XXHighEnd

Some say that today, Oct 15 2015, is doomsday for our by now precious Windows 10 10074 build. All will cease working etc.;
It will not.
Windows 10 build 10074 expiration (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=3322.0).

But anyway something had to be done and it is only that we have been waiting for a newer formal release than the cr*ppy 10240 build. But nothing seems to happen in that realm.

With Oct 15 in sight, I decided to try a few things with 10240 after all, especially because it can just as well take a year before something happens on the MS side. Or maybe MS is dead by then. But alas.
Starting last Saturday and ending yesterday evening and a 100++ reboots further, I have 10240 where I want it, but OMG what a mess.
I actually had given up because of problems I could not overcome, but yesterday early morning I sat down for it again, and 12 hours or so later I listened to it in full blown MinOS Mode.
It is now only a few other things in XXHighEnd holding back, like finishing the Tidal functionalities, mainly in the search area and how to improve vastly on Tidal-search itself.

Interestingly, at this moment I have W10-10240 running on 280 MHz (was 430 MHz at minimum). I am not sure yet whether I unconsciously triggered something in the "buggy" PC/BIOS/OS combination that now further brings down the processor speed (and that e.g. W10-10074 can also do it), or that it is just 10240 inherent.
Not sure what to do with it SQ wise, because I have been playing with an SFS of 0.09 the past week (on 10074), and this really is too much (too few) of it now (0.40 seems to be safely the minimum, at this processor speed).

People can start installing Windows 10-10240 with no single guarantee about any further (newer) builds. I am NOT, read : never ever going to test those, unless it is an official release again. There's just too much involved.
10240 is fine now, since I made it fine, that is, if it is allowed to again miss the Start Button stuff in MinOS (the normal click one - not the rightclick as we know it from Windows 8.1 - that one is fine (opposed to 10074 where that too easily stops working)).

What you would NOT like is creating a Windows 10 (10240) from upgrades from other Windows versions. I'm inclined to say : that too is not supported because it is just impossible. And once again, if you follow the Net on what all can occur with people (including the inability to even switch on the PC) then that is a reason alone to not want that. But anyway, you WILL end up with a lousy installed system, while this is about audio. Don't.
Sadly, and obviously, only such upgraded systems are for so-called free. Thus, you loose your e.g. Windows 7 SP2 license and instead you will have a Windows 10 license (W7 is now rendered useless). One real solution to keep it free : Upgrade after all, register (activate) that license, wipe the disk and now install a clear (10240) version. The Microsoft servers will now know that you activated previously on the same computer.
They say. :swoon:

What I did :
I installed the OS, ignored the question during install to Activate (I don't even have a Key) and wherever it asks for it again, I ignore it. So KNOW that this can be done easily, although I have not read about it. I have this one running since Saturday (or maybe Sunday - I forgot because of quite some re-installs) and of course I keep on setting the date back. Kind of good habit. Haha.
And might it keep on working like this, then I don't feel to be illegally acting, because Windows 10 *is* for free when you upgrade, and I can't run two OSes on this very same PC at one time. And since I was running a formal W8 version on it ...

When people have questions - don't hesitate.

Regards,
Peter

sounds good, will try it immediately.

Don't want to read all the manuals.
Installation in a new folder and how to activate?

Thanx
Joachim

Hi Joachim,

Of course I mostly thought about you. :yes:

When there (will be version 2.03) installation is as usual (so yes, new folder) and assumed this is (in your special case) on your existing 10240 install, Activation should still be OK.
But if not, you know the procedure (free for everybody who paid for 2.xx once).

Best regards,
Peter

And Joachim, I have a question for you too :

One of the things I at first gave up upon, was getting RDC (RDP) to work. I just thought "oh well, I'll see about this later" and continued with the other stuff.
To my surprise, when all was finished, RDC worked too.

I sorted out the difference and all I can tell is that the difference is between Normal OS (RDC not working) and MinOS (RDC working).

Do you have RDC working ? (obviously in normal OS)
And if so, do you recally what you needed to do to get it working ?
All I can think of is some kind of protection that isn't operative in MinOS. But what ? Firewall is on (the system told me it is necessary, but that did not help).

Thanks,
Peter

I didn't test this yet, anyway it looks as you can use your win 7 or 8 Key to activate a fresh 10 install. Not bad!


http://www.neowin.net/news/windows-10-activation-made-easier-allows-you-to-use-windows-7-or-8-keys-for-clean-install

Ha !
Now *that* is good news. And only invented yesterday ? :)

Of course now I wonder whether that can be let loose on our 10240 build ...

Fralippo, thank you so much for sharing this !
Peter

Peter,

You mention that as soon as we have an "official" Windows 10 activated, we can't revert to whatever the OS version was ?

