SQ of 1.186, best ever! (Again)

[Arjan]

Hi,
First happy new year. And yes it is starting Great with 1.186. How on earth is it possible, you did it again Peter.
A really clear relaxing sound I get from my system. That is the first thing we hear it is the freshness of the sq! We like it very much.
Thanks!

[acg]

It does sound nice...I listened for a few hours at Peters settings today.

Peter, what has happened to the "trimpot" you were talking about in the USB Clock thread?  Not ready yet?  Or have I missed something obvious?

Oh, and thanks Peter.  This morning was the first time I have had any time for audio in the last few weeks and I woke up to see 1.186 had been released...absolutely perfect timing!!

Cheers,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Peter, what has happened to the "trimpot" you were talking about in the USB Clock thread?

Hi Anthony,

Firstly, this was about the "not being able so much" to really trim for the values needed, and that it can only be at extreme ends. This is the Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1 setting for the extreme "best", but not knowing whether it really is the best. So, just can't be more than that, so to speak.
Once you either start dialling Q3, 4 or 5 to more than 1 (never 0) things flip but still trimming is possible but with IMO less effect. Mind you, this is theoretical, and it is a bit up to all of us to find the real merits. Meaning : I didn't play around with this much - only to let it working. So actually I only know of the 1,1,1 setting.

1,1,1 is the most stable setting, implies the highest cpu usage (never worry about that) and meanwhile consumes the least power and which is the most stable, varying between 50W and 50.5W here at all times - at SFS = 0.4,  0.03 is achieveble at my 460MHz.

The 460MHz does not imply the low Wattage (720MHz looks the same).

Got that ?
Ok, that is for the Core 1-2 Scheme. Now read the ToolTips on them and try the others (this too I only tried for the technical merits, not sound wise). Needs Activation, and otherwise everybody has Core 1-2 available only.

Finishes with this all (say next October), then vary with Hyperthreading On/Off.

This all should give you anough trimming possibilities for the whole of 2014 which I meant to say with the title of the version.

More down to the point for starters :
Varying Q3 (4 and 5 to 1,1) should be the most fragile. But remember, as soon as it's off from 1 things flip a lot to begin with, and there's nothing in between the flip between 1 and 2. However, once 2 is for the better, there's trimming all the way from that 2 up to 30. All the most fragile with the notice that possibly you can't find (hear) a difference between even 2 and 30.

Q4 is way more rough. Once that's at 2 (from 1) things will have really changed in an actually too rough fashion. But read the ToolTip on it, because there's more to digest.

Q5 is a bit of the same as Q4 and there too setting it from 1 to 2 things really change (as we already know from the past month and 0.9z-9b(etc.).

All 'n all, the best trimmer would be Q3 (with 4 and 5 to 1,1) because that changes/flips the least once from 1 to 2 (and up).

Knowing what it does, I myself stick to 1,1,1 until someone shouts EUREKA !

Oh, don't forget to vary the Clock Resolution.

Lastly, the lower NOS1 Driver Control Panel buffer size is needed to get the lowest SFS which you can also still change of course (might you run out of ideas). So, my SFS of 0.03 can only work with the 2ms Driver Buffer. This Ultra Low SFS (still official Memory Playback !) makes the sound thin and lean, which can easily be heard. But, when the Ultra Low SFS is dialled to across the limits (thus related now to the Driver Buffer) and gaps are easily heard, and then dial back the SFS (higher) so it starts to sound undistorted, you can start to hear missing samples. I mean, listening to it, this is what you perceive from it; only the high enough SFS suits you (my 0.04 (typo) 0.4 might be too low still).

YMMV and 2014 is still a long way to finish.
Peter

[Nick]

What a nice surprise for new years day 

I read the release notes (took half an hour !) but just to get going started with similar settings to last XX version (sort of medium latency Q1 xQ1 and SFS) just to get going.

First impression WHAT A HUGE CHANGE V1.186 gives !!!!

Without trying any of the new special settings even the sound is fantastic so live sounding. I m really looking forwards now to exploring the new settings.

Peter thank you so much, what an absolutely superb achievement Version 1 is.

Nick.
 

[Scroobius]

Last year (OK yesterday) I was listening and thinking about all the changes to my system during 2013. The improvements during 2013 have been BIG. The sound quality (yesterday that is) was just so good that it was clear to me I had no reason to expect much improvement during 2014.

So then Peter posts his 1.186 Christmas present. All I can say is WOW this really sounds great and added to all the recent changes to my system this is REALLY special.

Peter thanks for all your hard work - I really don't know how you do it but thanks again.

Cheers

Paul

[christoffe]

Hello Peter,

Differences between release 0.9z-8-3a 0.9z-9b and 1.186 (SPL around 70 dB(A) in a distance of 3m away from the speakers)
For the comparison I did not change the settings, except the core appointment (3 -4).
The SQ of 0.9z-8-3a 0.9z-9b is very analog on my system, to say it in simple words,

the position of the recording microphone is appr. 15m (row 15) away from the stage (nice room ambiance around the voices and instruments, the bass has a light thickness).

The recording microphone with the release 1.186 moved appr. 10m further to the stage (to row 5). (more details and increased resolution, voices are with a nice articulation, more focus, amazing drums, the bass got a superb tightness, 50% decrease of room ambience=less analog)
After listening for a couple of hours (adjusting the brain) the 1.186 - SQ is very relaxing and superior to the previous release.

A nice surprise for the beginning of 2014.

Joachim

[listening]

My first impressions:

It needs time to change the listening habit. There is a really big difference.

The soundstage is centered (it has been a bit out of alignment to the left side with my system).

The SQ is more analog than ever.

It seems that really fast equipment following the DAC is necessary to get the full impression!

I'm playing with 4 cores@450MHz - but it seems that there is headroom left.

Below the line: You did it again, Peter 

Georg

[phantomax]

Best ever, no doubt!

The previous version with Q5=1 was fantastic but this one is EVEN better. And bear in mind that my PC is a standar one and way obsolete. The rest of my system is quite modest so I can hardly imagine how this version may sound in a decent equipment with a dedicated PC and a NOS1.

Thanks Peter for your efforts and pursuit of excellence.

Maxi

[manisandher]

Oooooh, I likey, likey a lot.

This XX version sounds incredible even on my currently modest system. The clarity and focus of the sound is incredible. And this is achieved with the sound remaining smooth and relaxing on the ear. A true step up in performance. Peter, I think your description of 'severe' in the release notes is spot on. Really, well done.

For all of you who have not gotten around to installing 1.186... do it now!

I'll be playing around with core appointment schemes later on. I don't use hyperthreading and will be interested in hearing the differences (if any) that the new core appointments make.

More later...

Mani.

Edit: PS. All I need now are a world-class pair of active horns The wait is really going to test my patience.

[manisandher]

I'll be playing around with core appointment schemes later on. I don't use hyperthreading and will be interested in hearing the differences (if any) that the new core appointments make.

I found it quite difficult to hear obvious differences, but here's what I think.

1. Schemes 1-2 and 1-3 sound similar.

2. Schemes 3-4 and 3-5 sound similar.

3. No Appointment sounds slightly different to schemes 1-2/1-3! With non-hyperthreading, this was unexpected. (Maybe this is just me being fooled.)

I prefer schemes 3-4/3-5 over 1-2/1-3. The latter two schemes sound slightly 'thicker' with a slightly more bloated low-end. But I have to say these differences are pretty small through my current system.

In any event, with my 6-core, non-hyperthreaded CPU, I'm going to stick with Scheme 3-5 for now.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

3. No Appointment sounds slightly different to schemes 1-2/1-3! With non-hyperthreading, this was unexpected. (Maybe this is just me being fooled.)

No Appointment is totally equal to 1-2.
If all is right of course.

Peter

[AlainGr]

It took me some time before I could really do some tests. I played with Q3 mostly, leaving most of the rest like Peter has them.

I sense more speed, more "tone" to the cymbals and a sense of presence, "Analog" like I never heard before. Each time a new version is available, it is a surprise, so I will say that I am not surprised to be surprised

I will familiarize myself with the new settings, but what I hear now is more than I would have imagined.

I have lots of adjectives to describe Peter's work, but he knows we know

Thanks for a great "tour de force" again Peter. I have never listened so much to the same albums and felt inclined to discover what I thought I knew well !

Regards,

Alain

[toddn]

So one of my New Years resolutions is to finally start contributing to this community that has given me so much!(With a little encouragement from Paul to not worry about occasionally sticking my foot in my mouth )

Peter, you have really outdone yourself with this new release. Not only is the resolution much greater but the proper scale of the performers and their instruments is dead on and so perfectly grounded in whatever venue the recording was made. So much greater texture and true sense of the width and depth of the soundstage with the better delineation of the vocals or instruments initial tone and the accompanying reverb and decay of the venue. And never have I heard recorded music portrayed with such accurate percussive attack! Blazingly fast and real!

I also must mention what a great job you've done with fixing so many of the little bugs, etc. that just lend itself to a more enjoyable listening session.
It truly is a very Happy New Year! Thank You!

[PeterSt]

Quick message in between :

It is great to hear everybody's contribution to this topic - obviously. But now I am flathered by Todd's just because it is the most rare and therefore valuable to me.

Noe more lyrics,
Peter

[BertD]

I sense more speed, more "tone" to the cymbals and a sense of presence, "Analog" like I never heard before.

I could not agree more (!) the best ever! No more music scattered in little pieces jumping from all over the place.

SFS 0.4 is for me the limit, going lower and things start to break up again loosing the transparency and freedom of sound. I am not going to touch any settings, it feels like having my tube amplifier back again but then without their faults! 

Nice one Peter!

Bert

[Gerard]

All,

What a suprise this is!!
I have been playing for a few day's now and all is working perfect! Not a single error (sound stop) anymore and the sound is more than pleasing :-) By far the best model!!

Peter congratulations with getting out of beta!

I like to wish everybody the best for 2014!!

Gerard

[juanpmar]

Today I´ve installed the new 1.186 and I´ve been testing it. Before I put here my first impressions I must say that my system now is limited, I´m using near-field monitors (ls3/5a in this case) so I can´t evaluate correctly the bass, but anyway, I´d like to share what I can hear.

For the test I´m using a cd from a Spanish singer that I know very well in recordings and in live peformances http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tarres-Serrat-Joan-Manuel/dp/B001I8BFDO/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_mus?ie=UTF8&qid=1388784838&sr=8-1&keywords=Cansiones+Serrat

I used the same settings as Peter and only changed the Processor Core Appointment Scheme. In my system the differences are not night and day (probably in any system are night and day) but here they are:

1-2: This is where the sound seems more natural, the voices are the ones that pertains to the singer, I mean I recognize that voice as the singer real one, the one I heard in live performances. The guitar (e.g. in Sabana) and in general the instruments have a special delicacy and plenty of harmonics.

The following opinions are in comparison to the 1-2 setting

1-3: The voice is more palpable but it seems to lose some nuances. The sound seems a little more upfront. The sound of the guitar strings looks more metallic.

3-4: The sound is dryer. The voice is thinner and the cords metallic.

3-5: The voice is darker and the cords in some other different way than before are also metallic.

2-3: The voice has less nuances, the instruments are more in front and the cords are again metallic.

As you can see my favorite is the 1-2 as it looks the more balanced and natural. I do not deny that the 1-2 as being the one chosen by Peter, for the moment, may have influenced my appreciation but that's what it is. We can not escape easily from the strong personality of this guy hahaha

Well done Peter!

Best regards,
Juan

[Stanray]

First, thank you Peter for another step to audio heaven. As said by others, a smooth, detailed and live SQ.

I tried some settings for a few hours on two nights and I settled for now on Core Appointment Scheme 3-5 which seems a bit more natural, but I will have to listen again.

However, I do sense (as with 0,9z-9b, but to a lesser extend) an slightly unpleasant sound stage with Q5=1. It seems not precisely focused and a bit shifted to the left hand side.
When I set Q5=5 focus is there, and with it a bit more depth in the sound stage.

I will try some more settings in the coming days.

Best wishes,
Stanley

[Gerard]

I could sore there is a life band playing in my living room! What a complete joy this out of beta version brings!!!

 

[juanpmar]

You think there is any doubt about the SQ?

Juan

[PeterSt]

Great !
And so I receive emails with videos of dancing baby's as a measure. Really so. But I have told it more often - when things work out the family hops around. I'm always peeking at that behavior.

Thank you Juan (and all),
Peter

[listening]

Found the best ever SQ here with this sweetspot:

- Peters settings but
- ClockRes = 0.5ms
- ThreadPrio = BelowNormal

Everything fits into place and is consistent - fantastic! But I cannot judge the low octaves ...

Georg

[listening]

By the way - I removed every mod from the amp and the speakers today. They are not necessary anymore. Additionally I found a bad soldering which was crucial for sometimes changig SQ. Hopefully that's all for now 

Georg

[acg]

Hi All,

I am going to go against the flow here, and say that I have been a little underwhelmed with 1.186 and Peters settings.  At first I thought the sound was super smooth and liquid, but in the end I have come to think that the sound with Peters settings is too syrupy and has a number of shortfalls compared to the beta that I have been using.

Not good at all is it?  Well, yes and no.  I lost dynamics (lots of dynamics), resolution and transient speed and sound-staging (which went from staggering to merely very good).  The sound that I want is infinitely fast with tremendous resolve and a faithful reproduction of voice and instrument alike, whether that be good or bad.  I don't want details to be glossed over in order to make it sound smooth or analogue.  What I was hearing with 1.186 and Peters settings was 'nice' and well tamed, but not really a faithful reproduction of voices or at least not the best that I think we can do.

So today I have played around with my old settings from the beta I was using and have changed a few things and am much, much more happy.  The change for me is massive and I think that I am ahead of the beta now.  The dynamics, presence, speed, sound-staging is back with interest.  So I would appreciate it if some of you guys could plug in my settings and tell me what you think.

Cheers,

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Hmm ... I planned to post similar ("can someone try 'these' settings ?") after some settings changes yesterday but actually I hear so bad at this moment that I thought to wait for better times. So never mind my settings at this moment.

But Anthony, question : Do these settings now sound similar to your latest 0.9z-9 version ? If so, that would be very comfortable, because I have been reluctant to make a switch which really can let behave the new version like the old and did not want to complicate things (so I left out that switch).

And that hearing of mine is already so for several weeks, so it's all a bit tough for me at this moment.

Peter

[acg]

Yes Peter, 1.186 now sounds similar to the beta I was using before, but probably a touch better if anything (difficult to tell).  I am still amazed at how the sound can change with the press of a few buttons in XXHE...that is mad.

[arvind]

Hi Peter,

What a fantastic New Year gift. The resolution & soundstage is just fantastic.

Best regards,

Arvind

[CoenP]

Hi,

I installed this version on windows 8 and was like all previous posters immediately positively impressed with the sq (mimicking Peters recommended settings). The most important feat for me was far less shattering of the music making it sound much more like a whole musical performance. This has always been a hurdle for me to stay for a longer time on win8.

A little more listening revealed that (like Alain) I found it to be less dynamic or present than I was used to and also on occasions a bit sharp. Now trying to dial this out it became clear that the corescheme, sfs, timeres and dac buffer settings have an enormous impact on the sound. It is easilytunable to hyperdynamic end of the spectrum. I am afraid it will take some time to find the optimal blend in conjunction with bios settings, nevertheless sq remains impressive at all times!

In the meantime i will also evaluate this version on win7 and report back to you all.

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Hmm ... I planned to post similar ("can someone try 'these' settings ?") after some settings changes yesterday but actually I hear so bad at this moment that I thought to wait for better times. So never mind my settings at this moment.

Ok, let's do this after all.
But first Anthony's settings, because they pretty much (should) resemble the former sound (0.9z-9b);

So, the only thing more special about his settings is the SFS of 0.2 (but they could always work - now far more easy though). So, Anthony has a Q1 of 14x10 and only Q5 set to 5 (Q3,Q4 = 0,0). ClockRes is not all that much important I think, but 1 or 0.5). This should pretty much resemble the old high dynamic sound.

Personally I don't like this for the better and most probably this can be dedicated to the speaker and its speed in the tweeter. Notice though that with this speed more or less lacking it goes the other way around, and the new sound (mainly implied by Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1) may become dull. This is hard to explain but where the new sound excels, is in taking out the high albeit more rough dynamics. This, while the top end of it (highest frequencies) is sustained. This gives it this special flavour of analogue while all the detail is still there (and nowhere to be found on LP - just saying).

In my view, and as far as I have been able to judge it, the settings of my current sig go wrong-ish in the bass; most probably this now needs my ultra-low-going undistorted bass, but not sure. So yesterday I have been looking at the behaviour of the PC and found a quite different setting with as far as I can see better behaviour. And, after dialing that in from pure stupid theory, I sure had the idea this sounded better although noticed through one ear and the other one not on par either. So, maybe not better at all, but for the behaviour I see I'd say Yes.

Try a Q1 x xQ1 of 6x10, Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1, SFS=120 (and ClockRes of 1 might that ever matter).

