Hi Naidiver,

I also had some issues with the Intona, it connected without any problem to the NOS1, but not to another DAC I have.
Daniel responds very quickly to any issue you might have, and yes you can return the unit should you decide so.

Hereby a quote from an email Daniel responded to me:
"All USB devices should work but some non-professional customers reported that they need to add a hub before or after the isolator. You may return the unit if it does not work for you."

In the end I indeed put a USB hub in between and I don't have any issues any more. Not ideal, but it still improves the sound considerably.

Regards,
Diede

I'll take two 

Best regards,
Diede

Hi Anthony,

Thank you for sharing your experience.

For clarification, how do you see the monitor and PC electrically connected if we use an optical HDMI or DVI connector?

Especially if they are on a separate earth, and possible even on a different phase (I have 3 phases in triangle at my house).

Thanks,
Diede

Thank you Peter (and others) for your elaborate response, really helpful.

A few more questions come to mind:
What about using an optical HDMI or DVI connection and leaving the monitor connected to the Audio PC, thus avoiding going via RDC/RDP?

What about using shielded cable such as this one: http://www.conrad.be/ce/nl/product/1031706/Stuurkabel-OeLFLEX-CLASSIC-110-SY-3-G-4-mm-Grijs-Transparant-LappKabel-1125503-50-m?ref=searchDetail
and connecting the shield only on one side to the dedicated earth?

I’m really interested in learning more about those ‘line level isolators’ which would allow me to put the amps on the house mains.

Best regards,
Diede

Hi,

I’m currently setting-up a dedicated listening room, and to get the cleanest current I’m installing a dedicated fuse box (Siemens KE) with silver connections and HiFi-Tuning Ultimate Silver-Ceramic fuses in order to get the least possible interference with other appliances in the house.
I’m also installing a separate mains earth directly into the listening room.

My questions is what to connect to the this dedicated mains earth and what to the general house mains earth?
As I have multiple mono amps per side (Hypex Ncore with switching power supplies) my thought was to connect them to the house earth (in order to get rid of any high frequency stuff), and to connect the DAC and audio PC to the dedicated mains earth.

Anyone any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Diede

Hi Peter,

For me everything worked as mentioned in your notes, so the 10565 trial version first.
I installed all necessary drivers etc in both 10565 and 10586.0, booted in MinOs later RAMOS, everything went smoothly for both :-)

Great work!

No impressions yet, to late to have a listen.

Next step: music on LAN.

Best regards,
Diede
PS: I was just in time to pull out the internet connection, once I disabled Windows updates I downloaded some drivers ect ...

Hi Peter,

No problem charging me 200€ for the first one, please put me on the list for both.

Diede

Hi Peter,

I'll take take 50 and 80 cm please.

Best regards,
Diede

Peter,

George is correct, I had the same thing.
Doesn't really matter though, just change in settings and all is fine.

Just to make it clear, this is after installing XXHighEnd, but before MinOs. Obviously you need to change the settings to IE to be able activate and then get to MinOs.

Best regards,
Diede

Hi all,

I’ve gone through the different W10 OS builds, I’ve got them all installed on swappable SSD’s, and here are my findings:


I totally agree with this.

•   Build 10074: neutral in every way and sounds superb.
•   Build 10240: overall balance is OK, but a lot of smearing, and becomes very annoying after a couple of minutes.
•   Build 10565: very good, similar to 10074, but a bit more 'alive', 'magical' in comparison. Difficult to explain, but the best of all W10 builds so far.
•   Build 10586: probably the worst so far. Some smearing, but less than 10240. The overall balance is not good however. Bass and mid-bass are a few db down, voices sound hollow, and effects on voices are over accentuated.
 
Mind you, I have made this comparison with XXHE 2.02, so no MinOs yet for the last builds. I did shut down most of the Windows services manually, but this doesn’t go as far as MinOs obviously.
As soon as XXHE 2.03 gets out I’ll report again.

It would have been nice to use a more ‘official’ build, but I’m very happy with the sound I’m getting from build 10565, so no complaints here.

Best regards,
Diede

Hi Peter,

Build 10240.

Diede

Hi all,

I've been running Windows built 10074 since day one and was pretty happy with the sound.
I changed the date, was not connected to the internet and kept on using it untill two days back when I wanted to install a driver and could not get out of MinOs.
After trying just about everything I finaly changed the date to the actual date and rebooted. All blocked and I could not boot any more.

So I decided to do a fresh install of the latest official Windows 10 version.

The install worked, but I could not get Windows activated with my Windows 8 pro product key. I tried the automatic key generation by Phone, again this didn't work. Finally I called Microsoft and asked for instructions, this is what they told me:
You cannot do a clean install of Windows 10 and get a free license key unless you've already done an upgrade to Windows 10 previously on the same machine. During the upgrade Windows registers a key on the motherboard and from that moment on your computer has a Windows 10 key embedded in its firmware.
Only afterwards you can do a clean Windows 10 install and it will automatically find the key.
Allthough this key is not limitted in time, it applies only to this machine. If you have to change the motherboard, the key will no longer work on another PC.
This upgrade procedure will only work within the first year of Windows 10 as Peter said.

After that only your original version (Windows 8 pro in my case) can be activated with the original product key on any given machine.

So in conclusion I will have to reinstall Windows 8 pro, activate it, perform the upgrade to Windows 10, and finally do a clean install of Windows 10 (the last only because I like to have a clean isntall).

Hope this helps ...

Diede

Hi,

I was at the show on Sunday and was pretty disappointed in general, very few rooms had their act together. Some were interesting in certain domains like silky smooth detailed highs, a beautiful soundstage or a rich ‘vocal’ mid, but none had correct bass response other than Phasure/BD Design. Sometimes lacking bass or sometimes too much oomph, but never controlled, firm, dynamic and deep as it should be and this regardless of size or budget.
In this area the Sigma really excels, and now in an even more compact design than the Orelo MKII 

Although show conditions are never perfect and I may not always agree with Peters’ choice of music  , on Sunday the Sigma's were 'best of show'. In particular a piece of Stevie Ray Vaughn was very pleasing. 

Diede

Yesterday I’ve been listening to W10 & 2.02 for 5 straight hours.

In short: SQ is fantastic!

Not easy to describe sound without any noticable flaws, but I’ll give it a try nonetheless.

Very engaging and detailed with a very precise soundstage, but without being over analytical or fatiguing in any way. In other words very musical.

Highs are super clear, cymbals really sound life-like with sufficient attack and decay.

I never heard a bass drum sound as realistic, very tight yet full and defined.

The double bass in certain songs could sound a little wobbly before when hitting the low notes, not any more. It is now also very easy to locate in the soundstage, very precise.

Voices are so good, mesmerising even. One of the first songs I played didn’t sound very good, I could hear too much of the echo effect (life recording). My first thoughts were, hmm, there are those over accentuated highs from early W8 again. But this was just this one recording, all others sounded very natural, detailed and without any hiss whatsoever.

A good reference is also clapping in life recordings. In the past this could sound annoying and almost like noise. With W10 and 2.02 you can almost hear each person individually clap hands, and you can grasp/feel the size of the concert hall by it.

One could say that it can’t get any better than this, but probably Peter will come up with something new in the near future (2.12, NOS2 ?) and proof me wrong. In the meantime however I’m more than happy  with the sound I’m getting right now.

Thank you Peter, for investing time in W10 at this early stage!

Peter,

Thank you for the Tutorial, XXHE 2.02 and 1.04 driver are now running under W10 Min-OS!

Can you share your settings in W10?
For the time being I used the W8 settings.

Diede