Peter,

Just working thru your last response, I totally agree with you: if a dac is adding that much more bass detail than another one, something is not right.

Second, bloated, clumsy or too much bass is not the goal. But low-level detail in any song (IMO) is what gets the foot tapping and can make music more emotional, more engaging, as you can actually feel it. I referenced those two live examples, a church organ and the kick drum of a rock band. These are difficult to reproduce by any speaker, but not impossible. So perhaps we agree that there is a balance of bass with other higher frequencies, the ideal of which can be pleasing, engaging and natural to most listeners. Hard to describe in words though.

The Surreal speakers has 6 10" drivers in each speaker enclosure—and yet, the Raven ribbon tweeters still won out! We had to drop a sock over them to attenuate (and keep our ears from frying) as you remember. Personnaly I liked the 6 drivers in the bass enclosures. In so many rooms, bass (seems) harder to reproduce properly, as it is smeared and sucked out. Toole describes it in his book as the one thing (that is so bad in most rooms) that you should attempt to address it. So why not add a few more bass drivers? Seems like a solid approach to me. Or try 3 x 15" drivers.

Next sentence is not correct. I am not suggesting that your theories are wrong in any way, or that all it takes is a Dac to reproduce better bass. You know I am not suggesting this, but rather am just explaining my experience from the BAAS demo event at the house: trying to explain the problem and therefore effect an solution. The only variable we changed was the Dac that day. Then later we started swapping out usb cables as well. So why could this be? That is my point. Could it be the impedance/gain issue from the sac to preamp or amp? Could it be a setting in XX, as Pedal has suggested above? This is what I need to find out.

Your treatise on kick drum skin is logical. No way my single 10" driver can faithfully reproduce the kick drum. However I can get it to make a kick drum-like sound that is tight and gets the house rattling, if I so choose. I do find it pleasing sometimes to actually feel the bass in this way, depending on the track. Our neighbors growing up had a large church organ in their home (lower than kick drum, I know) and you could literally feel the bass vibrate the house (and the entire street). My speakers will pale in comparison, but they can get down to 30hz and can get the house rattling without creating audibly distorted bass. So this can still be pretty cool feeling. Whether it applies or denies your surface area logic or not, I don't know. But I can hear and feel it nonetheless.

So the goal is to find out what changes I need to make to XX and NOS1 to effect this low-level detail. That is the point of my post. My current XX/NOS1 sound seems as though a large room sickout is happening, there is much emphasis on voice and frequencies above this. But there is so much more detail that occurs below this 200-300Hz range that I am just not getting. Does the QB-9 achieve this by turning up the gain?

I need to explore a few other possibilities/configurations before posting back here.

/Lee

Hey Peter,

You never said anything about the active usb cable at the show and at the time I had not really been seeing much about them. I would assume that using a data only usb cable would be beneficial to maybe cleaner highs, but bass?

No, the show sound was not lacking for bass at all—it was turned way up on the Crown amp's two gain knobs. Heck no, the bass was pumping.

Mani,

Will play with your suggestions and let you guys know. Thanks also to Pedal.

As for the QuteHD and the Hugo, both sounded very similar, but a tad too resolved and slightly digital sounding for me, much like the Schict Dac, which is much less expensive. The real winner of the day was the QB-9, due to its lushness, expansive sound, and overall analog-like musicality. All were in agreement on this. We used a QB-9 that did not have the dad upgrade, which I am told is very worthwhile.

The Hugo is a nice little box, but a tad too expensive I think, for what you get. The unit we used had recessed rca ports, so I couldn't use any of my cables, a big shame. Same for the tiny micro port for usb input. Talk about PITA. But overall the sound was impressive for this little walkman sized unit. And it comes with a nice analog vol control. Cool lights too.

Also of note, the group unexpectedly came to a universal conclusion about a certain usb cable. We had several cables that we played with at the end of the day, one was data only. By far the best sounding cable was the Synergistics Active SE cable, which just added a sense of lushness and rich harmonic quality to the sound. I am not big on pricey cables, but the difference was clear. And Ted always has great demos at the shows.

Thanks again guys, and Peter, for the tips. My weekend is cut out for me.

/Lee

Hey, thanks all for responses.

So, here's the thing. I had a BAAS event here a few weeks ago where several people brought dacs (Chord Hugo, Chord QuteHD, QB-9, iFi Dac to name a few). The sounds all of course varied. But what was most strange for me was the bass—in all other dacs (using Jriver and also Amarra on the Mac for comparison). The room was filled with it, not bloated bass but tight, appropriate bass and a tonal richness which I was not used to.

To me, low level detail is crucial. When you listen to a church organ or double bass for example, there is nothing like low level detail to get your foot tapping. And all of these dacs were providing significantly more bass than my NOS 1/XX setup, which tells me something is wrong with my configuration. I am talking about bass that you can feel (like the bass we heard Peter, from that recording when your son was playing drums) vs no bass detail at all.

There is one exception: when I play higher rez material, I get much better bass and don't need to turn the vol up so much to hear it.

You mentioned the sound at the CAL show, Peter. TBH, I noticed a brightness almost immediately, but kept quiet. If you remember, the bass was very dynamic in this room, from the Surreal Sound speakers, as the bass enclosure was actively powered by a Crown amp (with gain controls turned way up as if to EQ the bass a bit).

