Add some noise (Windows 8)

[PeterSt]

All,

Actually this is about a most devistating subject hence I don't see how we can consistently get under control our noise issues.

First off : Read this : Windows 8.1 hence know what I wrote there. At this time of writing this is u/i Reply #4.

Ok. You know that I have been saying that at some stage of the level of (few) noise we can obtain could be worse than having some more of it. This is about the few frequencies of noise left and what is left can become profound. At least that has been my theoretical perception and I think today this prooves true.

Disclaimer : Of course this is through my system and ears only and/but let's say that the noise level in my chain should be one of the more real lower because I can just easily measure what I am doing. So, this is not about audible noise (no matter how deeply listened in the speaker (115dB sensitive in my case) but about noise way more down like -140/-120dB areas.
It also is about Windows 8 with its strange issues which right from the start were dedicated to "too few noise" - at least by me.

In the link (first post) I just gave, there is a sort of disclaimer of what I use differently in that particular (W8.1) chain compared to what I use normally. And sadly it turned out that it is all about that;

One of the major things I use there is a USB2 connected disk; I had to, because my LAN connection wasn't setup in that OS (with all the mappings to drives elsewhere). So it just was my means to play (obtain) music.

What I wrote in that topic was that I was actually very satisfied with the result, because those jumping out details and actually "too high frequencied" sound was not there with Windows 8.1 at all. All finally sounded the most normal to me.
Last night I went back to my normal W8 OS as I have used it for the past months, and right away I couldn't stand it. Same issues as ever before, BUT I got used to them. Not so anymore when you listened for three days to more normal music reproduction.

Knowing the differences as decribed in that link I gave, I thought to mimic that. So, connected the USB2 disk again and played from there. All further the same so no other changes to that PC. Just not playing over the LAN but through that USB2 connected (USB3) disk.
All was right again.

Then, and although I was very sceptical about the possible result, I left that disk be as it was, and played through the LAN again.
All was still right.

And thus now, all what I (in my obviously specific situation !) must do is connect that separately powered (in a separately earthed mains ring) USB3 disk through the USB2 connection.


Yes, I put this in "Playback Tweaks" because I don't see it differently than that. It's just that super tweak needed. Sadly though I don't see it at all as a tweak everybody can apply. That is, most probably it is too much depended on the situation as a whole, unless "some" USB2 connection does some OS tricks. But this seems too far out to me.
Or maybe not ?

Maybe people should try a few things in this realm;
My LAN connection should not be related with the notice it is off anyway during playback. If you want to achieve a sort of comparable result, you should have the music on some internal HDD (can be the OS disk as well I think), use a  RAMDisk for XXHighEnd as well as Playback Drive (so two RAMDisks) do not connect *anything* to USB (and as you may know, in my view mouse and keyboard are banned from that as well but if you have to use them through USB, alas) and next attach a USB disk to USB2. Preferrably a USB3 disk. Don't use it for anything - just connect it.

Sound difference (remember, my situation)

Yesterday I played a full (ambient) album through my normal situation of the past months. Sound was annoying (but really as usual) and detail jumped out in a hissing way (this depends very much on the album of course, especially when synths are used). Sound was all over in different places (seems good) but made no music as such (places were too different - all was too separate although that looks technically nice (to have achieved)).

After attaching the USB disk I listened to the complete album again. Why ?
I didn't recognize anything of it anyway.
No separate sounds everywhere anymore. And you know what ? when I played the album the first time, my very first notice was "ouch, so far away !". And didn't I tell about this many times (W8). This thus, compared to the past three days where I did *not* notice the sound was more close by. But the other way around, yes.

I have been raving about my "super bass" from the Orelino Speakers. Well, this is so and justified. But when I day before yesterday (USB disk situation) played one of the most profound tracks about this, suddenly all changed. I know that just over a minute into the particular track some bass stands up and takes over. Now ? I thought I was playing the wrong track. The bass started all right, but at a so much lower level that it is actually unbelievable. In the mean time I could walk to all places in the room to hear it vibrate (at just under 30Hz or so). This was not so before because it was too warm (say that louder makes more warm and more fuzzy).

While I was yesterday totally annoyed all over when I played that (other) album without the USB disk connected, totally nothing of that was left anywhere with the disk connected. And, noticeable in 5 seconds again.
The change is as if the speakers were replaced by another brand. Or the amps. Or the room. Therefore maybe too tough to describe, but all over different.


