XXHighEnd

I have been using W10 10586 in the RAMOS hard drive since about 2016. Is 14393.0 sonically and significantly better or is there another reason for it? If it is sonically better, can it be added to my RAMOS (and be activated) or do I need to buy another one with Windows 10 14093.0 it on it? 

Presumably need 14393.0 in a VHD file to add it.

I'm not complaining about the W10 10586 version. It works and sounds great but if there is a better sounding OS then why not use it?

Thanks!

Hey Steve - long time.

Yes, 14393.0 is quite "ultimately" better. But it is also more robust towards XXHighEnd (or the other way around).
The best description for 14393.0 is that it is more consistently sounding over various music types (and albums as well). More smooth - less digital. This latter allows for interesting different XXHighEnd settings (because all is inherently more smooth, you can dial in more extremes without them disturbing).

Small issue (kind of) : If you don't have 14393.0 on your RAM OS Disk, you will also have a more old XXHighEnd. And *if* I would be able to add 14393.0 from the distance, then still that upgrade is needed as well, and I've always thought that people shouldn't do that themselves (for RAM OS).
So I think the better option is this :

You obtain a new RAM-OS disk against cost only. This is the disk, the little work and the shipping (say that this totals to EUR 160 including PayPal costs).

You will then have the exact same 10586 with possibly even the same XXHighEnd version in there (but it could be a few versions newer).  The 14493.0 which also is in there, will contain XXHighEnd 2.11 (this is the latest version).

Let me know whether you currently have a HDD or an SSD. This matters for the memory size (both more and less than you currently use, won't work out and the storage type determines the memory size).

We could make it tomorrow and then you'd have it on Thursday.

Kind regards,
Peter

I currently have a 480GB 2.5 inch SSD installed as RAMOS. I cloned the original to SSD. I did upgrade XXHE from v2.05 to v2.10 and finally to v2.11. The latter primarily for the core selection feature. A hard copy is best rather than trying any online upgrade as I have slow rural internet speed.

Please create a new RAMOS disk and you can send me a palpal bill if that works or give me payment instructions.

Thanks!

Steve Williams

Sent you an email Steve !
Peter

Peter,

Thanks for the updated RAMOS. Words cannot describe the sound I am getting with Win10 14393! More detail, nuance, bass, treble, realism - and I thought 10586 was sounding pretty good! With the (preowned/used) Intel 6152 I picked up and a server board the sound of the 10586 was similar to the Transrotor Fat Bob Reference turntable with Kuzma 4Point 11-inch arm and Koetsu Rosewood cartridge which I think sounds quite good.

With 14393 running from SSD I thought it sounded amazing. Added MinOS and thought why bother with RAMOS as my computer takes 10 minutes to boot into RAM! Gave it a try and again, better. And I haven't tried unattended mode yet. (Better to me means more realism.)

My previous computer, an ASROCK Fatal1ty X99, took 2.5 to 3 minutes to boot to RAM. I read that servers with IPMI take longer to boot but just booting on SSD doesn't take that long. The ticker when booting to RAM goes so slow. Perhaps I'll figure it out one day but for now it isn't a big deal. Because power dips weekly where I am I have been turning the player PC off even though it is on a UPS.

Upgrading the RAMOS to include 14393 was worth it! I think you wrote if you cannot have the Mach III Audio PC you would give it up. Now, I feel I need another motherboard just to be sure I don't have to do so because there is no going back. (To be clear, I don't have a Mach III and don't have a linear power supply. This crazy audio ride has to stop sometime (?).)

I ran 10586 on an i7-5690 8-core for so many years. I tried an E5-2699v3 for a couple months and then found a server board and 6152 at a price I could afford. I feel like I just caught up.

I don't understand what goes on with a server computer and the Scalable processor vs. say the ASROCK I was using which is now retired. Is it jitter? Does jitter somehow pass on to the DAC even with a re-clocker?  Of course, re-clocker/DAC clock frequency matters and could actually increase errors if done incorrectly. If a DAC double-clocked data in at 5x the data rate it seems it should then be on the DAC [ultra-stable] clock and we would be subjected to its jitter only. Or is it something else?

