XXHighEnd

Hi Peter,

There are a few issues with MQA playback.

Firstly after hitting play actual playback takes 1 to 1.5 mins (Unattended). Is this normal?

Secondly quite often one or two tracks don’t play from the album & when I bring up XXHE I see that playback has stopped. Now these same tracks if played attended have no issue.

Thirdly I do hear ticks while playback, not in all tracks but randomly in some & inconsistent. My X Tweak settings are balance power 43/Nervous Rate 18. Rest of the settings are as per signature.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Arvind,


Supposed that one track of that is e.g. 60 minutes, yes.

So that assumed apart from the ticks the remainder is explained as well because you won't have sufficient memory for that. Remember, this expands to Hires and although one track of 60 minutes (or a full album of that length) would fit normally, radically more than that will not.

If playback has been stopped and from there you quit XXHighEnd you could look at the free disk space to see whether something occupied space which you don't want/knew. I forgot the number but I think at least 2GB of free space should be there (on C:) and if not, that will be the problem.


This can be because now all don't need to fit in memory at the same time.


It won't be so that your Logging is (still) On, right ?
Otherwise I have no idea at this moment. All I can tell is that thiss is Hires and therefor requires a bit more and you may not be used to that. But, difficult to suggest this for real because your settings look fine and the PC you use should also be up to the task. Maybe try with the Balanced Load at 62 because I still don't know for sure what I have been using with that same PC and it very well can be 62 (now it is just a tad faster which is good for the (much) higher data rate which needs to be processed.
Let me know whether that helps.

Kind regards,
Peter

I did notice that with NormalizeVolume on, it takes some time to load the first time you play an album. With MQA tracks on top of that, it does seem very long time. But this may not be Arvind's situation...
ZH

I think it is. Very well noticed, Zheng !
And that also occupies extra (lot of) memory because always the whole album is Normalized - not only one track. Well, assumed the Normalization is not set to "per track" (which is possible but not advised).

Regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

The MQA albums, which take long time to play, are all normally not more than 50mins with the longest track being not more than 10 mins. However it still takes 1 to 1.5 mins for playback to start, even after vol normalisation.

The free space available in C: drive is around 2.5GB.

The tick seems to have gone away after setting balance load to 52, however I still need to listen to more albums to confirm that.

Best regards

Arvind

Arvind, how long takes a normal FLAC of the same length (or a little longer) ?

Peter

Maybe you don't have Boost at XXHighEnd Startup (something like that) active ? That would explain it ...

Hi Peter,

Similar FLAC album takes around 15/20 seconds to play. However at the start of first session even a FLAC album takes around 45/55 seconds.

“Boost at start” is active.

“Log activities” is off.

Best regards,

Arvind

I am sorry Arvind - I was not asking for that. I asked the time it takes to start playback for a 10 minute or more (not less) normal FLAC track.

Thanks !
Peter

10 secs for a 17 min FLAC track.

OK.
I don't know whether that is consistent.

I assume that the whole album which loads in 15-20 seconds does not contain even one track of 17 minutes (which loads in 10 seconds as you say). Do notice that the longest track determines the load time, as long as you have 20 tracks or less. Same counts for MQA decoding (which I think can take 60 seconds for a 17 minute track).

So with the knowlegde of this "the longest track" etc., you kind of claim that with Attended this one track goes faster than when this same one track is started for Unattended (as the only one - make it the last in the Playlist Area for your comfort).
I know, you are not saying this, but it is my conclusion. So please test this, OK ?

Best regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

The album (FLAC) is 36mins/6 tracks/longest track 17 mins. Last track is the 17min track.

Test 1: Unattended/Long track in last position.
Playback starts in 15 secs.

Test 2: Unattended/ long track in 2nd track position.
Playback starts in 15 secs

Test 3: Unattended/only long track in playlist
Playback starts in 13 secs.

Test 4: Attended/only long track in playlist
Playback starts in 10 secs.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Peter,

In addition to the above trials, I prepared streams of the same album in FLAC & MQA. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be from the same master as the track lengths are slightly different, but not by much. The longest track is just over 6 mins.

Playback with the FLAC started in 13 secs whereas the MQA took 78 secs.

Best regards,

Arvind

Arvind - Super !
I didn't want to put this burden on you. But, it is the easiest thing to try out now myself. So ...

Which album is that ?
Additionally, what is your Core Appointment setting, and what are the two Priority settings ? (something with player and thread).
And to be sure, the Balanced Load nr you use for this ?

Best regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

I think you mean the same album in FLAC & MQA, it’s Natalie Merchant/Tigerlily.

Core appointment is 3-5
Player priority is Low
Thread priority is Realtime.
Balanced Load is 52
Nervous Rate is 18

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Arvind,


I suppose I did not mean that one because it doesn't resemble anything of your timings.
I was trying to see how long it takes over here. That doesn't work like this. :)

Anyway, this one plays in 65 seconds, just started from track 01.

Regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

The first tests, which had the 17 min track is Iron Butterfly/In A Gadda Da Vida.

The second test with the same album in FLAC & MQA was Natalie Merchant/Tigerlily.

However Tigerlily MQA at your end took 65 secs as compared to 78 secs with me indicates that the time taken is not radically different.

Best regards,

Arvind

Hi Arvind,

Not radically different is what I thought too, without really knowing what I Icompared to. This is because it took longer than I imagined but which I apparently am used to. But what I also thought of yesterday :

My "boosted" XXHighEnd when it is decoding will run at 2100MHz (2.1 GHz). Yours probably at 1800MHz (because of the setting of concern I applied to the Stealth (this is done the same with everybody). Also, my memory frequency as of yesterday was 1800MHz and I am not sure what the Stealth is set to but if anything (as I ever back set it) it could be 1333MHz. Or ...
Or it is at 2400MHz because I set nothing and it is set to Auto and thus uses what the memory allows for (this will be 2400MHz I'd say).

Anyway it is indeed what you say : it is to be regarded insignificant. And notice that the processor's frequency will be quite linearly related to the time this decoding takes. Thus a difference of 300 on 2100 is an easy 15%. 15% of 65 seconds is 10 seconds. :)

Kind regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

So I take it that the time taken is appropriate to the present PC set up.

Thanks for the support.

Best regards,

Arvind