSU and it's no where near CD transport. Try to forget all this and ask yourself if IRQ alone can make Weiss INT202 interface sound as good as RME HDSP-32 with all other tweaks applied except IRQ.

As you can see, IRQ isn't even as effective as SP1 RC upgrade.

[Chriss]

As you can see, IRQ isn't even as effective as SP1 RC upgrade.

Well IRQ is just a part of it!
Marcin this is Release Candidate wich mean the final will be more(or less ) stable but nothing more as architecture!
off: guys today I woke up with one idia: we need motherboard with I2S output! I need it ahaha and good drivers(no not good exeptional) for it than we can talk about OS's and IRQ.

[PeterSt]

Windows X, I certainly agree with the latter you told. We could also say, at last I agree with something you say. But before this is judged as super positive, this doesn't imply that Marcin or anyone should stop with exploring *that* or any other means which in my book can have lower priorities. In the end it is not much different from what I say myself about a DAC etc. etc., or that tweaking software is far less efficient than tweaking hardware (at DAC level) where possible. I know, this may be a discussion within itself, but we also must take into account that not everybody is able to "tweak" at the level e.g. I can. Or you with a relative good DAC and again relative poor software which destroys.

But I beg you, stop talking about the impossibilities of the software side, no matter you are right or not. And especially stop repeating your statement about it. We know it now, and some may be with you while others are not. Your point is well made, and by now it only comes over as non-constructive, while we want to be on the constructive side of the matters.
I will allow myself to delete posts which only contain repetetive data (you may have learned why I don't talk about "information") which in the mean time look destructive to me. Or for what we are trying to achieve here.
I am sure you will understand.

Thanks,
Peter

[Gerard]

Played Ambient as well as a few other genres. All at 64 samples of internal latency (512 device's) and heard no single click or tick.

Does this also means Peter that you need to set the Latency from the soundcard to 512? Or can that stay at 2048?

 

[PeterSt]

Must be set to 512 (and Q1 = 1).

Btw, notice that this settings is just my former setting for Special Mode. I know I can go lower now, but don't want to compare apples with oranges at this time.

Peter

[Gerard]

Must be set to 512 (and Q1 = 1).

Btw, notice that this settings is just my former setting for Special Mode. I know I can go lower now, but don't want to compare apples with oranges at this time.

Peter

Yes i understand that it is your Special Mode setting.  I just wanted to be sure that the buffer size must be the same as the latency on the soundcard. And than offcourse play with Q1 setting.

Never could play SM so it's a bit confussing. Tried to read the tooltips but that made it not clear to me.

 

[PeterSt]

Never could play SM

But can you now ?

[Gerard]

Never could play SM

But can you now ?

Yes i can even very low latency. 

[Flecko]

....There is such a naturalness, and what I didn't dare say earlier in response to Mani's first listening experience with the NOS1 : I guess this brings exactly what might be lacking when listening to Vista. It can always go deeper, and it can always go "brown café" browner" (we call a "brown café a cosey bar with not too much light and damn good atmosphere and music)....

I know what you mean and what you are talking about. I hear that too but to be honest, that is what W7 always sounded like. I now heard the differnces between Vista and W7. They were there but it was still not a question of absolute quality. More a matter of taste, music and mood. Some things were better with vista and some were better with w7. And that was without SP1. If there is a difference from w7 to w7sp1, it is small. Same sound character as before. Clean and transparent. I appreciate, that you like to develope on W7 again. But maybe we could agree, to use a more neutral language to describe what we hear. We have no reference hardware and music to what we can compare. Nobody realy knows what is going on and what makes the difference. It is kind of going round in a circles. One day you like one side of the circle and next day the other. Than you go to the other side and it sounds great. You hear, what you have missed all the time but it is still the same circle.

[PeterSt]

I sure tend to agree with that. But there's a difference between something you missed (mainly the bass in this case) and something which disturbs all the time. For Vista this is a too "weak" bass to my likings and for Native W7 this is the roughness (the On/Off thing). From both it is fairly easy to decide for Vista.

Now with W7 SP1 the disturbing roughness is not there. This logically makes the decision towards W7 SP1.
But as said, I may come back on it. Didn't adjust my sig yet either ...

Peter

[Marcin_gps]

Adrian, your DAC must be jitter-resistant if you're saying that there is a small difference between W7 and W7 Sp1 or you have to have sth wrong in your system. I don't even need to listen to it, the difference is so obvious.

