Vista + Engine3 is IT!!!

[pedal]

Today I upgraded my OS from XP til VISTA, and loaded up my playlist with usual test tracks. Playing through Engine3 I am sitting here in my sofa at the very moment completely spellbounded. HOLY SMOKE!! The SQ has elevated to a much higher level: "Grit" has decreased at all frequencies. Bass is now extremely tight and detailed. In fact it made me turn up the basslevel 1dB (active x-over @80Hz). Now I understand Peter's talking about the program removing "standing waves in your listening room" elsewere on this forum (frankly I thought that was a litle gaga... untill now...).
Midrange is also seriously improved, it is so transparent now. Colourations I thought was inherent in my loudspeakers has (practically speaking) vanished too.

Shortly said: Every single SQ factor has improved compared with XP+J+K. Better microdynamics, better macro dynamics, more transparent, (even) less glare/grit. If your system is up to it, you can play most tracks 5-10dB higher without listening fatigue.

Right now I listen to R.Waters/Amused To Death. Rogers bitter lyrics is accompanied by jetplanes, horses, warheroes, Ferrari's and other soundeffects apearing from 360 degrees around my head. It's so emotional, if I don't switch now I'll shead a tear. He-he.

I could not get this kind of sonic upgrade, spending whatever amount on hardware upgrades. Thank you Peter. I hope you sell a million licenses of your wonderful program!

pedal

[Gerner]

Congrats Pedal....


Gerner

[pedal]

I downloaded version M-1 on Thursday. Installation was troublefree, including Dualcore setting. Friday morning, house is empty and time for a quick soundcheck before leaving for job. Big mistake. Lost a full working day! Didn't leave my sofa for 8 hours, had to listen through all reference tracks through and through. Another serious gain in sound quality. I agree with others findings here on the forum. Version M-1 removes another veil between the listener and the mastertape. Sound quality improves in all areas. More low level information from all instruments and voices, more recorded "space", instruments floats more freely into the listening room and away from the loudspeakers, tighter and more rythmic bass, better dynamics from top to bottom, etc.

At the moment I stay with value 13 on SQ1, which was my prefered setting also with version K. I have the possibility to do as low as -3 (which I couldn't do in K). -3 is seductive, but I feel 13 is more "dry" and more correct with better definition of microdynamics. -3 is more "fluid" and "natural" sounding in "a certain way", but I miss a little of the "transient action" from 13. Will investigate further, though.

Thanks again, Peter. You have created a wonderful software!

pedal

[PeterSt]

Hi pedal,

Thank you very much. Very nice to hear.
But ... you did try the Q1 = -3 with Invert ticked, right ? because IMO (and of others) it just needs that ...

Peter

[SeVeReD]

Put the Pedal to the Metal!

You're hearing a lot of the same things I'm hearing.  I'm spending lots of time listening the last couple of days and 0.9M-1.. Wow.. I don't know how it can get any better....I'm glad PeterSt thinks it can!  I've been listening to -3 this weekend, but I do like 13 quite a bit... they sure both give a different presentation, but both sound really incredible.  Now that I've got -3 under my belt I'll go back to 13 too... again, maybe it will be recording dependent.  

When you went to -3 did you try inverting phase?... give that a try at -3.  Glad you're enjoying this as much as I am.  I just got back from surfing and as soon as I get the water outta my ears, I'm diving back into the music room!  (edit- doh... I see PeterSt just beat me to it)

I also agree about the value this player has given us... best money, and damn near least amount of money, I've spent in audiophool land.  Some time ago when I had a flurry of expensive transports and dacs in and out of my system (borrowing/buying) I decided that it was on the transport side that I heard the most differences/improvements... (never understood the audio magazines spending so much more time on the dacs and saying transports didn't matter, ha).  I think that's what started me on the road to computers being possibly a better transport... PeterSt proves it to me.  I still want to upgrade my "lowly, $700" Stello usb-dac (possibly Bert's gear), but I really can't believe how good it all sounds right now.
Dave

[pedal]

Further thoughts about the Q1:

After several hours A-B listening, I still prefer 13 (non-inverted) rather than -3IP (inverted polarity).
 
