XXHighEnd

Major breakthrough ... :yes:

First some credits :
SeVeReD because of his wonderful evaluation of version 0.9d vs. 0.9h and his effortless time he has put into that;
Gerner because of his (mainly offline) explanations and sparring going against that;
soundcheck for his wonderful means of being cosy at a meeting after again, effortless sparring on the best audio playback.

These three people made me see a means of how playback quality could be influenced, which started just some 40 hours ago ( http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=159.0 )  :love:

I want to emphasize once more how important it is for me (and yourselves, hehe) to express yourselves in any detail you can find, like e.g. SeVeReD did in the topic I referenced to. Without that it would be me only, and it would bring a minor part only on improvements. So here it is :

This applies to Engine#3 only.

From the combination of the three people mentioned I could derive that a certain "parameter" influences sound quality majorly, while I myself on my own did not hear the difference so far. It should according to my own theories, but I just couldn't hear it. Obviously it needs the attention to certain music or tracks where things go wrong, or just make *the* difference.

Atually you might need front loaded horn speakers to get the real hunch of what's happening, but since "things" are happening anyway, I think *anyone* can notice, although I would not not how then.

Front loaded horn speakers have the kind of annoyance of being subject to resonances. Not all over the place, but just at certain frequencies and special combinations subject to the properties of the horn concerned. You can hear them as a distortion or you just don't (a bit similar to the color wheel of DLP projectors). And mind you, this just might be the very (a)live like why such a horn brings joy.
But it can go wrong big time also ... See http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=160.0

Version 0.9i holds a parameter "Q1" that is able to vary this. As you might expect from the reference above : the lower the better. But beware, there may be drawbacks. All this is jitter related, and there might not be one setting that suits all (types of music).

Version 0.9d vs. 0.9h pointed out that phase is highly related to this all. So much, that I felt it was necessary to shift Absolute Phase 180 degrees as an option.
Twisting Absolute Phase means : blowing becomes sucking. This is related to punch. So if you feel you are in lack of punch, check Invert.
Edit : Careful ! : http://www.phasure.com/index.php?board=2.0

There are so many things related here that I already know I have to add "Edits" to this posts. So watch them.
Anyway, what might happen during the process of lowering or highering the Q1 slider, is that Absolute Phase will change. It will have treshholds, and they depend on your DAC. Passing the threshhold theoretically will imply that at that moment (position of the slider) you will have a bit of nothing. Somewhere further (upper or lower) there will be the most impact. Hard to explain and possibly inaudible for you.

The best thing to do at changing the slider would be to Stop playback (the Stop button) and press Play again. Do note that just changing the slider will have implications on the next track played (just the next in the Playlist sequence), BUT the workout will be different. This is kind of deliberate, but maybe merely because it would need another explicit setting whether you'd want "it" to happen or not. Again hard to explain, but the difference is the initilization of the DAC with consistent platyback throughout the Playlist and choosen settings, versus the initialization (and applied first track) and different appliance for the second and next track. I did not test this, but there is a theoretical difference ...


On the way I allowed the priority for Engine#3 to be changed. Just set the Thread Priority to "High" which can't workout worse IMO. Leave the Player Priority at "Nothing".
Additionally found as an issue, was that the ToolTips accordingly told that the priority was changed immediately after applying it, which appeared just not to be so, and which happened after the start of the next track really. Now it does immediately indeed.

Furthermore, now a warning message indicates that previous settings have been lost, which always happens if an upgrade is installed later than a week or so from the previous "install".
Also, the issue going with this, about the tracknames having a width not respecting the coverart displayed (at first install or the first time startup after an upgrade), is solved.

Edit : The data on the track currently playing (like track length) has been moved to the Info tab. In due time another soluition for showing e.g. the track length will become available.


Both the Q1 slider ad well as Switching Absolute Phase 180 degrees (the Invert checkbox) are not applied instantly. Fot the Q1 slider, see above, and for the Invert checkbox counts that it is applied at the next track, and that it will not influence sound quality by any means because of the processing. So, sure it influences the sound, but not because of any processing needed to twist the Absolute Phase.

Lastly, there is this :
The 0.9d and 0.9h versions were very different for sound quality. Now, if you want to compare those versions i.e. just have them back by means of this 0.9i version, choose these settings :

0.9d :
Q1 slider = 14
This is not 100% similar to 0.9d, but what has changed more in there (opposed to 0.9h) should not matter. If it does anyway, please let know.

0.9h :
Q1 Slider = 24
This would be 100% similar to 0.9h.
When you additionally check the Invert checkbox and therewith invert Absolute phase, you could have best of both worlds 0.9d and 0.9h.

When you pull the Q1 slider downwards opposed to setting 14, leave the Invert checkbox unchecked as a base. When you pull the Q1 slider upwards opposed to setting 24, IMO you should check the Invert checkbox.
The stuff in the middle is up to you (and somewhere there will be a treshhold).

Happy tweaking !
 :party: