so, would you suggest foobar, jriver, etc for laptop duties, which so far, sound pretty good, using my HIFIMan 801 as a usb dac, with an audioquest carbon usb cable?

Hello all,
I just got a new laptop (my first!) and it is running win7 home premium 64 bit.  i have installed foobar using wasapi, and it sounds pretty good.  I was wondering which version of xxhighend would be recommended for an entry-level laptop 2 gig sandybridge cpu, 4 gigs ram 320 Gig hard drive, that i could use with my grado in-ears. it will not be a dedicated music-only machine, so being able to do other things while listening is relevant for me. i am completely new to win 7, so this is all new territory to this xp dinosaur!

thanks in advance for your suggestions.

best regards,

Mark

oops -- good catch- signature fixed!.

again, thanks Peter.  If I order up a copy and try it, i will certainly let you know.  right now i am enjoying the active crossover I built, which replaced passive line-level r-c crossovers between preamp and amps.  the passives I built used wbt nextgen rca jacks, naked vishay resistors, and audience AutaT teflon caps.



I also finished a line stage and phono preamp recently- so i am a very happy listener right now.  A power amp is next, and i am working on it little by little.  I am not the designer, but am very lucky to have a friend with great designs, which he is willing to share with me.

thanks to both of you for replying.  The computer does nothing but play music - not even connected to the internet.  the hardware is pretty much what is specified for cmp/cplay as of 18 months ago.  most of the optimizations he recomnmends have been done.  alas my soundcard is does not have a 32 bit asio driver, so cplay does not really work with it.  i use either winamp with ks, or xx highend (when i want the best sound, also via ks).

Looks like 32 bit versions of win 7 are not very expensive- and i would do it if there is a clear sonic advantage to doing so. 

i also use xp on my regular computer, and do listen thru headphones via an external diy headphone amp connected to the produigy hd2 sound card in the computer.  perhaps there would be a performance boost from running win 7 on this one as well.

so, is there a preferred version of win 7 32 bit, for best sound?

50 views and no replies?  I am a dinosaur still using xp?  I am really enjoying the sound of my digital, but will upgrade versions if someone who has tried newer versions on XP gives me some insight as to what I might expect.... Peter... any thoughts?

I have recently upgraded my phono preamp, line stage, and replaced a passive line level crossover with an active -- all DIY, and my system is sounding great on both LP and cd via the computer, so I am not rushing to make a change, but there seem to be many new versions since the one I am using.

Hopefully, someone has something to say here.......


Thanks for reading this.

Mark

Hello all,

I am still using xp for my dedicated music pc, running version .9y-8.  i have not tried any later versions of xxhighend.  I do not oversample, and am using the digital out of my essence stx soundcard.

Any thoughts from xp users as to the sonic improvements from using a later version of xxhighend?

thanks,

Mark

got it.  thanks!

Peter,

It's been a few days since I posted.  I am now using xxhighend just to do serious listening or enjoyment listening (not always the same thing!).  I am still getting my system and room dialed in, as I have moved into the house somewhat recently.

Anyway, y7r is working fine, and sounds really good.  I am happy.

now i need to get a registration code for the main computer which is attached to the internet (i registered to unconnected one by a temporary hookup).  Can you pm me and let me know how to proceed.  i am at work now and will not be home for about 5 more hours.

anyway, thanks for all of your help.  I am very happy with the sound.

Mark

Peter,

Thanks for answering - I am sorry if I have been stubborn, but I am trying to learn the program with very little time to play with it- and it sounds so good, that I want to be able to listen to music, rather than just tweek settings.

When I first got xxhighend registered, which was probably yr6, it would run for several days without interruption.  I should have known better to expect that it would work with huge playlists-

I agree with your advice- use it to play albums - I would have used winamp to do burn-in duties but it would crash every time, since xxhigh end had been installed and run.  Turns out it was autohotkeys causing the conflict, and some autoruns had gotten into my registry.  I cleaned everything out, and know how to run winamp when I need many hours of continuous play for burning in cables, etc.

I also played with some of the optimiazations of windows, and found that xxhighend seems very sensitive to video setings, so I will be careful with them.  Many of my assumptions going in are from the cics/cmp/cplay mentality which I had been following, and xxhighend seems to take a different approach to some extent, so I will be more careful and attentive about making changes and asking for help.

Now that it is working well with single albums, or playlists of 2-3 albums, I will try to install and configure yr8, as the wallpaper still sometimes skips a track, although playback continues.

Sorry to have interrupted your weekend.

Mark

The player seems to stop part way thru the playlist - I am not sure when exactly, we left for some errands, and when we came home 2-3 hours later, the playback had stopped, and xxhighend had closed.

I have the settings in xp set for "always on" and I switched to giving priority to background vs programs -- I will see how that works.

Also, I click on the "x' to close the player window while it is playing, but still processing the playlist - this brings up the wallpaper screen well, but should I wait and let the program switch displays on its own?

thanks,

Mark

Peter,

I checked my power management settings, and it is set to 'always on', and only monitor is set to turn off, after 20 minutes....  I did lower the color depth from 32 to 16 bit -- I would have gone lower except there was no setting for 8 bit at the screen size i am using.

this helped the drive light activity very much. 

I also set up an xxdata directory, and put it in settings, and set the gallery and data to point to it- that works as well.

I get lots of errors when I pause a playlist, and it keeps wanting to send error reports, which i do not send, as this computer is not networked.  i have to kill the xxhighend process in task manager to get it to stop giving errors, then all goes fine.

Now that I know how to save playlists, I can chose single albums for real listening, and load the large one when I want to get hours of burn-in on the system, without being there to listen.

I will start playing with the gallery soon as well, to see what it can do.

Thanks,

Mark

Seems like most people are running vista or 7, so I thought a thread for us xp folks would be useful.   Please post your findings, so we can share and learn together


thanks!

Mark

I put the 2 gig module in, and all is working fine. I switched from no appointment to scheme 1, and I think it sounds a little richer and more natural, but with a long play list the hard drive light stays on after playback begins, and stays on for at least 5 minutes, and it takes a while for the wallpaper to come up.

is it better to have a short playlist, for sound quality?  I have many albums in the play list so it will run for a long time so I can break in my new cables, etc..... 

also, when i try to save a playlist, i only have two choices-  currently playing, and played, but i have not set up a folder for data, and wonder if that is required to be able to name and save playlists......


lots more to learn

the 2 gig ram just showed up on my desk, courtesy of ups - i will let you know how it works out.

Should I try special mode instead of adaptive?  any thoughts what sonic differences there may be?  special did not work at all in 9yr6, but that may have been a too little ram problem?

Mark