So if I had Windows 8 before...
- That was cloned on another drive
- Upgraded to Windows 10 (build 10074) (was not from a clean install)
- If I put back my Windows 8 drive back in my PC

Will it still work and OR will it have been deactivated ?

Regards,

Alain 

Alain,

I can't be sure, but officially and obviously you can not use the Windows 8 any more. But to give you an example :

True, I always used an official W8 on my Audio PC. So yes, I have a Key for that.
Small problem : I never activated that W8 and nothing even asks for it. Possibly because I never connect to the Internet.

Two options :
a. I can't activate my W10 with that Key because it was never used to activate anything anyway;
b. I can use it for activation, but obviously no single way that it will render my W8 OS (disk !) useless because I never connect that to the Internet anyway.

And when I am forced to activate my W8 first, then undoubtedly it will be rendered useless. But still :
If I disconnect it from the Internet (hey, I have to reboot into the W10 install, right ?) then how can something get damaged to that OS ?
Am I there now ?

Maybe not, because first I wonder what happens to my W10 to begin with. The 10074 nagged twice per day or so about Activation, which screen it couldn't enter because it was so buggy or because of MinOS otherwise. And this 10240 ? I already find it odd that I could skip the Activation (in order to do that later). This was really a big surprise to me and feels like a bug again. In very big letters it says "Hey, it is time to activate your Windows !!" and next I press a little link that says "not now".

Again we'll have to wait and see. And otherwise it will cost a 190 euros or so (here it does and is way more expensive than W8 and W7 and such).

Peter

Hi Peter,

I've never used RDC until now. Tablet is too small for my convenience.

I think Jud was waiting for this release also since a couple of weeks.
I'm eager to listen to this release.
Thanx for your effort.

Joachim

Hi Peter,

I understand. My Windows 8 was activated a long time ago, but once it was, internet was disconnected. I may try to see what's happening, but as you say, as long as it is not connected to internet, who knows ?

Alain

Dear all,

Now I am VERY disappointed ...

Day before yesterday, when all was finished, of course I wanted to play with it as well. But while I removed an USB pen I used for several thingies I started play and ... nothing. No wonder because I had been using this same USB pen with a bit of music on it to test some tracks, and since I did not arrange for my network shares yet and since it was late ...
I put back in that USB pen and played the music from there.

a. I was soon fed up with that music because I couldn't find my taste for the evening (or couldn't try enough variation);
b. Having the USB pen in the PC does not seem the best to me.

During the two hours or so I had for the evening, I couldn't find "it". Well, never mind.

The next day, yesterday, I set up the shares and yesterday night I unconsciously started playing. There was nothing in my mind that thought about the possibility something could be wrong.

But within 15 minutes I got anoyed again, because I still couldn't find anything to play.
Now that's a bad sign of course ...

I ran into fairly recently obtained "demo" tracks, and for the life of me could not think of why. So there we go again.
All sounded strange and never made for a purpose, so to speak. Then I found that more familiar music wasn't "working". It was even hard to tell the why. But I noticed a strange high-pitched layer.
All wasn't in a proper balance - I was sure.

What I was a sort of disappointed about, is that I couldn't dial in my settings. I think I earlier talked about the SFS of 0.4 which was required to let play things glitchlessly, and this opposed to the 0.09 I used with 10074, not knowing where the underlimit is. Anyway, this was still not possible at all, despite I highered the processor speed to 390MHz (couldn't set it to 430).

Meanwhile I had seen a most strange behavior of the processor cores. Well, actually day before yesterday I had been observing that already, but thought it could have happened because of the too low processor speed (280MHz). Like my affinity appointment(s) (what runs on which processor) just did not work, some times.
Also, yeterday evening I ran a couple of times in a situation that XXHighEnd would start up from Unattended, but was dead for the remainder. The playback hogging the whole system or something.

Something must be totally wrong (after all) and now what to do.

Well, within 3 minutes I had 10074 running again, and oh boy ...
All the finesse and delicacy and well, all the music was back right away.
It was now easy to see where 10240 is off ... it is all super smeared but in a strange rough way. No lightfooted music comes from it and btw all sounds a tad too far away as well (never a good thing if you ask me).

I think it will be impossible to make something out of this. And somehow I feel that life is too short to try and be annoyed most of the time.
So if we have 10074 anyway ... (Re: Getting the W10 build 10074 and nothing else (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=3253.msg35142#msg35142))

Of course I am not going to remove the functionality, so when XXHighEnd 2.03 is ready you can try anyway.
But NOT advised.
Btw, possibly one could observe this 10240 as still better than Windows 8, but be sure to never have listened to 10074 in full glory (and then with that low SFS setting I discovered only recently).

Regards,
Peter

Kind of predictable but anyway.

Have to say I'm running xxhighend, W10 10074 on a separate drive, no internet, sounds great.