[Flecko]

Adrian, your DAC must be jitter-resistant if you're saying that there is a small difference between W7 and W7 Sp1 or you have to have sth wrong in your system. I don't even need to listen to it, the difference is so obvious.

My DAC has a DSP that uses some sort of parallel processing. According to Kingwa, in theory this should reduce jitter to 0. But of course in the real world, it is not like this. Maybe because of this,  I am  not as sensitive to hear some sort of things. But differences in the settings of xx I can hear.
I just try to be care full...
[ BTW... I will upgrade my digital source order is out!]

[Flecko]

Now with W7 SP1 the disturbing roughness is not there. This logically makes the decision towards W7 SP1.
But as said, I may come back on it. Didn't adjust my sig yet either ...

It can be, that this is better with w7. I can not do A/B testing because I installed SP1 over my former W7. But this roughness you mentioned...since z3, I have the problem that it doesn't sound as relaxed as with z2. z3 gives more details and is overall better but I can never forget about it, like I could do with z2. This roughness in my case, has something to do with sfs.ini. With 10, it seems that the sound has become more enjoyable than with 01 (man this is confusing...). How does the roughness change if you use 10 in your current system?

[PeterSt]

I didn't try that yet, but have a fresh Native W7 waiting. I have so few time ...

[Josef]

I didn't try that yet, but have a fresh Native W7 waiting. I have so few time ...

Installing 'raw' W7 is the best way to really appreciate how much SP1 RC improves on things.
'Normal' W7 (Windows Update turned on) already contains a number of fixes so difference is less...

[Flecko]

I didn't try that yet, but have a fresh Native W7 waiting. I have so few time ...

Installing 'raw' W7 is the best way to really appreciate how much SP1 RC improves on things.
'Normal' W7 (Windows Update turned on) already contains a number of fixes so difference is less...

Yep, that is true. SP1 is a collection of updates according to Microsoft.

[AUDIODIDAKT]

I "hear" the updates here too.

Not installed SP1 RC1 yet !

[PeterSt]

Then don't if you hear the updates ...

Maybe it's a bit unclear, but what Josef meant (I'm sure), is that W7 should be as native as possible (no upgrades let loose on it), and slipstream RC1 over it (which contains all those updates in a decent fashion).

[AUDIODIDAKT]

I already updated my main w7 OS, this week and the week before that.
Not knowing it would do something to the sound, but its for the better, less edgy

But me have no 300-400 euros to spend on w7.
So must improvise if you know what i mean.
Takes more time

[pedal]

I know it is a little cocky to say "what did I say?", but actually I was very happy with 9-z3 and W7 back in November, as reported here (to Peters surprise).

Well, what did I say? (sorry about that, ha-ha). Now I have jumped into the window, out of the window and back into the window again. 

Anyway, no effort, no gain, of course.

------------

Since we are becoming a big family with the same OS, the same Julia soundcard and the same NOS1 DAC, can somebody share their recomended settings with me? 

[PeterSt]

Maybe not of much value, but see my Sig. Definitely adjusted it now.

Music is totally crazy here and the best there ever was.

As I never want to judge alone, when dinner actually was ready, I asked my wife "what's changed ?". Answer : I don't like the music, so never mind.

So, "shall I put on your album briefly then ?" -> ok (we have at least one album she likes much)

Within 2 seconds (really) there came a : Brushes sound much better. More detailed.

Within a next 5 seconds : But wait ... this is because of the bass I think. Wow, this flows out. It is so easy. So easy to listen to. Hear that drums ... so easy.

At the next track : The bass is fast. ... Yes, it responds faster.
And : Dzjee, the bass is VERY tight. Impossibly tight. Puh, how can it be THAT tight ?
And : Man, how good you can hear those strings now. Same as all the instruments being so apart.
And : So easy ... so easy ... So warm.
And : So much more profound, this bass. WOW


That did it. I changed my Sig.
For the very first time I (we) am able here to find KS Special Mode better than Adaptive Mode (which should be better all the time !)
It seems totally impossible, so much as things have changed. It is indeed weiry to not hear a bass as such anymore. It's all individual strings producing bass tones (let alone not all that long back when there was just bass sound not knowing whatever did that).
I'm listening to very well known albums, but the lot swings ... not normal. Swings, taps, dances, joys. Now *that* never happened with Special Mode. It's taking my breath away.
Yesterday I played Black Sabbath (Paranoid). Even that can swing. It has a rythm, rhyme and in the end intelligence which is all up front suddenly. Not just dark "sabbath" music anymore, but a couple of guys who well thought about their music and how to construct it to fit their image. It's like another dimension. Also yesterday I listened to Oscar Peterson. Well, the man is crazy; From the start to the end each key on the piano is under his 100% control. I never heard it before, but now I can. What a fun must this man have (had) and got payed for it in the mean time.

