XXHighEnd

I don't think I've ever been so scared to try a new version, but will do so later this evening...

Mani.

Well for 15 min listening...Peter BRAVO! There is nothing, NOTHING wrong with the hights...they just sounds the way they are recorded! YES that's the way for me. Transperancy! Ofc now some albums will sound rusty, edgy, screamy...but hey there is nothing else we can do. That's RECORDING STUDIO and ARTIST(s) problem now!
Beautiful Balance and sounding! That's all I can say for now. Don't wanna go in 3d, soundstage, impact, sonicity, etc. etc. Just sounds very very good and right for me!
Once again BRAVO Peter! A true HI-END player!
Kind Regards, Criss.

I thought so, too. "Better let the computer geeks try out first, then I can follow afterwards"  8)

I just listened (attended) for about two hours to 0.9z-4-0 and simply said -I love it-
I agree with Criss totally .

The settings are:
Special mode, with a buffer size of 512
Scheme 1/low/Realtime and clock res. on "min for this computer"
SFA 50,2
Memory Organization "mixed Contiguous (straight contiguous wouldn't work here)
Q1 -1 all others 0
the OS is W7 (without SP1)

Hey, that's a surprise !
Leon, can you describe what is different from what you were used to (I suppose also on W7 native) ?

Also, you may not notice(d) it yourself, but with Special Mode and Q1 = 1 that would be an internal latency of one sample ... (see X3PB log file if you want). Or am I mistaking somewhere ?

Thanks,
Peter

For those who already downloaded 0.9z-4-0, I just added one thing to the Release Notes :

At using the very low SFS settings, please switch off Logging, or otherwise your PC may choke on just that.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Compared to before I am sure the bass vs midtones vs hights are much more in balance now, and on top of that there is more transparancy in the hights.

Regarding the Q1, I was misreading. Q1=8, resulting in samples of latency (Q!): 2

cheers
Leon

Congrats Peter This is the BEST sounding XXXHighEnd !!!!!!!!!! Perfect Highs, excelent dinamics and 3D stage, i'm really surprised, you frightens me with the description of the new version but everything works ok and sound beautiful.

For all those that are scared  away by Peters doubt and hesitation about Z4.
Don't let him fool you this is a great sounding version of XX

Leo

I didn't mean scared of XX itself, but more of staying up late into the night trying to optimise it. As it happens, it's working here with no issues whatsoever... pretty much like any earlier version. There's nothing that anyone should fear by trying it.

I don't think I've ever thought that music was too dynamic before, but with a low SFS and Straight Contiguous, that's how it comes across to me. I'm currently listening to SFS=100, Straight Contiguous and Clock Resolution=Nothing (with all other parameters as in my sig) and it's sounding pretty good here. But lots more listening required to make any real judgements.

Mani.

I would agree with all that has been said BUT my head is starting to hurt, something has an edge that goes away when I stop the player.  There is something not right for me yet so will have to try more combinations to see if it becomes less stressful.  Small SFS and straight contiguous with max time does present the music as very realistic as performer is in your room, each breath can be heard but for me there is a residue.  Perhaps in the daylight and a fresh cup of coffee I will find the right mix of settings.

I think this is where the quality of the recording/mastering/pressing chain comes in. In the past, I've found some of the MFSL CDs to sound too flat. I've never quite understood why this should be the case because they were transferred from the original analogue master tapes with no compression or equalisation. Anyhow, I'm currently listening to the MFSL release of Robert Cray's 'Strong Persuader'... and it sounds stunning. Certainly no ear-ache with this one :)

Also, 0.9z-4-0 works very well with my own vinyl transfers - they still sound ultra smooth (due in most part to the Denon 103) but now have some welcome extra dynamics.

Mani.

Well, I tried to judge to quick. First impression was bad.
After some changes it is a little better but still not impressive to me.
Bass sounds undetailed, no right rhytm and some songtexts are difficult to understand.
I tried phase-invert but that makes it even less pinpoint.
Maybe tomorrow I will try some of your suggestions, but after that maybe back to Z-3.
Sorry, but I like to enjoy my cup of tea. ;)

Thank you all for your input so far. It is really appreciated, but merely, listened to. And might you wonder, Brian's input intrigues me most (or satisfies ? haha). I mean, negatives are appreciated as much, so don't hesitate !

Gerard, negative ... :) I only want to say :


... nothing wrong with this. But really, you forgot to hop over to W7-SP1. Please do and judge from there. Vista is nice, but is also "nothing". And ...


... this is Vista in the first place ! You are really not doing justice to yourself to stay there. But for W7, don't forget, SP1 ! although ...
Leon said something about native W7; Though I did not try it anymore, I can imagine something.

(and yes, I remember all what I said myself about W7, back to Vista, etc.; but what I say today is W7-SP1 - please try it -> you won't know what will be happening to you)

Came home late this night but I had to try it. short check: same settings like z3.  mixed contiguous sfs=1,0. It sounds a little more real than z3. It seems to not need the ramdisk or even sounds better without. First impression is good. But, peter can you manage a button that prevents the explorer to be shut off in the final version? I normaly use my computer while listening to xx ;)
greetings and  :goodjob:

I found mixed contiguous better than mixed, but was unable to get contiguous to work. When I played mixed contiguous the first time the "privileges" message appeared and I had to reboot. I probably need to reduce the size of my ramdisc to get contiguous working, maybe tomorrow.

It sounds really, really good....a step closer, maybe, to a "fat Z2/transparent Z3" sound. Need to give it some time to be sure. Other settings: ramdisc, SFS 40, clock resolution "nothing", and Q1@-1, everything else as in my signature.

Finding the 'right setting' is quite important, as Peter said. I changed the settings  from 'default'to Peters signature setting, SFS (from 60 to 40) and memory setting (mixed to straight) and by mistake changed the player mode from special to normal. And then I was wondering for some time where the magic had gone and the harshness was coming from.
Now the magic is there again for me. pfff
Just 3150 hours to try all possibilties in a systematic way. I will report back in autumn !

Haha. And then to think that when I was a young kid (think 5 or so) my father thought me that in a good hi-fi system no bass and treble knobs should be there. I wonder what would have happened to the man would he still live today. :innocent:

Wouldn't that be just making "Stop Services" inactive ? I think so ...
Not if you use Unattended and *then* still use the PC of course !

Let me know if the latter is your case.
Peter


PS: Let's not mix up this topic with stuff other than SQ this time, please.

Peter,

Sorry to say but I use Win 7 SP1 for some time, forgot to change the profile...

(And in unattended the Windows-key don't work anymore, was so convenient before...)
No ramdisk, rest like before, will try more tonight.

Ah Gerard, ok ! very good to know.

Well, then I won't attempt to try to talk into things, and just observe instead.
But the (not) RAMDisk might be key here.

Thanks again.
Peter

Hmmm... I just installed Z04. Right now I still have not experimented much with setting but clock resolution is at minimum for system (whatever that is) straight contigous thing, SFS60, power scheme 1, buffer 256, I am not sure if I hear any significant difference from 03, perhaps a bit more clarity. It sounds bigger,
more fluid. At least all the change seems to be positive :)
This 04 version comes at the most inopportune time as I just switched out my old Synergistic Research Accelerator with Stealth Sakra IC and installed my new Stealth Sextet digital cable ( was using my dealer's well broken in Sextet before) yesterday but I could not resist. Anyhow, z03 is still in my RAMdisk as well so I will be making some comparisons soon but want to burn in my cable for a few days and experiment with various settings first before going back to 03 for comparison.

ok, next time there will be a new topic. Deactivate stop services prevent xx from shutting down the explorere. But maybe there could be a button, like z3, when you activate stop sevices it just stops services, that are not needed for using the pc in a normal way. And a second button that makes the explorer inactive like unattended. With the actual setting, attended is like unattended if stop services is activated. In both the pc is audio only.