But running W10 latest version with Spotify on another. As much as I struggle with Streaming I have discovered music old and new I never knew existed regardless of the sound. I am running Spotify upsampled to 24/192 on computer. Sounds great. Tidal does not have the music selection. A great new album is St Germain's.

Have to say Peter I heard a friends new Tannoy Canterbury's with a "orrible" Yamaha 11.5 surround amp. But gosh the music flowed. Think we can get hung up on things. Loud speakers are everything!!!!
Let the music flow!!!!

Thanks for trying though, as much as Windows will forever be trying.

Robert

So ...

Only 1 or 2 days after I decided to give up the waiting for a new Windows 10 Build in ISO format (last week), there it was ... 10565.

I installed it yesterday and btw timed how much time it took me to get it to a full blown Minimized OS and everything : 5 hours. And this was without any hassle and unexpected things to solve. Just performing tasks and wait a bit on some things to process (but if that was 15 minutes all together, it's much).

First, there's the good feeling now. It even starts to look good. And no real strangenesses, like RDC not wanting to work in Normal OS which happened in 10240.
No further adjustments to XXHighEnd were needed (instead probably a few can go out which dealt with the poor 10240 - but alas).

Cut the long-winded usual stuff :

The sound

Ok, maybe people must come from another planet to like this, but anyhow I can imagine it is possible that people like this, or that systems like this.
But actually it is a bit crazy. :grazy:

Let's say that people recognize the mere special sound of Windows 10; its sort of smeared sound that makes cymbals rattle in a more grey fashion, BUT, which is easy to like. It is a flavor, but we can like it. And stand it.

To keep in mind : I was able to tame this with 10074; Just make the SFS low enough so it becomes more snappy and metal.
But now I assume you guys did NOT apply that, already because you don't feel the reason to. So you have this nice W10 (10074) sound ...

Now take 10565 and envision a to the power of 2 of this flavor.
Envision that we have the very recognizable sound of ELO (Electric Light Orchestra). Know it ? well, that is actually a bit of the sound of W10 in general. But NOW think that 10565 makes this all rather normal cymbals but with a high pitched dynamics that your wine glass may break.
Something like that.
So what I'm saying is that even ELO can start to sound normal because of it.

Ride cymbals sound like smashing through the room (note that a ride cymbal is only hit close to the middle and a nice bell sound comes from it (nothing like a cymbal hit)). It is metal-metal-metal.

The mid becomes crazily good because of it. I have heard lower keyed guitar riffs I never even heard before, and which are now completely profound.

But the few more commercial songs I played sounded so much distorted to me that I had to turn them off.

Conclusion :
No conclusion;

I feel a bit like the start of Windows 8. "It can't be right but it is so good that the cause must be somewhere else".
Got that ?
So what I am trying to put to you is that it can be so that my system is not good enough to reproduce what's really in there.
Anyway this needs investigation. SFS back to 470 and that sort of thing. Something completely else.
OR
Make this OS boot from RAM. OMG, now that. Yes, to be honest that should be the first step now; I'm shivering already (not looking forward to two days of work).

Anyway, is seems that when I pick the music carefully, it got lots better again already. But with randomly playing music you'll need earbuds; not exactly the idea.:nea:

Peter

The second evening with W10-10565 is behind me.
Eh, WOW ?

I'm intrigued all over. No annoyances yet.


That is wwhat I said earlier in the topic, about 10240. I recalled, because I just wanted to write this :

10565's main character is that it is so light footed (I hope this is an English term and that you understand what I mean by it, otherwise). It occurred to me over and over again and I actually tried to discover what causes. it I mean, wat it is that makes us perceive music (from loudspeakers) the opposite of bombastic / raw / rough.
So it came to me that this is about how the highs are able to separate from the somewhat lower highs (or higher mids). It is there where the "air" emerges.

"Black background" could be another nature of this sound, but now merely expressed as the more old fashioned "rest". At least that is how we express it in Dutch : rest. But translated, ease could be the better word. How effortless things play and which brings that "rest". Maybe also peace of mind.

With this all, the detail is completely crazy and exactly the thing to get used to. It is so "overdone" as it seems at first glance, that your brain tries to cope with this new experience and whether it is normal or not. But, because I never have been annoyed so far (and I know myself somewhat) it should be OK. Also, it turns out that there's enough (dials) to play with hence change the sound.

At this moment my SFS is at 120; it won't be able to be much higher I think, which is because of the Custom Filter which consumes processing power (but with my processor at 390MHz).
And talking about filters ... hey, I could hear that it is now allowed to out of all dial in the (Custom) Low filter for 24/705600. Yes, I am sort of shocked because of it, but if you hear the energy coming from the highs now ... it just can have it (and the Low filter *is* the technical better one !).

On another note I am waiting for the LPSU (for the PC (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=2726.msg36072#msg36072)) to arrive back from its modding job (I will have it here again for a few days). I am just super curious now ...

