The Q1 and it's mystery

[Gerner]

Dear all...

Well to my big surprice I found a very interesting setting of the Q1 last night.

In this topic http://www.phasure.com/index.php?topic=191.msg1097;topicseen#msg1097 I quoted the following:

Could I wish for more? Perhaps...what would it be then? Hmmm...I'm not sure how to put it:

Without giving up the open spaciousness and the resolving power the player has, a tad more focus on the timbre: The inside the music details inner handshake that leads to the close to live music sound. This 5th element thing that ties everything together and leaves you believing this is really the live musicians I have standing there in front of you.
The Q1 cannot do that job for me. If it's a job at all to deal with?

Previous trials with the Q1 told me to stop at level 0, as under this level my FireFace freaked out in a way that it completely screwed funny Vista into block-mode. Only hitting the OFF button on my LT could release it from the froozen situation and 2 reboots it took the get it normal again.

Well having currage enough to try it once more I now dragged the Q1 toward the - range. No settings there interupted anything anymore? Even running the RME at 48 samples.

But what I found was what I was looking for and best was at Q1=-2.

Here it all ends up in abundance of integrety and wholeness. A magic healing up of the pixels in the sound leaning much more towards analogue play-back than ever before. Read: Infinite pixels.

Now I am aware that I propably are playing with jitter patterns, but however it comes, it comes.

Please guys who use the same chain as I do, try it out and tell me about your observations.

Gerner 

[PeterSt]

I wish are were at home in order to be able to try it ...

Please guys who use the same chain as I do, try it out and tell me about your observations.

Keep this in mind !
It will be the Fireface here doing the trick. I already know that my same DAC, though USB connected then, will die instantly.

Also think of this : Although it has not been proven at all yet, I think you may find that the Q1 settings in this area (say, around zero) will be (very) temperature dependent.

Start laughing, shooting, anything, when later this is proved to be a BS remark.

Also keep in mind that in these VERY fragile areas, you might stress the DAC or anything in front of it (towards the PC). So indeed you might find your Vista hanging, the sound repeating (in the DAC), or even your system rebooting during playback.
But hey, it's for a good cause ! (if you can get it working without anomalies).

[pedal]

I entered Vista+Engine3 heaven today. Sound is extremely good. Hasn't had time to experiment with the other settings yet. However with Q1 at zero I get a kind of "glitz" (low level noise/distortion) on long tones (typical low frequenzy organ). But it is not present on transients (shorter tones). Turning up the Q1 decreases this problem, and at value 20 it (seems to)disapear.

I have a directly connected DAC (60 pcs 1543 dac-chips in parallell and absolutely no filters between DACs ouput and preamp) through optical USB. I suspect the Q1 interfers with the buffering of the output signal?

Pls also advice me about the setting of PlayerThread and PrioThread. Do they influence on the sound? (I have a music-only PC, who doesn't run any other program than XXHighEnd).

Thanks in advance.

[PeterSt]

What Q1 does will keep on being a mystery, but that your 1543 stack won't allow for the lower values is known (from the DDDac). Note that the fact that you can't go so low does not say anything about the max sound qualty you can perceive from your DAC opposed to e.g. mine. Both will have a "max best SQ", but with your DAC it's at a higher setting.
Of course in absolute means both "your" and "my" DAC are incompareable anyway.

For your other question, there's a little Help link in the player.
People say (Vista) that it matters. I never noticed it, it even shouldn't (by explicit design of XX), but it could. For Vista it was added because people asked for it.

Peter

[PeterSt]

WOW ...

Gerner, yes, infinite resolution ... something like that.
I was just told (off line) to step to -3. I'm scared ...

What I will do, since for "us" this seems to work very well :

I will introduce a "fine res checkbox", that will allow for a say, chosen -2, to have 30 gradations within that.
I don't want to be responsible for PCs on fire, okay ?

 

[Gerner]

WOW ...

Gerner, yes, infinite resolution ... something like that.
I was just told (off line) to step to -3. I'm scared ...

What I will do, since for "us" this seems to work very well :

I will introduce a "fine res checkbox", that will allow for a say, chosen -2, to have 30 gradations within that.
I don't want to be responsible for PCs on fire, okay ?

 

Yes Peter...OK here.

Was just to post about it. Graduate 0 - -4 to many incrediments.

We will then see who protest...


Gerner 

[Chris V]

I played my set up on -4 last night for a few hours. Just because I could .

In reality I wanted to get a fix on what was happening at that end of the slider, so I could better judge where to set it. No technical issues at all, played without any nasties.

The jury is still out on SQ at that end of the slider. It throws a big spotlight on individual elements of the music and is an effect I have not heard like this before, so will take a period of adjustment before I know if I really like it. Certainly there was no distortion or listening fatique and yes its sounded more 'live'.

Will continue the listening over the weekend. 

Cheers Chris

[Gerner]

Hi Chris

I run -4 at all times now. But unchecked "reverse". At Q1=0 I prefere the "reverse" checked.

However -4 is really squeezing the FF or DAC to it's utmost. It happens from time to time the sound suddently starts to distort enourmuosly. I just press the playbutton once more and it goes on normally.


So a graduator with max 10 incrediments between 0 and -4 would be OK. Going -5 would likely result in a totally chrash.