[talking to myself now] I'll have to remove the Denafrips Gaia reclocker that is before the Denafrips Venus II DAC and see what it sounds like. Denafrips/Thesycon driver has some issue with loosing sync and the audio sounds like static. It just started happening to me when I changed to the E5 CPU on the ASROCK PC and also on the server computer. Was getting dropouts regardless of XXHE settings until I went back to V5.00 driver which still clicks at times but doesn't skip as it did on v5.50 driver. Also, changed the preamp from DIY Pass Aleph 1.7 to DIY Lynn Olson Raven with added phono pre. Any connection with that? [sigh] I could buy everything but that is no fun.

So, for now, enjoying what I have.
Thanks!

Haha - Steve You ...

If the PC boots that slow, it's the wrong BIOS you are using. This is really the reason why I had to stop with the Mach III (say Mach IV) - the later Scalable Xeons only run on new boards with general BIOS instead of ASRock's own BIOS (or maybe by now I forgot the exact combination as it must already be 3 years ago I last tried).
The current Server Board used in the Mach III is still available I think (I still bought a couple 2-3 months back) - but at USD 500 or so (ouch). That boots under 2 minutes, but get the right processor (they are EOL for 3 years indeed).
The speed of HDD vs SSD really does not matter one bit - the loading is way too slow anyway.

Steve, you *must* use MinOS *AND* remove the SSD after booting. You will see ... (no need to buy a new DAC yet).

If you use a server board, do not use ECC memory. Sound will become cr*ppy because of that. And use the memory at the lowest speed, which means that you need to find that first (like 1433 or whatever it exactly is). Processor the same thing : use it at the lowest speed bearable (like around 500MHz). Switch off two cores if you have sufficient of them (see Boot Menu at the bottom). Switch off Turbo Boost in the BIOS.
There is so much more and most can be arranged for by XXHighEnd. Switch on Hyperthreading so you can achieve lower clock speeds in the first place (namely half).

There is much more to respond to (in your nice post) but let's say that PCs are a big mystery. A lot is related to how USB works, and you can see that by means of the crazy differences on the configs of the Lush^2 or Lush^3.

Kind regards,
Peter

Update:
Back to running the RAMOS SSD from a hot swap bay so I can remove it after it loads to RAM and I am back to using music over LAN on a dedicated and very local PC. I log onto XXHE from this PC using remote desktop. The M.2 NVMe music SSD was removed from the XXHE PC. Definitely an improvement in sound quality - yet again, more real sounding.

After playing a few albums I didn't notice any glitches either.

Glitches were the reason for trying the fast M.2 NVMe SSD (eliminate LAN/PC but added overhead to the XXHE player PC). Leaving the RAMOS SSD in was due to weekly power winter/spring outages (now reduced) and that I hadn't copied XXHE V2.10 over V2.05 at that time and was getting tired of copying it after boot up -- and didn't yet want to overwrite 2.05. Ok, not a good reason.

Could leaving the RAMOS SSD in cause glitches? That may be when the glitch problem started. Time will tell.

Memory: The motherboard I got with a 3647 socket doesn't support non-ECC memory. Dang! Not many (new) MBs available. I bought unbuffered memory first because the CPU supports it but the motherboard put up a message that it was the wrong RAM. I should have believed the manual. So, I bought registered ECC memory (6 sticks, 8GB each) and used the unbuffered memory for my new desktop.

Despite not being the optimum RAM the sound I'm getting is surprisingly real sounding. I use my turntable as a check on where things are going with changes in digital using the same albums.

So, I'm left wondering what difference a linear power supply and non-ECC RAM would make, not that I am unsatisfied with what I have.

Nice to read all that feedback, Steve.

Glitches I never received with XXHighEnd. So this must be / have been some external situation. For example, I can imagine that if you don't play from RAM (accidentally), the VHD OS file may incur for anomalies. But a too long shot already.
Fact is also that you shouldn't leave it in because it impedes. This is in general (consumes power) but it also might incur for interrupts by the OS. This is because officially it is taken out (actually by OS means) but meanwhile it is - or could be the hardware that asks to come back again (it is hot-plug organized).

For the memory - maybe don't bother; First of all this is just (my) theory and/but secondly I coincidentally tried it because one DIMM went bad in my server board (I had 6 of them laying around for Hexa config), and after 3 weeks of being annoyed I bought new non-ECC and all was good again. But mind you, this is after having set settings for that non-ECC situation which built up in ... 5-6 years ? This includes all kind of ^2 and ^3 cable settings. So it possibly is just what one was used to. And don't ask me whether there are 1 million or 2 million+ parameter combinations (including cable configs) ... it is all just crazy.

I'm sure you are good ...
Peter