XXHighEnd

Hey Peter - For a while I have been focused on setting up and tweaking my "new" speakers and as a result I have not made any changes to XX settings which I had thought I was happy with.

So last night I was thinking that the sound of my system was a tad hard and forward (actually a bit more than a "tad"). I changed my XX settings to those in your signature and what a difference!! - much much better now. The improvement is particularly noticeable with string quartets (trying to get to grips with Schoenberg and Berg!!!). I can't remember XX settings making such a profound difference before - maybe it is W8 or maybe my new speakers who knows but very happy with the result.

Paul

Peter's settings do sound great; however, Q1 at 30 causes Hi Res stuff here to stop in the middle of a track. I posted about this weeks ago. An alternative which seems to provide a similar sound is to set the clock res to .5, Q1 to 14, but keep Q1 factor at 10 and, lastly, Q5 to 5. All other settings identical to Peter's. I also like the responsiveness of the GUI with the lower Q1 setting. Not sure if these settings sound as good as Peter's but they certainly sound very good here.

I think I vented my "real" settings at some stage, but/and actually they are the same as Brian just mentioned.
Must adjust my sig ...

Peter

Hi Brian - I have just loaded your settings and they sound fine. Previously I did have a problem with hi res at Q1=30 and I will see later if that is fixed.

The main thing is that strings now sound very very good - before I have to say they seriously upset the cat next door. And OK Mani unlikely to be as as good as SET/Horns but it is as good as I have heard here now.

Thanks

Paul

Right, it's not like I made them up out of thin air: http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2657.0

 :)

Ha ha well I did read that post at the time but set Q5=3 and it sounded good at the time. I guess I forgot about the inconsistency warning. Sure my system sounded good for sometime but it went off in big style (washing machine and full moon together probably). Now it is fine though.

Thanks anyway.

P

Following Peter´s settings I´ve discovered a dramatic difference depending on the clock resolution value.

With this settings, which like others I´ve also found to be the best ones:

Q1=14, Q2,Q3,Q4=0, Q5=5, xQ1=10

SFS:120 (max 120)

XTweaks: Balanced Load: 45/ Nervous Rate: 100/ Cool when Idle:1/ Provide Stable Power: 1/ Utilize Cores always: 1

(See the complete settings in my signature)

If I use Clock Resolution at 0.5ms the sound is much more defined and 3D than if I use 1.0ms. With 0.5ms the background is blacker, the bass is more defined and vibrant and still the sound is silky smooth.

This is my best sound so far but it is reached also in combination with the other important settings like the use of XXHE and Playback Drive in Ramdisk.


Juan

Hi Juan,

Could you please share your Ramdisk settings?  I've never used a Ramdisk and am only brand new to XX and the NOS1.  Is there somewhere here that I could find out how to do this?

Regards,

Anthony

Yes I'm intrigued with ram disk and its implications. I downloaded Imdisk but can't get it to work. When I click on the icon in control panel it uninstalls. I do see that putting XXhighend and playback in ram disk is an advantage speed wise. Music wise speed has always been an advantage. I think this does need explaining more.

Hi Anthony,

I´m using a special software created by Alain (AlainGr) and as he is now on vacation would be better if we wait until he returns to ask him about it. This software permits to create two ramdisks at the same time, it places XXHE in one ramdisk and the Playback Drive in the other one. It works beautifully well, so my advise is to wait for Alain.

On the other hand to get the usual Ramdisk, (when I used it it was only for Playback Drive) you can do it this way:

Go to DRDataram and download the free software http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk (http://memory.dataram.com/products-and-services/software/ramdisk) 

To install it you have to bring back PC from minimized into normal mode. Previously you have to install Microsoft .NET 4 platform. If your PC is not connected to internet you can download an 'offline' installation found here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24872 (http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=24872)

Follow this steps:

- Change minimized mode to normal mode

- Install .NET 4

- Install RamDisk and choose either FAT16 or FAT32.

- Windows should report and list new HDD. Rightclick mouse format HDD to NTFS and 512b clusters (smallest)

- Try new HDD in XXHE (choose it for 'playback drive')

- Engage 'minimize OS' again

Best regards,
Juan

Thanks Juan, in searching the web some people suggest Imdisk is faster whether sonically this makes a difference.