Something strange. I am still in adaptive mode for now. I find that I prefer straight contiguous mode over mixed contiguous as music seems to flow better, more lively and better clarity. However, suddenly I kept getting error message about memory allocation error 03, lower SFS, reboot or change mode. Currently, I am down to SFS 10 with straight contiguous mode. However, when I lower SFS, music also becomes leaner, seems to emphasize treble more. I like the slightly darker, richer sound in mixed contiguous mode with SFS 100 but like the pacing and music flow/detail of straight contiguous. I wonder what I would have to do to run bigger SFS in straight contiguous mode?

Slight update, after rebooting the computer, now striaght contiguous seems to work ok with 100 SFS which seems to be best sound
I can achieve right now and it is, I think, a significant improvement over 03 version, much more dynamic and much bigger soundstage both
width and depth. JUst hope 100 SFS will be stable with straight contiguous memory management.

I receive that error only when i like to play with Ramisk.

Oh, I thought I had told sufficiently enough about this ? (Release Notes and ToolTip).

Start playback again as soon as possible, etc. ... :yes:

Or, in Unattended Mode, pick your next album during the beginning of the last track playing, and just press Play. Not 100% reliable (may start at the second track), but it *is* a means for now.

Btw, an SFS of 100 is asking for problems with Straight Contiguous. But it can work, as you have seen.

Because that ate your memory (and not enough contiguous space is left for the amount you're asking for).

Well you did but please it is so much information and all new that my head is a bit  :wacko: at the moment...

This all needs a bit time....

Playing your setting there is something real real different and good at the same time. Yesterday though after a while it started to irritate me a bit. But than it could be my mood from yesterday wich was not all the best.


But there a lot of air wich is totally new.. Like it!!

 :)

More beer Gerard, more beer.

But more seriously, take your time for it, and possibly report per setting you tried. I already told I couldn't do it alone and I guess it is true. But us all together ? hopefully Yes.

Thanks,
Peter

 :blush2: :blush2: Forget my posts from before or remove them!
A loose connection repaired the wrong way...

Now it sounds very promising!

Less beer Gerard, less beer. Beer is not for all Gerard's !

hehe Cheers man ... good !

 :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :drinks:

Maybe something stronger with Jules Deelder playing! :holiday:

Hmmm... I took out Ramdisk so I can have full 12 GB of RAM. With 12 GB, there was no problem running straight contiguous with SFS 100. I was able to play Meistersinger and Gotterdamerungen straight through with no hiccup :)
However, I still prefer using Ramdisk with 04. Ramdisk, with all the same setting comparing to  XXHighned in SDS on C: Drive, I hear slightly more open and extended top, yet the overall sound is also slightly richer and fuller and smoother. Now I just have to figure how small a Ramdisk I will need in order to have enough RAM to run XXHighend smoothly with straight contiguous and SFS 100 :)

Me too.

I was very happy for a while with straight contiguous yesterday but in the end I ended up listening to z3 again. Not a final opinion but z4 sounds very clear but also thin. A little bit like jplay.

I find default SFS of 60 sounded quite lean and the lower the SFS the thinner the sound. I am much happier with SFS 100 as the sound is fuller, richer, may be a touch less open than SFS 10 but not by much. Mind you, I am always in the big SFS camp, with Z3, I used 192 with Vista (that was as high as I could go) and 200 with W7. I am also in adaptive mode, have not try special mode again yet.

I can not go higher as sfs=10 with straight contiguous. With mixed contiguous I use sfs=100. Listening to Paco de lucia, I like z3 better than mixed contiguous. It sounds unnatural and to bright. SC is hard to tune, as I can just use up to sfs=10. But it sounds cleaner than MC. So far...

I don't like mixed contiguous either. Looks like lot of RAM is the way to go with z4 with straight contiguous and high SFS, at least for now anyway :)

After some times testing SC with sfs=10 I would say, I don't like it. It is cleaner than MC, has a very transparent sound. But it lacks deep bass or you can say it is tonal not balanced. I don't like to listen to it. I miss the ambience that z3 creates. It is a little bit, if there is no recording room, you just hear each instrument and every instrument is made of metal ;). My ears don't want that. To be fair, I set sfs in z3 also to a very low value (sfs=12). I don't like this sound either. Balance was still there but it sounded a little distorted. There was also one evening, where I liked SC and thought thats it. But after longer time, it just is not. At least as long as I can not use higher sfs. So I can join the listening comparison again, if z4 SC will allow higher sfs sizes. At the moment z3 is still on the top for me.

...if you don't see the wind it does not mean it is not there!
Well z4 with MC (can't afford SC :( ) is MILES ahead that x3 with aprox. same settings! And no other settings in z3 can't reach the sound stage, 3d eff. and liquid of z4 sound!!!! Well here comes and the first fact:
Clock Res on 12ms is better versus 0.5ms!
Q1= -1 ...yes best low freq you can get!
That's for now.OVER!
Stay massive! ;)
Criss.

Maybe my post sounded to destructive...sorry. But you know how I mean it. At the moment, it is like this but it can change. I tweaked so long on z3 to get it sound like today, it would be a miracel if z4 was better from the start. Hey, and on the other hand, z3 sounds great. My fantasy might be limited but getting it even better can not be easy ;)
Keep on listening!

I finally got SC working today, but couldn't get the SFS larger than 10.2. It sounded too thin compared to MC with a SPS of 80. With the hiface I'm in Special Mode with the device buffer set to 512 with Q1 @ 8. Very unusuall settings for me. The sound was really good but had that high frequency janglyness that drives my wife crazy. However, it became silky smooth when I unticked Stop Services....perhaps a built in filter? Gotta love it.......Peter, what HAVE you done? HaHa!

My first impressions on my XP machine match posts above. There is an unmatched clarity in z4, yet silibants and the like (is rock guitars) really have an unpleasant harshness. I ameliorated tis by lowering the timer to 2ms; this acts like increasing contrast on photos. The slight loss in clarity is a worthwile payoff. Yet it still is a little too lean form my taste, voices just lack warmth.

Other stuf that helped sq is moving from RAMdisc to the regular SCSI HD. It was surpising that on the RAMdisch I had to increase Q1 to 2 to get tick free playback (adaptive mode), while on the HD Q1 played without problems. The only memory setting that works is 'mixed'. I can boot as long as I like, but mixed cont.. refuses to play. But that is another topic...

There is one thing I like to mention about v4 that I think is very right. That is that it seemed to play slower, like every note and breath making more sense. I reverted back to v3 and v2 a few times in a few settings, and it was immediately apparent that v4 did not speed up and 'disorganise' the music. Since the sofware nor the soundcard do anything different it must be the superior definition of leading edges that define the timing of the music.

There is still a lot of settings to explore. Maybe I can keep the (near) perfect timing and add some lower harmonics to the sound .

regards, Coen

Hello hello - Peter here ...

I guess I am convicted myself now. Converted maybe. :)

Three days ago I started out making a post about some "honest sounding" albums. Wanted to write about older albums from Dr Hook, JJ Cale, Jimi Hendrix and their never (by me) before heard honest sound. Honest ? what the h*ck does that mean ?

Not sure ...
It expresses in drum hits being so real, smahsing of brushes indeed smashing. So distinguishing basses. Ehh, a very direct sound maybe ? And gooood (which is new to me for very direct sound).
The lower Lower notes from Jimi Hedrix, I'm sure someone with knowledge would recognize the guitar in question immediately. Always a nice job with new guitars each day of course. :)

But I guess the phenomenon "honesty" is a new one. Before I could talk about realism, or how real to realtity things would sound. Now there's just this honesty - as in "true to the recording" perhaps ? I don't know; it just keeps on slipping into my mind. And the point is :

I didn't post this three days back because I couldn't find the time, but the next day it went on, and now not with "picked" albums from which I could expect this. It went on with everything, up to ambient which now *all* seems to sound super interesting, and not only this handful I discovered so far. So, honesty doesn't apply only to honest recordings from 40 years and more back. It is in everything (?) from today just the same.