The behaviour I see from the PC is quite unexpected and I must actually think about how this can happen. However, these settings were dialed in because I wanted some other behaviour to be better and that worked as expected. That UNexpected behaviour makes me think that there's a whole new world to explore with now Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1. So, set one of them to 0 and all is back to about how it all was but with the 1,1,1 we really have to rethink our SFS and also Q1; this is a kind of bonus.

If I heard correctly, the bass is now better again (or maybe even better than ever) and the highs are more profound but not "high dynamic". So generally speaking a more fresh sound without the general nastyness of W8.

If this is all correct then don't ask me how I did it with really one ear only.
Peter


PS: That Q1 and SFS are really arbitrary but they shouldn't be too low. So I wouldn't go lower because of the desired "behaviour effect" and possibly higher settings can even be for the better; the SFS will matter less for higher settings, but Q1 probably much. Keep in mind though that the higher Q1 (x etc.) the less responsive e.g. volume change is.

[Arjan]

Hi,
I do not use the NOS1. But I get really good results with:
Q1 = 30 Q1factor = x1, rest of Q's on 1, with SFS = 480, Engine #4 Special and scheme 3-4.

Remark: with Special a Q1xfactor above 30 results in stuttering sound.

Regards

[Scroobius]

So one of my New Years resolutions is to finally start contributing to this community that has given me so much!

Hey Todd - great to see you posting - the first of many I hope.

Paul

[CoenP]

Hi,

I've been trying to dial in 1.186 on windows 8 and encountered a sound issue. I cannot completely reproduce this consistently, but it was clearly noticable with high sfs (120), Q (14x10) and a timeres of 0.5 s.

On my system the sound got focussed between the speakers instead of being loose from them; more specifically it skewed to the right speakers side too. The sound also gained an unpeasant artificial (stressed?) quality with a lack of dynamics and small and condensed instrument "images". Changing the settings makes this effect dissappear and reappear.

A soundcheck on my win7 8e reference confirmes my finding of the skewing and narrowing of the sound balance.

Does anyone got a familiar experience?

Furthermore I have found that 1.186 dispite its virtues is no cure for the windows8 sound imperfections on my system that I have been raising since a year ago. I will put a little more energy in installing and optimising it for my win7 setup.

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Coen,

Changing the settings makes this effect dissappear and reappear.

Do you mean :

Changing the settings makes this effect dissappear and changing back makes them reappear.

?

Peter

[CoenP]

yes Peter,

But it is not solely triggered by the high sfs or high Q/Qx, timres or buffer size, but rather certain combinations. Thats what I meant with reproducing it consistently.

regards, Coen

[CoenP]

Tonight I compared with 9z9b on win 8 (same tracks) and it seems that the balance is allways shifted to the right. It is only better noticable with some settings than others (ie low timeres).

It will shure take a lot of time experimenting with all possible dials to establish the most influencial ones...

I've had no weird skewing (yet?) of the balance on windows 7 with 1.186.

Regards, Coen

[acg]

Hmm ... I planned to post similar ("can someone try 'these' settings ?") after some settings changes yesterday but actually I hear so bad at this moment that I thought to wait for better times. So never mind my settings at this moment.

Ok, let's do this after all.
But first Anthony's settings, because they pretty much (should) resemble the former sound (0.9z-9b);

So, the only thing more special about his settings is the SFS of 0.2 (but they could always work - now far more easy though). So, Anthony has a Q1 of 14x10 and only Q5 set to 5 (Q3,Q4 = 0,0). ClockRes is not all that much important I think, but 1 or 0.5). This should pretty much resemble the old high dynamic sound.

Personally I don't like this for the better and most probably this can be dedicated to the speaker and its speed in the tweeter. Notice though that with this speed more or less lacking it goes the other way around, and the new sound (mainly implied by Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1) may become dull. This is hard to explain but where the new sound excels, is in taking out the high albeit more rough dynamics. This, while the top end of it (highest frequencies) is sustained. This gives it this special flavour of analogue while all the detail is still there (and nowhere to be found on LP - just saying).

In my view, and as far as I have been able to judge it, the settings of my current sig go wrong-ish in the bass; most probably this now needs my ultra-low-going undistorted bass, but not sure. So yesterday I have been looking at the behaviour of the PC and found a quite different setting with as far as I can see better behaviour. And, after dialing that in from pure stupid theory, I sure had the idea this sounded better although noticed through one ear and the other one not on par either. So, maybe not better at all, but for the behaviour I see I'd say Yes.

Try a Q1 x xQ1 of 6x10, Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1, SFS=120 (and ClockRes of 1 might that ever matter).

The behaviour I see from the PC is quite unexpected and I must actually think about how this can happen. However, these settings were dialed in because I wanted some other behaviour to be better and that worked as expected. That UNexpected behaviour makes me think that there's a whole new world to explore with now Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1. So, set one of them to 0 and all is back to about how it all was but with the 1,1,1 we really have to rethink our SFS and also Q1; this is a kind of bonus.

If I heard correctly, the bass is now better again (or maybe even better than ever) and the highs are more profound but not "high dynamic". So generally speaking a more fresh sound without the general nastyness of W8.

If this is all correct then don't ask me how I did it with really one ear only.
Peter


PS: That Q1 and SFS are really arbitrary but they shouldn't be too low. So I wouldn't go lower because of the desired "behaviour effect" and possibly higher settings can even be for the better; the SFS will matter less for higher settings, but Q1 probably much. Keep in mind though that the higher Q1 (x etc.) the less responsive e.g. volume change is.

Sorry to hear you are a bit crook (your ear?).  I hope you pick up that dropped channel soon!

Ok. As you would have seen earlier, today I have compared the PPAstudio card to the Silverstone USB Card (with the Silverstone preferred) and as a result everything has changed.  I now see that there was some sort of colouration happening with the PPA card that when removed change how the various settings in XXHE 1.186 work, or rather make the highs less muted and more prone to harshness, but better overall.

Anyway, I have been playing around with the various recommended settings and I am reasonably sure that I do like the 1.186 settings in your signature more than my previous settings from the beta (finally).  I have also keyed in the 6/10/1/1/1 SFS 120 settings you suggested to try and I _think_ that I prefer them in my short listening session with them so far.  The bass on Daft Punk is just so coherant...I am liking it a lot.

Early days with these settings, but quite promising.

Anthony

[PeterSt]

All channels up again - thank you Anthony.

For the first time I could listen to my theoretically dialed in setting (that 6x10 / 1,1,1 / SFS=120). Well, I'd say it is totally different (than 1x1 / 1,1,1 / SFS=0.4) and the key is in the highs. Bass is super (was not 100%).

Can't desrcibe the highs but I'm sure what weights in the most is that Silverstone. Highs are now full of roughness (= separation) while for the first time of my life I lasted a full goa album (hey, call that modern house). I didn't even receive any comments (only discussed with my son that he should be able to last 180bpm for an hour in a row (as a learning drummer)). What I'm trying to bring across is that while the highs are now so full of roughness (opposite of satin or silk) it still is unable to hurt no matter the loudness. There's no spur of grey and all sings and bells.

My former setting did not make it dull, but more for those who drink their tea and lift the pinky with it. Not laid back but sit back. The settings as of now make you "yea yea yea" and rather think of Tina Turner in an Australian movie. Ok, that made no sense but I hope you get it.

Peter

[acg]

Do you mean 'Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome' Peter?  Tina Turner was pretty loud in that one.

My highs are quite good with these settings Peter, which is probably due to the fact that I have not been able to take the LPS off the Silverstone just yet.  Have you tried a LPS into the Silverstone 5V Molnex?

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Tonight I compared with 9z9b on win 8 (same tracks) and it seems that the balance is allways shifted to the right. It is only better noticable with some settings than others (ie low timeres).

Coen, the below I started adding to my previous post, when I suddenly saw some sort of relation and now hook it to your remark;

Now I think of it, there's also this which only occurs to me in aftermath :
With the former settings (so SFS=0.4 etc.) the balance of the highs was so much "notched" at something like 4-6KHz that the part above 6KHz got profound. So, that made it more analogue but still full of detail. This in itself caused more necessary sweetspot listening. So, I have horns and the sound is quite directional and that tweeter now jumps out ony at the sweetspot.

Notice : I walk around a lot in the back of the music space, which is the kitchen and therefore pass the middle of the sound beam(s) regularly. What the former settings implied is that I always heard the most highs when passing that middle. This is nothing what I'm used to and I also don't like it. Of course it oughts to be like that, but I still prefer to have no sweetspot and don't want to be bothered by the psychology of "you better be in that sweet spot or you miss out". So ...

What I know think is that while it probably is unavoidable that left and right have the exact same loudness, it is the being too profound of the tweeter that makes us notice this (btw I never noticed it but I also don't try to). And, this is not the tweeter as such, but the balance or maybe special balance that's implied mainly by Q5=1.

Thus, I just started typing the first paragraph above (but in my previous post) and suddenly saw the relation with left and right shifts because of how you (Coen) had written it.

Maybe it should feel like just having crossed the sound barrier and we all now travel in a new dimension and much more starts to matter. I mean, the difference with 0.9z-9 (no Q5=1 used) is in my view totally crazy. Thus, SO different. For example, yesterday I compared a vinyl rip with the CD of the same version and I so explicitly noticed the difference in channel separation (relatively inexistent for vinyl). So, no channel separation = no differences to perceive (this can be reasoned the other way around just the same - so don't ). Think like the difference with W7 to be more modern. Now :

Are we able to perceive a difference of 0.02dB for left and right ? If yes than ditch your NOS1's because it will be off something like this. But now think about the now possible shift of that mid to tweeter balance (see previous post); What if the always 5% off resistors in your speaker crossover make the right tweeter sound louder than the left while with the mid it goes accidentally the othet way around. 5% ? Man, that is a LOT (and notice that +5% can be on one side while on the other it's -5% thus total 10% possible difference).
Is it clear where I'm going ? ... shift the mid-high balance in software and the L/R balance can change. Nothing to do with software - it's just the speaker. Maybe.

Peter


PS: I am just thinking again - how it happened that I lasted that whole "house" album; I just couldn't wait long enough for the next track to start and how that would evolve; I already know that some of these guys making that music can really do a good job SQ wise and how interesting it can be (think Infected Mushroom if you have no clue). So, I have been trying this before. Now this seems to work. And mind you, these are 8 minute tracks, always starting softly but within the minute it is boom-boom-boom for the remainder (and 180 beats or a bit lower per minute). You can call me crazy to even try it, but we can also try to think that once that starts to work, something really changed.

[PeterSt]

Do you mean 'Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome' Peter?  Tina Turner was pretty loud in that one.

Sure I do.

My highs are quite good with these settings Peter, which is probably due to the fact that I have not been able to take the LPS off the Silverstone just yet.  Have you tried a LPS into the Silverstone 5V Molnex?

No. Well yes, but that was in the "special setup" which did not work, and I never found the time to proceed with that. Won't happen soon either I'm afraid.

Regards,
Peter

[juanpmar]

For the first time I could listen to my theoretically dialed in setting (that 6x10 / 1,1,1 / SFS=120). Well, I'd say it is totally different (than 1x1 / 1,1,1 / SFS=0.4) and the key is in the highs. Bass is super (was not 100%).

I tested Q1:6 xQ:10 / 1,1,1 / SFS=120 and I found also a very different sound compared in my case with Q1:6, xQ1:1/ 1,1,1 / SFS=2,0. With the first settings the sound is much more in front and the soundstage is reduced in comparison with the second settings that have the voices more in the rear part of the scene. I found the sound with the first settings a little dry and artificial. I prefer the second settings although maybe I´d like the voices a few steps in front from its position. Perhaps changing the SFS values to something in between 1,0 and 2,0 I would find the best for my taste. I´ll try it.

Juan

[juanpmar]

Now YES!. I´ve installed the Silverstone USB 3.0 SST- EC04-P card and the sound is much better than with my previous Tecknet card. The sound stage is big, really big, even with my little Chartwell ls3/5a speakers, good bass, the best one I could get with this speaker considering its limitations. The highs are not smooth nor dry, are just as they should be: natural and clean.
The sound is better than with my other card no matter the settings but I find that the settings suggested lately by Peter are the best ones so far with 1.186-a (Q1=6, -, Q3,Q4,Q5=1. xQ=10. SFS=120)

I agree totally with the ones that have this card, it is a fantastic achievement. It should be mandatory to install it.

Regards,
Juan

[CoenP]

Hi,

To make my setup a little more in line with the forum, I ordered a the above mentioned Silverstone USB3 card. Today I received it.

This card is a firm departure from the sound of the modded PPA studio card I had in it. At first it didn't sound right, but applying the advocated settings I can actually reproduce (to a certain extend) the SQ effects Peter cs are describing. Now all your posts make more sense!

Anyway I heard the win 8 narrowing of the soundstage at first, but not the channel skewing anymore. With slightly different settings to sound opened up.

I'll give it some break in and experimenting before joining this discussion again.

regards, Coen

[acg]

I am most interested in your thoughts here Coen.

Anthony

[CoenP]

I am most interested in your thoughts here Coen.

Anthony

I've got no conclusive thoughts other that this card seems to react more inline with Peter's ' recommended' settings. So different settings (OSses?) apply. Also I did not mod it in any way and connected the PC psu to the molex.

Well, I have the impression I hear much more fine detail yet a similar presentation of voices (loose from background and instruments). At this stage the PPA has more naturalness about it, but I'm just starting with this card.

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Just to let you know :

I have been trying to find the limits on the upper side of things, seeking for the more extreme side of this sound (the intended more rough highs). It takes quite some time to find the real limits, but it is around this :
(notice : this can all be about processor speed, with mine ultra low at 215MHz per processor core (reported as 430MHz with Hyperthreading on).

Q1 x xQ1 x DevBufSize = 6 x 24 x 4096. Make this a little higher and sound "scratches" at the interval of this (buffer) size. Careful, because this is not easily audible and it needs "fluent" music to detect that. Think of a repeat around 4-6 seconds.

SFS = 210. Make this higher (like 270) and sound will stop with a "The data did not arrive in time".

Both seem elementary and work so with Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1. I did not try other Q3,4,5 settings and I don't know whether there's a relation, but normally yes (could be Q5 alone). So notice that 0.9z-9b would allow for much higher settings of either Q1 etc. and SFS.

Also, by now I am sure that wheher at this extreme or a bit lower (like Q1 at 6 x 10 and SFS = 120) the roughness of the highs could be just too rough. Maybe too much of Tina Turner in an Australian desert. So to me it looks like there will be a sweetspot somewhere and I still think the Q1 size is key. So, somewhere between 6 x 10 and 6 x 1 ? Notice the granulation of this "presentation" and that it's really 60 and 6 I am talking about and that 6 x 10 is the same as 5 x 12. Anyway, a theoretical 60 possibilities, but all assumed that DevBufSize is 4096 which can also be varied (it's just the product of the three (Q1, xQ1, DevBufSize).

Peter

[juanpmar]

Hi Peter,

I´ve been trying with other settings, like Q1:6,3 and xQ:7,3,2,1 and others in between. Even some of those settings at Device Buffer Size: 2048. In my system I can´t notice substantial differences as to confirm that a setting is better than others. E.g. to Q1:6 and xQ:3 it seems to have less sibilances in the sssss vocals in the track I´m using to test it, but at the same time the fuller sound (the more organic or with a more integrated body) seems to be with the Q1:6 and xQ:10 (I´m always keeping the other Q values at 1 and SFS:120). So, I maintain my preference for the Q1:6 and xQ:10 but what I did is to toe a few mm. the speakers toward the out side of my centered position.
As you don´t want to have only one listening position and you rather to have a good listening position from anywhere in your room I´d suggest you to move a bit your speakers to find again that sound from anywhere. Sometimes the changes in sound are so big with e.g. a new player or in our case with a new software or hardware that could be necessary to rethink again the acoustics in our room or perhaps at least the placement of the speakers. Often a slight change in the position of the speakers returns a sound that´s according to our preferences.

This is just a humble suggestion...

Kind regards,
Juan

[PeterSt]

Thank you very much Juan. Also for that feedback of course.
Peter

[listening]

Hi Peter,

following your thoughts about the interesting area of settings for Q1 Q1x and Buffersize I decided to use a dice to determine useful settings 
There came out Q1XQ1x = 9, Buffer=4096 and SFS=120.

Muscic flow and swing are here again 

Georg

P.S.: Will try other settings furthermore ...

[arvind]

Hi Guys,

After a number of permutations & combinations with the Q  & SFS settings, I have arrived at the best setting on my set up as follows:

Q1: 14, Q3: 1, Q4: 1, Q5: 5.
xQ1: 1
SFS: 2 (120).

The SQ is very soft & musical, just the way I like it.

Best regards,

Arvind

PS: Peter this has also solved the issue of playback stopping after 4/5 tracks.

[PeterSt]

Small report about a "milestone" :

I have many albums which I test regularly after the more severe SQ changes. These are always albums which don't work (out). One of these is Thriller from Michael Jackson and I always tried to get it work in "hi-fi" environment. For example, Billy Jean is such a track that works (very) well in disco's, but never in my living room; it just shows too much of the synthesized drums (the whole album).
Well, it now happened the first time that I not only thought it worked well, but I also listened out the whole album. And I can recall that from LP only ...
I honestly even wondered where all those synthesized drums went. So a whole bunch of "surrounding grey" at drum hits was not there anymore ?
Separate from eachother we both noticed even real cymbals, though rather far away.

From there I tried Enigma again (Cross of Changes). This is a more commonly known "grey" kind of music and I mention it more often. This sure has worked in some stage, but it never did anymore for the past two years. Something like : things might have gotten more accurate, but it can emphasize that grey. And for sure W8 doesn't help with that (brings it to the lean side with too few underlaying fundamental - at least here that is so).
This too not only worked now again, but the whole perception went in a direction that we both here said "huh ?". But anyway, no grey highs but very refined instead (and I thus knew already it can do this and it really is a measure for us all).

Then I'm always and ever trying to get a A Whole Lotta Love right (Led Zeppelin). Well, funny, because now it is finally the most clear how the large hits after the sound scape break just are nothing but 100% analog oversteered distortion. Just listen to the start of the track and the guitar and now you can hear the very same from there.  So those hits always sounded like that to me but with the option "is it a synth or what is it actually ?" and with the notice those hits are way louder than the remainder of the track. But the whole thing has been recorded all the way into "the red", so that's why.
How it happens that just now this has become so clear ? better accuracy again or something.

There's also the Made In Japan (Deep Purple) and how the cymbals are rendered in there;
This has always been a matter of how much they are audible to begin with, which is very different from how well they are rendered. So, I recall from LP that they were rather grey, and possibly the more I played the LP the more grey it became;
While this is actually my reference, digital sure improved there, but it still merely was about the loudness of them (the cymbals). Today this changed;
Now it's cymbals of various sizes and colours and nothing much grey about them. The best ever (from that album) I'd say.
On another note there's the less discernable for the better or worse : the Hammond. So I recall from another report from me somewhere in the past months (6 months ago ?) that this went so square that it became nasty. Here too it's the missing fundamentals that made it that - at least that's how I interpret it today.

Notice that at this moment this is with W7 (not saying that W8 will be bad - I just don't know at this moment because of too many other changes like isolated USB and on water floating NOS1) with the notice that my current sig (of W7) does not show the Appointment Scheme Core 3-5 which is what I'm currently using.

Peter

[Gerard]

Small report about a "milestone" :

I have many albums which I test regularly after the more severe SQ changes. These are always albums which don't work (out). One of these is Thriller from Michael Jackson and I always tried to get it work in "hi-fi" environment. For example, Billy Jean is such a track that works (very) well in disco's, but never in my living room; it just shows too much of the synthesized drums (the whole album).
Well, it now happened the first time that I not only thought it worked well, but I also listened out the whole album. And I can recall that from LP only ...
I honestly even wondered where all those synthesized drums went. So a whole bunch of "surrounding grey" at drum hits was not there anymore ?
Separate from eachother we both noticed even real cymbals, though rather far away.

From there I tried Enigma again (Cross of Changes). This is a more commonly known "grey" kind of music and I mention it more often. This sure has worked in some stage, but it never did anymore for the past two years. Something like : things might have gotten more accurate, but it can emphasize that grey. And for sure W8 doesn't help with that (brings it to the lean side with too few underlaying fundamental - at least here that is so).
This too not only worked now again, but the whole perception went in a direction that we both here said "huh ?". But anyway, no grey highs but very refined instead (and I thus knew already it can do this and it really is a measure for us all).

Then I'm always and ever trying to get a A Whole Lotta Love right (Led Zeppelin). Well, funny, because now it is finally the most clear how the large hits after the sound scape break just are nothing but 100% analog oversteered distortion. Just listen to the start of the track and the guitar and now you can hear the very same from there.  So those hits always sounded like that to me but with the option "is it a synth or what is it actually ?" and with the notice those hits are way louder than the remainder of the track. But the whole thing has been recorded all the way into "the red", so that's why.
How it happens that just now this has become so clear ? better accuracy again or something.

There's also the Made In Japan (Deep Purple) and how the cymbals are rendered in there;
This has always been a matter of how much they are audible to begin with, which is very different from how well they are rendered. So, I recall from LP that they were rather grey, and possibly the more I played the LP the more grey it became;
While this is actually my reference, digital sure improved there, but it still merely was about the loudness of them (the cymbals). Today this changed;
Now it's cymbals of various sizes and colours and nothing much grey about them. The best ever (from that album) I'd say.
On another note there's the less discernable for the better or worse : the Hammond. So I recall from another report from me somewhere in the past months (6 months ago ?) that this went so square that it became nasty. Here too it's the missing fundamentals that made it that - at least that's how I interpret it today.

Notice that at this moment this is with W7 (not saying that W8 will be bad - I just don't know at this moment because of too many other changes like isolated USB and on water floating NOS1) with the notice that my current sig (of W7) does not show the Appointment Scheme Core 3-5 which is what I'm currently using.

Peter

Funny you mentioned Mischael Jackson. I always wondered why his albums are so "Bad"  . A multi million guy and than make such recordings.
Indeed i do not have the idear anymore that i can call this bad recordings.

 

[PeterSt]

Indeed i do not have the idear anymore that i can call this bad recordings.

Hey Gerard,

Since exactly when ?

Peter

[Gerard]

Indeed i do not have the idear anymore that i can call this bad recordings.

Hey Gerard,

Since exactly when ?

Peter

Sorry at this moment.. I really never played his albums because of the fact that i just did not like the recordings.

But that could change after what i hear now. 

[boleary]

Well I hope these impressions are more helpful than annoying....   Because there have been so many changes in so many areas in such a short time around here I've not been able to keep up. Just deciding whether or not I prefer 1.186 or 9Z-9b has, over the last several days, finally been decided. I have not gotten a Silverstone card ....yet: USB is connected to the MB USB3 port. Nor have I jumped back to W7. (Hell, I'm still getting used to the profound positive changes  Bert's amp has brought me, which I purchased four months ago! If the Orlino's have the same amps they must be mind blowing.)

In short, there is something about 1.186 that drives me crazy but not in a good way. However, decision-making was difficult, because every time I retried 1.186 after switching back to 9Z-9b, my first impression, until recently, was always that it's better than 9Z-9b! But, after an hour or so of 1.186 listening, I begin to hear too much distortion, especially when going quickly from soft to loud with female voices.  What's sort of weird is that my body feels this distortion before I hear it and then, when I become conscious of the discomfort I  begin to listen for the problem. The last several days though, I can now spot the problem as soon as I change Q5 to 1, even in 9Z-9b.

What's really great about 1.186, what makes me initially feel that it's better, is the depth of the sound. individual vocals have a kind of depth or dimension that makes them sound more holographic, and present, but then.......my body begins to feel distortion and I tense up.

This makes me wonder, Peter, if the 25 people that you described at your party, early in this thread, felt what I have come to fell about 1.186.

 Listening to 9Z-9b, I am totally taken with how relaxed my sound is and how loud I came play it while retaining the naturalness of vocals. Although 9Z-9b lacks all the dimensionality (not sure if that's even a word) of 1.186, my body feels delighted by the one and not the other. Currently my Q5 is at 3.

Of course my tweeters, Heil type, may not be up to the task of 1.186, but I don't really know about that.

 

[listening]

Hi Peter,

I'm still withstanding to change from W8 to W7 though I had some days of doubt    I feeel that a delicate balance between CPU speed, SFS and buffer settings is necessary. If that's the case the tuning of the "Qs" is promising. Actually 375 MHz are set for the CPU, SFS=40 and buffer size = 512 byte. That's the maximum for the 4 kernels. I tinker with the idea to switch to 8 kernels (AMD). Are this kernels supported by XXHighend in a similar way as the Intel kernels?

Georg   

[Arjan]

Hi boleary,
The differences as you describes between 9z and 1.186 seems to be similar to the differences between W7 and W8 with 1.186.

So 1.186 on W7 will sound more like 9z on W8. But which will have better SQ I do not know.....
Regards, Arjan

[boleary]

Thanks Arjan, I guess my next "tweak" will be W7. I have a hard drive with a W7 and a W8 partition.

[PeterSt]

This makes me wonder, Peter, if the 25 people that you described at your party, early in this thread, felt what I have come to fell about 1.186.

Hey Brian,

I have been waiting for your judgements, and the sole fact that it takes you ages already tells me something (prior to you posting about it).

Had to search a bit myself for my post you refer to, but here it's quoted (it was in another topic) :

All,

After a few days of more listening, this is a sort of verdict :

No matter very interesting at times, I can't cope with this sound. It is too odd/strange and it is tiring. How I am not sure, but it could be too much "buzzing". At least that sense I get from it and I don't perceive real buzzing as such (as with standing (higher frequency) waves).

The two days ago this "measure" came about :

We had a party and 25 or so people were in the room. Of course I have some music playing, like always.
I found myself having more difficulties than with other such occasions at preselecting the music to play. Just trying to envision what would be background music. Not much came to me (with the indication that nothing is "background music" as such anymore).
Ok, music was playing for 2 hours or so, and a next album was selected (actually after an all over "and Peter, when are you going to put up some music ?!") and at the attempt to put up something recognizable for the peeps at the 5th track or so (playing fairly softly) I felt that that was not "it" either. So, walked to the PC and pressed stop, and then a sheer choir of 25 people all at the same time said

"Ohhh, what a relief ! Fi-nal-ly !".



So "intense" (as per Ciska's expression) ?
Way too much of it I'd say.

So yesterday we were talking about this after my explicit question to Ciska "and, is this now so wrong then ?". And this time music played which she knew well. First answer was "nooohh, don't think so", while we both knew we were seeking for what's wrong with it. But the "nooohh" sounded full of doubt and I again didn't know what to do with what I was perceiving from the speakers. And then - big surprise - this is what she said :

"Sounds like those sugar cubes".

Next I told her something like "see, when we take some time we all come to the same conclusion" and I told her that I already wrote it on the forum :

For those who experienced it (e.g. Paul), the sugar cubes in quadruple. No, more. And really, one of the first things which came to me is that it seemed that the SPL was equal everywhere in the room (sugar cubes did the same - I measured).

So this does it and it is final. The isolation will go off again.
Notice : I can't bear these sugar cubes as well. One difference : they make the sound less accurate, while I did not perceive that from the isolated card. But the exhibit is similar : processed sound. Way all over processed.


Peter

So ...
I felt the importance of finding back the exact situation, and it really *IS* important because I can only now see what happened ...
And you guys won't have seen it either I suppose.


This strange sound was about the isolation of the Silverstone USB on the PC side, and that's it (so the quote of my text above was about that situation). From that though followed the isolation on the NOS1 side, and that all went downhill.
Now I don't know how the mind works, but I myself really really forgot what the heck I made my NOS1 float for. Well, see quote above again. It was that. And I think I didn't describe it really or explicitly, because all got snowed under by the Friday = Riddle Day I turned it into. For readers it now seemed just that other tweak and I am sure nobody tried it. But you really should ...

So what I could hear was the microphonic response of the metal. Thus, through that tiring sound I could hear how actually the metal will sound supposing it plays along. This is merely a feeling or hunch than really so, or it must be that I am accidentally good at these things. But mind you, I have been spending such a long time on good footers - you don't want to know. But it's not only footers, it's about general damping.

I also see the relation with the better on/off behavior - BUT which merely comes from the Silverstone card - and how that hammers upon the metal. It's just too strong so to speak. And really, if you look into this : Phasure NOS1 USB Special Measurements - Dirac pulses I just put up yesterday, you' get a hunch of how strongly things can impact with no idea really what it takes to let that happen for less or more of it. Anyway envision the Silverstone just pulling such things really out - at least that is how it comes across to me myself. Thus, that makes it *worse* if not first the response has been taken out of the cabinet.

Of course, you (Brian) don't use the Silverstone and I never tried my Floater without it. But all is (or seems to be) a matter of better front-end behavior and at least you indeed own an amplifier which is around the same as mine. So, a good start for ending up the same like me (and net worse sound because of it). Let me add to it that as far as I'm concerned ony three people have such low noise (at amp output) and you are one of them (unless you hear noise after all, but the amp is inherently dead silent). So, worse again (thinking unsmeared "impact").

Keep in mind guys, this floating really helps and I don't think any type of footer will do this. But *also* keep in mind that before the isolation of the USB this wasn't needed. Well, not that I noticed but with emphasis on the remark that I already used footers which worked out for the very best (and which is well thought over, that is, as far as I could do it).
So, not sure whether this post is useful, but it has to be clear that how the NOS1 is damped is of foremost importance.


On another note I have been playing with W7 for 11 days now which is more than sufficient to know that for the first time in a year's of time I haven't been bothered by anything on any of these 11 days. This is to be compared with W8 where I have been bothered each of the 365 days I used it, though it could be diminished by more selectively (album) playing;
I didn't go back to W8 with this (floating etc.) situation because I just have been eager to listen to all the beauty springing from sheerly everything. But tonight I will go back to W8 and will report tomorrow.

Regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

So here we go :

Booted into the W8 partition of the dual boot on the XXHighEnd PC. Picked an album of Ott deliberartely because it has been typicle for not wanting to work out on W8. Maybe that's mean, but hey, on W7 it works (though I only tried other albums from Ott - not this one).

First impression : highs highs highs.
Second impression : highs highs highs.
Hmm ...

So, halfway the first track the partner in crime was asked what she thought of this - whether she had remarks maybe. Without words I put the suggestion that something had changed. The usual answer : "I don't know this music, so no".
Yea yea yea.
"Ok, more highs."

Now notice that this time I thought to setup a nice ABX and she didn't know what I was doing. Nothing about W7 vs W8 and I thought to have my ways of making this the most honest comparison.
In the mean time when I was out of the room (door closed) I heard the highs profound. Not good. In-room I heard too much of overtones or something, which I now dedicate to the Silverstone. Say the singing of the ride cymbal but now when that cymbal is not in order. A flavour. I actually wanted her to "find" this, but this didn't happen. Ok ...

First track took over 6 minutes and halfway the 2nd of 9 minutes I more or less showed to give up because nothing came from her - I walked towards the PC in for a reboot but was shouted from the back ""needs more bass maybe ?".

Booted into W7, set the volume equal to the previous round and announced that exactly the same would be playing. Remarks please ?

After not long ... "more wooly".
Not sure whether wooly is a real English audio term but in Dutch we tend to use it for the opposite of stiff bass. However, then you first need to be an audiophile and I don't think she is that.

"The previous one was more detailed".

Without me asking for a quality judgement there came a "I don't know which is better".
Now notice : nobody (like her) comes up with such an expression without explicitly being asked for, which is an indication that all is so different or opposite that you just can't know. At least that's my perception of it.

"Rounder".
So this was the second version of "wooly" which thus not explicitly tells that it's the less stiff bass. However, while I wasn't even really listening because I wanted to stay out of this all, I did notice the more stiff bass from W8 but this was only later (a next round, described below).
What I did this round was now walking outside of the room to explicitly judge the highs there, but nothing. Just all in balance (door again closed behind me).

Again stopped playback halfway the 2nd track, and thought of something new to play. Ok, Shpongle it would be (this is a guy who makes his own synthesizers).

I thought to be more sneaky and while it took as long as the previous rounds to swap tracks, I started the music and now asked : Tell me what disturbs you.
So now there's a clear suggestion that something should disturb while I expect it to be nothing. Notice this is still W7.

The first track of 8 minutes passed by and no words came out of her.
Quickly after the start of the second track there was a "contains much highs" and it came along with a sort of "oops". Not much later : "this doesn't look good for the S'es" but told in a way "not sure".

2 minutes later : "I think I will be tired of this soon".

Good. So the moods were set and the minds too. The "tired" can well be because this is an up-beat track that sweeps you up and is meant to do that, but with the clear notice that it's high transient as well, and the highs keep on hammering. It actually *is* a bit too much of it all and I knew that (because I just never wanted to play it any more under W8). And of course I saw a few things coming for the next W8 round.
Btw imagine that not more words were spoken than quoted here. So no more suggestions than said and no other responses from her than said.

Ok, do you have something to add ? -> "yes, test signals !'.
Hmm ...

After something like 12 minutes in total, back to W8.
Same volume again, which I btw explictly told (previous rounds the same).

First remark without questions asked : "I don't hear anything special any more".
I myself compare this with the similar just nothing mentioned at the first round of this track. Apparently it doesn't do much for either OS ? But to me it did because there was a special metal more space ship sound and under W8 it was more sound than spaceship. But ok.

"This is also a bit busy".
The "busy" here refers to the tiring.
One important notice : this time she said that during the first track already and that track just showed some slow beat. No "tiring" or anything came from her during the W7 round of this.

"Isn't this louder ?"

"Are you sure this isn't louder ? I sure think it is."

