CD vs XXHE; is the SQ comparable?

[PeterSt]

Arvind, I have been thinking (sometimes I try ) ... So, a few things :

First off, of course the OffRamp makes a difference. It will produce a totally different jitter signature. And by now I am sorry I never tried it for its musical merits when I had it here ...
Anyway, "good" or "bad" there will be a difference already because of that.

Next, although the OffRamp has been created just to eliminate jitter as good as possible, BUT, it is there in the first place to provide a USB connection ... USB is commonly known to have the worst jitter out of everything. Please read this carefully, because everything is relative, so to say, but this all starts with "you" wanting an USB connection. Thus, once you want that, a device like the OffRamp should be a good choice because it eliminates jitter from that jittery connection as good as possible. Note that I am not talking "jitter signatures" now, but just "amount of". Anyway, and theoretically, avoiding USB is always better to start with, which by itself of course doesn't tell anything about your other connection. It may be full of jitter also, but it doesn't "start off" with it, because it is not USB.
I hope you can follow ...

Then, you must try this :
Grab a piano piece of which you think it is a good recording. Use XXHE and set Q2 and Q3 (also Q4 and Q5) to 0. Your sig says you have that anyway. Now listen closely to the dryness of the piano (best have a wing btw). If you have the feeling it may sound too dry to your likings, you have a good test recording;
Now slide Q2 and Q3 up to 30 ... (not one by one and listen in between, just both in one go and then listen)
Do you hear a difference ?
If not, that might be your "problem", because it tells that XXHighEnd isn't able to perform its influence (remember, in the bit perfect domain always). By itself this may be stated as a good thing, because the software doesn't influence. However, *now* you are completely depended on the chain after the software, and when it's "bad" it stays like that, but when it's good it stays like that too. One small problem, nothing is "good" (read : not ready for improvement), and *thus* we must theoretically state it is bad.

But if you do hear a difference this is not the "problem". Let me know what you hear in this case.

Peter

[SeVeReD]

Remember also, when it comes to usb, lots of things can influence sound quality.  When I was running usb straight into my Stello usb dac, which usb port out of the computer made a big difference, also, what usb cable I used made a big difference (I ended up liking a no name silver braided usb cable over many other tries, including an optical usb cable with battery power).  I ended up dropping usb because of these easily influenced differences.  Still, it never really sounded bad and beat out my CDP.

Have you tried other computer players (foobar, jrivers?) do they sound the same as xxhe? that may be telling about lack of influence.

[ivo]

I did compare XX vs Foobar vs XMPLay all in wasapi mode only running Vista laptop.
So, I like the players in this order:
XX
XMPlay
Foobar

XX sounds to me warmer and more detailed than XMPLay. However the latter is also very nice. Foobar is the worst and I do not like its wasapi sound. I have heard they have buggy wasapi code and this is probably why the sound is at the last place for me.
So, again in my setup XX and XMPLay are very close, would be interesting to hear what others feel on this?

[JohanZ]

Took CD and ripped one track to hard drive using EAC in .flac format
 

Why a conversion to a compressed format (i know lossless but ..) and not simple to .wav? EAC setting ok?

....still finding CD sounding much better than XXHE

Time to introduce new functionality in XX: real time cd play - and ripping functionality.

[PeterSt]

Time to introduce new functionality in XX: real time cd play - and ripping functionality.

First your randomizing wish ...

[Telstar]

I did compare XX vs Foobar vs XMPLay all in wasapi mode only running Vista laptop.
So, I like the players in this order:
XX
XMPlay
Foobar

XX sounds to me warmer and more detailed than XMPLay.

Please try with Q settings= 4/0/0/0/0 and report back. Once I tried XMPlay and found it very similar to Foobar.

[AUDIODIDAKT]

I use Foobar a lot for fast listening thru an album.

Foobar is really great, but NOT for SQ.
It sounds really flat, boring and without attitude.
Noticeable in seconds.

So without XX, I would still be using a CD-player.

[ivo]

to Telstar:

Do not get what you mean?
XX for me is number1 with any settings for Qs. I do not use 4/0/0/0/0 as I hear periodic hiss in my speakers/phones? If I use 14/0/0/0/0 or my sig. settings then no hiss.
XMPlay is better than Foobar.