I have the feeling that somehow my own quest for the best has been finalized.
It's really freakin' unbelieveable, and I'm not even sure what caused it; As I said in the other topic, it must be W7-SP1, but in combination with Special Mode and maybe the Spinning Disk I use for the OS again. But at adjusting my Sig I also found out that my SFS.ini was at 00 which actually is an accident, emerged from initializing the RAMDisk again (and SFS.ini = 00 being default for 0.9z-4). And then there's the SFS itself ... see Sig. Haha.
But which of this really does it ? I stay away from touching my settings for a while ...

Peter

PS: We ate one hour later.

:extasy: <- needs a new smiley

[Flecko]

I have the feeling that somehow my own quest for the best has been finalized.
It's really freakin' unbelieveable, and I'm not even sure what caused it; As I said in the other topic, it must be W7-SP1, but in combination with Special Mode and maybe the Spinning Disk I use for the OS again. But at adjusting my Sig I also found out that my SFS.ini was at 00 which actually is an accident, emerged from initializing the RAMDisk again (and SFS.ini = 00 being default for 0.9z-4). And then there's the SFS itself ... see Sig. Haha.
But which of this really does it ? I stay away from touching my settings for a while ...

I have this easyness since using sfs.ini=10. 00 is good too but 10 seems to give a little bit more details and a cleaner sound. The second "1" (sfs.ini=01) makes sound unpleasent for me.  I will try the ultra low sfs values!
Keep on listening!

[Gerard]

(and SFS.ini = 00 being default for 0.9z-4). And then there's the SFS itself

Peter,

What is you SFS setting. I read your SFS.ini as 00 But your SFS is 1,0?? (wich before was 220)  On my pc i cant go lower than 12.

 

[PeterSt]

Special Privileges.

Payed myself 200 euros, and then it happens.


(don't try to pay to "you" yourself, that won't work)

[Gerard]

Special Privileges.

Payed myself 200 euros, and then it happens.


(don't try to pay to "you" yourself, that won't work)

Ok will wait for the next version 

[JohanZ]

*SFS=1,0* @ *SFS.ini = 00*

Ho Peter,

First congratulations with the release of NOS1 DAC.

Is the SFS=1,0 a new parameter in release 09z-4? When do you release this version? Any chance you develope in 2011 a small budget DAC, the NOS2 (H=> I or T)?

Regards Johan

[PeterSt]

*SFS=1,0* @ *SFS.ini = 00*

Ho Peter,

First congratulations with the release of NOS1 DAC.

Is the SFS=1,0 a new parameter in release 09z-4? When do you release this version? Any chance you develope in 2011 a small budget DAC, the NOS2 (H=> I or T)?

Regards Johan

Hoi Johan,

Yes, it is new to 09z-4;
I realize it is a bit stupid to mention this publically - including implied benefits, but I guess I tripped over my own enthusiasm about the sound I have now, while not knowing exactly what causes it. In this case I thought it would be very wrong to fake the SFS with 12 or something, because people might never get there. Of course, now they can't either, but now with a known reason. The "1,0" just does what it promises, and while all the "memory play" features are still 100% obeyed, this now behaves as a more normal player (with withgoing response). I can go up to 0,2 (200KB) but this is not 100% safe. Actually 1,0 not always is, but I encounter that once a week maybe. 2,0 is I think.
In combination with other stuff this does much more though, but let that be for when 0.9z-4 is out. I hope this will be next week, all the DAC stuff being behind us then (still working on the last two right now).

Any chance you develope in 2011 a small budget DAC, the NOS2 (H=> I or T)?

At this moment not being able to guess what your H, I or T means, it is difficult to see how. And to be honest ... as how things are going currently (which may merely be a matter of poor organization) the price is way too low already. So, sorry ...

Peter

[Chriss]

Peter,
you say that spining disc is sounding better over SSD? (with all other improvements OS SFS etc. etc.).
But did you try W7  on SSD too?
Criss.