Now my blocknote says : Which is tiring more ?
-> Not the best maybe for objectiveness, but apparently I asked this. Oh well. Anyway answer : "I'd say this one".

"Sure, this one."

Without further more words :
"This is often about too much detail, yes ? Well, that's this one."


So that was it;

The only positive I may have noticed from W8 was a somewhat better bass, but I think this is quite easy when there's too few of that. So, maybe I noticed this, but my general feeling throughout was that there was no bass. And that is so much disturbing in itself that there's nothing in my mind that preferred the better extressed bass at times - if at all.

What I noticed myself throughout was all the mid detail in W7 which was not heard at all in W8. Notice that detail in this can only be about somewhat lower frequency On/Off. In no single occasion she came up with this.

The very first tones of W8 struck me as annoying, which was about some kind of flute which, well, annoyed. Layers above it (again). The very first tones of W7 again struck me for the same reason; I wasn't prepared for it, but now that flute was a flute and this is how I recalled the W8 annoying flute.

My idea about the first W8 round was "hissing all over" in the absolute sense. I had difficulties not hearing that back in W7 but at least I noticed that in W7 it had a colour while in W8 it was hissing only. This has my general remark of W8 forever, but now there's this additional "singing" layer which the Silverstone card produces and it felt like illegal overtones all over. Nothing of that in W7 and in my perception only because of the layers added *under* it (the same which brings the colour).

Her expressed "more wooly" and "more round" from W7 are not just "remarks" I think; it merely will be her expression about how W8 is hard as a stone and annoys. So "more round" is "more nice" and I'm sure the audiophile will have said "more analogue".


I can't make it different and I hope it has been sufficiently objective. One small disclaimer : It well can be that my highs output of the speaker is more than average and that just fewer highs output brings back the balance for W8. What I'm saying is that YMMV and that my judgement is still through the glasses of a system which is not yours.

Regards,
Peter

[acg]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for this report.  I've never listened to w7 and XXHE but I intend to do that in the next week or so, but I have to be honest, based on your description I am not sure that I will enjoy it.  We will see.

The one thing that is making the Silverstone card enjoyable for me (with w8) at the moment is the LPS and cable loom setup from the other thread, otherwise I would not be using it because of a tendency toward harshness (a better description is noise I think) but it is so good with the separation of notes et cetera.  Were it not for the cable loom I would have my PPA card with Coens mods in my XXHE pc.

Anyway, I urge you to experiment with cleaner power into the Silverstone because I am most interested with what you would report.

Regards,

Anthony

[CoenP]

Peter,

I am glad you put up the description of the difference between W7 and W8. I think this very much describes the annoyances that I have been hearing in W8 and the naturalness I experience in W7 (...since the beginning). This despite the quite different systems we listen to!

Still some of us report splendid sound from W8 which may tell that there could be something we overlooked.

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Hi Coen,

I too can put forward splendid reports of W8. But that first needs to NOT play xxx albums. Notice that this already could be subjective compared to others who just don't play the perceived baddies. Well, I got used to that too for the past year. Not the biggest problem. One thing though : all should play since I'm from the camp that just wants all to play.

So back to a previous post : what does it tell when I play music for 11 days and all those 11 days in a row I really never have been annoyed, and what does it tell that a very first note (that flute) I hear through W8 already annoys me. So not the 25th album but the first note of the first track of the first album. And true, I learned to not play that album anymore. But this is stupid.

I'm also from the camp that won't dig fake detail. Well, I think I was as far as not finding the detail from W8 fake, but now something else turns again that or me, and this is it being too lean. So how easy it is to create more detail by means of removing the bass. Just try it. And *this* only occurs to you when going back to W7.

What's totally new for me is the enormous detail the mid can bring and although I thought this was from my three-folded floating setup I only *now* see it is again W7. Just go back to W8 and you will find lacking *that*.

The real main culprit is - or has been - that whenever I went back to W7 the past year it sounded distorted. Too rough in comparison to W8. And since *that* is now out of the way (most probably the Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1 from 1.186), well ...

In the net end I see no value at all in more detail W8 can bring because that same detail is "over" for many albums and without knowing you won't miss it, while the enormous mid-detail of W7 not only compensates for that vastly, it brings thus detail at a level which is not fake. This again (yes Anthony) is that stupid Silverstone card so things really *are* complicated. And that meanwhile the whole picture is not so overly lean because of more bass (for the better or not) is a giant bonus. Remember me telling about "music for pussies" a couple of times; that's W8; there's just not enough weight. It's for people drinking tea lifting their pinky. I told about that too. Not that I make the laws here but I do try to not fall into pitfalls (of e.g. detail) while that is so easy to do.

Let me say it once again but with different emphasis :
Nobody that I know complained about W7 back at the time (year ago and beyond). And really really the ONLY reason I never went back was because of the distortion audible when compared to W8. For me there has been NO other reason. And now this distortion is out of the way I thus see no reason to not go back.
So will I ?

That depends;
I think it can count for you too Coen - but over the years I have tuned my speakers (but think mid-high horn) NOT for W8. It was for W7 (and Vista) and you don't want to know how easy I can change the whole presentation by means of changing a resistor here or there. Still, this is all within the bandwidth of (say) W7;

What I'm trying to say is that when all you guys who just use consistently setup speakers come to the same conclusion (go back to W7) then I will too because then the culprit is not my W7 tuning. But when all of you compared and still clearly decide for W8 then I better look into my tuning of the speakers, right ?
I can also say that all those who tuned their speakers audibly (but hopefully with some base sense of measuring) might just as well in that same boat of not being able to like W8.

What a hobby.
Peter

[AlainGr]

Thanks again Peter for these reports. It really does give me the desire to retry W7... I don't feel the urge to follow MS in their aim for version changes...

Alain

[CoenP]

Peter,

Thanks for the elaboration.

I've grown to believe in a "sound character" of components and software, that is that no matter what you tune you can never tune it completely into something else. Eventually you will always hear a certain fingerprint of it on the sound.

To illustrate this with an example, I've used a simple lab supply on various locations in my audio setup and I've always been hearing a consistent "darkening" of the sound. For this the supply has to be in use in the chain, just being on unconnected will not change anything.

So we might have tuned our speakers for Win7, but I am reluctant to accept this as the root for a win7 preference. I've conducted many experiments with my speakers filters and they've always been in a certain margin, affecting only a limited set of SQ parameters (foremost on the tonal balance and spaciousness). Especially I've found the almost subliminal listening ease of win7 not a quality that I can change with speakerparts.

Off course if anyone has an experiment that can or will prove me wrong I will conduct it!

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Hi there Coen,

I've grown to believe in a "sound character" of components and software, that is that no matter what you tune you can never tune it completely into something else. Eventually you will always hear a certain fingerprint of it on the sound.

Of course this is true, generally spoken.

To illustrate this with an example, I've used a simple lab supply on various locations in my audio setup and I've always been hearing a consistent "darkening" of the sound. For this the supply has to be in use in the chain, just being on unconnected will not change anything.

Even with that as an example.
Or maybe it's the best example of how to NOT judge things, because it is so logical that it happens. Or to be more cautious : that it can be so logical because we will only know it all when really all has been sorted out. And we probably never can. What we sure can is making a 1000 mistakes in our thinking and even judging ...

So back to the first quote, yes, for e.g. an amplifier this is quite obvious. I mean, for empirical finding/judging. But look at the noise line and that already tells all. So if that isn't ruler flat it will tell about some character of the sound. How or what is hard to predict, but that there's "something" is obvious to me when that ruler flat is not in order. Now show me your plots ...

Of course it is more complicated, because when no ruler flat is shown the first suspect is you yourself with all your further misery connections. But how can you tell without a reference ? I mean, if I see something creeping up I just know it is me somewhere, but if you see something like that you may think it is the amplifier. And for 99% sure it even is. There's just no where to go.
And thus your components show a character, because they just do. It is really that simple.

If your lab supply shows a darker sound where ever you use it in the chain, it really is not about that supply causing that character; it really does/implies something, but what it is is to be found out. But it really will not be different from somone coming up with hi-hip-hooray brand USB cable, which comes with a topology which doesn't do a thing to the signal, but which *does* imply another ground path. That is, all cases sorted out so far came down to that.
And so, easy : when your lab supply always brings that same character, you are not going to tell me that it always brings the very same virtue to whatever component you feed with it. That just does not exist. But that the supply always injects the same whatever sh*t to your mains which next causes always the same nature to the whole chain or particular components in it ... I'd say that's the logical explanation.
Super simple real life example : have a poor power supply in the unit that throws DC Offset to the mains. It really exists you know.

A more honest example will be software, because once we accept it that this influences, something like XXHighEnd has been set up from some base and that base will never or hardly change. It already starts with the computer language it was written in, or the compiler used to make machine code of it.

With this all said, no, a PC will not give any character. Or wait, it always will; it just depends how you look at things, but we already know it always comes down to the noise phenomenon. This now is different from the amplifier's noise line and I don't think it needs further elaboration of how it works, as long as we see that it's actually not much under our control (yet) and that something like a Silverstone USB3 PCIe interface works out for the better with sheer analogue merits (I mean, we judge this like an amplifier which is NOT the case at all because it's just a stupid digital thing).

It will take some more time to dig out what's really happening, but I expect it to be very simple like the one component (take the USB3 card as an example) always operating at a rate of 100MHz while the other does that at 5Mhz when no higher speed is demanded without me saying which of the both works out for the better. But electrical differences like these *will* be in order and it is only that we don't know how they impact and where (but start with radiation).
Still we better isolate the DAC 100% so all can't be of influence anymore, but that's a bit impractical. Isolating the interface is impossible because that incurs for more jitter again, and running the DAC from batteries is a must because whatever is thrown it will be thrown on the mains so that's not allowed to come in as well. But batteries aren't for the better at all, so ...

[PeterSt]

Hi again Coen,

So we might have tuned our speakers for Win7, but I am reluctant to accept this as the root for a win7 preference. I've conducted many experiments with my speakers filters and they've always been in a certain margin, affecting only a limited set of SQ parameters (foremost on the tonal balance and spaciousness). Especially I've found the almost subliminal listening ease of win7 not a quality that I can change with speakerparts.

No ? then I will try to turn all upside down. Maybe I will fail, but let's see :

Remember that one ?
Ok, not to make it too complicated, but what I really did was applying these curves to Windows 8. I mean, "really" is opposite to what I told yesterday where I suggested that I had my speakers tuned for W7. True for the old ones, but not true for the new ones.

Try to envision that I can change the general slope you see from left to right, that I can change the deepness of the dip you see starting at around 1000Hz up to ~5000Hz and that the slope to the right of that can be changed as well. This all with preservation of (good working) XOvers.
Look at the curve under the 90dB line;
Now also envision that what you see at that curve is one end of the extreme I can dial in. It's actually just that F-M curve. The other end is the complete flat line like how a speaker will be nornally "tuned".

Remember, I am bringing all upside down so it will not be clear to you yet what I'm heading for ...

What W8 requires is and the slope and the dip. So bring either - or both together - up with something like 1dB (!!) and you will die. The tweeter side of the upward slope (say beyond 6KHz) is more forgiving because it is merely used to fill up frequency gaps that emerge in the lower frequencies because of not enough energy in the highs. What bringing up that "tweeter slope" does is a kind of opposite of what the Sillverstone does (Silverstone separates, higher tweeter slope fills out). Of course the both interact and once you believe in this (or heard what the Silverstone does) you already can't say this is not important.
Don't forget about this 1dB difference, because it seems nothing but changes W8 from listenable to unbearable. Ok ?

With for W8 the slope and dip in order, the tweeter is to be set to say 5dB lower than you see in at the 90dB curve. Make it lower and the sound gets too rough (holes are not sufficiently filled out) and make it higher and too much hissing will be your part. All depends to some extend on the material played but say that since 1.186 (which I of course had for 2 months or so longer than you all) I could live with one setting and I did not change it anymore. Prior to 1.186 (or actually the Q5=1 setting of 0.9z-9b) I daily changed, depending on what I found to sound too nasty.
The mere important message : I settled down on just one never changing setting for maybe 3 months by now. So, all (finally) OK, and what was OK was the software.

In the mean time it is allowed for you all to wonder whether it can be any good to have a response from the speaker like this. On the other hand don't underestimate what 115dB sensitivity does to the freshness (actually speed) of the sound and how briging that back to only 112dB already makes all sound muffled and nothing will sound harsh anymore.
So get it ? all is super relative to much more than software and now I'm saying that the sensitivity already makes all moot for comparison. All right ...

What I didn't tell in yesterday's report is that the last album I played was The Wall, after going back to W7. It even seemed unrelated to myself what happened and what I did and it was beyond the ABX thing. But, what happened was far more important than my little ABX game ...

Remember what I said earlier on : "We might have tuned our speakers to W7".
Yea yea, nice talk PeterSt, but what you should have said is that you tuned your speaker to W8.

So what's following now I already knew yesterday when I wrote out that ABX report, but the real merits I only know from last night. So ? ...

Being confronted with all the deliberate high frequency "test tones" from the ABX game, turning back to W7 and playing The Wall right away brought be a too muffled sound. Completely blanketed. Of course part of it is relative, also with the notice that I played with W7 for that 11 days, but still. This is not how The Wall is supposed to sound. Btw, MFSL version (not 30HZ high passed for LP).
So about turning things up side down : I never ever touched those F-M curves for W7 ...

So what I did was bringing up the slope with 2dB, the dip going along with that linearly (so dip remains as deep) and brought up the tweeter slope to max (see 90dB curve).
All sounded superb now and I was in lack of nothing. It slipped my mind how the hack this had been recorded so well, and the boooom - boooom - boooom of the first track was perceived at sub low in a giant space. Never heard that, but alas.
This in itself is totally unrelated;

What I deliberately did was not changing back the slopes when the album was finished and dinner was ready (when the music always stops here). I sincerely was hoping that the next day I would have forgotten about it to next see whether I noticed, but now with the more "test tone" material.

So I did !!

I will now stop with making font sizes 45 points etc., but I once again was totally floored at the first notes coming from the speakers yesterday. Never ever EVER I could have imagined that what I now heard was possible;
The squares in the mid range now scatter to the ceiling and float along the sealing towards me. Well, I never heard something scattering to the ceiling so I guess that suddenly things are so sharply boundaried that it can happen ?
Oh, for the "square" I'm talking about, think a seagull. Exactly that, and really exactly that because it *was* (a.o.) a seagull in the music (and now even see the beast flying towards you right under the ceiling).
Side note : I recall from W8 that this seagull has a beak, while in W7 it also has a throat (about lacking fundament in W8).

So, all scatters and flies and bounces and what not. The detail is crazy and what seems odd is that the squareness is not coming across as sharp or hard at the same time.

After being on the floor when music first started I of course soon realized that I deliberately had let those curves where they should not be, so it was now my task to see whether I could squeeze out the same detail as W8 can do it. But now the high frequency detail of course. Strangely enough (or I had the unconscious hunch) I started a tracj which has been in my demo Gallery for ages but which I never played anymore because I couldn't see any "demo" merit of it, which of course was from the W8 era. It is a kind of "house" thing with a not too fast beat of course lasting 12 minutes or so. So what actually to do with that. But now ?
Djeezzz. One big interacting left/right everywhere flow of scatters running into each other with always changing effects throughout the 12 minutes with, yes, that boom-boom-boom slower beat throughout. And no, I can not imagine how that ever could have been a demo track without this scattering sheer joy.

On this matter I don't think that anyone realizes what "mid detail" is, and maybe it's not a real phenomenon in audio so far; it can be "representation" or "forward" or "tight" and a few more things, but detailed ?

All 'n all I yesterday heard the most detail everywhere (also the highs) by very very far;
Nothing went wrong but 3 hours and a handful of albums may be too few to really judge, but there is no single way W8 can do this; It would choke in itself first (so to speak).

So Coen (but everybody), never think that a speaker doesn't matter. Or like in this case the "tuning" of it;
You just don't know - and that really is all. It's not bad or stupid or whatever ... you just don't know. And before it's still misunderstood : you don't know the reference. And undoubtedly I don't know that either. But at least I have my own and I just described the enormous changes possible by means of 1-2dB differences "somewhere";
You can say that *now* this speaker is tuned for W7 - you will squeeze your arm a couple of times to be sure you are awake when you hear it - and if I give that to W8 you will be asking for ear plugs (which I have just in case).

Regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

So here we go :

Booted into the W8 partition of the dual boot on the XXHighEnd PC. Picked an album of Ott deliberartely because it has been typicle for not wanting to work out on W8. Maybe that's mean, but hey, on W7 it works (though I only tried other albums from Ott - not this one).

First impression : highs highs highs.
Second impression : highs highs highs.
Hmm ...