Generally speaking - in the Digital World (as we experience it these days) - some components give us MORE. They process the digital signals more accurately + they dig deeper and reveals new layers of low level information. This is what I experienced when upgrading from Foobar/XP to XX/XP. I got MORE and BETTER reproduction. The same happened when upgrading from XX/XP to XX/VISTA. And, again, when upgrading from K to M-1. (What a fantastic thrill it’s been these last 2 months ).

But going from 13 to -3IP doesn’t give me anything MORE. I am not able to hear any deeper into the recordings. On the positive side -3IP reproduces micro-dynamics with a more “fluid” character without adding any veil or blur. You might say that an instrument’s dynamic shadings are rendered more “naturally” by -3IP. Perhaps it makes the 16bit “chopping” less obvious. (The Red Book format does of course have an unavoidable sonic signature, like vinyl and magnet tape). On the negative side, I hear that -3IP reduces some of the instrumental “liveliness” and “transient speed”, which I enjoy so much with 13. Listening load to good recordings through 13 gives me an adrenalin rush!

Although we audiophiles scream “nirvana” every time we change an interconnect, we are far away from creating LIVE sound in its true meaning. Whatever format or budget, it’s still only a reproduction. However I think the sound signature of 13 is the route to follow for future improvements.

PS: I haven’t had time to test other values than 13. Who knows what’s hidden at 10 or 20?! Perhaps other users can shed some light here?

[pedal]

VERSION S-1: SONIC IMPRESSIONS

Dear Peter,
Congratulations once again with a major sonic improvement. With your “runaway train” feature, you have done it again!

Going from M-1 to S-1 UNATTENDED, I hear that the SQ has improved in a major way, but in a new direction. Let me put in perspective: The earlier versions removed “grit” (or let’s just use the plain old description “distortion”) throughout the entire frequency spectre. The hearing is more sensitive in the presence area, so when we improve our digital playback equipment, we tend to identify them as more “dark” sounding, “blacker background”, more focused, more detailed.

This time, with S-1, I still hear the same kind of improvement in the midrange and treble as before, but for the first time in my system, the bass frequencies has taken on an “ethereal” quality. The bass is now so clean and precise, that I could increase the gain of all frequencies below 80Hz with another 1dB on my active XO.

More now than before, I feel that the sonic signature of the CD-medium has vanished and that I am listening to the purity of the recording itself. And I can play same tracks 3-5 dB louder, if I want to. Always a good sign.

Since S-1 has “crossed a threshold” in terms of bass SQ, I advice others to be open to adjust the position of their loudspeakers, unless they can EQ electrically.

----------

Regarding Q1 setting: I can see that most of you have come up from the cellar. That is values below zero. With version N-1 I preferred 13. With S-1 I think 14 is better. Its slightly more “fluid” than 13, without any obvious sacrifices.

Regarding Polarity setting: still I prefer this unchecked.


Big thump up to Peter.St!
 

[PeterSt]

Thank you very much pedal !
And ... you just confirmed something I did not want to do myself, but will now : increase the bass volume (at the filter side).

Please allow me - as usual  - to backup your findings with IMO a related story of mine. For my own mind setting it's always good to write about things anyway :

First, please read this post : Re: 0.9d vs u/i 0.9j;
This, btw, also shows why it is important to archive things the way I do it, and why your feedback is so important.

Well, whether all is really true as how I described it in that post or not may be not the most important, but the sole fact that with 0.9s-1 the bass output got less -while at the same time being sure that it is for the better because of bass output being more clean (indeed)- this again will be about less standing waves in the room. Must be ...
Might you not have taken the time to read that long post I just referred to ... it is about a 26dB increase of the sub-low frequencies, only because of a software player working out ... well ... not the best ? And this 26dB is indeed in a frequeny range 99% of audio freaks won't even notice because they aren't ready for the subwoofer era.