I didn't try many various settings, but I guess all started to happen when my internal latency was set to 128 samples, which even was an accident (earlier I had 32). So, after this first great night (three days back), started out for playing the day after that, saw the 128 and thought "oops", set it back to 32, but next thought that I will have been listening to 128 the day before. And, I didn't enjoy the music much. Well, as far as one can judge that in 40 seconds or so. So, set it back to 128 and there it happened (Special Mode btw).
CockRes is 12ms from the start - and from my theory it's better than low (FWIW !).

I guess it is all very fragile, and that indeed "magic" will happen at certain "matching" settings. A sort of : if those micro-aligned tiny waves don't match in space where they should, it's all gone.
On the other hand, it also feels very robust. The contrary from what I wrote before (without the RAMDisk); all albums "work", and for me it's always very important to "see" what my next album will be from what I hear from a former. And, that it works out as expected;
I have said that before, and it is exactly why I started playing older albums three days back; You can "see" that it will work.

May it be of importance (well, I think it is), I dialed in an SFS of 40 because it seemed to me that my system can take it (with 8GB of RAM and 1.8GB RAMDisk), also knowing that the larger it is, the less the system will do on things it "keeps on doing" and which will be once in the 30 seconds in my 32/352.8. case. If someone wants to match this with 32/176.4, it will be the same with an SFS of 20. Keep in mind : larger will be better, but you must be able to. Also, there's the responsiveness of course (the lower the SFS the better), but this may not be of importance.
I can play a whole evening like this, and actually I never encountered the necessity to reboot (but I will have done that before a new playback session for the day). Also to keep in mind, when people want to copy this : this is W7-SP1 and *its* memory organization in the first place.
And important or not : my OS is on the spinning disk.


Well, if we could indeed look at things like this -which has the assumption of all being over the top somewhat- it would be a fairly understandable means for everyone. I am far from sure myself that this could be our base now, but this is the lack of experience so far. Oh, last Saturday I tried without RAMDisk again (all settings further the same), and I totally couldn't bear it. So, this "filtering" can be there by many means, and they will work up to around the clock-cycle level. Or, as I implied in the above : once per 30 seconds a very little (for a fraction of a second).

But I have another one, and although by no means something to try for better sound, it is something which should be very well audible, once we're at the levels we are at :
Play Attended, and move the mouse away from the XXHighEnd screen. Now play again, but put the mouse somewhere on the screen, but not on a button; find some empty space.
This should apply a filter in the realm of "memory organization", but some magnitudes higher as can be "done" without this;
May you encounter a too hefty filter, try it again, but now compare Unattended, both cases with bringing up XXHighEnd again - and now as before, with and without mouse being over the screen (just let it sit there, don't move the mouse). This latter applies a nicely small filter.
I never tried this, but it's all theory from looking at what the OS is doing.

Ah, you were crazy already ? then never mind. :)
Peter

I tried special mode vs adaptive mode in z4 today. SC, SFS100,  power scheme 1, minimum clock. In special mode, with Weiss INT202, I could only go down on
Q1 to 4 with 256 samples. Anything below gave me a lot of distortion. I also I could not go down lower than 256 on buffer on both Weiss/XXHighend in special mode (in Z3, I also happen to find buffer 256 to be optimal for my setup). Adaptive mode, Q1 right now is at -1.

Anyhow, I find special mode has a bit more sparkle but also string sounds slightly more metalic and brittle. Adaptive mode sounds more creamy in comparison. Bass is a bit stronger with special mode. Adaptive also give me a lot more detail. In the Eagle's Hell Freezes Over, Hotel California track, I never noticed so much audience noises. The audiences' whistle and clapping extended well behind the speakers and almost wall to wall, adaptive more so than special mode but in my room, this is the first time I hear something like this. 

I have not listened to this album in a long time so quite a few things are changed since then so I don't know how much is from Z04 and how much is from the rest of the system.

There is a lot i like with the new Z4 SC version. Went back to Z3 and i miss the clarity. But i have the same going on like Flecko says. Its just a bit to much  and do not now yet how to get rid of it.

Really curious what Bert comes up with with his SSD/HDD test.

 :)

I feel that 09z 4.0 has a much more 'forward' character to it, in that solo instruments really jump out. As a result of this I am also playing music at about 10% lower volume than before. I would not describe the sound as particularly full-bodied even in adaptive mode (and don't believe that any of the previous versions ever were) and despite the fact that it's the most transparent sound with the blackest background and widest dynamic range we have managed to get out of our system to date. The only criticism I have is that it has a tendency to sound too crystal-like or clinical. I think I won't be the only one who thinks that manishandler's assessment of the NOS DAC1 could apply to the software. If there was a way that 'warmth' could be brought to the sound, it would be perfect.

That said it's still the best player.

By the way I switched from SSD to HDD and I have to say I found it difficult to cope with how long it took things to boot up etc. I haven't been able to compare the 2 however, as the SSD is 32 bit and the HDD is 64.

I know it might sound crazy, but I had a significant increase of warmth and width (fatter?) playing Z4 in Special Mode, when I unticked "Stop Services". Almost took me back to Z2.

For your notice, or later reference perhaps, the screen I/O has a very different "priority" from other OS versions. For example, VU meters won't work as usual at all. It's just not updated fast enough.
This is in the "Stop Services" realm. It will still matter, but less than before W7-SP1.

One thing I did which goes along with it : kill the deskop as a whole (with Stop Services = Yes).

That will take a few weeks as my present system to review the difference (I'll need some basic reference first) is not completed yet...

Bert

Continuing my findings on XP, I have found upping the Q1 setting (adaptive) improves SQ without sacrificing the well appreciated timing. With this knowledge I went back to RAMDISC and enjoy a very good sound with perfect timing at the moment. Though some technical aspects could be better, I find it very engaging with excellent clarity (purity?) and dynamics. You can almost drown in female voices :)!

Like Peter said the position of the cursor does make quite a difference. Never noticed this before, since it is allways on the XX window. When the cursor is on the outside, the sound looses focus (much more fluffy) and a lot of the special magic is lost. Very important to keep in mind where you leave it when optimising XX!

Though the relevancy may be low on this forum, my settings for v4 are at this stage:
-VSuiteRamdisc, adaptive, 512 buffer, attended, Timeres = 4msec, mixed, garbage collect, services off, SFS=20,Q1=6, cursor on XX (!), music and OS on SCSI HDD 

(note, not a complaint: special mode does not work, mixed contiguous does not work, unattended sounds flat as a pancake, have to make a bigger RAMdisc for temporarily storing music)

regards, Coen

Today I receifed my Digital Interface from Audio-GD,  that has now replaced my stock Hiface. I will tell more about it in another thread but want to post z4 related news. First interesting thing was, that I found, as I played with the settings of z3, that now with the DI, the the sound changes different if I change sfs. I would now say, it changes in the opposite direction. Means, smaler sfs -> better sound (How crazy is this?). Then, of course, the next thought was to try z4 again and...Yes it works! Now the balance is there, the DI seems to keep the same tonality no matter what settings I use, it is more the quality that changes. With SC sfs=1,0 z4 sounds very beautyfull. It is MUCH cleaner than z3. All the "metal" has gone. Crazy, but I like it to be like this :) At the moment my impresseion is, z4 is MUCH better than z3.  :xx:

Flecko,

Well what can i say!  :goodjob:

You are totally right!

