XXHighEnd

I was wondering if anyone aside from Jud has had experience using 0.9z-7 with DACs other than the Phasure. I, of course, respect Jud's opinions/insights but he has already posted his impressions on the forum. I go back and forth with the idea of using my Peachtree Audio DACiT(I have one connected to a Sonos device for spouse-friendly computer audio) or getting a Mytek or Sonore DSD DAC to stick my toes in the DSD water(knowing full well that XXHE does not do DSD but the Mytek and Sonore DACs do play PCM). There have been maybe a dozen people overall posting their experiences with 0.9z-7 but the much larger number of 0.9z-7 software downloads tell me that that is easily a minute percentage relative to the number of lurkers out there.

For my part, I'm a few weeks away from placing an order for either a US-made "boutique" home theater PC or for Peter's dedicated high end PC. Once I do that I'll be able to try out 0.9z-7 for myself.

Esau

I myself would strongly consider both of the DACs you mention.  Have not heard either, though.

Re PC, if the "boutique" PC is expensive, there's no question I'd choose Peter's, unless you'd prefer to build it yourself.  PC parts are commodity pieces, nothing special or exotic.

I'm leaning strongly towards Peter's PC, especially since it comes with XXHE 0.9z-7 and, I assume, Bluetooth already installed, with little tweaking/troubleshooting anticipated. At the same time, I have to consider that an admittedly less powerful US-made custom build costs about 1000 USD less, not counting the additional US custom fees. Of course, you can buy other custom builds for a lot more money than the alternate PC I'm considering costs.

Esau

I'm using a Fireface 800 with my homebuilt PC and XXHE.
Before jumping into XXHE I was using a Sony SCD-1; I loved it but once I got XXHE going I never looked back,,, a couple years back now? whew... it's been a great ride of improving SQ.  I've had a Muse dac and a Stello dac hooked up to the fireface... but I like the fireface well enough alone with 192 hz which XXHe can use to good advantage.
Someday I'd like to pick up Peter's DAC.

"Less powerful" can mean a lot of things.  Specifically what is different, as far as you know?

Edit: I see you've already asked Peter himself in another thread about the differences between this "boutique" PC and his, so if you want to continue over there rather than responding here, I won't mind.   ;)

Well I have a Mytek DSD DAC sitting right behind me in my office system, alongside a NOS1. You know what? I don't think I've ever even tried the Mytek with XX - it's just been used for DSD duties with HQPlayer via a Linux box. But once I've got a few admin things done today, I'll hook it up and compare it to the NOS1.

Mani.

I'm currently sitting with both the NOS1 and Mytek in my office. I want to optimise XX settings before I make any comparisons. The NOS1 is no problem, but the Mytek I'm not too sure about. In the Mytek's USB control panel, the 'Streaming Buffer Size' is set in milliseconds - between 1ms and 16ms. In the XX's settings panel, it's set in samples. So a few questions:

1) How do figure out the optimum settings?
2) What Q setting should I choose?
3) Should I go Adaptive or Special?

Any really quick answers would be appreciated. Meanwhile, I'll just do a bit of experimenting...

Mani.

Well I'm giving up for today...

I can't use the Mytek in 'Minimize OS' mode. In normal OS mode it shows up as a KS device no problem and everything seems to work OK. But as soon as I go into 'Minimize OS' mode, it disappears. I can still see the Mytek through its USB control panel, but XX just doesn't see it. It doesn't matter if 'Keep WASAPI services' has been activated or not before minimizing the OS.

I just don't think it's worth pursuing unless I can use both DACs in Minimize OS mode.

For another day...

Mani.

Probably not it, but I thought I'd throw it out.  There's the button in settings that you can push in case your dac is using diacritical marks...have you tried activating that?

Peter, how come I don't have to activate that for the Fireface 800 ... thought I would have had to after the + messed everything up in earlier demo 9z-7.

Yeah, what a laugh ...
But it is (happened) the other way around :

For 0.9z-7 an adjustment was made so diacritical marks could be seen correctly. This is *not* your situation. That messed up with far more general things, like your RME drivers being cut at very normal characters (like +). So, the old situation has become the default, and the new (for diacritical marks) has to be set explicitly.

That's all, and most probably only confusing for you (the initiator of many cu(e)lprits. :)

It's been a long time since I logged in here, as I moved away from XXHE for non-sonic considerations.

I now have a PC/DAC set up that works very well for me and it might be time to revisit XX now that the new version is available.

Question is, can XX work with ASIO drivers? I have a EXADevices Asynch USB interface which is working very well upto 384k sample rates (much of my recent purchased music is at 96k or 192k samplerates).

Having invested in this hardware to feed a ESS Sabre dac, I am keen to get the most out of it, so would be interested to try Peter's latest and greatest version, if it stands a good chance of working.

Thanks

Mark

Hi Mark,

I'm afraid the answer is No and will stay like that. Sorry ...

Regards,
Peter

Peter

Thanks for the swift reply.

Not a problem, we each choose our path and in doing so exclude alternatives.

Keep up the good work.

Regards

Mark

Hi,

I use JKDAC32 (https://sites.google.com/site/hifacemods/home-1/jkdac32).
It was connected to my own built tower PC, now - to Dell laptop.
Regarding sound: since I have laptop overall sound is cleaner, less dull and more sophisticated than from tower PC.
Otherwise no problems with XX and JKDAC32 (it has custom KS drivers) and all works 100% stable.

Ivo

Peter,

Did not know you offer dedicated PCs with XX onboard? Is there a pricelist somewhere online?

Ivo

Ivo,

There's not even an officialy topic anywhere. I have prepared one, but without putting that up we already are too busy with the PC's ...

But price is 1860.

Please don't ask further in this topic. :)

Peter

Hi,
Just put in my experiences with 7-5 and Audiophilleo2 with NAD M51 dac.
I really enjoy the sound, so open and clean!
Only soft cracks when changing the volume via the DAC. I use the NAD M51 DAC also as pre, the 35bit is used as a digital volume control.
Maybe lateron this year I will try the Phasure dac. But so far I really enjoy music listening with XXHE.
kind regards, Arjan