[SeVeReD]

Have you optimized your computer.  (Did your laptop come loaded down with a bunch of programs running/spyware,,, they seem to always sell em with a bunch of cr*p running).  Does DPC latency checker show any spiking anomalies?  Trying to understand what you mean by periodic hiss at lower Q settings?  When I was running an acer laptop I did a clean install from xp to vista.  I'd really recommend doing a clean install to Windows 7 (just recently put that on the same laptop, my daughters now, and it runs great; laptop is like 3 years old now).  This same laptop, when I was running it, had a faint buzz when I played it plugged in, I ended up shorting the plug (danger will robinson; you're on your own here) and the buzz went away, (laptop sounded better plugged in than running off battery, but needed plug shorted).  I know others have said the same thing about noise coming through speakers when using laptops.
http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

[arvind]

Hi Peter,

Being a totally rock guy finding a piano piece is really tough. So the next best was to use Phil Collins- Against all odds, which has some piano piece. Anyway the result of setting Q2 & 3 to 30 is as follows:
The low bass has become more prominent. The mids are about the same but the highs have become sharper (not in a disturbing way)

I hope this helps.

Arvind

[ivo]

to SeVeReD:

Yes, my laptop is running the first year. I have not reinstalled it, but I have hardly stopped and removed anything unneeded. So, DPC latency checker shows < 100 mikros and there are no spikes. My profession is IT, so I know what I am doing, especially in performance tuning.
What I think would be even great is to take fresh Vista install and work on it using "vlite" approach. See http://www.vlite.net. My other home PC is running XP SP3 (nlited version: http://www.nliteos.com/) and it is damn fast and jumping, it is working much lighter than original install. I just do not listen to music on it since there is Vista with its Wasapi.

[Telstar]

to Telstar:

Do not get what you mean?
XX for me is number1 with any settings for Qs. I do not use 4/0/0/0/0 as I hear periodic hiss in my speakers/phones? If I use 14/0/0/0/0 or my sig. settings then no hiss.
XMPlay is better than Foobar.

Your signature says 14/15/15/0/0.
I said to try 4/0/0/0/0 because the other Q can make the sound too smooth, less realistic. Q0=4 is my favourite, but 14 is also very good. If the comparison was this, no need to do another one.

[PeterSt]

Hi Arvind,

Well, this helps to the sense you DAC is not immune to XX's influences. So we know that now. But further ?

I wish I had some more constructive help om this. But please keep in mind, on my part this is not about the sound quality of XXHighEnd, hence I am not defending that. It *is* about your literal call for help, combined with the -what seems fact- it can't be so that in anyone's case XX doesn't sound better than the CD Player, *or* you would be the first case I know of.

At this moment this leaves us with the indeed different connections and my perception of USB in general; Maybe this brings us back to the SPDIF connection with the laptop's soundcard. But before we proceed on this : please keep in mind that generally this is no good at all. But remember, so far this is about recognizing differences hence reasoning out where the "culprit" (that assumed) is.

The maybe cheapest solution to go from coax SPDIF to AES/EBU is this : http://www.neutrik.com/fl/en/video/210_2044239418/NADITBNC-M_detail.aspx but note it also needs an RCA to BNC adapter. Or worse, a whatever jack the laptop requires - to BNC which may not exist, and thus that jack to RCA and next RCA to BNC.
To do real good there's something like this http://www.performanceaudio.com/cgi/product_view.cgi?products_id=2909 but by time you buy that, you had better bought a new PC.

I don't know ...



May it help, my own experiences on USB vs SPDIF, both to the same DAC (that accepting both) :
- SPDIF is more fresh (USB more muffled);
- USB expresses more bass, though I was never sure it is the *right* bass;
- USB sounds more "friendly" but in the end there is no joy in listening. I always expressed it as : the musicians don't want to perform for you. Instead they only play.

FWIW, this DAC internally converts USB to SPDIF, so any verdict is dangerous.

Also, and I don't want to confuse, there's a user around in here with laptop and OffRamp who is only raving about "XXHighEnd playback", and has an MSB Platinum behind it (only indicating you both should be in the same leage).
I guess some things are too difficult to solve from a distance, and this seems to be one of them.

Peter

[arvind]

Hi Peter,

I can understand the difficulty, especially from a distance, however I have faith in this technology, especially on XXHE & I will leave no stone unturned to make this successful. Let me go about eliminating some components/connectors & come to the root cause of this problem.

Arvind