Thanx!!  :)

What type of mouse does this apply to?  USB and/or the dedicated mouse/keyboard port?  I have the USB mouse/keyboard and don't find any difference at the moment.

Brian

Ah, careful. I think an USB mouse may incur for other activities than I thought of. But I'm not sure.
So this also works the other way around : it may be just those other activities you can perceive (not Brian, he has a sterilised mouse).

 :rofl:

I am using z4 without ramdisk and I think it is better like this. Ramdisk does a smothing that limits the dynamics. I think it is better without. The sound is so great, it is unbelievable. Even old records like judas priest has such a depths and punch... wow....chicken skin  (if you can say that in english like that) :)

You shouldn't have said that !

Now *I* want to get that going ... :)

But I think I have mentioned it before, especially the normally rough sounds like a distortion guitar can contain so much air when good.


When you come back on it, let me know ! :swoon:
Peter

:) It sounds also great with ramdisk. But I found that without the sound has more precission and bite. I will check ramdisk later again!

It is tricky. Because with ramdisk, there are more fine highs. You could think, it has more air or more resolution. Without, it sounds a little darker. You might think, the highs are damped in comparison to ramdisk. But, listenning to the right record, it can be realized what is going on. I used "trio bravo +" "menschen am sonntag". Here the difference becomes noticable and judgeable. With ramdisk, there is more "air" but in comparison to no ramdisk this air seems more to be a fog. Without ramdisk, every instrument is better defined and there is more space between the instruments because there is less of this "air" or you could call it hf noise. The whole sound is not so bright. Microdynamics are better. It is not easy to judge, because there are records you can think it is the other way round. But I still would say, it is better without ramdisk.

Adrian, careful now, it looks like yo are going to write like me ! haha I love it.

Yesterday I was at a point of trying again without RAMDisk after changing some things in the software, actually heading for the "without RAMDisk should be better". I didn't because I loved the sound too much plus I need the proper judgement. But I will.
I only want to say : you are sure not talking to yourself here.

Thank you,
Peter

Well, I didn't think it was possible with the hiface, but I'm currently playing in Special Mode, buffer 32 with 1 sample of latency (Q1 @-3), per the X3b lof file. This is by far the most amazing sound I've ever gotten from XX. Its as though there a several layers of mid range that now accompany the treble like never before. Last night I was playing Bonnie Raitt's, "Love Me Like a Man", the live version from her "Road Tested" album, when my wife walked into the room. She amazed me when she said it was the best sound she's heard. According to her, " Its doesn't hurt my brain, though it still hurts my ears cause you play it way too loud." Go figure......

Am still playing in Mixed Continuous cause straight is just too finicky here. All my current settings are below.

My sanity is highly endangered. I am playing without ramdisk at the moment and I thougt, try z2 from harddrive again. It was an old setup I had on my harddrive. It was still set to adaptive mode. I pressed play and it hit me like a lightning. It can't be. But it seems it is...Before I say what I will say later, I sum up how "we" or "I" proceeded:
There was z2 and adaptive mode as "common standard".Then ramdisk was in discussion. We checked it out and then it was z2 with ramidsk and special mode. Then came z3 with sfs.ini, which turned out, I would say, to be not good. Now it is z4, again with memory management. Then it seems, ramdisk does no good and it is better without. Now being back to the harddrive it seems...z2 was the best xx we had. Maybe I am, or we "all" are a case for the psychiatrist. But the background is realy black with z2. No background noise like from z4 and no harshness like from z3. It is just the closest to how it should sound.
z4 still has an outstanding resolution in the highs. They are very fine and well expressed. But there is very much of them, so that it fills every part in space with this "noise". The background looses its blackness because of that. I think z4 has potential but z2 should be a reference where z4 is tuned to, because z2 adaptive is closer to reality and better in most aspects (coherence, dynamics, balance, tonality, color, 3Dness, solid instruments,...).

Just loaded 0.9-4-0. WOW Peter what did you do? it sounds way better than 3 on my system. Everything is better I mean everything (detail dynamics base quality everything). I have not changed the setup it is just as it came "out of the box". I will have a play with the settings but only after I have listened to it for a while and got used to the new sound quality. I am using a laptop with limited resources. I use W7 (not SP1) which is very very cut down (comes on a CD).

Going to be a late night!!

Scroobs

Hi Adrian, I was a bit afraid of that ... (reading your before last post). I think you *are* experiencing HF noise ...
(but please keep in mind that I derive this from your own description, and it is tough to have it correct on my side)

With the morte high frequency output, there is more change that that smears. Or better, that it becomes profound. So *or* you must try to get those frequencies "isolated", or you must lower them for volume. Of course we are not talking about treble knobs here, so for the latter Vista comes to mind. For the former ? well, not easy. I would start out with Arc Prediction (and I hope / have in mind you are not using that) to at least find out whether the filtering as such is the problem.

From whatever you find, I would start to wiggle the further "controls" on your DAC in the filtering area. Try to understand what you hear. Try to derive from other merits what actually is going on (example : Vista sounds relaxed for highs, but has an improper bass at the same time. Conclusion ? it's wrong).

As you see, I won't admit quickly that 0.z9-2 is better. But ! I didn't listen to it either anymore, and back then I sure never listened to the combination from today.
So ... What I am missing in your post is how you actually played it (settings, OS, etc.); Your posts starts out with ancouncing the description of that, but it looks like you forgot ?
In any case, back then you too won't have been playing with 0.9z-2 onto W7-SP1, so if it is that what you just did, well, then I have not much reason to not believe you and I guess everybody could re-try.

Peter


PS: When AI Filtering was introduced (AP didn't exist at that moment), I listened to that for two months or so. Wow, that was black. Later I found out that it was a dead bird as well. Just not enough detail in everything. But black ...

I just quoted this from this very topic for our own reference ...
Maybe it tells something.

I know that a higher level in the highs, gives a defocus (smearing) effect. That is, what comes from z4. It is verry accurate in the highs and you hear everything what happens. This is a quality, that z2 doesn't have. But on the other hand, z4 sounds thin compared to z2. The msuic doesn't fill the room as massive. There is more air but less space.

The hardware side of my dac was also upgraded. Installed the new DSP1V5 board with improved filters. I studied the dipswiched intensly with the new and the old board. It is still, that the steepest filter with the highest oversampling sounds best. It is even worse ;) I use asynchronous upsampling to 96khz/24bit of my Digital Interface. This could be the reason why I hear more highs, because it sounds brighter but also better.
I also can not use arpred with doubling anymore, because my DI doesn't allow that samplerate. But just checking AP with 44.1 doesn't sound good.

I realy don't expect that from you. :)

My OS settings are:
W7 SP1
Tune up 2011 Turbo mode
UAC off

The z2 thing is, that it was THE version of xx I just used after a very short setup time. Z3 for example I tuned the whole time I used it. I got it sound great with ramdisk but you know, there where also complaints about its sound from different people. And now, comparing it to z2 without ramdisk and with my new hardware, which is defenitly better, I can understand. Saying, that z2 sounds better than z4, doesn't mean z4 isn't great. z2 just seems to sound more like what I am looking for. But I don't want to talk to much about it. Maybe this evening it will be the other way round. It could be the sound of z2 (like vinyl), that makes people like. The difficult question is, does some version sounds better or is it realy better? I asked my girlfriend what she likes more as I showed her z4 with and without ramdisk. She spontaniously said, she liked the version with ramdisk better. But as I asked her what she hears, she discribed what I hear too. And I can understand why she likes it, but I say it is not better.

Never used it in this configuration before. It could be, that ramdisk was a mistake, that lead in to the wrong direction. Some double checking would be alright.

Ok, just FYI :

I can easily revert to the 0.9z-2 (z-1) code, but I don't think it will be a good idea for these reasons (and I just read through the "SQ" topics from it) :

1. It is there where we gave up on Native W7;

2. It is there where we started to put RAMDisks in the chain to (maybe ??) solve something which was wrong in the first place (also see 1).

3. It is there were we started to find out that the SFS matters. And maybe most of everything.

Even when we could leave 1. and 2. behind us (because all is better in W7-SP1 now), 3 will still be the subject, and it is only solved in 0.9z-4 (not in 0.9z-3). But solved how ? that is the question ...

a. half of you can't even get it playing as intended because of a lack of sufficient memory;
b. it's hardly under your control because it's too difficult to understand;
c. too many variations exist and in combination with b. you just won't get there.

Add to this that signals really are there that the RAMDisk may not be good at all - and if you think we can sort of rap it up now, at least I moved away from the SSD and have no intention to move it back in again.

Too many variables, and too many things which are not easy to try.
One thing must be clear though : by now it is well understood why the SFS mattered in the past - as it is understood that theoretically -as how it is now (0.9z-4)) the larger it is, the better it is. This immediately conflicts with the RAMDisk (size), the amount of RAM itself, and the possibility to ever create a large SFS to begin with.

So you see, there are quite come conflicting phenomena going on right now, and I'm working hard myself to eliminate a few of these "dimensions". RAMDisk in or RAMDisk out ? that would be a first one which can solve a lot (when it can be left out). Theories say Out, but ears say In.

Next there's the now new "over the top" thing (my own subject). RAMDisk In seems to solve it, but personally I refuse to believe this really is about "over the top". I don't like smoothening (or filtering) and nobody should. I rather hear (from you) that W7-SP1 is wrong afterall, and without RAMDisk ... it actually is. Stupid thing is : I can't much discover where, apart from getting crazy of transients.
My guts tell me that I need a Vista-64 implementation so I can have enough RAM to use Straight Contiguous (which with Vista-32 just won't work here either).

Please don't get me wrong : I am really 100% satisfied at this moment, and only two (really major) things bother me :

1. I don't like the RAMDisk as a smoothening factor, never mind it brings great sound;
2. It seems to me that too few people are there who are able to contribute at the same level as others.

Ad 2.
Meaning : Many people can't get Straight Contiguous to run, and if they can it's with a (very) small SFS only, and in the end it is all apples and oranges. The other way around : those being able to use Straight Contiguous won't even try Mixed Contiguous (I bet). This includes myself ...
NOT GOOD.

So ... I'm now even thinking about a next trial version and leaving out Straight Contiguous on purpose;
The real difference between Straight C. and Mixed C. isn't large anyway (to my theories that is), while Mixed *does* allow a fair amount of SFS even in Vista-32, it will even allow for a RAMDisk going along with it, while the most imporant (I think) is : the size of the SFS *does* matter a lot. So it really is about that, and not about the "straight" thing. The latter just works contraproductive to it all.

Yep, my mind is set;
There will be a 0.9z-4-1, and it will contain Mixed and Mixed Contiguous, plus at least one new trick I'm applying myself the last few days. I won't tell what it is, but it will give you the legit thinking that Straight C. just won't be needed, because now all sounds better in the first place.
If next, people are still in doubt, at least it will be a unanimous thing (hopefully). Then we go back (perhaps to some degree).
When not, it will probably go the other way around : we'll start injecting 8Gigs of memory and implement 64 bit OSes.

I hope this is a good plan;
And I know, at this moment there should be too few people complaining to ever take the effort. But you know, one is enough really. :)

Peter

Peter, I will be waiting to hear your latest trick :)
As I already stated in the past, in my system straight contiguous with large SFS sounds significantly better than mixed
continguous with same SFS. I also find smaller SFS to sound inferior to larger SFS (at least to my ears, in my system anyhow).
For one, I would not like to see SC left out of next version but would like to see how your next trick is compared to SC rather than
just mixed/mc.

It sure does not harm to emphasize this, and I sure will keep it in mind.
Thank you,
Peter

Way too many options  :wacko: Nevertheless here's my dubious opinion.

Z4 seems to sound best for me with no ramdisk, in adaptive mode using either SC 12 sfs, or MC with 150 sfs. I give the very slightest edge to SC for slightly less edginess  :). But that's after enduring a lot of edginess caused by fiddling with all the options.

For what it's worth, I did a very limited test for the above. I used several tracks from Fleetwood Mac, Tusk. "Think About Me," "Save me a Place," and one or two others. They have very hot over-saturated? highs which seemed to come through most bearably and clearly with my chosen settings, while still keeping the great sound stage, separation (air) and balance.

As to comparing it with earlier versions of XX, I'm not going there. Earlier versions (when I was able to get them to run consistently) sounded very good at times, maybe as good, maybe better? How will we ever really know with all the variables, options, continuing updates of OS and software, arghh! Not to mention that we don't listen to common music, double arghh!

Isn't there some way we could just upload a bunch of tracks to an area (can we upload them as attachments Peter?) How about this. Everyone uploads a track or two without name or artist (eg file1, file2 in flac format) that they think is good for testing making sure we get a variety of types rock, acoustic, classical, piano, synth, heavy metal, voice etc. Then we at least pair down variables somewhat. Without names and uploading just one track per album should also make the copyright/pirating thing pretty much irrelevant.

By the way, this edition of XX has been the most stable for me contrary to all dire warnings. I've even been able to switch back and forth between SC and MC without rebooting as long as I reduced the SFS size for SC. I kept it running without any reboots for at least 4 days when using MC, a record for any version of XX for me.

Chris

 

Having lived with Peter's settings for a while, I'm now back to pretty much where I started. Ultimately I really missed the dynamics of Adaptive. SC and SFS=100 give me a pretty nice smooth sound.

Mani.

hmm ini=21 on mani sign. Is there ini's on z4?
Criss.

I tryed to started a project like this here. There was positive response but nobody except me uploaded something :( You can have my testset or share some files of your library.

http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=1489.0

I tested z2 again. This time I compared to z4 MC set to SFS=100. I used the same parameter setting for both versions. You can  look them up in my signature. Still z4 has very nice highs. There are more highs. But, and this is a big BUT, it doesnt sound right if you listen to z2. It reminds me a little on my CD-Transports. I had a Pioneer PD-S06 and a highly modifed Pioneer PD-S707. If you compared them side by side, you got to like the PD-S06, because it has a very pleasent sound. Soft "golden" highs creating a nice atmosphere. You could relax and enjoy the music. The PD-S707 had a different sound. The highs were not so soft. Also more silver then golden. At first, it sounds a little harder in the highs but if you listen to it longer, you knew what was right and wrong. The modifed PD-S707 put solid instruments in the room, there was space between them. Every note has a weight. It was better without question. But turning back to the PD-S06, I always thought: "It sounds so nice! (But it is not right)".
And that is what is going on with z4. There are plenty "golden" highs. You get impressed by the details you receive without being nerved. It is a enjoyable sound. Z2 is not so soft and has more silver highs. But if you listen to it, you see that it provides are "real" clarity that is not there with z4. There is suddenly space between the instruments. The musicians come a step closer to you with more presence and body. Also the whole sound is more dynamically.


I think the only way to find out, is to listen to it. It wont take long to recognise what is going on. As I said, it hit me like a lightning.

Just to explain what I think. I don't want to say throw z4 away. It is a new approach that is promissing. But to get someday a xx1.0 somewhere should be a cut. I think z2 is good point to do that. There could be some sort of debuged Final Version of xxz2, that marks what has been achieved. And the idea of z4 can be followed to get to xx2.0. Z2 Final Version could be used as some sort of reference, where to go and then go beyond. It will be also much easier for new people to join xx. This would be a version, where most people agree of the set up (adaptive, scheme3). So if a new guy comes, he just has to copy paste the settings and he will probably get a very good sound. This would be some sort of island where we can savely return after exploring the new stuff.