[PeterSt]

I don't say exactly that Criss. I do say though it changes the sound and in a way (frequency) that makes me think there's some continuous "communication" with the memory cells. This might (or will) be at the electronical level though (like feed them with power, constantly looking at the state, whatever). Additionally it looks like that emphasizes. Emphasizes whatever it is in there that *can* be emphasized. This is a dangerous thing by itself for judgement (if it makes sense to begin with) because e.g. white noise could make the sound more clear when emphasized (not clean, but clear). If such a thing would be true, I see no way that something which is good can be emphasized for the better. Ok, we could "emphasize" voltages to the sense of volume, but that still wouldn't make things better. And so ...
So I now might think that all the SSD implies is fake. Or it fools. And thus better leave it out.

But I say it again : It is one of the several things which changed at the same time. Still I have the experience (a year back or so) that the SSD had to be out because something else was wrong and *that* emphasized. So you see ... once we are clear about that no "good" can be emphasized while it emphasizes in general, it shouldn't be there at all. So yes, in the midst of several things, but I'd put some money on the fact that the SSD is a bad thing.

Don't blame me if I appear to be totally wrong.
Peter

[Suteetat]

Well, I finally installed Win7 with sp1 RC after it took me a lot of effort to actually find Vista 64 bit version just a couple of months ago.
It is a bit difficult to accurately judge the sound quality as I also just sold my amplifier and am waiting for a new one to arrive in the next couple of weeks.
In the mean time I just got something that I borrowed from friends and local dealers.

Anyhow, when I reinstalled Win7. Right of the bat, it sounded awful, coming from Vista. The sound was downright grundgy, lots of digitalitis
which I thought, oh no....
Then I download SP1 RC and things got much better. Overall, the sound is much smoother and more relaxed than pre sp1.
In comparison to Vista though, I think there is a trade off. Win7 sp1 has more open sound, more clarity but it does not have quite
the full body and weight of Vista. Vista was a bit warmer, a little more darkish.

Again, some of these could also be from change in amplifier although I did have a chance to listen with Vista with the new amp/pre
a little bit before jumping onto W7 sp1 bandwagon

I think Win7 is promising but I have to wait until my new amps/pre arrive where I can also go back to use all my old cables again as well.

btw, I had to reinstall xxHighend after installing sp1. For some reasons, the screen got screwy and setting button would not show up on the screen.
Very strange but all is well now after reinstalling XXHighend.

[PeterSt]

I think I can recognize all you said. But about the full body and weight it may be a matter of "interpretation". So, about "weight" I tend not to agree, if only weight is translated into punch or attack at the lower frequency levels. W7 SP1 has more of that. Also, Vista indeed is warmer, but IMO not for the better. It lacks (totally ?) the control of the lower regions. Your Vista being "darker" is something we could just disagree upon, since it is my idea that W7 is more "brown".

So, blame the amp ?

[BrianG]

I have to agree, as said before, W7 SP1 has "more" bass than Vista SP1 in my system but I lack the correct words that I can use to describe it so I just use other people to point me in a direction that I may or may not like and either outcome is OK.   

I usually use Peter's sig details as this pointer but at the moment they don't make sense, Qs = zeros, 64 bit latency and SFS = 1,0 unless you have 09z-4   

[Marcin_gps]

Peter, do you have any logical explanation why HDD could be better choice as a OS base? I don't see one, especially that SSD is two times faster, 100x times better access time and draws lot less power.

[BrianG]

I think Peter said something about the OS maybe "keeping an eye" on the SSD memory cells as an overhead that did something that wasn't there with the hard-drives?

over to you Peter...

[Suteetat]

I did not mean to imply that having more weight in Vista means that it has punchier, stronger or more dynamic bass.Win 7 has more of all of that.
However, I think more weight and darker sounding (to me at least) means that the balance in sound is tilted toward
the bass area whereas W7 sounds more open so midrange and treble becomes a bit more pronounced. Kind of like
hot chocolate for Vista vs latte, perhaps! Both smooth and creamy but not quite so dark or weighty!
Sorry my Starbuck vocaburary generally only has hot chocolate and frappucino, I have absolutely no idea whatever else they serve!

 

[PeterSt]

sound is tilted toward the bass area whereas W7 sounds more open so midrange and treble becomes a bit more pronounced.

Within itself I would agree with this. But the funny (?) thing is, that the bass becomes more separate because of that too (a virtue). But I guess this depends much on the system, and how it produces the bass to begin with (jitter will be important here, I think).

