XXHighEnd

Hello,
with the new phase alignment feature we all are enjoying a new dimension in SQ : a full bodied and rich sound with an unbelievable clarity. But at the same time some of us are suffering plops when the music stops and this is a bite like an anticlimax. In my case this is worsened because I need to keep the attenuation level at -9 to get enough volume headroom.( BTW Peter, I don't know if it is technically possible, but if PA could engage at -6 it would be wonderful ).
But let's get to the point! If you down the volume slider to minimum in the Prodigy panel before the music stops the noise is almost non-existent.
It's a no ideal compromise solution but I think it's better than nothing.

Maxi

Hi Maxi,

What is the maximum net buffer size you can achieve with the Prodigy?
So, Device Buffer Size x Q1 x Q1Factor.

Try that without Phase Alignment and let me know.

Regards,
Peter

Hello Peter,
the maximum device buffer in Prodigy panel is 1024 and currently Q1 is 14 and Q1 factor is 4.
Without PA active I've never had problems and whith PA active the only issue is the plop at stopping. I've never tried to change the volume in XX when running because I am sure there will be a noise.
Regards
Maxi

But is that the answer to my question ? I don't think so. Thus, it is good to know what your current settings are, but I want to know what you can still play with for max settings there. Ok ?

Sorry Peter,
I didn't understand you well. I think your are asking for the maximum settings before some error message appears.
With 1024( maximun for Prodigy HD2 ), Q1 14 and Q factor 9 appears the following message:
" Because  the product of Device Buffer Size Q1 level and Q1-Factor. is higher than 122880, possibly only one track will play in Attended Mode. Continue?"

 When I try in unattended mode the message is as follow:
"Your SFS is too low to allow Unattended Playback. The equation is that 4128768 to be smaller than 2000000"

 After that, I have to set the SFS at 6 to play. Before it was at 2.

I hope this is the information you request.

Best regards,

Maxi

Yes, you are in the good direction now. Thanks.

Okay, now, never mind the message for Attended; you are not going to use it anyway (but you sure can try it to test your stops (just press stop at some stage). Now :

With your SFS=6 you actually reached a *minimum* for that combination. So, when you allow yourself for now to set the SFS higher (remember, 60 is a recommended setting) I still want to know what your max net buffer size is. Remember, this must play. So, not only avoid error messages (again, don't mind the message for Attended), but it must play well (SQ left alone for now).
Thus, set SFS to 60 and now what can the other parameters be (what is the max product of the 3 buffer parameters).

?

Hi Peter,
Sorry for the delay. At SFS 60 and device buffer 1024 I can go as far as Q1 30 and Q1factor 40 without problems. So 1024x30x40=1.228.800... I think

Maxi

Ok, good. Now look what happens with Phase Alignment and Stop. Assumed that no plops are there (but a looong delay in everything), no work your way back until plops emerge again. Of course you can let it be as it is, and notice that this too is SQ related.
And oh, I am sure you can set the Device Buffer Size to 4096 as well (all 4 times larger again).

At working your way back, don't make too small steps. Just half it each time.

Notice that you will hear a large repeat at the end now and which repeat doesn't even end at the real end (like when a track normally ends playing).

All can be done with Attended. It is only that you now can play one track at the time.

Good luck !
Peter

Hi Peter,

I looked for my maximum net buffer size and I found that it is at SFS=60 and DBS=4096: Q1:14 and Qx:32

The sound is great also but the delay is big. Now, as you said to phantomax, I have to work the way back but I don´t understand well if I have to downsize the Qx factor or the SFS or both.

I observed that if I restart XX there is no crash at the start of the sound, otherwise the crack is there the same way as it is when I use Q1:14, Qx:1 and SFS:2.0

Juan
 
PS:

-Qx can´t be set at 2, it is impossible, it jumps between 1 and 3.

-The XX screen reappears as minimized when I use Alt+X, that happens once in a while, not always.

Use up and down arrow ...

Not the SFS. That remains as a last one to pull down as far as it goes without a message telling you it is too small (see Maxi's post).
But Juan, this is not related to you. You have no "plop" at stopping.