Hi Peter,

My computer system was not changed for appr. 3 years and I did not change much of the settings with the different releases. The RAM disk (VSuite Ramdisk Server edition) and the USB3 card (with a NEC chipset) are not favouring the SQ on my system.
After a two day session with W7 again, the clear winner is after all W8.
With W7 the system is losing much of the room image (3D sound stage) and less bass and highs.
The drums/cymbals have on W8 a very life like tonal balance, what I prefer.
A good test record for the 3D image is :
http://www.amazon.com/Tenderness-Al-Jarreau/dp/B000002MMU/ref=sr_1_12_title_1_aud?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1391768033&sr=1-12&keywords=al+jarreau

Tonal balance of drums, title 2:
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Garden-Stanley-Clarke/dp/B001VFM0QU/ref=sr_1_8?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1391768160&sr=1-8&keywords=stanley+clarke

The release 1.186 is magical with W8 on my system.

Joachim

[PeterSt]

Thank you for that feedback Joachim.
I am not sure whether I have those albums, but if so I will try them and report what I perceive from them.

Regards,
Peter

[CoenP]

Hi Peter,

Thanks for sharing you thoughts and insights. I've not considered speaker tuning in this way myself. Anyway maybe I did some changes crucial to my peception of the music through the different OSses. The speaker filter setup in use has not changed since my xp days, though I've experimented a lot inbetween. Foremost I removed some damping material and changed the remaining with stuff that suited me better. This could have been beneficial for w7 only. Someday I will look into how to realise your f-m approach in my setup and have seagulls floating onbthe ceiling!

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Haha

[acg]

Peter, which The Wall track has the seagulls?  I'll track it down tomorrow and see if I need to duck while listening to it....hehe.

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Anthony ... None. That's from another album and artist.

http://www.amazon.com/Gaia-Sophia-Entheogenic/dp/B005C8SKOS
Track 02.


PS: You can already see how such an album sounds. Really so.

[PeterSt]

Dear Joachim,

A good test record for the 3D image is :
http://www.amazon.com/Tenderness-Al-Jarreau/dp/B000002MMU/ref=sr_1_12_title_1_aud?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1391768033&sr=1-12&keywords=al+jarreau

Tonal balance of drums, title 2:
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Garden-Stanley-Clarke/dp/B001VFM0QU/ref=sr_1_8?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1391768160&sr=1-8&keywords=stanley+clarke

As you may know I am always in for such little "games" and I really did it (it appeared I have both albums);
What you also may know from me is that when I am challenged by examples, I will not hesitate to vent my judgement. For the better or the worse. So example : people tend to come up with super Hires such and so, give an example, I listen - debunk it for whatever I *hear* to next support that my whatever graphs and show it is stupidly upsampled or whatever has been the matter. Didn't happen often in this forum (because the challenging doesn't happen often here) but elsewhere yes. So hey, if you tell me that something is good, it better be good before others judge it as good while it maybe is not. Understand ?
It is and remains my little game though, so don't feel personally attacked only because it was you who accidentally came up with it. It's just to learn from, well, hopefully !


So, Al Jarreau;

Of course, if this was my challenge to squeeze out more 3D than what it is actually not, then OK. But I'm afraid that this should have been the example of "sheer 3D". Well, then you just don't know OR my system totally fails;
It was the flattest album of the whole evening (including Led Zeppeling I from 1969), with the notice I played a few tracks of it only. Just too poor. What it *did* do though is making me part of the audience. Not sure whether that's the same.
Oh, rendition of drums was fairly much OK to my judgement. See below.

Stanley Clarke;

Tonal balance of drums, title 2:

Yes, that is what you said, and I assume you referred to track 2.

Drums ? Ok, if drums are to be cymbals then I can get what you are referring to. But the little bit of "drums" as such in there are completely overwhelmed with the poor (!) recording of the cymbals. Now, I suppose you can't imagine, but no dynamics are in those things at all;
I must assume that you perceive the cymbals fairly loud (and not softer than the few drum hits in there), and all I can think of this is microphones attached to the blades of the cymbals themselves (so to speak) which won't allow the hits on the cymbals themselves to develop. Maybe hard to explain, but a cymbal first needs a firm hit (which you will clearly perceive) before it starts to sing. Well, singing is there all right, but hitting - nothing.

So in my book this is THE example of a most poor recording, which even makes sound the cymbals to the Chinese side if you know what I mean (more dirty sounding).
So just saying : Al Jarreau's drums are way better.

Now, I am not here to debunk things but merely to try to dig out what's really happening. So let's not forget the real subject, which is something like W7 vs. W8 and how things may not work out in W8 which do in W7. Of course this needs incorporation of a few other posts of mine elsewhere, but at least you will have read those. So :

Let us first assume that you are not deaf, you know a few things about this all, and that you have all in balance. Clear ? So what I'm saying is that you perceive all as OK and that I am explicitly NOT saying that you are deaf or anything. Thus all OK on your side, and thus all wrong on mine ?
So that's to be sorted out. Or at least that would be my interest. Maybe not yours ...

Now next thing we must assume (or at least I do that) is that my high frequency output is way higher than yours. This could be why I perceive those Clarke cymbals as completely upfront and studio taken which should tell that they just are, no matter you perceive them differently.
With this as a base, try to envision that I now play this on Windows 8 with my clear perception and expression that way too much highs come from W8 and all is very lean to begin with. Thus, while I play from W7 and judge that to be OK in general, you play from W8 and judge that to be OK in general, but I play your cymbals on W7 and will 100% know how crazily wrong that will go on W8. And this time not because of the transients (they were not there) but because of the too lean output there (hence too much highs).

So what's up ?

Well, to start with it should be about the material played.
What I can find for a reason is that your Jarreau brings you a lot of 3D which is relative to the lesser. And why not. But still Led Zeppelin I should show more depth than Jarreau at your place. Not that you are going to try *that* ...

When I finished the little listening I started out with my usual sh*t and my first thought was "Joachim, you just don't know". So after the first two tracks of that I thought to send those two to you. And I will if you want (so please tell me).
To indicate the difference (if possible through words) I'd say a 100 times more dynamic, and something like 12dB more high frequency output. And yes, I thought to show you a spectrum, which would only show how relatively few highs come from your examples which would also count for Clarke's cymbals if you only count in the lacking transients (so on estimate it will show a large pile of 1500-3000Hz but that's is).
But this is of no use without listening (first).

The first two tracks I played (and prepared for you) can be called "seagull like" and similar sounds are in there. But also, both tracks contain a lot of vinyl (deliberate) ticks which are the highest transients, and possibly you won't hear those at all. Possibly you won't hear anything of what I hear, because it just needs the super speed in the speakers, and what I get from your examples is that this may not be there to begin with. And now you won't be bothered by too much highs or too transient music in W8 ... understand ? I mean, there has to be a reason, still assumed you are not deaf.

If these two tracks annoy you or of these two tracks don't have your interest throughout (one is 8 minutes, the other 12) something is seriously "wrong". Wrong between large quotes because nothing wrong as such, but it possibly determines the real merits of W8. So to be on the constructive side : If you perceive scattering and hurting highs only (on W8 !) then all what it tells is that you don't play high transient music and find Clarke to be OK on the cymbals because at least that shows cymbals to some extend. But if you listen to these tracks, then you know.

Before you say Yes, I can already point out a super danger : Both the tracks need "severe" foundation of the lower frequencies. I am not sure anymore but I recall especially the second track to show something like 30Hz very clear and if that is lacking, well, then we'd both listen to a W8 representation to begin with (too lean) and it will be unbearable because of that (now scattering highs only). Again IIRC the first track starts out with real sub low (like 25Hz background roar) and there too, without that nothing will work out. But what I'm really trying to say is that while this might not work out with my hints given and now because of speakers not going that low (I just don't know yours) with equal (and undistorted) SPL, it still could work out better on W7. All I certainly know is that the first track (this is Shpongle) is not playable on W8 for me because of lacking fundament and the whole track fails because of no interest now. The second track is more easy on this (this is Tau Kita) BUT here it is about the on/off separation in the lower range (voice range) where a voice morphed into cut on/off should bring a very pressing in-church (or in-hell ?) message (this is into the 6th minute or so). This is so high transient that a. Windows 8 will do that for sure, but b. Windows 7 might not again depending on the speaker. Here on W7 it still works, but the voice is more pressing because of the more hollowness coming from better fundament.
Blabla

If you judge either track as "total-sh*t" then something has to be wrong because of the representation. Anyway watch the depth compared to Jarreau.
What these tracks should do is encourage for 100s more of it, no matter it isn't your music; it just shows (here) what can be done with audio and no Clarke is going to show that. Frisell yes (just saying and try to see through his music and how it happens).

Best regards,
Peter


PS: If anyone else is inerested let me know here, but please find yourself obliged to post about it, never mind super negative or in agreement with me.
Tracks will be cut for legal reasons.

[AlainGr]

Peter,

Can you indicate the song from Shpongle that you are talking about ? I could get it on Qobuz and try to understand what you mean...

By the way, you scare me with the test music you use 



You are not a Klingon - are you ?

Alain

[christoffe]

Dear Joachim,

A good test record for the 3D image is :
http://www.amazon.com/Tenderness-Al-Jarreau/dp/B000002MMU/ref=sr_1_12_title_1_aud?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1391768033&sr=1-12&keywords=al+jarreau

Tonal balance of drums, title 2:
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Garden-Stanley-Clarke/dp/B001VFM0QU/ref=sr_1_8?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1391768160&sr=1-8&keywords=stanley+clarke

As you may know I am always in for such little "games" and I really did it (it appeared I have both albums);
What you also may know from me is that when I am challenged by examples, I will not hesitate to vent my judgement. For the better or the worse. So example : people tend to come up with super Hires such and so, give an example, I listen - debunk it for whatever I *hear* to next support that my whatever graphs and show it is stupidly upsampled or whatever has been the matter. Didn't happen often in this forum (because the challenging doesn't happen often here) but elsewhere yes. So hey, if you tell me that something is good, it better be good before others judge it as good while it maybe is not. Understand ?
It is and remains my little game though, so don't feel personally attacked only because it was you who accidentally came up with it. It's just to learn from, well, hopefully !

Hi Peter,

what a reply!

The links of the music titles were meant for a comparison between W7 and W8 only, not for an evaluation of the recordings itself. I concede that this titles are not the best samples in terms of quality, but nothing better came in my mind for a link at Amazon.

The Stanley Clarke title highlights the dynamic range of the cymbals as hearing in live concerts of Jazz Trios or Quartets. With W8 the cymbals are in the foreground, and with W7 the cymbals are not the major instruments anymore.

On my system (with W8) the hittings to the cymbals on track 2 are very good to hear as per your comment. The replay of the bass drum and Toms Toms are very poor on that track.

I do hear music at a SPL's well below 80dBA (at the listening position) most of the time. Higher SPL's as you are used to, very seldom.

My speakers are from YG Acoustics and the amplification is a NORMA integrated. The integrated has a frequency response up  1.8MHz, and that is the trick. I hear details as never before. The voices are amazing.

If the effort is not to big it would be nice to receive your two samples.

kind regards

Joachim

[PeterSt]

The links of the music titles were meant for a comparison between W7 and W8 only, not for an evaluation of the recordings itself. I concede that this titles are not the best samples in terms of quality, but nothing better came in my mind for a link at Amazon.

The Stanley Clarke title highlights the dynamic range of the cymbals as hearing in live concerts of Jazz Trios or Quartets. With W8 the cymbals are in the foreground, and with W7 the cymbals are not the major instruments anymore.

Hi Joachim,

I must admit that while yesterday I "knew" I wasn't much in for comparing to W8 (so I didn't on purpose), today I forgot about that and the actual subject. Well, not really because I stepped down to now predicting what would happen. But I should have emphasized that and since I really forgot myself ... Apologies.

Anyway it is still so that I described the cymbals as they are, thus the most upfront. Thus already too much in W7, so what about W8.

What I also should have emphasized better is that while I now obtain all the details from W7 (to my belief), W8 can only be way over on it. So this is why I proposed the tracks, so you can observe for yourself. But this of course first needs tracks with the "real detail" and this realy is something else than Jazz etc.
Summarized, if all is right you'll find this "way over" under W8 just as I do here, and it shouldn't mean that it goes to the trash bin because of bad recording; it's the other way around;
Our big goal is to let everything work well, and the, say, more poor recordings which play less nice under W7 should not need W8 to perform on par while another half won't play any more at all.

All right. I'm uploding the files and in 20 minutes or so you should receive an email about it.

Kind regards and thanks a lot.
Peter (very curious to learn your judgements)


PS: This *does* need a somewhat higher volume if you want the highs to be energized in the room; I play these close to 90dBSPL (1m) for the peaks which is also important for W8 not hurting (when too soft nothing is really harsh or hurting).

[PeterSt]

Can you indicate the song from Shpongle that you are talking about ? I could get it on Qobuz and try to understand what you mean...

Alain, that would be track 02. But maybe it is not important; I just picked the two first tracks I played yesterday to remain objective. So most of the sh*t is like this "music" and it is only that this track was in my Demo Gallery from W7 eras and I couldn't play it any more under W8. So, sub-objective.

By the way, you scare me with the test music you use 

Well yes, "test music" indeed. But for me this wasn't music as such as well, at first. I just learnt that this type of music contains all there is to "test" for, but next got involved because when things start to work well it's just so d*mn interesting that nice (Jazz etc.) tunes contain nothing really much. And yes, one can try to observe vinyl needle ticks because the're often in there (with thrown remarks that there's dust on the needle which I receive regularly ), but you can also try to look for them once you know they are there, to next know that something is not right with your system when they are *not* there any more. It's just transient response testing.
Same with the sub low. It's in actually nothing much, but in this type of music it is everywhere.

And now I really use this for music playing of which it already is very interesting what changed all *now* with a new version or setting.
It is coincidentally also the type of music I receive the least complaints about here. It's always quite easy going and not jazz tooting or rock smashing or women crying. All so-to-speak of course, but still; I try to play the most and the loudest possible and that needs the least complaints about it. But don't tell.

Best regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

All right. I'm uploding the files and in 20 minutes or so you should receive an email about it.

Kind regards and thanks a lot.
Peter (very curious to learn your judgements)

Hi Peter,
got the files and WOW, what a 3D effect. Never heard it such like that.
I'm comming from the Jazz side and the melody of the tracks from Tau Kita and Enthogenic are very intuitive and logical. Nothing unusaul for me.
The seagull flies under the ceiling in the outermost right side in my room at the end of the tune.

The track from Shpongle has in the end a very deep bass, and in appr. the middle of that tune the sound is extremly room filling to just outside of the speaker vertical plane. Room filling.

This a very good tracks for a demonstration. In your big room the sound must be overwhelming.

Thanx for the files. I have to go and listen again!!

Joachim

[PeterSt]

That was quite unexpected ...
I really anticipated to be debunked for whatever reason.

Thank you for trying Joachim. Really nice.
Best regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

That was quite unexpected ...
I really anticipated to be debunked for whatever reason.

Thank you for trying Joachim. Really nice.
Best regards,
Peter

Enthogenic The seagull is running flying for the fourth time. Amazing!

Edit: I hear three 3D rooms, left (was not emphasized very often), center and right. The mixing is quite ok.

[AlainGr]

Can you indicate the song from Shpongle that you are talking about ? I could get it on Qobuz and try to understand what you mean...

Alain, that would be track 02. But maybe it is not important; I just picked the two first tracks I played yesterday to remain objective. So most of the sh*t is like this "music" and it is only that this track was in my Demo Gallery from W7 eras and I couldn't play it any more under W8. So, sub-objective.

By the way, you scare me with the test music you use 

Well yes, "test music" indeed. But for me this wasn't music as such as well, at first. I just learnt that this type of music contains all there is to "test" for, but next got involved because when things start to work well it's just so d*mn interesting that nice (Jazz etc.) tunes contain nothing really much. And yes, one can try to observe vinyl needle ticks because the're often in there (with thrown remarks that there's dust on the needle which I receive regularly ), but you can also try to look for them once you know they are there, to next know that something is not right with your system when they are *not* there any more. It's just transient response testing.
Same with the sub low. It's in actually nothing much, but in this type of music it is everywhere.

And now I really use this for music playing of which it already is very interesting what changed all *now* with a new version or setting.
It is coincidentally also the type of music I receive the least complaints about here. It's always quite easy going and not jazz tooting or rock smashing or women crying. All so-to-speak of course, but still; I try to play the most and the loudest possible and that needs the least complaints about it. But don't tell.

Best regards,
Peter

Thanks Peter. I understand and can imagine with all the sounds that I can hear in this that it can cover a lot of aspects you are verifying...

I have an album from Ian Brown. Lots of synthesizer, but also lots of distortion, since some songs are compressed to death and go at the saturation level. What a shame... Good music though.

Alain

[boleary]

Well, with W7 I'm finally able to listen to 1.186 without feeling half crazy (in W8 it sounds so good and bad at the same time). Not sure about all XX settings, but I did increase clock res from .5 or 1 to 15, which really helped the highs and reduced the overall wooly sound of W7. So without reservation, I can finally agree that 1.186 really is the best ever. So 3D sounding!