When I switched back to Z2 after a month of Z3 I was really glad for the less forward and less, somewhat harsh sound, though z3 still sounds really good. But z2 has an overall less articulate sound in all ranges that changes dramatically with changing the SFS. One can make Z2 "sparkle" with lower SFS but not, on my system, in a smooth, pleasing way. Large SFS in z2 just make all frequencies more softer and more muted; I would always look for the balance between the two for the best sound, which changes a lot with different albums. I'm afraid I probably erred on the more muted side, keeping SFS between 95-115 but that also allowed playing music a lot louder. With Z2 my focus was to eliminate harshness, which I was able to do, but I'm pretty sure the sound was still not "right".

Z4 with my current settings is head and shoulders above z2 for clarity, richness and smoothness; I'm amazed at just how much more layered the sound has become. And, as someone posted before, I can play with around 10% less volume.

Sometimes I'm not sure how Peter moves forward with such very different experiences of XX!

I read this too, but I read "through" it. Didn't know what to do with it much. But now I read this again in this post -and at a first read I thought you just repated it- and now it keeps being in my head.
Here it is the same ...

As we may remember, before we were always saying "and hey, I can play much louder with this version" ... and it was a virtue.
Now we "can" play less loud, and it is a virtue ?

But what actally is this ?

I know from before - and it is a kind of logic - that being able to play louder was about less harshness. At least here that always was a key to that. Today - and I explicitly watch that - this is no issue anymore. Instead, now it seems that there's a limit which is a more natural one : "this piano doesn't play that loud in real life" or something ...

But I am fairly sure there is also something with the bass;
I can't tell how that is with others, but if I will be receiving more bass in a next version, I will really start to wonder how it is possible;
I was at a concert a few days back, and it was there that I noticed that the poor guys were not even able to have a more loud and stiff bass than I can do in my listening room. I tried to watch the level, and could not imagine that it was really more loud than in my room. The place was quite bigger allright, but still. Before I have always been so jaleous on those basses guys, and which is so easy for them having their dedicated speaker(s). But not so anymore as it seems. I am now outperforming that ...

Somehow there is a bottom end (but it starts fairly mid) that has much more output than before. For a great deal it will be W7-SP1 related, but the "remainder" seems to come from Special Mode which jus has everything so much more under control. That same Special Mode which before emphasized details so much that the foot tapping went away. It emphasized the highs with it. But not so anymore. Something really REALLY starts to work, and I guess it can't be explained otherwise than magic to the sense of pieces of the puzzle starting to fit. Coherence ... ?

Long story short, and not sure where it comes from exactly, here the volume "can" be lower too. It is not because otherwise the music annoys; it just happens ...

Peter

For richness and smoothness I would say yes. Clarity... depends on what you mean. What I like on z2 in the highs, is it's "clarity". Voices have more presents. It is more foreward but in a good way. Also I think there is more space between the instruments. Z4 sounds smoothed and a little unnatural compared to z2. For example, with z4 the overtones of a steel guitar are more diffuse. Z2 gives a cleaner focus.

Hey Adrian !

I try my best to follow what is happening at your end, but it is a bit difficult for me;
I think I already implied some apples and oranges at your side, so asked "how and what". Even if you gave the answer, I guess you need to repeat a little more what you exactly compare. RAMDisk seems crucial here. The fact that you "need to" upconvert to 96 from 44.1 ... I exactly never heard that would do some good.

Apart from it all, you mostly are "out of line" so to speak (only meaning : usually you have a different oponion from all of the others). With this I want to emphasize that it is *not* like "thus how can you be trusted ?". The contrary !! but now I really need to judge how you judge or otherwise it can't tell me much.

I hope I can make myself clear a bit !
Peter

These are my experiences with z4 but I am sure that using a laptop with probably not enough resource has a bearing.

Firstly z4 is a big improvement over 3 to these ears and enough to keep me up late for a couple of nights going through my collection. More detail would be the main difference. Vocals particularly sound much improved with much more articulation but everything is better. Sometimes the sound can be a tad hard but there is no going back to 3.

Settings are:- Adaptive & 1024. Special never used to work (resource issue probably) but it does now however there are regular "clicks" which improve (but don't disappear) when the buffer size is increased. Mixed memory arrangement seems to work best but it is difficult to say if the differences between the 3 memory settings are that significant. Certainly compared with the improvement from 3 to 4 the differences due to the memory settings are small.

Great improvement.

Flecko Said "I tryed to started a project like this here. There was positive response but nobody except me uploaded something,  You can have my testset or share some files of your library"

I remember reading that and commented at the time. What I'm suggesting is similar but possibly simpler (see my post earlier in this thread). The question is can one attach a .flac file to a post and if so does Peter allow it (is it possible do you allow it Peter?).

If it's possible, people could just add a file at any time (no name, tag info erased, and only one track from a particular album to avoid pirating/copyright issues) and maybe explain what they listen to/for in particular and what they hear. It could be an ongoing thread and people could contribute at anytime.

Chris

Thank you very much Paul. One thing for your own improvement at this moment :


Please don't use this (Special Mode), if this is happening. You actually won't know what you'll miss more than some skipping parts which "tick";
Think about the number of samples you will be implying (latency), and how often something may be skipping per second without you noticing it.
I kept away from Special Mode for as long as ticks happened, and now they have gone here, it suddenly sounds marvelous at the same time for everything and all. Can be coincidence, but I don't think it is.

So, be careful !
Peter

In my case it can be explained easily. There is only one clock in the DI and it is a 24,xxx Mhz clock. Fits best to 48,96.. Khz. Also in theory, thats what I "heard" some times, performing asynchronous upsampling reduces jitter. Using that upsampler increases the details and the freshness in the highs by an easy noticable amount. It is little aples and oranges and just my experience, but doubling with the hiface never brought an improvement for me. I know doubling works for a lot of people. I think this could also be explained because of my hardware. The Ref7 dac uses a PLL and has also a 24,xxx MHz clock. I don't know if this clock is used with the pll or what their purpose is. Just an Idea why it sounds like that. But concerning what I hear, asynchronous upsampling can not be that bad.

Thanks!
Ok I explain:
I don't use Ramdisk for comparison.
I have both versions, z4 and z2 on my D: partition of my only Harddrive (Samsung F1)
I start both versions at the same time.
They have exactly the same settings (look at my signature), except that z4 uses clock=12ms and MC mode
I load in every xx only one and of course the same track.
Than I play the track with one version. After some time I stop and play from that exact position with the other version (For example at minute 2 second 45).
Sometimes I just hear the first 20 seconds of a track and start the track again with the other version.
Then I take the version, that I think is better and hear for a longer time.
Later I compare again to the other version.
that all can happen quit often.

I feel not offended at all but just to remind you. Last time I was out of the line, I told you that vista is not "by far better than w7". Which turned out to be true. You can argue, that I said "no difference" or "more or less the same sound". But you can imagine what expectations one can have, if everybody sais "by far better". And I already had some of the SP1 updates due to auto update.

It is always difficult to judge something objective, that is essential a subjective thing. But I do my best ;)
Z4 has that niceness (which could be just smoothing or jitter). I can totaly understand, why somebody would like it. I like it too (but not as much as z2). I just want to indicate, that there could be something wrong with it. Z2 sounds more right to me. More presence, cleaner. A bass doesn't sounds brown, it sounds black (most kinds of bass do). z4 sounds more golden in the highs and more brown in the middle, reminds me on my lovely but worse cd transport. z2 is more silver in the highs and black in the bass, more natural.