Now, as a kind of side story, the way I tweaked my xovers already shows a more or less ridiculeous dip in the middle, or better, boosted bass and boosted highs. I won't again refer to the topic where I brainstormed about my reasons for uplevelling the highs (it must be worked out better / more decent), but for in here it might be important that the output as measured from the speakers already was uplifted crazily and now will go in the same direction for the bass.

Sidenote : Be aware that in my case the highs are to be interpreted as coming from horn speakers, measured at the mouth, meaning : the output is rather directional, the room far far less contributing to it by means of reflections. For the bass output this is unrelated (the room will do her work here anyway).

Since I am too deep into listening carefully how things should sound, and which nowadays is ONLY about nature, and near nothing about removing distortions (or IOW not about "how will my system sound the least disturbing" -> history) I myself am dead sure that there is nothing wrong with my uplevelled highs, as well as that nothing will be wrong with uplevelled lows. Now, assuming I am right, we get this :

When a loudspeaker (or in fact system) is measured, this doesn't go through XXHighEnd, right ? whatever it goes through, it is not what we listen through playing our albums. Now you tell me : if a stupid piece of software player can incur for 26dB lifted sub low frequencies (as it works out in the room !!), what is there to say from whatever measuring software ? And oh, I do not say that this software (or device) would be wrong, but I sure say it works out differently.
But ... when we all, by means of absolute judging/listening/hearing come to the conclusion that XXHighEnd her output is good, then that leaves us with the withgoing conclusion that the output of the measuring will be wrong(ish ?). And obviously there is no reason why our measuring software is not subjective to the same matters our software player is, knowing that the differences emerge at the DAC side ...

Of course, nothing tells us that it is necessary to adjust the frequency output of our speakers, but as far as I can tell many things are going on beyond our knowledge, and when a frequency curve as I imply does so much good to natural sound (which is explicitly not subjective to what I like or whatever), then something must be going on.

Peter

[Gerner]

Hmm.... let's see if this post can survive here.....

First of all I'm not sure what you talk about except for SQ and whatever. Finding pick-up 1 being better than pick up 2 in the good old vinyl days and alikes. Those old mechanical devices also showed differences in both highs and lows letting your speaker move some cm's. But not at that level!

But in the domain you talk about here, 26 db, it can only be related to room phenomenons, taste, lack of a loudness button or a completely freaked out players??? The latter I cannot confirm here in my environment.

It is world wide accepted that speakers throughout decades, or soon a centery now, showes more or less liniarity, more or less within the same +- band tollerances accepted by most ears. These tollerances are discussed in many many reviews and tests and among forum members. But they are not being about neither 26 db or anything like it.

Talking about cranking up some frequency bands at these db levels to make a SW player sound at it's best, then something must be expressed wrongly or my mind lost the track?

Will someone of you please crank up 25-30 db audible frequencies at sub-freq. level if your speakers can respond liniarely there and tell me if you think this is sounding like music in your place?

I am most curious what this is all about.

Gerner

[PeterSt]

Gerner, it is all in the post I referred to. The XX version concerned can still be downloaded ... but how can you check since you don't have subwoofers. And of course you must have the appropriate album (Hatfield's End, Stonehenge 4 in this case).
This has few to do with room response, it has NOTHING to do with tweaking frequency output, it is just a stupid software player doing it (wrong in this case  ).

 

[PeterSt]

Maybe it is more easy to understand it like this :

In that particular version of XXHighEnd the frequency output (as for the net result in the room) shifted to the low side. In 0.9s-1 it is shifted in the other direction - to the highs.
This is, btw, a typical signature of jitter ... or the bass is good, or the treble is good. Not both. In tis case (0.9s-1) however something else happened;
where the highs contain a fair (too musch) amount of jitter playing with Appointment Scheme-1, Scheme-3 just makes that good, pertaining the other goodies (I did not try "No Appointment" but my feeling says it's rather the same as Scheme-3).