Gerner

[SeVeReD]

Ok look what you fools have me doing (chk sig).  I don't know that I can say anything just yet... I'm really not sure and unfortunately I've only gotten to listen when tired or background/quick checks.  All I can say is just when you think you're sure about your preferences in audio, something else pops up that makes you question it. sigh.  Not only am I bouncing between Q1 13 & -4, but I'm also questioning (NOT SURE at all) if there is a sound quality difference between using wav/cue files with explorer and straight wav from library... I do know I don't get errors when using wav with -4 but do get a timed out for eng 3 with -4 using cue/wav once in a while...also trying to listen to wav files I've split with Medieval CUE Splitter which also don't give errors with -4... sigh too much on the plate.... i just wanna have fun hehe

Do I really have to worry about hurting anything?... what am I stressing by testing -4?  (I didn't jump to -2 or -3 like you pussies... I went straight to -4 baby... hehe just looking for big differences first so I can get a handle on it)

[PeterSt]

Of course you can't destroy anything. Things can be stressed though, and the reboot stuff is true.

The timeouts you get, everybody has. At least they are caused by "your" cue file software (hehe); the cue files itself are not related.

With cue files the large wav is always addressed. It jumps in the middle of it when a track has to be played, or it just keeps hooked on the file at subsequently playing the tracks (but not with diacritical marks).

On the Q thing ...

Maybe you should try Q1=-2 too. Technically -2 and -3 act a little different from alll of the others (including -4).

But we are not done with it yet;
I was told by Gerner to try 30 (we both use the same PC->DAC configuration) and had to tell him what I found of it. To make a long story short, 30 could even be better. So the d*mn thing is related to the base quality, and the base quality is so much different with 0.9k (with 0.9j things became fuzzy only at the higher levels).

Things get kind of mysterious indeed;
(keep in mind that for "your" DAC and (USB) connection things like below may not apply)

Although I did not test long enough, things may get too "smooth" at the lower Q1 levels.  In the end this comes down to less (or no ?) "rubbish" in the sound, which IMO is there at Q=0 and even overexpressed compared with earlier versions. I find it grainy, although it will depend on the speakers whether it's much audible. So with -2 (and lower) this grainyness has disappeared, but seems to have turned into "too smooth".
Oh for your information : I judge this by uplevelled high frequency output, gradually starting at 5K, ending at 20K with 16dB more output as at 5K.
And yes, I say smooth.

I only now realize that this would be the same as Gerner's infinite resolution, because it (the too smooth) really feels like so (at normal 44K1 btw).

Now, what occurred to me is that at Q1=30 the necerssary gaps (yup) are added to make a cymbal a more real cymbal again. To make clear what I mean : think of a cymbal with (loose hanging) nails mounted in them; that kind of sound is coming back. The necessary squarish harmonics apparently were not there at Q1<-1.
Note that it could be fake, and jitter can be perceived as gaps (holes) in the sound, but possibly this is just what it needs.

Do not forget : my judgement above is done with high frequency output which is over 5 times the normal level (with btw a serious attempt to let it stay like that ).

[Chris V]

Hi Peter

I guess I was jumping to the wrong conclusion about the Q1 slider .
I had assumed it had two extremes (like a volume control) -4 and +30 and that all points in between were a blend of these two extremes. In other words 13 was a 50% blend of the characteristics at -4 and +30.

My quick listening at the lower numbers suggested 'dangerous' 'spotlight' 'intense insight' and at higher values 'relaxed' 'smoothness' 'easy listening'.

Looks like I will have to go back and listen more intently, particularly as you say that one or two of the positions may have very distinct character of their own.

[PeterSt]

Hi Chris,

Well, uhhm ... you are not sure how it works, and I am not sure what you mean.

The Q1 slider treats one phenomenon all the way, and 30 is just the current max position while -4 is the current min position. Both could be extended. For me the -4 is the best when going down from more upwards, but 30 seems the best when going up from more downwards. Both ends seem best at there own characteristics (and remember, it would be jitter-influence only). This should imply that both ends should be extended in order to find the real best setting.
When things start to crackle, repeat, or show drop outs, it is not jitter-only anymore, and obviously then the data is molested.
Be careful that you don't arrive in that range, where a tad too low (Q1) could cause regular missing samples (to my findings expressing as stressy sound, and (for me) enabled with USB only).

If you control your Fireface still at 256 samples (?), be careful that because of that everything is perceived differently at your side. For me, the 48 setting goes along with the very low Q1 values (and at Q1=30 the FF is still at 48).

I'm afraid the combinations are endless ...

[Chris V]

OK, I understand now. The Q1 slider is controlling cause not effect. Its adjusting jitter influence and not specifically a particular property of the sound 

I take your point about the sampling rate of the Fireface (I still use 256) and will get my act together and buy the plug-in firewire connection, rather than continuing to use the inbuilt one which limits the ability of the firewire. Thats the problem when things sound so good it builds in inertia to change.

[PeterSt]

Just for your information :

After playing with Q1=30 for several days (not to forget, with 16dB uplevelled highs) all the time the fun had gone. Also, voices (mainly women) now *did* have a flair over them, though slight. Tonight I switched back to Q1=0, and the fun was back.

I again heard the spatiousness, the better realness of cymbals afterall, the no flair at all over voices, the better balance.
Joy.

Q1=30 started to annoy me more and more. It's faking things.

[SeVeReD]

Well, never got to hear Q1 30... would crackle and break up for me 28 was ok,,, but I felt I was getting distortion.  I still primarily listen to 13, but occationally still listening to -4, -3, -2... been way to busy to really evaluate, and just generally happy with 13.  I'll have more time this weekend.  hiyall