And if you remember, the Venture setup? What have I always said about Didi's sound? So bright and forward that I need to leave the room. This for both trade shows I witnessed. My guess is this is the way Didi likes his sound, because he sat there quite happy with it. And there were of course many strengths to his system, just not in the bass, IMO.

What should bass sound like? Ideally it should sound live. When you stand to the side of a live band and listen to kick drums, you feel them in the chest. I think this feeling should be evident in any hifi system as well, along with crystal clear but smooth highs, analog sound mids, vivid transients, etc. But like Robert Harley said once in his book, the kick drum is what gets your foot a tappin' (or something like that).

My XX setup has gone through many variations over the last two years and I've always assumed my room has significant suck out. Now I think the problem is not so much with the room, as with some lack of synergy with my system.

Will keep experimenting, but something tells me the problem lies with a low output impedance from the Dac?

One last note. I remember ripping music from HDAD discs a few years ago (to 24-192k) and getting very flat, poor dynamics from these rips. Could it be that up sampling music from XX to 768k somehow softens the dynamics a bit?

/Lee

I have a few dacs at the house now and have been playing with all of them, and getting far more bass detail from my system than I ever heard with my usual setup (XX+NOS1). Here I was thinking the problem was my room, or perhaps an impedance mismatch. But for example, with the use of a borrowed QB-9 and JRiver, with a default installation on a win machine (nothing tweaked or minimized), I get a huge increase in bass and even mid bass. This is compared with my normal setup of XX with the NOS1 on the same machine. With the XX setup, the sound has always been smooth with a clean high end, but the bass has always been non-existent for me. Now I am scratching my head. What is the cause— I know this can't be correct and I need to correct.

One issue I find is that with the NOS1 (I use a preamp), the preamp vol needs to be turned way up, as the gain from the NOS1 seems low. But with the QB-9 driving the preamp, I have the vol set to the smallest increment, otherwise it will be too loud. But bass can be felt through the floor with QB-9. With the NOS1 sound, there is no bass.

Can anyone shed some light on what I am doing wrong? Would it help if I had the gain adjusted on the NOS1? Is there an impedance mismatch (which the QB-9 doesn't have)?

Thanks anyone.
/LM

Hey wait, without a player, what will we compare to other players?
 

Ok, last entry. So while gpedit did nothing on my windows 8 machine (can't find the file), I Googled Windows Defender and there are a couple ways one can/needs to turn it off completely. To search Windows defender pulls up the windows defender control panel, which may say (in bold red) that it is off and that your computer is vulnerable to malicious spyware. But doesn't mean WinDefender is actually off. If you go into tools or settings as admin, you can go to last entry and actually find a check box to disable win defender (yet again).

Now it is off and my machine plays in min OS unnatend mode successfully.

Thanks Peter.

/Lee

Yep, and I just tried it on mine.

Right click on run and type gpedit... nothing. It can't find the file. And I was running in reg mode, not min.

Also typed in gpedit.msc at the run prompt, and also at the command prompt. Neither worked. "Can't find file.

Interesting...
 

Hey Peter,

So, tried the GPedit.msc thing. Also searched it, nothing. There is nothing on my hd when searching gpedit or gpedit.msc..

Will try your second solution.

/Lee

Has anyone addressed room correction when using XXHighend, with digital EQ filters such as Fab filters or some Win version thereof? I have a few nasty room dips in the bass, about 15db dip at 60Hz and again at 120Hz and the bass response in my room is quite weak. This is especially apparent near the right speaker, where the wall configuration is different from the left side.

I have a friend who is running a Mac system and has several Fab filters addressing a few issues in the bass (only) on his system and the bass response is awesome, the kick drum and low level detail really gets your foot tapping.

Any digital EQ software out there that is recommended to work with XX?

Thanks.
/LM

I will have to figure out how to remove defender from services manually. Don't remember ever doing this with you, or via your instructions. Last time I had this problem, I just ran Defender and clicked the button to disable it. Maybe this doesn't do enough to turn it off though?

Will also try your suggestions about Q3,4,5.

/Lee

Hello,

Wondering if anyone is having this trouble with Win 8 and 1.186a? I can play tracks just fine in Min OS when unattend is disabled. When I engage it, then hit play, the screen turns black a second, then next thing I see is Seattle again.. Win has rebooted.

I have Win Defender turned off, the Win Shell installed properly and working well, Metro never comes up any more, which is great.

Any suggestions?

/LM

Yes, strangely, this vol thing seems to work. Any idea why?

/L

  Just reading thru these posts now as I am encountering exactly the same stops randomly during playback. I assumed it was clock as I was running playback at 1ms (Q1=14, Q5=5, Qx1=10) with standard settings elsewhere and no Xtweaks.

I found that changing clock to 10 or 15 ms seemed to stop the er...stops. But perhaps it was just me moving the mouse that did it? Have no idea but is frustrating.

/Lee

Coen,

FYI, I also did the upgrade path from Win7 to Win 8 then to Win8Pro via one of those credit card serial number upgrades (which included Media Server). I could never get it to work. So I went to the Microsoft store with my two installs and told them it wasn't working for me—I wanted t a full Win8Pro Build Installer. They gave it to me for free. Now my Win8 install works great. A few minor annoyances with the Win7 shell, but sound is really good.

LM