XXHighEnd

Hi.  I'm a first-time XXHighEnd user who
recently installed (and purchased and
activated) XXHE 0.9z-3 on a
Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q850 laptop with
Intel Core i7-720QM processor
6GB RAM
64 GB solid-state disk + 320GB SATA hard drive
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

I have UAC turned off.

The XXHighEnd directory (& data directory) are on
the solid-state drive.
Music is on an external eSATA drive.

I used dbPowerAmp and some shell scripts to convert
a WavPack collection with embedded cuesheets, used
with Foobar, and with structure
D:Artist1Album1.wv
D:Artist1Album2.wv
D:Artist2Album1.wv, etc.
to an XXHE-compatible collection using Flac and
external cuesheets (which were batch edited to point to
their corresponding Flac files),
with structure
D:AArtist1Album1a.cue
D:AArtist1Album1a.flac
D:AArtist1Album2a.cue
D:AArtist1Album2a.flac
D:AArtist2Album1a.cue
D:AArtist2Album1a.flac, etc.
(The use of folder name "A" and filenames a.* prevent
the total path-length from becoming too long for Windows --
this collection contains lots of classical music with
long names.)
The "Music Root" is set to point to D:A.

Output is via USB to an M2Tech HiFace Evo (and thence
via AES/EBU to an Apogee Big Ben and various DACs).

In Settings, "Engine" defaults to "#3 Engine" when I select
the HiFace as the Output Device.  I've set the "Processor
Core Appointment Scheme" to "Scheme 4" under Processor Settings.

Under DAC Settings, "DAC is 24 bits 192.0 KHz" is selected
(the subsequent default of "At> 16 bits the DAC needs" to
"32 bits" works, and so does "24 bits".  I've left it at "32 bits").

Under "Memory and Disk utilization", I've set "SFS (Split File at Size, MB)"
to both 100 (which was the default) and 20.  Apart from the expected
variation in delay at start of playback, both work equally well.

Most of my listening has been done with "PeakExtnd" and "ArcPredict"
activated, and with the sample-rate slider set to 2x (Double), but
I've also experimented with 1x sample rate (44.1 kHz) with the
other two options turned off.

Music files were originally created as WAVs and cuesheets by
Exact Audio Copy ripping the original CDs.

Using the above arrangement (and with all combinations of the options
mentioned above) I can click on the "Library Area" button and
see the list of artists in the leftmost window.  If I click on an
artist, I see the labelled, red-outlined squares with the XXHE logos
representing all the albums in the artist's directory (I don't use cover art).
If I double-click an album icon, I see all the tracks (retrieved from the cuesheet)
listed in the middle window, and I see an icon for "a.cue" in the
rightmost window.

Here's the problem I've encountered:  during playback, sometimes
when a track boundary is reached (not necessarily at every track boundary,
but if the problem occurs, it always occurs at the same track
boundary for a particular album), when the track that's playing
ends, the "bounce bar" in the track list (middle) window will
advance to the next track, but the music will jump back to the
last minute or so of the previous track, play to the end again,
and then skip back again.  It will do this over and over for
maybe half-a-dozen times, and then playback will stop and
I will see a Windows "App Crash" message for "Engine #3".

If I swap the music library disk for a copy which has had all the
cue sheets deleted (with just the *.flac files remaining, in the
same directory structure), and if I then select an entire album
for playback, that whole album will play without interruption.

Nothing I have tried has altered this behavior.  (I have not
tried running in "Unattended Mode", or installing AutoHotkey.)
The same cue sheets have worked without any problems using
both Foobar 1.1.1 and cPlay 2.0 (on the same machine, and using
the HiFace Evo with either Foobar's WASAPI plugin, or with
ASIO4ALL 2.10 for cPlay).

So for now, at least, I'm constrained to using XXHE without cuesheets,
and to listening to albums from start to finish (or up to whenever I
decide to stop playback).

Apart from this, the only other problem I have encountered is that
when an album first loads up for playback, sound does not begin
until some seconds after the beginning of the first track.
If I then stop and restart playback, I can then hear the beginning
of the first track.

It does sound good, however.

:15a:

Haha Jim. And
:welcome:

Now, I really must try your situation, although I'd say I would run into this thing each other day (using quite some .cue stuff myself). But apparently not exactly the same as you have or use it.
Thank you very much for your extensive explanation which will be a great help. From now on I will play with your settings for a while, and let you know what I saw.

Again, thanks,
regards,
Peter


PS: From your first sentences I derive that this happens since 0.9z-3. Is that correct ?

PPS:
This would be completely new to me; Can you maybe recognize that this is related to the laptop's speed ?

Peter,

You wrote:

> I derive that this happens since 0.9z-3. Is that correct ?

Actually, this is the first time I've tried XXHighEnd, so 0.9z-3
is the first version I've ever used; I have no experience with
earlier versions.

> > . . .when an album first loads up for playback, sound does not
> > begin until some seconds after the beginning of the first track.
>
> This would be completely new to me; Can you maybe recognize
> that this is related to the laptop's speed ?

Well, it's a 1.6 GHz quad-core i7-720QM (with DDR3 1066 memory).

However, I just noticed that most people around here are still
sticking with Vista, so maybe I'll try installing XXHE on a Vista
desktop machine I bought last year just before all retail
machines started to be sold exclusively with Windows 7.
It's an Asus Essentio, with a (quad-core) i7-930 at 2.66 GHz
(and 9GB of RAM, not that that would make any difference).
It has (64-bit) Vista Home Premium, which would perhaps be
more congenial to XXHE.  I'll likely be contacting you about
transferring the activation.