I just listened to "sade-smooth operator". I am pretty sure that if you could meassure the jitter of the two versions, z2 would have lower jitter. I can't help myself :)

Flecko
Clarification please. Are you upsampling to 96kHz in XXHE and feeding this signal to your DAC, or are you feeding 44.1kHz to DAC and letting the DAC upsample to 96kHz?
Thanks
Frank

But this is exactly why I emphasized (or tried to) this not being a negative at all. I hope to show that I listen to everybody, and I am quite sure (if not just 100%) that it's not only me wondering how you get to your findings. I am confident we will all always think "couldn't that be true ?".

but then


I won't say this explains a lot, but at least it puts things in an important perspective.
I'll leave it to that for now (must think about it), but say "thanks a lot" for your ever efforts of writing down your observations. Great.

Peter

I am curious about asynchronous upsampling. Do you mean, for example, upsampling 44.1 to 96 rather than 88.2 ?
Even more confusing part is about using 24 mHz clock or do you mean using 24 multiples clock sampling ie 96 and 192
clock input or you use 24 mHz clock input and upsample everything to either 96 or 192?

Long ago before discovering XXHighend, I used mediamonkey/Lynx AES16/ Esoteric D05 DAC. I used to have Esoteric clock output
to Lynx AES16. Mediamonkey will then upsample 44.1 file to match whatever clock input I set from Esoteric. I definitely found
44.1 with 44.1,88.2, 176 clock input sounds much better than 48,96,192 at that time.

Now aday, I don't use any oversampling at all. Mainly because my current digital front end, Playback MPS-5 convert everything to DSD2
internally. So I find that there is a bit more purity to sound when I just run everything straight through to PD without additional
oversampling from the computer end. (However, that was not the case with my old DAC, Berkeley Alpha)

That is what Adrian will mean yes, although indirectly, because "asynchronous" is not related to the "not even" sample rate as such.
But, what Adrian will do is upsample to a rate which is best for his clock, which is an 24.xxx only (and which is the base for the 48KHz sample rate base really). So, theoretically indeed it will be better to convert to the base of the clock (if there is one only, like in Adrian's case), but as I said, I have never heard of any means of upsampling being good (for SQ) in the first place. Well, not in here, and I am not talking about "Foobar people" using whatever Rabbit upsampling and who can only hold that against Foobar itself (and I skip Arc Prediction, which is what 99,9% of people like ... ehh, not Adrian).

In my opinion (though a rather dangerous "conclusion") it will be the reason why Adrian is so often obtaining different results from others. I mean, he *has* to use some means of upsampling because otherwise his DAC won't perform in the first place (it would be NOS/Filterless), and even if he doesn't himself, the filtering options in his DAC will do it for him. And both are not good ...

... which doesn't definitely say at all that "not good" is an absolute measure. So, if his DAC sounds good to him (meaning better than anything else for that price), why would there be a problem. There is one though : we can't compare results.

I am the most serious : Of what I can tell Adrian is a very good observer, but many more in here are. There has to be a reason why he judges differently, and I refuse to believe it is because of e.g. me bing less capable. But I guess the answer to this has just been found.
But keep in mind : dangerous for a conclusion without even being able to listen (but I also guess we all get rather experienced in doing so, which is mainly based on trust, and foremost : honesty).

Peter

If it is as I think, then it is because 24.xxxMHz devided by 48khz or 96kHz is a even number. Devided by 44.1 or 88.2khz is not.
The signal leaves XX with 44.1/16 and is ubsampled im my usb/spdif converter.

here is an article by benchmark about asynchronous upsampling. I didn't had time to read it myself. Maybe there is something ineresting for you/us. (I will read it later)
http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/discuss/feedback/newsletter/2010/07/1/asynchronous-upsampling-110-khz

I think it depends on what we compare. If it is using arcpred or not, doubling or not I would say you are right. So everything related to this technical point can not be judged in an absolute way. But when it comes to computer related things, like different versions of xx, it should work. If it sounds better, it sounds better. As long as the hifi system is good enough to let you hear whats right or wrong. Otherwise, you could not compare with anybody not having the same setup. Which is a problem we have for sure, but somehow it works...

It might explain something but I don't want to give up the z2 thing yet. Maybe it would help, if we first understand why Ramdisk doesn't sound good. Or why the smoothing ramdisk does, can be preceived as good but is not. Here we have theories, which I don't know (maybe you can explain it peter?). I think a similar thing is going on with z4. Then z4 and z2 could be compared. But it should be done and if you say it is not good, it is fine for me.

Bingo !

Maybe it was a typo, but at this moment I rather say :

Maybe it would help, if we first understand why without Ramdisk doesn't sound good.

:rofl:


Looking at this outside of all further context ... the "is not" is my own idea only. I only want to say : be careful not to copy my ideas as long as theories are not really theories, but empirical findings only - next trying to find theories for that.
It can just as well be that (e.g.) I have to replace my speakers !



I don't think this will be related to even numbers (upsampling "uneven" is almost as easy - and sure is as harmless as "even" upsampling (for normal filtering means that is; not for something like Arc Prediction which can do "even" only)).
The point is though : a 44.1 sample rate should not be dealt with by a 48KHz based clock. Physically it can though, but samples will be missing here and there (so that won't be the case I'm almost sure).
In the end (how I see it) it is about one thing only : it won't go without upsampling, and *now* you are stuck to it. To what degree this harms by itself completely depends on the algorithms used in the SRC (DSP in your case), but one real downside is clearly visible already : you just can't use Arc Prediction. This alone is enough to perceive the sound totally different from others, because :

a. Almost everybody uses Arc Prediction (out of free will :));
b. a determines that "something" should be done to redbook, or otherwise nobody would use it;
c. this thus counts for you too;
d. but you can't.

See ? your destiny has been determined. haha

But for some counterweight :

Ad b.
It is not said at all that Arc Prediction is the only good means to indeed do something about redbook. Otoh again : think;
Arc Prediction will overrule all the numerous means in all DACs all using this wrong means of upsampling (I leave NOS out for now). So, just because of a. above is happening , it kind of prooves that all those oversampling / SRC etc. means do not work well (by now this is just statistics). So, why would yours suddenly be a good one ? it can, but chances are not large. And IMHHetc.O they become zero when a DAC (or whatever it is in the chain) has an oscillator for one sample rate base only.
But maybe I'm thinking strange ...

No, wasn't a typo. Ramdisk sounds bad. Even if you say your theory is not a real theory, it seems to be right. With z2, it is even easier to hear as with z4.

We can discuss a lot, but you got to try it yourself. I am completly fine, if you think different.

Hmm... I experimented a bit with Z-04 on Ramdisk and on regular spinning HD.
Personally, I still prefer the sound of Z-04 on Ramdisk over on regular hard drive.
Yes, there is that smoothing effect, but to my ears, the sound is smoother, more liquid
but certainly not softer nor less resolving. Tonally, it is also slightly richer and denser. The difference is very
slight, unlike Z-03, I think. Comparing to what I hear on my analogue setup,
Ramdisk is certainly slightly closer and more pleasing to my ears.

Hi - I thought I would update my recent comments about z4 after a few days listening. I find 4 much clearer and precise than 3 and overall I can hear much more detail. Vocals are really much clearer. However the sound has a hardness to it that means I listen at a lower volume. I do not know if there is some inherent high frequency distortion or some such derived from the software or if extra detail is "pushing" my system into misbehaviour. Anyway I cannot go back to three but I it would be great to get rid of that hardness to the sound. I have tried changing settings but it does not get rid of the hard character of 4. Bit its OK at lower volume and the other improvements make it worthwhile.