Does Imdisk require .Net4 to work?

Is the playback ram drive 2g and XXhighend and data 500mb from your signature correct?

Perhaps we need a separate ramdisk subject topic unless I've missed it.

Interesting comparison here between different ram disks

http://www.overclock.net/t/1381131/ramdisks-roundup-and-testing

The IM disks seem to work fine here, followed the instructions on the site and it worked immediately. AFAIK I did nothing after the WIN8 install wrt DotNet.
Maybe important: I installed them OUT of Min OS thus in NORMAL OS. Running the whole package left me with two icons on the desktop. With the "ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver" you can make and delete disks of bring them back from an image.

They all show up after booting. Well, with the side note that after rebooting into win8 from leaving win 7 one of the two disks does not start on my system.

I'm experiencing some strange stuff on WIN8, which could be related to having XXHE on a ramdisk. With XX on the normal spinning OS disk I have less anomalies.

Since WIN8 is interactive as hell, I think I get the best sound with both XX and the playbackdrive on seperate drives. I still have to dig further for an SQ in WIN8 that suits me and might come to a different conclusion in the end (if I succeed into an end :grin:).

Regards, Coen

I use Imdisk but in someway modified by Alain making it easy to work with it. It creates two virtual disks named like two floppy discs A and B, you can give them the values you want but I gave them 2Gb for the Playback Drive and 500Mb for XXHighEnd/XXData. I gave this values because although previously I was using 24Gb of Ram now I downsized to 16Gb in order to use as less power as possible from the PSU, I´m just testing it and maybe I´ll return to 24Gb to give a bigger size to the Playback Drive. As I suggested, I would ask Alain about it when he returns from vacation one of these days, I´m sure he can give a much better explanation than me on how it works and how can it be installed.

Just in case you want to go ahead by yourself here you have information about Imdisk: http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk (http://www.ltr-data.se/opencode.html/#ImDisk)

Best regards,
Juan

I managed to get Data ramdisk working and sure is better sounding aside from the extra wait for music to load.

How can I get two ram disks working the other with Xxhighend in it?

Just add one with the "ImDisk Virtual Disk Driver" utility (also on the IMdisk site). They even both seem to boot if you check "virtual disk drive access image directly" AND boot from WIN8 into WIN8.

And use a different drive letter off course.

In the timebar thread Peter advices to have the XX program IMDisk at 2Gigs (minimum?). For now this seems to cure some problems (not shure yet).

Regards, Coen

This setting is driving me nuts. I suspect PE of adding hardness and zip on loud passages of the music. Occasionally it gets nasty.
Turning it off the sound looses some naturalness and colour, and that is a pity since WIN8 is allready very low on that quality (here). Next to sounding less "hard" and more pleasant, it gains some momentum and dynamics, but thats not the weak spot of WIN8.

Cant make up my mind here.

Regards, Coen

I am not sure about this myself and I was surprised when Peter answered that it needed to be bigger... I ran some tests and my conclusion is that:
- if you only use WAV files
- if you turn "Copy to XX-drive by standard" OFF

Nothing will be copied on the XXHE ramdrive, so it does not need to be that big.

This "going thru" the XXHE drive seems to happen when the initial format is not from WAV files. If that is so for you, then yes, the ramdrive capacity needs to be higher. 

In fact, I could have mine a lot smaller than 512MB, since it only receives XXHE and XXDATA and all my files are already in WAV format.

(Peter will correct me if I am wrong).

Alain

I found the effect of peak extension music dependend. On tracks with high compression it can do wonders creating a 3D soundstage but with good recorded tracks it adds too much hardness.

Using a RAMDisk (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2695.0).

With this notice :


... that this is not by guarantee or explicit design and may even change due to found bugs. So this is not in the Tutorial I linked to above, but after you have read it you will see that it is wrong habit anyway to anticipate on things you thought to be, while they are not - if not today then tomorrow.

Peter

No.