EDIT: Updated settings below.

[PeterSt]

For those interested in Windows 7 : I think I have been able to get the bass as tight as W8 can do it. So, this lacked IMO somewhat for W7, and this is/was because the W7 OS behaves totally different from W8 and W7 seemed less "controllable".

Yesterday I have been working for 4 hours or so on changing settings and observing W7 behaviour (that guy who developed XXHighEnd should be eliminated from this earth) and from pure theory (observing graphs and such) my hereunder settings emerged. And you know what ? it worked.

With "tight bass" I mean a bass which in the area of 25-35Hz vibrates in the room on the proper frequency, no matter where you are. Also it should not "zoom" which is about the same property.
Along with it, again more freshness was achieved, though this was not the target. Notice though that my earlier mentioned "lift" of the F-M curves now could be brought down again ( Re: SQ of 1.186, best ever! (Again) ). "Could be" and not sure yet whether I'll let it stay like that, but on some older material I could now hear too much (highs) of it. Or maybe better : too dynamic. This is all nit picking though ...

That I received a "so spatious !" several times is something else, but assumed Brian doesn't say it because I started the "3D" subject - it just is so. And mind you please, this "so spatious !" was without asking for anything ... it just was the remark out of the blue and was relative to how the sound was the past couple of days already. So it goes on and on and more and more fast as it seems.

So the settings :

This picture I made anyway yesterday for the XXHighEnd PC BIOS topic (remember, this is for Windows 7 and Windows 7 only !) :

Do not change one bit of this. So *all* is as important including the 64 you see there.
Also note that changing even one of the others (which may come across to you as quite strange) will let rise your processor's temperature siginificantly.

The other parameters I already put in my sig yesterday, but the key ones I'll list here. Notice these came from the 4 hours of pressing play and looking (not listening) and they should be dead-consistent :

ClockRes = 15.
Although other settings may approach the behaviour with 15, it is always 15 coming out as the better one (and this has always been so for me with W7).

Q1 = 6 (xQ1 = 1).

Q3,Q4,Q5 = 1,1,1.
With the notice that I had to look at everthing with Q3=0 because otherwise all is hogged and nothing can show.

Core Appointment Scheme = 3-5.
This one is crucial. Notice that I explicitly tried all of the others which makes it a very tedious job, especially combined with the XTweaks settings, which in themselves allow for an infinite number of setting combinatons.

SFS = 0.40.
With the notice that I didn't play around with this one all that much. However, before changing the XTweaks settings drastically, this came out as the better one for the bass to begin with, combined with Q1=6.

For NOS1 owners :
NOS1 Driver Control Panel, Buffer Size = 16ms.
This one is crucial too.

What's left to say is that the past few days I play with the LAN On in the combination of "Shut down ALL Services", Keep LAN = On and Persist On. This combination is not possible in 1.186a (so it will be new) and I had to create it for myself because the Dynamic Off/On LAN doesn't work well for Windows 7. It is way slow (can easily take a minute to come up) and it doesn't allow me to quickly change tracks/albums once playback is going on. So now in my situaton the LAN Services keep on running and I really can't be bothered much if we look how relative all is and what super changes were achieved in a couple of weeks only.

Peter

[CoenP]

Peter,

If I look correctly at the picture you didn't apply the XT tweaks settings (based on the values between brackets)...
I presume you have archived best SQ with them activated...

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Haha, yes Coen. But that screen shot wasn't even taken from the audio PC and this one is in Normal OS Mode.

Peter

[boleary]

That I received a "so spatious !" several times is something else, but assumed Brian doesn't say it because I started the "3D" subject - it just is so.

Good assumption. The sound in my room is like going to a movie theatre with speakers that generate specific sound from specific places everywhere in the room.....and this with a $2,500 pair of speakers.

Will try your suggested settings sometime this weekend....long week ahead at the workplace.

[mood]

Dear  Peter,
I would like to express my appreciation for the SQ of the latest version of the XXHighendplayer.I listen a lot to pianomusic both classic and jazz. In some recordings for example Impromptu's from Schubert played byMaria Pires and some recordings of Bill Evans you can almost hear the width of the grand piano.A friend of mine who plays grand piano told me that the low registers (left hand) have improved. Also in large orchestral piece for example "the Grand Wazoo"of Frank Zappa much more depth, spacious , and richness of details. One can see in my signature that i paid a lot of attention to the powersupplies.
It is exceptionel to experience that the music is off of the speakers!

My compliments,

Jan

[PeterSt]

Thank you for your kind words Jan. Also and especially from you as a non NOS1 owner.

Best regards,
Peter

[phantomax]

Hello,
Some days ago I pointed out that trough headphones the SQ with XXHE 1.186 on W8 was the best ever while with loudspeakers was by far not so good.
So time to try the XXHE last version on a new partition with W7 again as Peter has recently suggested. Well, with headphones I think the SQ has improved but it's not very apparent and more listening is needed. But with loudspeakers the difference is very clear and for the better of course. More bass, fresh highs (as I allways remember with W7) and the music out of the box again.
The difference between headphones and loudspeakers is narrowed again and this drives me to  the following thought:
With headphones you perceive the spacial sensation in a quite artificial way with one ear not listening nothing of what the opposite ear is listening to. While with loudspeakers the two ears are listening the two speakers simultaneously (not to mention the third ear of which Peter talked about). So there must be something in the way that system behaves with W7 or with W8 that makes the difference between headphones and loudspeakers so ... different.

Maxi

P.D. Same settings as Peter except SFS 4

[Arjan]

Hi Peter,
Your new found settings are really good. Now W7 has similar 3D sq as I get from W8, without the negatieve highs of W8.

Lowest SFS for me is 0.6!
Regards, Arjan

[PeterSt]

Guys,

To me it looks like you all have dozed in at attempting other settings. I mean, I don't hear much of "hey, try this !" any more. Of course, this can be because everybody is happy, but I wouldn't go about it like that; now it will take relative ages before I myself find something new. But when you don't do it, I still do. So here - and mind you, this is Windows 7 :

Set your NOS1 Driver Control Panel buffer to 2ms (if that doesn't work, then 4ms). This is to allow for the really low SFS.
Next set your SFS to 0.1.
Notice : I came from 0.4 and tried 4 only for one other setting, so my now dialed 0.1 is just that one other attempt.

The difference is crazy once again. This sounds like Windows 8 in multiple for highs and detail. All becomes super airy and you'll hear it right away. The freshness is like a waterfall.

I seriously feel like being from another planet and not being able to communicate this any more.

Bokko

Referring to that Norwegian speed skater (not his sister) and maybe some debacle on Norway's decisions in the realm of Olympics, I think (but not sure) it was him who experimented skating the 10 Km not by a nice build up and skating equal rounds of around 30 seconds, but do one round in 25 seconds, a next in 36 to catch some breath, and so on. This didn't work.
It is now the same principle I apply for the energy used by the system as a whole in reasoning how the low SFS will be the better one. Net energy used is the lowest (measured) at equal rounds, while my focus has been in that area (energy usage) for maybe 4-5 months now.

In the end it will be about noise again I suppose, but something more should be going on for the reasons of it. I now think like things heating up in that 25 second round, while it only slowly (or too slow) cools down in that round of 36 seconds. The real low SFS (of 0.1, but can be lower) will imply all rounds of 24 which needs some real training of course (system has to be on par) but obviously when that runs, the guy doing all the rounds in 24 seconds will easily win over the guy doing 30 each round.
Something like that.

For difference with W8 I don't recall anything of such a difference; all what happens there is that under SFS=0.4 the sound seems to break up or at least gets too lean. With W7 I didn't notice anything of breaking up, and no way it gets more lean. It does get a 10 times more fresh right away though (which looks similar as more lean, but really is not so in my view). At first sounds of it I thought that for sure I would not be able to stand this for long, but after a second night of listening to this ... what to say.
Even something like Killing me Softly (Roberta Flack) - which is rather old but sounded superb already - has turned into a totally different track with presence unheard. Strange thing (and I notice that with everything) : The track comprises of parts which soundED like adding a lot of hall to make her sound more hollow, mystic and more far away, while now this difference has gone away and I have difficulties to see where those "added hall" parts are. All music is now like this;

Each track I play seems heavily processed to now receive this hall "effect", while actually all what happens is that every artist seems to play in a church suddenly. So, I am sure that what I hear is the mixing and someone who liked to add hall, but if you look at the Flack track you can see that while the mixing engineer thought to carefully add some additional hall at parts of the track, he didn't see that the knob had to be down all the way in the others. Something like that.

Alien P.

[manisandher]

Hey Peter, I'd be more than happy to experiment... but right now, I just don't have the motivation with my currently very compromised setup. You know what I'm waiting for. Once they're here, I'll definitely be doing a lot of experimenting and tuning.

Mani.

[phantomax]

Hello Peter,
I was already writing my post about  impressions with SFS 0.4  when you posted about SFS 0.1. So I've tried it, and despite some very sporadic skipping,  the sound is fresh, powerful, dynamic and spacious with the the best of both W8 and W7 and even more. I haven't tried heaphones yet but I can imagine the results. So at last  the loudspeakers weren't the culprits nor the amplifier of that strange divergence in SQ with the headphones (my apologies to them).


Regards,

Maxi

[PeterSt]

Thank you Maxi.

I too have that very sporadic skipping (like one of such a skip in 3-4 tracks ?). I don't think I recall that from W8. But right now I don't have problems with that (I take it for granted easily).

Regards,
Peter

[Gerard]

Thank you Maxi.

I too have that very sporadic skipping (like one of such a skip in 3-4 tracks ?). I don't think I recall that from W8. But right now I don't have problems with that (I take it for granted easily).

Regards,
Peter

I have a sporadic skipping too with buffer 4. Buffer 2 give's a skipping every 5 sec.

[phantomax]

Peter,

The sound is so good and the skipping so sporadic that I can stand it easily. Bear in mind that I came from the vinyl cavern.

Maxi

[AlainGr]

Well... I tried this morning and it happened too. I adjusted the NOS1 buffer to 4ms and the SFS to .3 and it seemed to have stopped. But I will have to test this a little more...

BTW, it's not that I don't experiment... But I know that you are so meticulous, patient and better than I to judge about SQ that I find easy to follow your parameters...

Alain

[boleary]

Gave these settings a quick listen this evening and found the NOS Driver Contol Panel buffer setting of 2 a bit too "airy" sounding. Leaving the SFS at .1, I increased the buffer to 8 and felt the added weight to the HF's sounded more "correct." Gave Roberta a listen and was mesmerized. But this was just a quick first impression after a rather long day. Also interesting was that the very sporadic stutter described above disappeared when I increased the buffer to 8. 

All this made me wonder if some sort of calculus "formula" could be used to let the SFS become "infinitely small!" Of course, I'm no math whizz........

[Gerard]

I nodiced that at these low settings the pc reacts very very fast!

[acg]

One of the things that I have been challenged to do is to run XXHE from w7.  I have never done that with any version of XXHE (I’m a relative late-comer) so this morning I finally got a good install on w7 after an initial false start.  Thankfully Peter explained to me that I needed to update to SP1 and then turn off the windows updates after that.  On my first w7 installation I updated all the way to current and to be honest the sound was sh*t but of course that may have been due to other factors, I don’t really know.  Anyway, I am dual booting with both os’s in separate partitions on the same SSD.

So today I did some listening to both w7 and w8.  After my initial favourable impressions with w7 I changed the w8 settings to match those I was using in w7 (which are Peters settings including the 0.1 SFS).  Switched between them and…OMG…WTF…????...I can hear a difference between _operating systems_ using the same hardware, software, settings, optimisations, BIOS, cables, dac, amps, speakers, everything. 

On something like Roberta Flack “Killing Me Softly” the differences are not subtle as far as differences go.  W7 has this air and ambience that surrounds the singers and it seems a little richer as a result.  In comparison w8 sounds more forward, less refined and a little coarser in the treble region.  Take note that this is after a single day’s listening, so I have plenty more time to spend getting to the bottom of this, but my first impressions are that w7 is better than w8.

Also note that this is with the Silverstone isolated both ends but without my PCIe cable loom.  Unfortunately, in the efforts of progress, my cable loom has been deconstructed one too many times and is pretty much beyond repair.  I am now itching to hear w7 with my loom so will have to fast-track its replacement.

Anthony

[PeterSt]

Gave these settings a quick listen this evening and found the NOS Driver Contol Panel buffer setting of 2 a bit too "airy" sounding. Leaving the SFS at .1, I increased the buffer to 8 and felt the added weight to the HF's sounded more "correct."

This got me thinking to the sense of "too airy ? can that exist ?".

After being used to SFS=0.1 for a couple of days, I thought to seek the limits of it, and first went to 0.08. All still played well.
I'm almost sure I heard more detail right from the start, this time in the highest frequencies, or maybe better the "transient freqencies" (?). So, the ultra short ticks which may be there in my by now well known "ambient sh*t". But let me tell you, how so super interesting something like Infected Mushroom has become; this is really Goa (say stomping house-like), but the stomping is totally overwhelmed by all those quare sounds, them always different easy new measure (like in 4/4 etc.). I was nodding my head regularly of which I myself recognize that when I do that I can't understand anymore.

At this setting the Woofers felt quite the same as with W8 but "more of it". But also bass seems better integrated with the rest, or/hence with the music itself.

So I'd say 0.08 is better than 0.10 again.

What I suddenly started to notice is related to Brian's remark about the airyness; possibly it was still in my mind and without real focus I am fairly sure by now that this is related to very fast L/R "flanger". Possibly I heard it as a property for the first time with the 0.1 setting and it is generally there in many tracks. For synth work this seems natural, never mind I really never noticed it before. So just envision a whatever sawtooth wave of higher frequency (maybe between 2-3KHz) and now you can easily hear that the frequency is not playing "in line" for left and right. Previously it came from the middle hence both speakers the same, now there's a whatever small delay between left and right and it creates ... air.

Now watch out, because I actually heard this more profound already from the lower frequencies and where flanger is normally used (electric pianos of the early type would explicitly do that). So think 200-500Hz but also way low (but way low isn't used that often). Thus, the past few days this has become an explicit property in really many tracks, and this wasn't heard previously. Yesterday, with the SFS=0.1 it became apparent with the higher and highest frequencies.


Then went to 0.06 and apart from a small out of sync (on/off on/off) for a second (well into a first track played) which repaired itself, all still played well. And, 90 minutes or so later, good to go because only that one anomaly. But :

Now something strange happened to the sound and it is something which I wouldn't have noticed at all say a few months ago. But today this is totally apparent and actually this springs from all playing so well (and so much better than in W8). It became congested. Yes, I put that in bold because I think it is of more importance than we ever could see before. Again watch out for this alien, because I tend to more and more come up with my own ideas about things :

Energy will not get lost.



Going back to the first minutes of playing with 0.06 I right away could hear that all was changed. Detail was again more, but dynamics went down. Better for background music, but along with it, with less fun. Strangely anough I easily could last for those 90 minutes of it, but possibly this was because I was now focusing on what physics played a role here; it was so obvious ...

If you think back on my expression on the high frequency "flanger" (but delay is the better word) and you can indeed envision that there's this difference between left and right, but really tight together. Mind you, mentioned 2-3KHz really is fast and it happens in between that (wave cycles). So, speakers are at a distance of 6 meters and room is 8 meters wide. What would happen if we brought that back to half of it ? Well, something like the distance to travel from left to right (and back) would allow for half of the time hence the frequency had to be half of pereceived 2-3KHz in order to let it work as good. Of course the pose is moot, but it is something about the width in front of us and how our ears can more easily detect this (phase differences) when the speakers are more apart.

Still with me ?

Ok; SFS=0.06 makes the L/R changes so fast that the separation gets lost and the sound becomes mono-like.
Ahum.
You can so easily see that suddenly all is literarrly beamed between the speakers, and while I could not discover any anomalies or distortions or something else wrong, this happened :
- Detail becomes even more if only the transient is on its own;
- Dynamics drop because (again) the way to the peak receive a relatively way long envelope.

The latter (and about the "again") I have described before (I think as a virtue of the Silverstone card) and you could say that all becomes way more fluent. However, the downside is that when the freuency is higher it meshes with itself. This doesn't make it more grey and merely more white but it is the underlaying "fundamentals" doing it. This is how a "transient on its own" keeps on working, because it doesn't bear the fundamental.
Actually this is more "right" so to speak, but it doesn't work out.

Congestion ?

That phenomenon again;
I am pretty sure that the music is all still there, but it is now congested into a smaller beam and while energy will not get lost, all now needs to play in a small space and the understanding of how the music will sound now is (I think) not so difficult to understand. It sounds up to compressed which would be the physical thing happening. The airyness actually totally disappears and you could say that this is because there is no (free !) air left in that small beam.

While the above is my outlay of how the audible result can be explained, this does not explain at all why it happens. So, I really don't know at this moment. But maybe I don't care so much either, because there's now something else which is way more important :

It can be controlled.

