BREAKING
TIDAL CEO, Jesse Dorogusker, today made the following announcement on an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit:

"we will be introducing hi-res FLAC for our HiFi Plus subscribers soon. It's lossless and an open standard".

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Till now, TIDAL offered Red Book resolution as FLAC, and Hi-Rez resolution as MQA. Adding FLAC as an Hi-Rez option will be the nail in the MQA-coffin.

LINK: https://www.reddit.com/r/TIdaL/comments/12hr68f/ama_w_jesse_tidal/

Cross fingers it will disappear from the market.

Streaming has become a necessity.
But why not switch to Qobuz? It has less titles than Tidal, but is hassle-free. No decoding.
I have been a Qobuz-subscriber for 2 years and number of titles are increasing all the time.

Spotify launching uncompressed HiFi quality during 2021. Might be an alternative to Tidal.

LINK: https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/22/22295273/spotify-hifi-announced-lossless-streaming-hd-quality

After some years of hiatus from high end (long story) I'm finally back on the forum. Had some catch up to do, so got the new Mach III + upgraded Phasure DAC NOS1a/G3, connected with the Lush^2 USB cable. All settings pre-made by Peter upon shipping.

Just got everything connected and running properly. Peter said break-in of new DAC takes quite a long time. I have it running silently 24/7 now with a loooong playlist.

The very first impression was the powerful and articulate bass. Much better than my old set-up. On Day 2, the bass changed quite a lot, becoming more detailed, not so "brute". I made a small adjustment to my active crossover, lowering the treble -1dB to match the new bass. On Day 3 everything became more detailed, more organic, and soundstage is huge. It's like applying a big magnifying glass when you watch a picture. You notice details newer seen (heard) before. 

End of this week I will regain my big music collection from a remote backup. Then I will re-listen to my old reference albums. In the meantime I play some random albums I found on an old harddisk: Ten Years After, The Band, Duane Allman. No audiophile recordings, but they all sound so damn good. I listen quite loud and it's like having a concert in my living room.

Temporary conclusion: All aspects are (much) better than before, and especially the bass has improved very, very much. The bass has it all: Details, authority, tightness, but at the same time it's organic and completely integrated in the music.

Looking forward to the continuation and final break-in!

Hi Mani,

Which version of Tubular Bells is your favorite? (It has been reissued and re-worked a zillion times).

PS: Looking forward to your NOS1 G3 update!

Well, there is a "chain reaction" going on here.
Ok, a room might be cursed with its standing waves (room nodes) which are easy to measure and to explain. But we might perceive them differently than we measure them.
I have several times experienced that upgrading my poweramps, tidied up my deep bass, subjectively as if room nodes were less noticeable. The same has happened with improved source components, and even cable changes.

There is an accumulative effect in a sound system. A small distortion reduction in the front end, might be perceived as a bigger improvements after passing through remaining chain (cables, amps, speakers and room).

Dear, I was thinking about outside. The NOS1 we know well, but I'm curious about the design of B'ASS.

Dear Paul,

Could you please post a photo of the full G3 upgrade?
I'm curious about the look of the B'ASS.

It's an enigma to my why you don't acknowledge the benefit of 24bit resolution above 16bit; (better micro dynamics, more natural and fluid sound, less dryness/mechanical character).

It was a problem occurring in the very beginning of your W10 trials, IIRC, but probably (surely) it involved an earlier version than 10586.0.

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So, now I just activated MinOS, rebooted and voila! - everything works fine. With MinOs activated, I can change Q5 from 0 to 1, and lower the SFS from 0,3 to 0,2 (stutter free with 24/192 hi-Rez).

First impression: Cleaner sound, more ease and tidier soundstage. 

PS: For evaluation today I used Eagles Desperado 24/192, one of my favorites. It used to be a popular demo-disk on vinyl, but I never found the digital versions particularly good sounding. I guess today's revealing system is too revealing of its production. Anyway, right now it sounds pretty well. The MinOS tamed the splashing cymbals and tied up the soundstage.

Hi,

I am (still) running W10 10586.0 with XX 2.03a.
At the time I installed it, I think it was in January, I was told "Minimized OS" was not possible, because I could loose control of the PC or something.

QUESTION: What is the situation today? How do I get the MinOS?

Thanks for the update and "Lab diary". Very interesting to learn about your discoveries and the ongoing process. -So many variables makes it difficult to judge if a tweak is one step forward, backward or sideways.

Silverstone: Since Day 1 I have voiced my concern about its edgy and colored treble. (Although I have to admit it works very well in my current system, after the Clairixa arrived). But I won't be surprised if it ends on the scr*pyard in the end...

I have had the privilege of being ringside with the constructor of my amplifiers, Norwegian brand Dynamic Precision. -Very big power amps, DC-coupled and approaching 1MHz bandwidth. He was sitting just like  you now, with his nose into the chasis while measuring ground loops at "0,000000" level. It was his obsession for 30 years. Actually it started even earlier, from his lab-days at Tandberg in the 70s. He worked on their FM-tuners, were high frequency noise and signal transfer is key parameters. I remember he explained me how ground loops at (very) high frequencies bypasses almost anything. Even through air. And certainly an ordinary iso-trafo doesn't stop it.

My friend is now retired, spending most of his time practicing his jazz guitar, but fortunately I have another friend in Peter, who lets me continue the joyride into unknown technical territory towards State Of The Art sound 

Count me in too!

-Schooled world class jazz musicians play on small club scenes for pocket money, while Justin Bieber and such fill stadiums, with pricey tickets, playback and Autotune.