Peter,
was out today for the last water skiing this year, so now the winter and music listening season can begin. I have switched from Win7 Professional to a new Mini PC (absolutly passive, 0 db) with a Windows 7 Home Premium. The PC and the Win 7 installation is pretty new, only some Blu-Ray player software and some tools is installed. So far I had automatic updates activated, so it is on the latest patch level, and SP1 is already included on the installation disk. After the upgrade to XXHE 0.9z-6 the first boot into Minimize OS fails with, I think the message was: Error 01 failed to set reboot or something similar. Then I have rebooted again with success, all transperency effects in the desktop disappeared, no disc activity and fantastic sound. Rebooting to normat state with success and then I can do what I want, the OS does always come up in normal state (minimize OS button shows active). If then I do a system restore before the first XXHE 6 install I can repeat the same steps...
So if you dön't have an idea what this can be I will try to re-install Win 7 and if it is working then I will install my required software step by step and always try if minimize OS is still working. Trial and error. I also still have the Professional license on my old PC... so lots of possibilities.

Bernd

Hi Peter,
I have a problem with the minimize OS function. After my initial install it was working fine. Man, what a sound...
But after switching back to normal I'm not able to minimize again, the OS comes up in a normal state with everything activated. I can use a system restore point from 2 days back and reinstall XXHE, then it is exactly working for one session, then same again. Automatic updates are off and nothing has been installed. I'm using W7 Home Premium 64 with SP1. Do you have any hint where I can check what could be the reason ?
UAC if off, starting with Admin and the player itself is working fine.

best regards,
Bernd

Hi Peter,
you are absolutely right, I would never spend much more than the 400€ for the Audiophilleo, otherwise I would buy your DAC. But I'm using a TACT Millenium digital amplifier so I can't use an external DAC. All I change is the digital output of my PC...

I think the sound quality is the same, so if you don't need the additional features you can go with the AP2 I guess...

the Off Ramp 4 seems to be new, it was not available when I checked their site some weeks ago... but 2400$ with 2 Ultraclocks to support all frequencies is another pricerange than the Audiophilleo...

Yes, with the Hiface a 5m digital cable is really a big improvement over a short one, but with the Audiophilleo it is not. Plugging it directly into the DAC gives the best result. I think the Hiface has a problem with too much voltage in the output signal (2,5V instead of 0.5 or so), so this could be the reason.
I have used a modified USB cable with the Hiface, I have used a battery to replace the power line from the PC and this is a big improvement for the Hiface, but it seems not to improve the Audiophilleo. But here I'm still testing all combinations to get the best result. But in the end the Audiophilleo with no SPDIF cable and a standard USB cable is much better than the Hiface with battery powered USB cable and long SPDIF cable.

correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know the Off Ramp is still limited to 24/96 and is USB 1.1 compatible, so no asynchronous transfers...and still you need a good SPDIF cable. And with USB 1.1 the USB cable really matters...

Regarding USB cable: I'm only using a mid-price Oelbach cable (5 m), compared to the 1 m cable that comes with the AP I can't hear a difference. With asynchronouis transfers this should be uncritical. Also with the Hiface there was no difference between using a 5 m USB cable or directly plugging the Hiface to the PC. However using a 5 m SPDIF cable makes a big difference compared to a short one (much better).

if you compare the prices don't forget that the Audiophilleo doesn't need a digital cable. It comes with some adapters for BNC and SPDIF and can be directly plugged into a DAC (TACT Millenium in my case). I tried it with my Silent Wire 32 digital cable (400€) and even this is degrading the sound quality. The USB cable does not make a difference, I tried 1 and 5 m and could not hear a difference. As cheap digital cables always degrade the SQ I think the price for a complete solution is not so bad...
And Adrians descriptions of the sound differences of his GD compared to the Hiface is also true for the AP2, you hear new things on most recordings, much more energy, more space and more realism. And they offer a 30 day money back guarantee...

Hi,
I have the Audiophilleo 2 for some days now, it is really a big improvement over the Hiface. You don't need a custom driver (only for 176 or 192 khz) and you don't need a digital cable. You also don't need a power supply, I tried with my battery powered USB-cable and there is no improvement over a standard cable.
Sound wise it is one of the biggest improvements I ever had from a digital source. And it is within your price range.

Bernd

Yes, I have also seen the audio-gd, but didn't put it on my list because it is limited to 24/96 and can not handle 24/88.2. But for the price it seems to be a very good sounding device.
Let's share our findings if we have our new converters, hopefully end of next week.

Hi all,
I found this new toy last week and have ordered one:
www.audiophilleo.com

Is there already someone using it ?

Hi Josef,
I'm using PowerDVD, so the codec is not a problem. It's not a problem at all, I simply use my old USB-SPDIF interface which is working fine on W7. Only the fact that Vista does not have these problems seems to be an indicator for me that W7 is suboptimal for audio processing.
So I give up tweaking my 2nd W7 PC and go back to Vista. This solves all my problems and obviously sounds much better.
Maybe all these W7 tweaks can also improve Vista.... an endless story 

best regards,
Bernd

For audio 44.1 is working fine, only for video (blu-ray) it is not perfectly smooth with W7. With my old USB1.1 adapter it is working, but not with hiface. Vista and Hiface work perfectly together.
I have already tried to deactivate Speedstep (bios and energy settings in W7), but without big success. I will try your suggestion to disable the powermanagement for the USB hub, but I have the feeling that all these options will not give the Vista SQ from W7.
Or is there anybody who managed to tweak W7 so that it really sounds like Vista ?

Yes, I tried that option, but there is not a big difference (if at all). Another problem that is also solved in Vista is movie sound. In PowerDVD and Arcsoft player I always had short breaks with Hiface, even with 48khz setting (same problem on 2 PC's). In Vista this is completly gone, even 44.1 khz is working.
So it seems as if W7 is really doing some bad things that results in a change to the signal. If this would only be jitter then my Big Ben should be able to fix that, it is recreating the complete digital signal with its own clock, but there is still a big difference in SQ...

I'm using my old 32 bit home edition. Windows 7 was 64 bit. If that makes a difference is another question for me, I will try Vista 64 in the next weeks...