To summ it up, I don't know what to do with this;
It seems clear that no matter how we might rave about our (new) situation, we can all not be trusted because of these futilities; We just won't even know we are applying them.
The difference in this case is so crazy that we should give up on it all instantly (unless it works out the same for everybody). And why is it so much different ? I can only guess. Guess ? No, not even that. Stupid theories maybe, which you might dig because I am presenting them. But do I know really ?

No.

Peter

[AlainGr]

Peter,

I am trying hard to understand (and maybe I do ?), but you say that if we connect a USB 3 drive to a USB 2 port, without doing anything with it, the sound comes out more naturally ?

I am less certain if you are talking about W8 or W8.1 though...

Please correct me if I am wrong...

Regards,

Alain

[PeterSt]

Alain,

I am not saying that this will "help", but I do hope so. And if the difference is a huge as it is here it should be easy to try and detect.

This afternoon I will have my 8.1 ready for the same "LAN" setup I am used to, so I will try that tonight. So, if that works as "bad" without the USB disk connected as it does on W8, then it is a general thing (here at least).

Will report ...
Peter

[Stanray]

Early October I tested my USB connections:

1.   USB 2.0 cable (stock) versus USB 3.0 cable (€10)
2.   USB 3.0 card (Asrock with Renesas driver) versus USB 3.0 motherboard versus USB 2.0 motherboard.

My disk is a SATA disk in an USB 3.0 converter enclosure externally powered. Computer, DAC, disk and screen are all fed through a Purepower power regenerator. 

After 2 nights of listening tests I preferred:
1.   USB 3.0 cable
2.   USB 2.0 motherboard connection over the USB 3.0 motherboard over the USB 3.0 card connection.

Especially the imaging was more natural and the highs were more relaxed, yet detailed and layered.

After that I had to travel abroad for 2 weeks and I forgot about it, until now.

Regards,
Stanley

PS. No playbackdrive and RAMdisks at moment of testing. Will try the RAMdisk batchfile this week hopefully.

[acg]

Peter, are you saying that it is sometimes better to have a higher level of 'good noise' rather than remove it and expose 'bad noise' even at lower levels?  If so, I guess you are saying that in your situation the USB2 disk makes 'good noise' for you and masks some of the 'bad noise' that you experience when it is not here.

This could well be true, and I like your thinking.  But, as you know from the linear psu thread, I am on a 'low noise' crusade at the moment and am really interested in where that gets us in regards to sound quality.  Personally I REALLY like the sound I am getting from my XXHE PC with the PPAstudio USB card and am confident that I can improve that further with the LPS and perhaps the NOS1 USB Clock upgrade that Nick is pioneering (and I hope you can verify before I am too tempted to take a soldering iron to my NOS1).

Anyway, eventually there comes a point where the law of diminishing returns kicks in, but we never find that point until we have gone too far at least once.

Anthony

[PeterSt]

In my thinking "noise" as such does not exist. As a disturbing factor, yes, but otherwise it is just many (usually high) frequencies stacked. Think like this :

Suppose you have this quite common white noise through your speakers. The "spectrum" is so that it is all over and that is why you perceive it as "noise" as we know it. Now limit that spectrum to 1 freqency only. Level (volume) stays the same.
Which of the both situations would you prefer ?

So, that.
When we were able to remove noise from the system, all we did was removing a lot of frequency sources hence those frequencies themselves. But because we can't remove them all, a few remain and thus become profound; they ride on the signal with a now more repeatable (and thus also resonating) character. Contrary, with many frequency (sources) all is far more random. That too will give a character, but it will be merely a flavor applied to everything in the same fashion; more really colouring the sound. The "single" distortion frequencies may interact (add, cancel) with other single frequencies and be audible "better", of course as nastyness somewhere.

I don't think this is in school- or other books. But all I make up is often not.

Peter

[PeterSt]

I yesterday setup an exact same system (hardware is the exact same anyway) as my usual Windows 8, but now with Windows 8.1. So, music behind the LAN somewhere, that dynamically shut off during playback (available in the next XXHighEnd version).

Started out as how I play normally, thus no further devices attached; only the 2.5" OS spinning disk.


Into the third track I already was fed up with this cool-dead-technical sound, stopped playback, connected the USB3 disk to the USB2 port, did nothing with that as described previously, and restarted playback.



I'm afraid it will still be my particular system/situation which allows this to happen and work out so nicely (ehm, superbly) and of course it can only be a huge coincidence that any added noise signature creates a mere "perfect" sound (I would describe it like that compared to without the disk connected). Still guys, look into your own hearts; The sound of Windows 8 is and remains strange; we may prefer it over Windows 7 but it is and remains a machine (or robot like I always described it) producing the music. Here, with this USB disk connected that nasty habit went away.