[Suteetat]

I forgot to mention that on Weiss INT202, there is a DPC latency checker function. With Vista, I consistantly get DPC latency of around 300+ us but since I switched to Win7, DPC latency is consistantly under 150 us. However, that was also before SP1 was installed so it probably is not the main reason for sound quality
but W7 is certainly doing something!

[Windows X]

HDD can't be better than SSD unless there's somethig seriously wrong with system making hdd sounds better than ssd. RAM OS is even better but sadly it's not possible.

[Flecko]

Peter, do you have any logical explanation why HDD could be better choice as a OS base? I don't see one, especially that SSD is two times faster, 100x times better access time and draws lot less power.

Maybe this explains it. It is about sd cards but the techniques might be the same:

It turned out that the problem was the flash-card. While reading from the SDHC-card, every time I jumped to the FAT in order to look where the next cluster of data would be, there was a huge current surge from the supply. As the FAT has to be looked up regularly there was a very bad jitter correlation.

I learned that this was not only a problem for the one card I was using, but it is a problem inherent in all SD-cards. Whenever you have to change the reading location (i.e. jump to FAT) there will be a jerk in the supply, causing a significant and badly correlated amount of jitter.

to read the full story:
http://www.altmann.haan.de/tera_player/default.htm

[PeterSt]

Interesting ...

[pedal]

A funny observation today: XX plays at half speed. This happens with 96 and 192 kHz material when NOT upsampled to 384. Playing it at native (same) sample rate, it is only half speed!

Also, sometimes I get a slight scratching sound in the right channel. It happens only when I play upsampled the 384.  Pushing start/stop track in XX, removes the noise. Lowering the (up)sampling frequency one step (to 192) removes the problem too. It seems that the playback is more "fragile" at 384.

Or maybe it's related to my settings? (see signature).

[wushuliu]

Well Icame across this thread last night and decided to download all the updates because I don't know where to get SP1 (microsoft website?). Since I only use this PC for music it had no updates at all installed. After I downloaded all the updates and rebooted... totally different presentation. What I heard was a more pronounded mids and high frequencies. Very clear and sweet (due to my speakers). Very open. Like a flower opening in bloom (ha, i should write for 6moons!). This actually was a night and day difference. In comparison before the music was duller, uninvolving, somewhat recessed. This all happened late last night and I am in the middle of installing active crossover w/ full range speakers so I need to make sure tonight that I did not accidentally reset some settings when I reboot or anything like that.

... oh i just read Suteetat's post. I agree completely. that is what I heard...

[Telstar]

Well Icame across this thread last night and decided to download all the updates because I don't know where to get SP1 (microsoft website?)

yes:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=C3202CE6-4056-4059-8A1B-3A9B77CDFDDA&displaylang=en
(english OS required i think)

[PeterSt]

A funny observation today: XX plays at half speed. This happens with 96 and 192 kHz material when NOT upsampled to 384. Playing it at native (same) sample rate, it is only half speed!

Also, sometimes I get a slight scratching sound in the right channel. It happens only when I play upsampled the 384.  Pushing start/stop track in XX, removes the noise. Lowering the (up)sampling frequency one step (to 192) removes the problem too. It seems that the playback is more "fragile" at 384.

Or maybe it's related to my settings? (see signature).

To my own experience there are some combinations which are not covered for as should. So far I didn't bother because I just switch OFF all the "is NOS1 384" things, and all will play normal.

The scratching sound I recognize too, and I solved it (but others should hear it too ??).

... But I start to be afraid now that I lost track of what I did for what reason and when, and that I really should have put out 0.9z-4 before NOS1's went out. I mean, I am sure I "needed to", but never did because of the hectic in the mean time.
Fully working on 0.9z-4 again now though ...

Peter

[Eric]

Good to hear Peter.
If you need somebody helping you in the testing area,
please don't hesitate to ask 

Cheers
Eric

[AUDIODIDAKT]

Personally I think that the upgrade in SQ has nothing to do with the fact that microsoft spended time on audio.
Its more like an hotfix for something completly different, that ofcourse infected SQ (again).

must be:

Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB979538)

Update type: Recommended

Install this update to prevent unexpected shutdowns or bluescreens when you are using a USB video device. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

More information:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/979538

or

Update for Windows 7 for x64-based Systems (KB2443685)


Update type: Important

Install this update to resolve issues caused by revised daylight saving time and time zone laws in several countries. This update enables your computer to automatically adjust the computer clock on the correct date in 2011. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer.

More information:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2443685