You mean : when the UI is up and you play Attended that crack is there (x times), but when you close XX and restart, it is not there at a first attempt ?
Sure ?

Hi Peter,
with Phase Alignment plops at stopping are still there ( and quite loud indeed ) with that settings (Device buffer 1024 SFS 60, Q1 30, Q1x 40) :no:

Maxi

Ok, I was just trying to see differences in SQ.


That happens with this settings: SFS60 an Q1:14 and Qx:32.

I play always as Unattended and if I play a track sometimes , not always, there is crack a little inside the track (a couple of seconds inside) not like before with the other settings (Q1:14, Qx:1, SFS:2) that the crack was at the same time when the track start.
But if I restart XX the crack is never there. Remember this is at SFS60 an Q1:14 and Qx:32.


Juan

Sorry, the crack is there again, I thought that restarting XX it was disappeared but not.

Juan

Dear Peter,

I wish to join in to this discussion. I considered myself relatively lucky about crack, plop and tick syndrome with PA engaged.

At attended playback with net buffer of 4096x15x1 and SFS of 2, the only annoying sound I have is crackkkkk at the first start of any track. But if I stop that track and hit play again. No more crack. I think this is normal. Hitting stop did not really generate annoying plop but rather some sort of echo sound (improved at SFS of 20). Changing digital volume may or may not generate plop depending on track played.

I have not tried playback drive though. Still lag behind most of us here since I spend most of the time enjoying pure, silky smooth, live like music in my listening room. With dim lighting, seems like my speakers are not existed.

Best regards,
Praphan

It wasn't brought up yet, but it is true that a next start of the same album does not exhibit the crack. So be careful with your testing of this.
And indeed it will be what Juan experienced.

Thank you Praphan.
Peter

I got the plops too at the end, really loud!!!!
This happened after I changed buffer from 4096 to 1024, SFS from 60 to 2 , Mixed, rest default.
The sound is really amazing, more inner detail, like you can hear easily if it is Whitney singing or an imposterer.
(Not that I tried this ;) )
But those plops at the end need to go, so what is the  directions we have to go to get them out? Higher Buffer, SFS, Q, Qfaktor(what's that?) or? More memory, faster processor?

Eh, what about reverting that ? :yes:

In addition I can say that from theory Mixed is not the best for this, because it is really slow. Hard to explain further, but you might want to try Straight Contiguous as a first attempt to solve it (and merely to learn from).

Regards,
Peter

No more plops at sttoping. After trying different settings with Z7-3  finally I could do it: SFS 4 Q1 30 Q1x 4. These are very good news because getting up to down the volume slider in the Prodigy panel before every stop/end was quite annoying.
 :goodjob:
But at the same time I have notice something weird: moving that volume slider when XXHE is playing produces a noise like if it was an age-worn potentiometer. I have noticed too that that kind of VU meters in the Prodigy panel doesn´t show the real levels anymore  as they are always at maximum while playing. :wacko:
Some Prodigy's users out there with the same issues?

Best regards

Maxi

Hi Maxi,

To me this looks like the Prodigy's driver volume fights the Windows volume. So, one of them is fooled by the XXHighEnd output and settles on e.g. -20dB (which might be false) while the other thinks it is -22dB. This is no problem as long as neither volume slider is used. But as soon as one of them is used -and they are connected internally- they both want to settle for their own setting and they bounce upon eachother (therewith really the volume changing rapidly - and which might be what you hear for "noise").

You can easily check whether this is caused by Phase Alignment (which you did not suggest at all) by deactivating it and looking at it again.

Regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

I´ll check later if it depends of PA being active or not ( I think yes ) but for sure in the previous version ( 9z 7-0 ) there were no noise with PA active in unattended mode ( I kept the Prodigy panel active to control the volume ). But I must say that I never used the XXHE volume control before because I was afraid of the presumed noise. With this version I felt more confident to try it and is totally silent. Only in unattended mode there are little ticks and delay but I think is as it should be. So maybe is time to forget the Prodigy panel and that's it.

Regards
Maxi