And to be clear : Both Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 the same.

Peter

[PeterSt]

Here another post about this stupid stuff, with the explicit notice that no merits should be derived from this, other than that similar will be happening to you all with the most various results.

This is what I said in the Windows 8.1 topic :

Since my SFS was at 4 I only now realized how this single setting can hammer upon SQ once it goes trhough a "demanding" connection, which thus was USB(2). So, the disk is used continuously because of this low SFS and actually this low setting can not be used now. So I highered it to 60.
The difference was apparent immediately; less coloring hence more fresh sound.

While this text was from November 10 I had forgotten about it and worked with that new install for my LAN setup;
Yesterday I intuitively highered the SFS to 120 while I already day before yesterday started to see it from another angle :

The lower SFS colors the sound at the low end. So, I already knew this from W7, but 6 or whatever weeks ago I tried the SFS=4 for the first time in W8 and all was good. Ok, "relative to" it was.

What I noticed with the USB disk connected is that somehow the bass is many dB's more profound. Whether good or not, the woofers excurt more for something which may look like 12dB or so (think 2x2 times more excursion = 12dB). Also, and in my particular case, more than what I want for THD figures. This in itself takes more explanation which is too much off topic, but I talked about this elsewhere and I just know that what I feel is too much for the THD figures I don't like to exceed.

What I only learnt yesterday is that this "high excursion" immediately goes away with that SFS of 120 (but some lower probably the same - must test some limits).

Before we get totally lost on this no-merits post : This is all about an SFS=4 which is totally allowed for the situation which Windows 8(.1) mechanical sound and which does not let excurt the woofers in a strange fashion, but with the USB disk connected it is not allowed at all and the bass colors as hell. Yes, really like that, though it needs some tracks to run into to dicover that. Excursion is as high in every track though.

The message with again no merits for you all, although it every well *could* be as important to everyone : When the lower SFS colors the sound, this is at least in my situation explained by too much woofer distortion. And while with me, why not with you.
So, the funny thing I may have learned from this accidental experience is that coloring of the sound (bass) is not so much about too much bass as such, but merely about distortion occurring. Here, this is what I said as well in that post :

Without really taking care of XXHighEnd settings (like sort of described above) the sound is dark brown with even zooming bass, meaning a sort of standing wave behavior although I could not really detect that for certain places in the room. It just was everywhere.

... which to me again prooves how important it is to just "talk along" without real (first sorted out) sense, because it is just an observation and something should be causing it.
And so it does.


I am again not sure what to do with this, apart from seeing that it now needs more IQ than I have to really find some absolute means for settings;
That the lower SFS can't be right in general is what I have been saying forever, but that adding an idle USB disk would be able to really improve gives me a hard time. Still I too worked with the lower SFS for many weeks by now, and still I too will choose for that idle USB disk; it all does not satisfy me much (I mean, I can't find good consensus with myself for the reaons of why things "are" better - if at all (ears).
And oh, it is not really the low SFS doing this - it is the low Q1 value (which just can't be high with those lower SFS settings). So, yesterday setting the SFS to 120 did not really help, but setting Q1 to 14 x 10 x 4096 did (was 14 x 1 x 4096).

Remember, no merits. But differences you should be able to perceive just the same.
Peter

[AlainGr]

Hi Peter,

Do you still use the 4ms buffer from the NOS1 Control Panel with these new settings ?

Alain

[PeterSt]

Alain, good question. No, yesterday I set that back to 16ms; it made no sense to me anymore to have that low while the other stuff is high now again.

Peter

[AlainGr]

Before I had mine set at 8ms, because sometimes the music was starting with some strange noises (as if the buffer did not carry enough music to play). Now I can have it at 16ms...

I have always privilieged an "acute" sound when I was using my Bryston dac (through WASAPI) with W7. With the NOS1, I decided to follow your path and with W8 it seemed even more important to do so, because it is a lot "sharper" than W7. I should try WASAPI in a near future just to hear the difference, but I can already say that I will surely prefer KS, maybe because of this voice thing I experienced (and did not like).

Not that I did not recognize the merits of it, but I realize now how important being all together here to exchange our findings is a good thing. I recall saying how much I liked using an SFS of 4 almost a month ago, but at the same time I was wondering why the LF were so prominent on my speakers, since I never really considered them with that attribute. With the subs yes, this was ok, but alone ?

The "noise" I was perceiving with voices is a lot better now. I can't say if that is because I switched to W8.1, changed the settings (and SFS to a higher level), removed the 12v from the molex that is connected to the PP USB 3 card, but I guess that it could be the whole. This obsession for voices should (I hope) vanish in time (it really was unpleasant and at this point I was even listening for this on the radio in the car !)...

To summarize it: I now like what I hear, but I still wonder how come I am always saying this... Should I not decide to settle for a reference and judge all from there...

Alain

[PeterSt]

What would that reference be then Alain ?
(or maybe I don't understand well)

[AlainGr]

I should have put this more in context. Since I started using XXHE, it has been and is still my reference. But there is an ultimate reference that would be to go listen for live representations, without amplification and such...

In reality, I am surprised I never really asked myself why from a version to another, from an OS to the other, things can really have a different presentation...

My thoughts are not really organized to give a precise answer about this, but for sure I can only be happy to walk will all of you here

Alain

[AlainGr]

Sorry if my thoughts sound contradictory Peter... What I wished to express mostly is that when I listen to an album, sometimes I am stunned by what I hear, as if I was listening to it for the first time again... I experienced such a thing with my latest turntable 30 years ago, but never since, up until now. Never would have I thought that an OS, a cable, a power supply, a "noise web" - would have such an impact. I thought that digital would be the answer to all, that it would sound the same everywhere... So you can imagine all I discovered (and am continuing to discover).

It's just that I am looking behind and I see all the distance I have crossed since...

Regards,

Alain

[PeterSt]

In the end it is not different here Alain. I mean, if you only count the number of times that I wrote that I did not recognize my "nice stuff" albums anymore *at all* ... and this really is so.
It is only that I am used to it more and that I told myself some 6 or so years ago never to say "I'm there for sure !" ... which I back at that time really said.

But that is to me the nicest of this hobby ... you just never know in advance how things can improve, and in what area.
And at least I myself am as far that a live performance is NOT for the better at all most of the times. You might want to read this one again : Recording engineers don't get it and I can tell you know that this starts with B and ends at T for the first two words.

Peter

[AlainGr]

I think I understand, but cannot get a firm grasp at it... I don't want to go OT too far, since I feel I am drifting away from the topic...

Anyway, things can only get either better... Or different... This is a big question, but I know that we are aimed towards the "best" and it is always a fascinating journey.

Alain

[PeterSt]

Alain,

This is not so OT as you think;

You need to find yourself a reference and this reference is always to be "neutral sound". You can expect the NOS1 to be just that, and you can expect to need som dials in XXHighEnd to get there - depending on the situation, exactly subject to this topic. Whether you can expect your amplifier to exhibit that can not be judged by me, though I would be able to do that once it is in my own chain. So, here it is related to my GainClones, which are as neutral as can be to my ears, but which also measure like that.
What remains is the speaker, but imagine that you have (or know it can be) all set for the DAC+software and amps, and now you know it is the speaker when all is not neutral. So make it that (which is my own situation for the Orelino, which sort of had to be build from the ground up with its filters).

Now read that large "My first Windows 8 experience" again (but better don't). Right in the (my) first post in there you can see how I do NOT judge Windows 8 as neutral at all. So, the too light cymbals (hey, throughout that is !), the strange imaging (also throughout), the maybe (!) too detailed highs.

So what you can see is that it all comes down to neutrality (nothing is allowed to show the same flavor), and as long as that is not the case we are not there.
And to make it more complicated : I was very satisfied with W7 (which took years, if you look back and see how that all went). Nice ... but that was destroyed by the "reference" of W8 and undistorted highs. Today W7 distorts.
Similar story as nasty woman voices.

But it also gives the opportunity to improve further. And wasn't that the actual hobby ? I am not sure. But only listening to something perfect day in day out ? ... maybe 80% of the joy has gone then.

Peter

[PeterSt]

The saga continues ...

I feel I have to write this down merely for myself, already because I found myself confused this morning of what I actually observed last night. So while I still can dig it up from my small brains I better write it down now.

So, started out where I left off day before yesterday with that SFS=120 and Q1 x xQ1 x DevBuf = 14 x 10 x 4096.
While nothing disturbed really, I found the bass to be vague. Or more vague than I am used to thus want it to be;

Placebo working told me that adding a USB disk should not be for the better, no matter I find it to be that myself. "Wrong approach". So I decided to try to get the sound similar to USB disk connected but without USB disk connected. Some kind of XXHighEnd settings possibly could be found. But where to begin, and how to have the apples as much apples as possible for comparison.
I decided to continue with the exact same PC and OS for a next step, and this is an XXHighEnd PC *not* setup for the LAN connection. All in there is a 2.5" OS spinning disk and day before yesterday I played music from that same connected USB disk, though thus actively used;
I copied some albums from this disk to the OS disk and played some tracks from there.