All the best

This is an update after listening to z4 for a couple of weeks. There is no way I could go back to 3 absolutely no way. 4 is full of contradictions. I have tried changing all adjustments SFS everything but it does not change the basic character of the sound. Detailed - much more detail. Vocals just sound so good another layer of emotion I have not heard before - a personal performance now. It can sound hard with the volume too high but just turn the volume down a tad and all is absolutely fine. That is the contradiction - normally the sound is right or wrong at all volumes but not this time. The interesting thing is with the tendency to sound hard - I played some "difficult" recordings from the eighties. The early days of hard digital sound. They were never gong to sound good with 4 were they?. Wrong - I played "Doll by Doll" Gypsy Blood a really hard digital sound - but now for the first time hard sounds are dissected you can really hear what is going on - great and totally not what you would expect from a software release that can sound hard at a higher volume. mmm very strange and not quite like anything I have experienced before. But now 4 for me sounds really special. What will happen at the next release ???????????.

Well, I just went back to Z2 and can enjoy the music again!
It's hard to describe what's wrong with Z4 but I really don't like to listen to it.
A lower Q1 seemed to improve a bit, but my main problem is with the bass.
A drum in Loreena McKennit's The mask and the Mirror sounds in Z2 like a recognisable boom, in Z4 like whoom whroom or something not natural and irritating.
The overall sound of Z4 is velvety nice, but a bit too much, Z2 is maybe a bit colder, but for me much clearer, cleaner and natural.
With Z2 I think I can hear the acoustics  better , like real depth.
And important more like my vinyl setup.
Maybe Z2 has some colouration in the bass-region to sound more agreeable with a NOS1-DAC?
Reminds me of the coloration of a Linn Sondek which had this effect and many people liked (not me ;))

Hey GerardA, what SFS are you using in Z2? Just wondering.

And when you use SFS 1? Do that help?

 :)

Hey Boleary,
With Z2 I use adaptive, buffer 2048 and SFS 30
With Z4 I tried lower buffers, special mode and different SFS's and MC and Mixed.

BTW, did anybody try out garbage collect on/off?

No, man, but I did wonder if it would save me that trip to the back alley every Wednesday evening.....Ha!

Ok, here's a new one for a change ... :)

Yesterday I experienced a great "analogue" playback evening. Let's say I heard Moogs instead of Rolands. Bass was superb (as far as this can be judged for a few albums of listening), highs were "quiet" but with all the detail I could imagine. Say, all the most enjoyable.
Now, what did I do ?

Hmm ... had to test something for Vista-32.
No no, let's not all go back to Vista AGAIN, but maybe it's still good to share, where we are all tend to be confused anyway.

- No RAMDisk;
- SFS 29 (Straight Contiguous, and most probably you can't do this (0.9z-4-1));
- Special Mode and 32 sampes of internal latency on 2048 dev. buffersize (the latter was by accident, but so anyway);
- OS on an SSD.

I loved this.
The emphasis should be on Special Mode 32 samples of latency (32/384 output), which I really could not do before - not a single glitch heard. So, this by itself should be related to Straight Contigous or 0.9z-4-0 (but actually -1) otherwise.
Although my testing was about the SFS size in this combination, I deliberately played with this for listening, and *now* I left out the RAMDisk on purpose. The idea : bring back some of the freshness W7-SP1 exhibits (too much) without the RAMDisk. I'd swear it works ...


Alternatively, today I played with W7-SP1-64 without RAMDisk and an SFS (SC) of 100. As others reported, I'd say this helps for less annoyance (when the RAMDisk is left out), but actually I never found one second of WOW bass. Maybe I played the wrong material.
Some WAV (women attraction voiceover) : at the moment my wife said "I like this", I wanted to turn it off. I had enough. It annoys, maybe doesn't even show good highs when paying attention, and the only thing I could do tonight is watch for non-disturbances.
No Magic. No music anywhere.

Stupid computers.
z-2 tomorrow maybe.
Not to forget : I also love W7-SP1-64 with RAMDisk (SFS 40, SC). But yesterday's Vista seemed to show that "ease". Analogue ease.

Time for medical help ?

Undoubtedly Peter .. hehe

I'm guilty of zero feedback since the release of Z4-0. In all honesty I couldn't imagine being happier with what I am listening to at the moment. After a brief foray into using mixed contiguous mem management I switched to straight continuous and left it at that , as I perceived a subtle improvement. Hard to define .. just an overall feeling. With my 8GB ram I can have a 3GB ramdisk and use an SFS of 128MB.

Transients and the even tonal spread are impressive, and if it wasn't for the acknowledged "tick" at the start of each track, I'd be happy to have it called XX 1.0 from a purely SQ perspective.

Stability has not been an issue and I've got into the habit of letting the PC simply "go to sleep", then wake it with a quick press on the power button. 5 seconds later and I'm ready to queue up another album or two. Haven't had a need to reboot in a week now.

I should also point out I have stripped the OS down to bare minimum processes, using Black Viper's guide. If anyone is interested I will post a screen shot of my minimal running processes.

Regarding tweaking with the release of a new version, my philosophy has usually been to pick a day when you are in the relaxed mood to want to listen to music, then spend some time playing with the parameters until you are satisfied. Once you have achieved that, put all notion of further tweaking from your mind. Trust your initial judgement ! It is a well known phenomenon that different days will harness difference perceptions, and if you continually change things you only end up chasing your tail.

Now, I simply queue up album after album after album, and just enjoy it all :)

Cheers,

Russ ( converted tweakaholic )

Would be interested!

Russ, please do. Thank you very much.

Per

Last night they came to take me away but after sedation and kind words I was allowed back again. All those adjustments aaaarrrghhh (calm, easy count to ten .............).

I had a good play with the controls last night - and at least I won't have to do it again I can just enjoy the music now. And boy do I enjoy the music - I just cannot stop listening to 4 it sounds superb but I said that in my last post. To summarise I ended up with the following:

Mixed memory
SFS 100
Clock 10ms
Adaptive
1024 buffer

Why the above? - well simply with straight contiguous SFS has to be set to 0.2 and that stretches my laptop it works but the sound Q is not so good probably because not enough resources  (OK OK Peter I know I have to get a big butch PC soon - its on the list OK). Clock 10ms seems about right - if I reduce it I seem to lose definition /resolution (I think) again laptop struggling?. Adaptive and 1024 well it just works fine. Special is just too much of a struggle even with the buffer increased muchly - I can reduce the little ticks and pops but cannot get rid of them. So I think the above is the best compromise for a resource limited laptop. By the way my laptop should not work at all - but I installed W7 a "tiny" version in dual boot config. This "tiny" version of W7 (not SP1) is so small it fits on a CD - it is a completely stripped down version with everything taken out that is not required - this frees up a lot of resource just to keep XX happy!!!!. I always boot to Vista when I have to do anything else. So my W7 is dedicated to XX.

By the way in my last post I mentioned that the sound can be hard. Well it can BUT but only with excessive volume. Changing the adjustments makes no difference to this aspect. If I turn the volume down a tad then everything is fine - I mean really fine it sounds fantastic. I think that maybe? at too high volume my system cannot cope - maybe it is all the detail - the speed required and it cannot supply at excessive volume. This is just not a problem at all - this sounds great. Bjork has just been giving me a personal rendition!!!.

Peter what on earth did you do? this is a great improvement - totally unexpected - now I really must go to bed - OK well just one more track just one.

All the best from a very grateful serious listener!!!.

Paul


**** Update Update ****

Well I have been listening more - a lot more. I noticed there were some occasional crackles in the background a bit like listening to my old vinyl albums. I had to change the buffer size to 2048 and now no problems - I have always used 1024 before but at 4 I have to use 2048 - can't imagine why.

Hi guys,

I've been fiddling with the schemes today and also a couple of days back.  Has anyone tried scheme 4 lately?  I haven't seen many people using it, but I've been getting promising results.  More listening is needed though.

Rob.