So that airyness, which I btw only dedicate to L/R behaviour and not so much to depth can be set from ultra-wide to ultra-beamed (notice that I use horn speakers which beam to begin with). Uhm, apparently. Now, nothing tells me that SFS=0.08 was the widest setting, nor did I try 0.09 or 0.07 plus it seems to urge for another decimal (so 0.084 etc. can be dialed in).

The way it works generally is easy to see for me because it is all about "beating" of internal processes and matchmaking with processor frequency and much more. So, I didn't try, but I am sure that when I now change my processor frequency from 500MHz to 600Mhz the SFS setting has to be different to let it work out the same way. And remember, this is how all the Q3,4,5 (1,1,1) stuff emerged - explicitly for this.
That it takes me two months myself to learn how to go about with it is something else.

Thinking what to say more I can only again see myself sitting on a bar stool looking towards the floor, nodding my head. Things get really crazy for differences already, and by now I can't see any more that even dimensions will stop to emerge weekly. So you know, that L/R flanger really is another new dimension.

One last remark :
Before people let float their DACs in order to be able to perceive possibly the same, this time my NOS1 was flat on the floor (no footers). It has been so for the past 3 days ...
(there is a reason for this, but it is not related to an explicit trial or something - it's just on the floor).

Peter

[boleary]

Not sure that I followed all that you said above Peter, but it's always a good thing when you make new discoveries. Am wondering, though, if you played around with the NOS1 control panel buffer setting. For me there was a perceived improvement changing it from 2 to 8 with SFS at .1. Had a good listen last night and was blown away by this "new"sound. Might be another factor to add to the mix.

[PeterSt]

Brian, didn't try that because I planned to go down with the SFS numbers and that requires the control panel to be low as well. That is, this is my experience from W8, but I sure have the "feeling" that W7 is way more forgiving ?

Peter

[JohanZ]

....So I'd say 0.08 is better than 0.10 again.....

Hello Peter,
I'm have made the switched to a new motherboard Intel, i7, Win Pro......The lowest SFS for the moment is 0,25 and sometimes a stutter. Do you have suggestions how I can get it lower. What parameters do i need to change?

I like the sound of this low sfs very much. A lot of details and soundlayers.

Best Regards Johan

[Gerard]

I raised my CPU from 12 too 22 and now i can play SFS 0,08 and a Buffer of 2 ms.

 

[JohanZ]

....raised my CPU from 12 too 22

Hi Gerard,
What did you raised? I can't imagine that you mean core's.
Best regards johan

[PeterSt]

This is a bit of a very accidental happening / story :

I just come back from Bert's from one of our regular ("speaker") meetings; this meeting ended with a small listen with my pre-announcement "better not do that because so many things changed at my place which you didn't hear yet that I can only say that what I'll hear will be sh*t".
So, sound was quite okay and I think better than the previous time, also knowing that Bert too went back to W7. Nice.

I don't even know how it happened, but we ended with Roberta Flack - Killing me Softly, probably because I mentioned here in this topic. I think I told Bert how enormously good that now sounds, do he wanted to try.
Hmm ... didn't last long before I said "No way. And you know what ? you lack all the mid - somehow". Ok, any one named Bert would be disappointed and so he obviously was. "But hey, I'm just a few steps ahead of you, that's all. In the mean time, show me your Q button settings".

For you all, notice : There's a lower keyed electric guitar playing there which I'd dedicate "pure mid". Listen to it. How profound is it ?
Here at Bert it was actually lacking. It was not there and only because I knew it it had to be there I told about it. No guitar = no mid.

Aha. Bert noticed right away that because of some quirck elsewhere his SFS was set to his old (my old !) 0.40 and that had to be 0.10. So, that was set back to 0.10 and we replayed the track.

This time I saw another one's jaw dropping, although I had difficullties in holding mine. That guitar was now the most loud instrument and only the voice was a small tad louder.

But didn't I tell you ? all happens in the mid for changes lately, and this is a crazy example of it. Coincidentally for Roberta Flack from one of my previous posts and I didn't know about it (for this particular merit). Can we now envision some small in the back (synth) roar that suddenly determines the whole track because it becomes totally profound (including all the on/off square happenings) ?
So use this track (no, nice song) to tune this mid.

All what happened was the SFS from 0.40 to 0.10.

Btw, Bert had dialed in the NOS1 Control Panel at 8ms and his PC runs at 1600MHz. So this could be important for those who can't get done the 0.10 because of too low speed.

Peter

[PeterSt]

....So I'd say 0.08 is better than 0.10 again.....

Hello Peter,
I'm have made the switched to a new motherboard Intel, i7, Win Pro......The lowest SFS for the moment is 0,25 and sometimes a stutter. Do you have suggestions how I can get it lower. What parameters do i need to change?

I like the sound of this low sfs very much. A lot of details and soundlayers.

Best Regards Johan

Johan,

I think your best option is to lower the buffer size in the NOS1 Driver Control panel (as far as possible) and possibly another Apointment Scheme combination. Lower the ClockRes might help too, but only try if it helps because it may not the better option for SQ.

Otherwise what Gerard meant is the processor's frequency. With my XTweaks settings this is only allowed to be changed in the BIOS (so let my XTweaks settings as they are). Notice that this (BIOS) can only help you when you *first* have put that down (like to 1200MHz) which you will have done earlier (like a few days ago I mean). If you didn't do that then skip the BIOS changes because it will already be "high".

Peter

[briefremarks]

I'm not sure this is in the right place.  I've spent the last two weeks listening to the latest release of XXHE, and all I have to compare with is my former setup using JPlay.

This is preliminary, an evaluation ahead of getting the XXHE PC and the NOS1 DAC.

The sound is incredible, once certain parameters are in place.  I still do not have completely uninterrupted play--can play about 10 tracks before XXHE quits for reasons that I'm sure are related to some random services on the VAIO laptop I'm using.  My purpose was evaluating SQ, and this is the best sound I ever have had from my system.

Played around with Q settings and SFS primarily.  The biggest influence by far was Q5=1.  Really extraordinary.  Still tweaking a bit, have kept Q3=1, Q4=1 without change.  After setting Q5=1, the major element was getting good SQ and uninterrupted sound, which currently is SFS=2.0, and Q1=20.

Going to 0.4 on SFS seemed to collapse the sound stage, but I need to do this again to make sure.  Could not get uninterrupted play with Q1 any lower.  This is still the demo version, will get activated soon.

Rest of the system is: Empirical Audio Overdrive DAC, no pre-amp, active ASP crossover/EQ and Linkwitz Orion speakers.  Goertz low impedance speaker cables, and low capacitance interconnects from Blue Jeans Cable. 

The overall SQ is extremely "real" a huge improvement over CDs from a modified transport as well as JPlay. 

Listening to Bill Frisell's Blues Dream, a really great album, as I write this.

Looking forward to being a part of this community!

[PeterSt]

Thank you for your comments and welcome !

The reason why all suddenly stops after a (random) while is easy : Demo version.

Now wait for the moment you got out of that, because really a few things more will be happening then.

Also notice that the (IMO) real deal is around Q3=1, Q4=1 and Q5=1. But maybe you knew that already and you tried (works in Demo as well). Would be good to know because I think everybody uses the 1,1,1 combination and you can have find a better one.

Regards,
Peter

[manisandher]

Bokko

Referring to that Norwegian speed skater (not his sister) and maybe some debacle on Norway's decisions in the realm of Olympics, I think (but not sure) it was him who experimented skating the 10 Km not by a nice build up and skating equal rounds of around 30 seconds, but do one round in 25 seconds, a next in 36 to catch some breath, and so on. This didn't work.
It is now the same principle I apply for the energy used by the system as a whole in reasoning how the low SFS will be the better one. Net energy used is the lowest (measured) at equal rounds, while my focus has been in that area (energy usage) for maybe 4-5 months now.

In the end it will be about noise again I suppose, but something more should be going on for the reasons of it. I now think like things heating up in that 25 second round, while it only slowly (or too slow) cools down in that round of 36 seconds. The real low SFS (of 0.1, but can be lower) will imply all rounds of 24 which needs some real training of course (system has to be on par) but obviously when that runs, the guy doing all the rounds in 24 seconds will easily win over the guy doing 30 each round.
Something like that.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. What you say makes sense. But there's always been something that I haven't managed to get my head around. As a generalization, lower SFSs sound brighter and fresher, and higher SFSs more 'woody' and smoother. And it's with higher SFSs that I have some trouble. Let's say SFS=120. Wouldn't we expect to hear the sound change within each cycle of SFS activity? I mean, within each cycle there should be a burst of activity for a short period and then things should settle before the next cycle. So I would expect a yo-yo effect - the sound yo-yoing from fresh to smooth within each SFS cycle. But this doesn't seem to be the case at all.

Mani

[PeterSt]

Correct Mani. That is, while I would expect the same, I never noticed that either while of course explicitly watching for it. But no. This is how I told about the cooling down (see that quote). But still a guess. Anyway, when that would be in order the "yo-yo-ing" as you said it could be smeared so much that it goes unnoticeable ?

Anyway, to me it is clear that you did not observe the latest findings (on Windows 7 !) with SFS=0.1 and around that value (like 0.11). I mean, then your expression about the SFS low and high values would not have been like how you just did - at all ...

Thanks,
Peter

[AlainGr]

Peter,

If you ever listen to Roberta Flack again, it would be interesting to know at what time that guitar that we suddenly hear, which tells us we have reached a sweet spot ?

Whenever you can of course...

Thanks,

Alain

[briefremarks]

Wow! Wow! Wow!  I've spent about a week now listening to various albums, and the sound with XXHE is really astounding!  I imagine everyone on this forum has already experienced this, but I'm still amazed because I had always imagined that the sound I had before was about as good as it could get.  It does make me realize that the Linkwitz speakers are extremely good, and I think a lot of Orion/LX521 owners have no idea how good these speakers can sound with a really good digital front end.  I should get my activation mail soon, which will let me try additional settings, and then the PC + NOS1 DAC are next.

Ramesh

[PeterSt]

If you ever listen to Roberta Flack again, it would be interesting to know at what time that guitar that we suddenly hear, which tells us we have reached a sweet spot ?

Alain, second 31 into the track ...

Peter

[AlainGr]

Been stuck with headphones for the last month... I am about to explode ! I am eager to listen through my "boxes" instead

Now playing with Peter's parameters, apart from adjusting some trimpots to not have any hiccups... NOS1 buffer at 12ms, Q1 at 14, SFS at 0.1... Still there is a small problem when one song overlap with another (there is an hesitation), but no click...

Alain

[PeterSt]

(there is an hesitation),

There is. And because there is no click anymore indeed it is less noticeable.

[PeterSt]

All,

To stirr the pot AGAIN, and after all these many hours of listening and observing and trying to get real merits ...
I dared to try Windows 8 again;

I think I can see for sort of technical reasons that Windows 8 must be the better one, no matter it may not sound as the better one. May not, because I am not even sure about that at this moment (it is just too different in the end).


With my change to Windows 7 some 5-6 weeks back by now, I recall my remark "not sure about the bass"; I took that for granted. But at explicitly showing some sub-low to someone here the other day, ... where was that.
For other reasons we had to go to W8 but right away I noticed that sub low again. The next couple of days I was practicing my "feel your woofers" theories and it is just right.
So from this alone (which seems stupid ?) I tend to say that W8 has to be the better one.

Next is how to get that highs more under control; I think I already got "somewhere" but it is not finished yet. At least I have put my current settings for W8 in my sig.

Now to shock you all somewhat :
I have been changing other "outboard" things lately and was able to make all unary "square"; things ratlle and do and it has become outrageous. So much so that I wonder whether it hasn't become too much of it, but still it is good (because just in there). Anyway, what I only now notice(d) is that Windows 7 becomes too fresh for this all, and I can't tune that down. So, the fact that W7 could be as fresh as W8 I already reported about, but now it seems "over" to me. This, while W8 makes that same fresh now silk ??
In comparison W8 still lets the music play by robots, but the sub low - actually totally lacking in W7 - makes me proceed with W8 again.

Message : Those who are in doubt and tend to try W7 ... You can, but don't be surprised when you want to go back to W8 in due time because possibly I found a cure.
At this moment it is quite difficult because of my "outboard" changes applied, but since they are for the better (for sure) they also make me "see through" better.

That's all for now.
Peter

[AlainGr]

HUM... My PC is about to get sea sick - is there an icon for this ?

[Jud]

Dear oh dear - Here I am with one Windows install already upgraded to 8.1 (I'm assuming no way to downgrade; original W8 install was a download I didn't save - let me know if this assumption is incorrect) and the other at W7, wondering whether to buy another copy of W8 to upgrade the W7 install.

So is 8.1 completely hopeless?  Has anyone tried it in the past week or so during which Peter has once again found some merit in W8?

[Robert]

Gosh with the multitude of changes I think everyone needs to slow down a little.

I have yet to try W8 and still happy with W7. This sound is still well ahead of any opposition I've heard.

But its got to the point that the latest W7 settings are way beyond my computer anyway.

What with 12 cores and beyond its getting into Star Wars land.

We all recognise that the evolution must go forward but we need time to listen to settings and one would hope MUSIC.

Don't let the technology over ride the Music.

[christoffe]

Gosh with the multitude of changes I think everyone needs to slow down a little.

I have yet to try W8 and still happy with W7. This sound is still well ahead of any opposition I've heard.

But its got to the point that the latest W7 settings are way beyond my computer anyway.

What with 12 cores and beyond its getting into Star Wars land.

We all recognise that the evolution must go forward but we need time to listen to settings and one would hope MUSIC.

Don't let the technology over ride the Music.

Hi,
My computer is in simple words, an office PC with a 4core Intel proc. as per sig.
I made several tests with Peters “seagull” track and was listening especially to the 3D image and the highs with the VERTU CD (Stanley Clarke & Lenny White).
From my experience on my system the RAM disc has no positive effect on the SQ under W7 & W8, so all is running on the spinning disk.

Under W8 I got the following results.
A)   All on the spinning disk – best 3Dimage and nice highs.
B)   Playback drive on a RAM disk – 3Dimage was smaller, harsh highs,
C)   Playback and XXH on a RAM disk -  smaller 3Dimage than under B), harsh highs.

Joachim

[Robert]

I would disagree with you on Ram disk, it made a noticeable difference on playback in W7 and I continue to use.
I use 4g for ram disk playback due to running some 24/192 music files.

I don't use ram for XXhigh as not enough ram. But I would love to. I only have 8g total. You need at least 12g of ram to make this work well for both.

I'm limited by my notebook size can't put more ram in.

Robert

[AlainGr]

Hi Robert,

When I started playing with the ramdrive, I was using only 512MB for XXHE as a second ramdisk.

Peter explained that more was needed for the XXHE ramdrive, but in specific situations like HDCD music or FLAC - any other format than WAV.

Since I do not really have many HDCDs (one could deactivate the feature) and all my music is in WAV format, I could continue using only 512MB (I could even go lower than that). This of course stands only for the XXHE ramdrive, not for the music ramdrive...

Regards,

Alain

[AlainGr]

Dear oh dear - Here I am with one Windows install already upgraded to 8.1 (I'm assuming no way to downgrade; original W8 install was a download I didn't save - let me know if this assumption is incorrect) and the other at W7, wondering whether to buy another copy of W8 to upgrade the W7 install.

So is 8.1 completely hopeless?  Has anyone tried it in the past week or so during which Peter has once again found some merit in W8?

Hi Jud,

It seems that W8.1 would be a new "cracker" like W8 was when comparing to W7 about a year ago... Since we are still struggling with W8, I presume that W8.1 is/was not an important concern, apart from the fact that W8 versions are more complicated to find nowadays, not to say impossible...

About getting W8 again... Maybe there are still some stores that carry W8 ? I looked around but it would require that you have your product key to validate your request for W8... Maybe Microsoft support ?

Regards,

Alain

[Jud]

About getting W8 again... I looked around but it would require that you have your product key to validate your request for W8... Maybe Microsoft support ?

Regards,

Alain

Alain, I now have W8 (along with 8.1 and 7), thanks to your idea above.  I remembered that I did get a product key when I bought the W8 download.  Searched my email, found the key, and with that was able to download and install it.  Many thanks for mentioning the simple and obvious idea (the product key) that I had overlooked.

[AlainGr]

Jud,

Happy to be of some help

On my part, going back to W7, I forgot that my copy was already a W7 with Service Pack 1... I went through all the Windows updates, then realized it was not good... Had to redo the whole thing again... I think I have a "crossfade" memory between versions

Alain

[PeterSt]

By now I have reasons to believe that while Windows 8 can sound more harsh or nasty in the highs, this is actually because it is more accurate so it shows better when your chain is *not* that better. So :

With my change to Windows 7 some 5-6 weeks back by now, I recall my remark "not sure about the bass"; I took that for granted. But at explicitly showing some sub-low to someone here the other day, ... where was that.
For other reasons we had to go to W8 but right away I noticed that sub low again. The next couple of days I was practicing my "feel your woofers" theories and it is just right.
So from this alone (which seems stupid ?) I tend to say that W8 has to be the better one.