Not much difference was to be heard; good. Then it is time to pull the USB disk.

Again not much difference to be heard. Hmm ...
See ? this is already interesting, because apparently now other tweaks are at work to let vanish the all so obvious difference. So what can that be ? only Q1 x etc. and the SFS. I mean, I didn't change anything else to get where I wanted to be (hence current situation), so all it would need is (slowly) going back to the old situation - Q1 x xQ1 x DevBuf = 14 x 1 x 4096 at an SFS of 4.

But what is slowly ? I can't spend ages on this ...

Anyway notice how I always do this : Bring up XXHighEnd, press Pause, change settings and press Play again. So, no real A-B which I hate anyway, and just continue whatever you were doing and unconsciously observe. Have a next beer etc.

It was in my mind that this few days back I had set the SFS to 60. Why ? yes, right; this was the setting of JonP who spend tremendous amounts of times (something like well over a year ago) to come to the conclusion that SFS=60 was the one which really worked. Many of us used that at the time. But the other settings ? I don't know anymore. And besides, that will have been W7. But still. So SFS=60 would be the first single thing to change.

Right away I noticed what I was missing : air. Yep, when this suddenly lacks this goes quite unnoticable - I see now.
Lately I walk to the speakers 2-3 times per track and feel the woofers. So, I made myself aquainted with how what sound feels. Notice that this is how I found "strangeness" in the first place, which was with Windows 8.1 and the higher SFS to begin with. Reminder, also for myself : I started doing this because I found the "Windows 8 nastyness" went away with it. Also to remember : this requires the higher Q1 etc. setting.

I thus found myself lucky to have dialed in a setting (SFS=60) which was for the far better right away. Ha !
But the balance with the highs did not seem right. Oh, it was all OK in the "does not disturb" department, but I thought there could be more detail. Lowering the SFS I did not want, so up to the Q1 stuff ...

This went more fast than I could have dreamt;
I felt that 14 x 1 x 4096 would not work (because to "equal" to what I used all the past weeks), so the first I tried was 14 x 2 x 4096.
Aha, see ? more detail. But more of it was needed. So I tried the 14 x 1 x 4096 after all to proove some things. And hey, YES, there is the nastyness right back.
Now, since 14 x 2 = 28 and 14 x 1 = 14, I figured that 21 x 1 would be right in the middle of that. I even did that without machinery.

Spot on.
Bass did not significantly change that I noticed and detail was there in the amount I did not want more. But what I learned from this - and notice that this can well be SFS=60 specific - is that the Q1 stuff has some threshold somewhere. Maybe it is 22, maybe it is 20 but for now that 21 seems to be just it.

For the next, let's not forget that the Device Buffer Size of 4096 is actually just an arbitrary number. It just weights in the formula of Q1 (x xQ1 x DevBufSize). But also, in my (NOS1) situation the 4096 is not related to any buffer size of the NOS1 as such, and or but that physical buffer size is set to 16ms (NOS1 Driver Control Panel). How they really relate I don't even know, but maybe I should ...
But now this :

Knowing that I'm a conspiracy thinker - meaning that I like to reason towards the unprobable - I recall from a far past that the maximum Q1 "stand alone" for USB setting was 21 (above that no sound at all). Hmm ...
This was before the NOS1-USB and it was from the time that WASAPI (Engine#3) was the only Sound Engine available. No Device Buffer Setting as such was available because this was (still is) calculated under the hood and don't ask me what the result of that would be for the NOS1-USB. Or for whatever USB interface from back at the time or today.
For WASAPI the Q1 of 21 doesn't really relate to how it is done in Kernel Streaming (by me) but still there is a relation making it worth while to conspiracy-think.

Both feet back on the ground I should say that this situation should imply a similar noise pattern as with the USB disk connected. But, at least this is tweakable by everybody the same way (if the remainder of the setup is the same, which obviously can be done - and not so with a USB disk which is different for everybody). However :
Before I forget it myself : What was lacking with the USB disk was the air in the music (but with the notice that these Orelino speakers can so well express this - nothing of the kind with my old speakers).
So, net better anyway.


This was the first step in eliminating that noise-adding USB disk. The second step is applying this to the LAN setup which does not play from the OS disk. Notice that both situations (will) go through the RAMDisk as Playback Drive (and XXHighEnd origine). So no real differences to be expected although we know that everything matters.
And on the latter I should not forget that this is still Windows 8.1 which can also do a couple of things, although I will be saying in advance that I won't be able to get hold of those particular merits because I now play with "Windows 8" in a normal fashion, not emphasizing the strangenesess we know of W8.

Peter