Peter

Nice  :)

Very interesting, maybe the "windows on ram" harddrive will availible?
Looking forward to hear your findings on the lpsu, have one in the pipeline..

Hey ... of course that is the intention. :whistle:

Hey Peter,

So do we need to wait for 2.03 and it's new tweaks for 10565 or will 2.02 run in minimized on 10565? It's hard sit on the sidelines waiting with curiousity at what you are hearing there :)

Todd

Hi Todd,

Sorry, but we really need 2.03 for MinOS (10074 is fine with 2.02).

Regards,
Peter

Hi,

I come from the land of Tesla!

Any possibility in using battery or super-capacitors as PSU?

Cheers!
VJ
 :)

:offtopic: :yes:

Ultracapacitors (http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=3121.0)

Hi,

Yesterday I finished the RAM version of 10565; I can do it now in 11.5 hours. Theoretically a few hours less because it includes the full install and setup of a normal OS which isn't used for Playback, so the Playback-dedicated stuff can be left out.
Anyway, it's running now.

---

To be honest, day before yesterday - and after the 3rd evening of listening - I wanted to give up. Sound seemed too strange. So back to 10074.
But yesterday morning I suddenly thought of something specific that the RAM version bears, which thus is not so much about the RAM version itself, but what is required to let it work and which will matter. Yes, "will" and I never thought about it before.
So this is how I finished the last part of the RAM set up (which set up I actually started day before yesterday).

Switched on the music, heard something for the better compared to the day before, and let it go while taking a shower (my gear always needs 20 minutes of playing before being on par).

When I came back, three more tracks were in the Playlist to play and I just let it play. Well, not the first one, because it annoyed me. Too much of highs and now with me thinking where in the world I got it from that this was a black background; it was the opposite. It tears (this could be Dutch, but think like the tearing of paper).

With the next track I again wondered what the heck the sound actually is suposed to be. Yes Peter, that happens when you play synthesizer based sh*t. But anyway, it is about the joy which can come from it - or should come from it because it is in my Demo Gallery. Well, maybe it worked.

But what the heck is that strange creeping or squeezing sound I'm hearing in there ? of course it is part of the music, but point is : it is so prominently present while I never heard it before. Besides that it is ear-hurting.
So see, here I have a problem in determining whether I previously could completely miss this shouting sound and/or/hence it should not be in the music at all, OR that I now hear something that has always been there but did not want to show.
What to say ... of course it has to be the latter. But can it be justified ?

I thought of the "Low" Custom Filter I selected earlier and was sure that would be the cause; The filter is wrong and it creates (heavy) distortion.
But it didn't help apart from me now being able to hear that this sound was a composition of higher on/off frequencies which did not want to express really.

Cluelessly I selected a Basie album where Count Basie plays together with Dizzy Gillespie (The Gifted ones). Or actually I selected Track 01 because that was in my Demo Gallery and played the remainder of the album just as well. Nothing for me, normally ...

And now THIS I shouldn't have done, because NOW I was getting crazy;
The cymbals lasted so long that they could only be interrupted by a next hit.  Well, in real-life this would fairly much be true; maybe I never really timed it, but I'd say a cymbal can sound for 30 seconds easily. Decay is going very very slow (after a first fast decay of the loudest sound). And so it went on this album now too (where cymbals aren't even hit hard).
I must admit that most of the cymbal sound has too few colour, although "depending on" it could be rather correct (I'd say).

What did I say a few days ago ? intriguing ?
Yes, that is what it is. And a waste to put aside without further exploring.

Strangely enough, all the remaining albums I played (throughout) a. did not exhibit any specialty and b. did not annoy at all. But let's say it was mere Rock and I tried to squeeze out more cymbal than I was used to; that didn't work (out).

At this moment it must be a sort of conclusion that something is happening at certain frequencies.
I'd like to add that normally I'd say that the exhibit I'm experiencing normally is only possibly by means of some change in the electrical domain. Like another D/A converter, amplifier.
Again I say (and I think I said it the first day of 10565 ?) that it now feels like something can't cope in my system; something is 10 times better, but my system allows for 2 times only. Sort of.

WHY do I run into such contradictionary things ?
Remember me talking about ELO and their ever strange grey sound of cymbals ? and how 10565 now is able to make even that sound "normal" ? ... WHILE one sentence earlier I said that 10565 is 10074 to the power of 2 regarding the smeared grey sound ?
did you notice it ? I sure did when it sprouted from my mind. But I just let it be because it's just like it is.
So now too ... there's this sound which comes to me as plain distortion (like a broken tweeter) and then I play Dizzy Gillespie who only shows a *beautiful* trumpet ??
I honestly expected it the complete other way around. Tweeters popping out.

Today will be day 5. But I'm sure that this time 5 days will not be enough.

Peter