Next is how to get that highs more under control; I think I already got "somewhere" but it is not finished yet.

With that in mind, I now think I do have those highs under the control needed (but maybe still not 100%) and I now have no urge to compare with Windows 7.
However, when I do now (in this situation as of now) Windows 7 sounds ugly; not distorted as such (like how it could be perceived say two months back) but just totally inaccurate. So what should have happened is this :

For W8 bass already was under sufficient control and therefore let W7 sound worse there, and while now highs got better for W8, W7 suddenly loses there too.
All is so relative ...

... and difficult, because it can well be so that most of us (or you) will not easily perceive a difference between W7 and W8 regarding the highs because that first needs a more crazy high frequency output level (so this is all speaker related) while for the bass it is quite easy to judge W7 as the better one because the bass is lower (keyed) in general. *This* though is not-right because in the same time it won't be a tight bass and for *that* to happen (for differences !) it first needs a speaker which can show that (in the really more low regions that is).

Not sure whether anyone can follow this.

The other aspect is the 3D capabiilities of either, which I dedicate to better high freqency representation and "squares" which require those (very) high frequencies. So (synth) music with squares in them tend to do this 3D best while W8 is/was the opposite of that (way more flat than W7);
All I know at this moment is that I seem to be more focused on let W8 behave right in the highs than taking notice of the 3D aspects of it, while I also don't recognize any "too flatness" any more.

Remember, I changed things in my audio chain, so this is not really XXHighEnd (settings) related. It is true though that for W8 too the lower SFS (like 0.11 etc.) works for the better once the nastyness is out.

Peter

[juanpmar]

Hi Peter, I see in your signature you have the word *modded* regarding the NOS1. Can you tell me please what does it mean?

Regards,
Juan

[PeterSt]

Juan,

This is all about speed. No "modded" NOS1 or whatever in there. But 118dB speakers instead of 115dB - Yes (you can have that too.  )

The "mod" is in the same area and works out similarly (way more highs ) but I had to take that out.

So the more speed implies "better tracking" (read this as less distortions in the highs) which now (to my current idea) follows the better accuracy of W8 while at the same time it also follows the less accuracy of W7 better (the distortion in W7 becomes profound).

It is so complicated ... and I'm only always trying to reason out (or proove) what happens because of which.

Regards,
Peter

[juanpmar]

Thanks Peter, some parts of your response are certainly  complicated to understand, others not.
Yes, of course I would like to have those 115db...but 

Regards 
Juan

[PeterSt]

Yes, of course I would like to have those 115db...but 

118dB ...

[juanpmar]

Oh, I thing we are talking about different speakers 

Juan

[PeterSt]

No, well, uhm, I made a mistake. So :

Yes, of course I would like to have those 115db...but

That was correct.
Peter

[juanpmar]

Hahaha! ok, enough for this mysterious conversation.

Hey, I had not noticed it, I have reached the 800 posts, not bad!

Juan

[AlainGr]

Watch out Juan, I am just 116 posts behind you !

Alain

[juanpmar]

Watch out Juan, I am just 116 posts behind you !

Salut mon pote! I see it, but let me discover some new issue to get a word in and see how I took off again. Meanwhile I take the opportunity to read carefully what you say hahaha 

Juan

[AlainGr]

Salut mon pote

I have to admit that I did not understand that 118 vs 115db thing, but I figured you were maybe talking about the previous pair of speakers Peter had before the Orelinos... Still I am not sure about it, but that adds me a post Unless you answer and we still have the same gap

Alain

[PeterSt]

LOL!

[juanpmar]

Unless you answer and we still have the same gap
Alain

No comments  

Juan

PS: Have you read the PM I sent you?

[Robert]

One presumes Peter has increased the efficiency of his system albeit his speakers by 3db by a mod. Always a good thing to do.

[AlainGr]

Hi Juan,

Yes I received your email And you should have received my answer, unless the cold here has thicken the airwaves to a point where it will be delayed

Regards

[AlainGr]

Peter,

Thinking about it, there are a few things that come to mind...

First, if you go on with the speaker efficiency, you will reach the threshold of pain sooner than later

Second... This is more a question than a remark, but... What is it that MS puts in their Windows that affect the sound in one direction or the other depending on the version ? I thought that they were allowing a "bypass" for things like KS ?

Finally, when I will be able to regain my whole sound system, I will try to compare again USB 2 against USB 3. I just did a DPC latency checker (thesycon) with W7 and the silverstone and there is a "burst" happening at intervals that wasn't there when using USB 2 ? Wouldn't this make USB 2 better than USB 3 ? I just remembered this lately, but it was like this some 2 years ago...

Alain

EDIT: I am seriously drifting from the thread...

[PeterSt]

there is a "burst" happening at intervals that wasn't there when using USB 2 ?

Could be interesting Alain. I also see bursts but not through DPC (which I didn't use since W8 came out and it didn't work well for W8) but through other means. Not sure wheter we see the same. If it is the same (which I should/will check) then I already know this can not be avoided in W7 (while in W8 it is not there). For USB3 I mean.
And I don't think I ever tried to look at things through USB2 (W8 nor W7).

Thanks ...
Peter

[PeterSt]

What is it that MS puts in their Windows that affect the sound in one direction or the other depending on the version ? I thought that they were allowing a "bypass" for things like KS ?

Oh, nothing is manipulated (like in EQ-ing) that I know of (all is "bit perfect"). But it is all about how the OS (and PC) imply minuscule changes in power behaviour at the DAC end.
Nothing much special.
But working on it ...

Peter

[Muziekliefhebber]

Beste forumgebruikers en muziekliefhebbers die XXhighend spelen in demomode vanwege beperkte financiële middelen. Gebruikers die wel de volledige XXHighend functionaliteit kunnen ontsluiten kunnen beter deze post/reply van mij gewoon beter niet lezen.

Met betrekking tot de geluidskwaliteit van XXighend heb ik een aantal opmerking/vraag aan andere forumleden die ik kwijt wil over mijn audiosetup. Voordat ik hiermee start is het verstandig om eerst even wat meer informatie te geven over mijn bescheiden(afgezien van de speakers) audio-setup:

Ik speel af in DEMOMODE met de volgende set:
-Harman Kardon HD990 DAC/Cdspeler (kun je dus tevens ook AB vergelijk doen van C versies van de nummers tegen  de FLAC/WAVE varianten!)
-MIT 330 series 2 interlink (oud maar fijn!)
-Unison Research Unico Primo versterker (natuurlijk klinkende muzikaal geluid)
-Power x1 stroomkabels (beter dan de standaardkabels vreemd, genoeg toch echt duidelijk te horen)
-Avantgarde Uno hoornspeakers (een keer met geluk goedkoop op de kop weten te tikken) met filterloze middentoner.
-Dualcore Laptop met 4 gb geheugen en externe harddisk
-USB > Spdif via M2tech Hiface 1

Ik doe via XXHighend niet aan upsampling (klinkt n.l. beter zonder upsampling in mijn set). Mijn DAC doet intern aan upsampling (384, Blackfin processor). Ik gebruik kernel streamingmode en straightcontinuous omdat hierbij het geluid de meeste 3D biedt in het stereobeeld en de textuur van echte instrumenten het meest natuurgetrouw blijkt weer te geven.

Mijn vraag:

Zijn er meerdere gebruikers zoals ik die de vorige variant van XXhighend (0.9z-9B in DEMOMODE) ook beter vinden klinken dan 1.186 in DEMOMODE? Ik lees praktisch alleen maar berichten dat de nieuwste versie het beste klinkt. Ook heeft iedereen bijna de NOS-DAC van Peter.
Zelf ervaar ik dat 0.9z_9B natuurlijker klinkt, een betere resolutie geeft, het hoog verfijnder klinkt en minder synthetisch.

Ik heb alle mogelijke settings geprobeerd in 1.186 maar krijg niet dezelfde kwaliteit als onder 0.9z-9B met mijn FLACfiles.

Globale settings die ik nu gebruik:
-DAC settings: 32bits /96khz
-Clck resoltion 15 ms

Xtweaks:
-Balanced Load:42
-Nervous Rate:50
-Cool when idle:1
-Provide Stable Power:1
-Utilize cores:1

-SFS op 0,5 (minimum) en Mx van 32,0
-Straight Continuous
-Include Garbage Collect:on
-Stop Desktop Services
-Stop Wasapi Services
-Stop remaining services

Qsettings:
Q1=14, Q2 t/m Q5 =0

Ik ben benieuwd naar jullie ervaringen in DEMO versies!

Groeten van een beginnend forumlid.

Peter

[Muziekliefhebber]

Dear folks at the XXHighend forum,


Regarding the perceived differences in soundquality when using DEMO versions XXhighend 0.9Z_9B v.s. the new iteration 1.186 i'd like to know your own experiences.
I'm playing DEMO versions for quite a long time now because I 'm on a tight budget.

My setup of the moment:
-Harman Kardon HD990 DAC/Cdplayer-all-in-one (also easy this way to test CD versus FLACstream editions of the same music using the same apparatus(HD990)
-MIT 330 series 2 interlink (old wine but stil a very nice soundmatch)
-Unison Research Unico Primo integrated tube hybrid amplifier (naturaland musical sounding)
-Power x1 powerchords (I don't understand why it makes such a difference with standard ones,  but it does!!)
-Avantgarde Uno hornspeakers (I bought them very cheap in the past when I had the chance)(filterless design speakers)
-Dualcore Laptop with 4 gb ram memory and external harddisk
-USB > Spdif -->M2tech HIFACE type 1

I am not using  up/multi-sampling in xxhighend because my DAC is allready doing that.
My question to the other forumwriters/reader is:

Do you also find 0.9z_9B more musical, more natural( and also more refined an with better real dynamics) sounding than the new 1.186 version?
The new 1.186 xxhighendversion sounds a bit more 'synthetic,processed' to my ears but what are your experiences playing with both DEMO versions.
Regarding 1.186 I allready played with a lot of different settings but still I like 0.9z_9B more.
Global settings I use right now:

-DAC settings: 32bits /96khz
-Clock resolution 15 ms

Xtweaks:
-Balanced Load:42
-Nervous Rate:50
-Cool when idle:1
-Provide Stable Power:1
-Utilize cores:1
&
-SFS at 0,5 (minimum) and Mx van 32,0
-Straight Continuous
-Include Garbage Collect:on
-Stop Desktop Services
-Stop Wasapi Services
-Stop remaining services

Qsettings:
Q1=14, Q2 t/m Q5 =0

I'm interested in your opinions about the differences in perceived sound quality (using DEMO versions of XXHighend (0.9z_9b vs 1.186). Please let me know your XXHighendsettings used when you have been testing.

Kind regards,

Peter

[CoenP]

Hi,

I think minimised os is essential to the forum opinion. Now you have to get a licence to use that. My advice is that you save some money the coming weeks/month and purchase a licence. It one of the best audio buys you will ever do and one of the cheapest too.

Regards, Coen

[manisandher]

I think minimised os is essential to the forum opinion. Now you have to get a licence to use that. My advice is that you save some money the coming weeks/month and purchase a licence. It one of the best audio buys you will ever do and one of the cheapest too.

+1

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Peter,

I hope someone can tell you, but there won't be many posting on this forum with a demo version (that I recognize). But people shouldn't be shy because it is just legal of course.

Notice though that it does not seem right to me that you use those Q3,4,5 at 0 and that right there is the main difference with the previous versions. So, all should be at 1 for the best SQ. But if that is not the case in your situation, alas.

Regards,
Peter

[Muziekliefhebber]

Dear Coen, Mani, Peter & others...!

Thanks for all your reactions! I'll will test with Q1 @1 instead of 14...
Kind regards & Peter...thanks for your great programming efforts!! It's still the best player around i tested (even in DEMO!).

Kind regards,

Peter

[PeterSt]

Peter, Q1 should be at whatever you had it (14 ?).
So the 1 value is only for Q3, Q4 and Q5 !

Regards,
Peter

[Muziekliefhebber]

Aha...thanks Peter!!

I'll use the settings q3,Q4 &Q5 @1 and I'll leave Q1 @14!!
Thanks and sorry for my bad reading!!
Kind regards!

Peter

[listening]

Was it the change to summer time or is it the actual pollen level or was it wind-energy from the mains supply - this evening was sonically fantastic! XXHighend on Windows 8 went at top and I will not miss Windows 7 again.

Georg

[phantomax]

XXHighend on Windows 8 went at top and I will not miss Windows 7 again.

I could not agree more. I have been playing last weeks on W8 again and, with some tube rolling on the highs amplifier (an old Counterpoint), that harshness seems to be vanished. On the other hand the sound is powerful and energetic as had always been with W8.

Maxi

[BertD]

XXHighend on Windows 8 went at top and I will not miss Windows 7 again.

I am cured from W7 as well with the new settings so I have updated my signature. W8 does not show the harshness and the weird artificial ambiance anymore.

W8: Very detailed with clean powerful and tuneful bass where absolute phase makes a clear difference again (especially in the bass!)

W7: Nah, just forget this option...

Bert

[CoenP]

As a coincidence I also had a very good evening last night. Actually the best in three month time.
What did I do: I went the other direction: I fired up the old v9-8e on win 7 and just play what's in the list. It was an excellent experince.

I know I start to sound like a broken record, but I cannot share any enthousiasm for windows 8. Even 1.168 fully tweaked on win7 (definitely better than on windows 8 )  doesn't provide for the same soul and music that 8e magically ejects in my system.
The circle is allways the same. At first I am impressed by 1.168 on windows7 or 8, then I somehow loose interest in the music and start to tweak for more impressiveness, and tweak, and tweak, etc, then I only listen to music casually. Then I remember the good times with 8e, start it up and before I know it I am 1,5 hours further without stopping the music.

I am shure this is a system synergy and personal listening prference thing and likely it does not apply to anyone who has a different setup or priorities (and vice versa). Nevertheless i have yet  to hear another digital component that provides for the same experience, so even being stuck in the past the NOS1 rocks with XXHE!

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Well, I don't know what's up with the moon and pollen or stars, but I seriously experienced the worse evening in long times.

I do know that in my situation it had to be about moods and not that you want to know it, but we have a young lad over from Germany from a sort of "school partner program". And next the guy comes across as your biggest mistake in adopting a child or something because there is no way anything fits and all what's in your mind is how to pass that whole week without the guy dying of sadness or something.

And so there has been no single way I could find any music sounding right, no matter what I tried.

Peter
(W8  )

[AlainGr]

Our state of mind will always be the most important while listening to music... When I was young, listening to music on the AM radio was very exciting, as I was discovering so much music... As you will understand, I will not mention anything about SQ... This was way out of my mind at the times

Mind is the source of so many things, not to say "everything"...

Alain
PS: The pollen that I still have around is totally white, cold and slippery Yesterday I fell right after opening the car door and putting my foot on the ground

[phantomax]

I know I start to sound like a broken record

You, at least, look pretty coherent. I, for my part,  begin to have some kind of wind vane complex. W7 W8

Maxi

[AlainGr]

Ha ha You are not the only one Maxi I am still thinking about going back to W8...

Alain

[phantomax]

I am still thinking about going back to W8...

I am just wondering if it can be a mere psychological reason. When you feel hot you want to be cold and vice versa. Maybe the change is good itself and we can move from side to side from time to time and enjoy every change ad infinitum.

Regards,

Maxi

[PeterSt]

I all so often give the example of a new car radio - or one in a car you are not used to. Doesn't that always sound better "stereo" ? I think it does. This is how we get used to sound, even up to the level of channel separation - and which clearly is totally fake. So go to car radio A - better stereo. Go to B - better stereo. Go back to A - better stereo.

The W78 syndrome.

[AlainGr]

Peter,

Yes for the best stereo example... The sound is different, but I am never sure if there is something better in one and also better in the other...

But there is something else: when I read your written thoughts, I tend to switch like you do... Nothing like what Coen does (I envy him though to be persistent in his preferences). I know you are on to something and I don't want to miss it.

Either version, I find something good in each of them...

Alain

[hbrew]

I realize this post is relatively old. I agree -- XXHE is amazing! I tried several others before going to XXHE (2 or 3 years ago?). For those not sure about trying it out do it.

Clock Resolution: I just realized how amazing XXHE is when I finally eliminated some programs that were keeping me from getting to Clock Resolution of 15 (instead of previously suck on 1). Peter wrote You have to hear the difference -- yes indeed.

USB cable: another significant improvement was changing the computer to DAC cable and the cable inside my home brew DAC (to Amanero USB interface board).

Class A amplification v.s. Class B or AB -- I can select A/AB on the Douglas Self "Trimodal" amplifier and Class A on that amp is more full. Will have to try my Class D Hypex 400's again now that things have improved.

All the little things are adding up to amazing sound. I have tried to install Win10 on a test SSD but have had difficulties. If 2.03 is even better than 1.186 not sure if my friends will believe me and come over to listen.

Thank you Peter!

[PeterSt]