All,

I like to make a remark on the RAMDisk stuff;

I notice, from this topic, that all iss presented in some sort of wild fashion nobody will be able to deal with well. Let's say I don't like it this way. And oh, nobody needs to apologize for it - it just happened this way, but I still need to point out that this won't work well. So, example (and again, nothing explicitly wrong but please think about it in the future) :

Someone comes up with IMDisk. But this happens in private.
Someone else (the adressed, me) starts to use it. He even puts in in his Sig (this is still me).
I don't think that anywhere a topic exists about this IMDisk and how to install and use it.
Now someone proposes a topic and even a batch file for it, but I don't like it much. This is accidental but it prevents from that topic being there.
Do notice that you won't find a word about IMDisk anywhere, but it is in my Sig.
Now another private communication starts, and a next person gets hold of some insight. Nothing wrong here.

But was it "wrong" (wrong-ish) that the people involved (this time not me) publically talk about it "all over the place" (when deemed necessary) without revealing the real insight. Thus, when someone explicitly asks about how to use it (see this topic) there's just no answer (by none involved). And no, also not from me because I don't even like to be involved. I like IMDisk for its SQ qualities, speed of use and maybe more, but it's a wackey thing TO ME.

It goes as far as while not answering, in the mean time referring to just another type of RAMDisk to solve the problem (possiby of not being able to answer). I think this is strange.

So, to be clear, Alain has provided great help in setting up IMDisk, after he was the first to come up with it either. Alain, you know I don't want to be involved in this, and after the posts in this topic emerge you ask me again. The answer is still No. I use it myself indeed, even after know knowing how buggy it is. This does not mean though that I will explicitly tell people how to use it because the "how" is sort of beyond me.
You though can do what you want. You can even create a topic for it, which I already told you. And yes, I understand that when you don't have my real consenus you are reluctant to do so. This too is great (decision). Still, with my emphasis on that you can do what you want *and* receive the credits from me (and others for sure), what should not happen is that there's half-talk about it like not answering upon questions you actually provoked yourself (well, through Juan maybe, but the originator is not him).

Please read closely (if possibky from my words at all), because I say again that no apologies are needed because nobody did one thing wrong. I just explained the outcome as seen through my eyes. This looks like "I have the best playback but I can't tell how because I'm not sure aout the how" (this would be Juan's message).
So, a racing accident.

All IOW, put up that topic now, if *that* message wasn't clear yet. But no half solutions please, and with means which can work for everybody. Let's keep in mind : what is a piece of cake for me and you, can be nightmares to others.

Lastly, referring to that Tutorial again, and with the explicit notice that IMDisk implies all sorts of chaos - not even recognized by me after months although I have been ready a dozen times to post about it but was not sure - the ONLY allowed implementation of IMDisk is with the advised max sizes in that Tutorial. And hopfully you see that I made this Tutorial on your advice, which should prove that I am all WITH you instead of against you.
So create that topic now and I will even jump in constructively when needed (but I don't think that is needed). And please, don't ask me off line whether it's okay, because I can't spend *that* time. You know it.

All summarized on IMDisk, by now I say that for RAMDisks the Playback Drive must be 2.4GB (I had 2GB in the Tutorial at first) and the XX Drive must be 2.8GB.
Do notice that this is all to be on the safe side and because IMDisk just overwrites instead of errors when the RAMDisk is full.
This does NOT assume Hires. See Tutorial.

Best regards,
Peter

:(

:)

Yah... I know ;)

Just post those batch files Alain (new topic). I am serious ...

Peter just posted as I was about to send this:

 So, if we are done making faces  :), I am eagerly awaiting a new thread that contains a link to a batch file for installing two IMdiscs, such as the one Juan described!

Yes, and we DO support it to all the extend needed. But it really needed that Tutorial. Not by my idea, but by Alain's.
So I hope that will help to get all decently started.

Peter

Well ok then, but it has to be accompanied by a few explanations. I will post as I did for someone and hope to be corrected where I would wander...

Alain

Well ram disk has opened a new can of worms. But using it in the playback drive field has increased SQ in my system by a large margin so much so I'm happy to only be able to load 20mins of 24/192 music files and play.

For a more "analogue" sound, I ve been listening with the following settings: Q1@30, Q1factor@10, Q5@5, Q2-4@0,SFS@60, clock res @1.25. Looks like these settings are very similar to those that Alain has in his signature.