Well, IMO of course.

[SeVeReD]

Maybe it is more easy to understand it like this :

In that particular version of XXHighEnd the frequency output (as for the net result in the room) shifted to the low side. In 0.9s-1 it is shifted in the other direction - to the highs.
This is, btw, a typical signature of jitter ... or the bass is good, or the treble is good. Not both. In tis case (0.9s-1) however something else happened;
where the highs contain a fair (too musch) amount of jitter playing with Appointment Scheme-1, Scheme-3 just makes that good, pertaining the other goodies (I did not try "No Appointment" but my feeling says it's rather the same as Scheme-3).

Well, IMO of course.

hmm I hope no appointment is close to scheme 3, but could you give it a try and tell us single core peps what we might be missing... or maybe no appointment might ??? trying to make you curious and, well I need a push to start thinking about building that new computer.... or finding a laptop that will do it well.

[pedal]

First, please read this post : Re: 0.9d vs u/i 0.9j;

I did, and I am really impressed with your discoveries which are covering new territory not mentioned in any other publication or magazine, as far as I know. In fact most “experts” still in 2007 says that the nature of audible jitter is “a mystery”:
Jitter causes more squaryness. This by itself would be audible, but never mind that.
A bass driver would have more difficulties with that than a midrange driver. Remember, a voltage jump with near infinit rise time is already hard to be followed by electronics, let alone a diaphragm. And of course, the more weight the diaphragm has, the more difficult it will be to follow the steep rise.

Digital, followed by a nos-DAC, will indeed feed that to the drivers. So, with a nos-DAC we're asking for trouble.
I believe you are right when you state that:
-Jitter causes squaryness.
-Squaryness interacts with the rest of the equipment, with different result between different systems and components.
-Squaryness is worse for bass than treble. (If you try to listen and compare square and sinus tones above 10kHz, they are in fact not much different).

BTW, “99%” of all DACs have a capacitor on its output, so they don’t pass on any DC components to the amplifiers. So true square waves cannot enter the amplifiers.

Regarding bass SQ of version S-1 I can testify that the performance is awesome. I have 2 pcs subwoofers with 7 pcs 12” drivers in parallel, in sealed 220cm linesource enclosures, performing flat to about 8Hz in-room. They are driven by very stable and powerful bipolar amplifier with 1000w each channel @ 2ohm. When playing Sheffield lab Drum Record (XRCD24) track 2 with Ron Tutt (Elvis’ drummer!) on very loud levels, his kick drum is simply scary. An experienced friend of my said he hadn’t heard such realistic kick drum even on live stage! I believe this could not have happened if not XXHighEnd had such superb performance and low jitter levels. With version S-1 I think jitter levels must be veeeery low for all frequencies.

Keep up the good work, PeterSt!

pedal

[SeVeReD]

ok, when do I get to come over to pedal's house.  I'm just barely getting by with four 12"s and 3 sunfire sig subs

[PeterSt]

Hi pedal,

When I finished writing the below, I wanted to scratch it again because it doesn't seem to make a difference to matters. But my curiosity stays on what you actually meant by the 10KHz phrase and all. You could mean that such a high frequency tone is hardly audible anyway, so how to hear a difference between a square and a sine. But since you also emphasized on the capacitor thing *and* your DDDac doesn't have them, all together I wonder what the message is. So I did not scratch it :

(If you try to listen and compare square and sinus tones above 10kHz, they are in fact not much different).

Are you sure you tried that with your DDDac ? (I mean : with a nos DAC)
They sound very different !?!

BTW, “99%” of all DACs have a capacitor on its output, so they don’t pass on any DC components to the amplifiers. So true square waves cannot enter the amplifiers.

Again strange, because your DDDac has no caps in the output stage I think. Or ... or maybe you explicitly talk about the TRUE square waves ... they indeed cannot exist in electronics.
Anyway, my squares show square and fair on my scope (with some ringing of course). No matter where I measure (even in mid air ehh room, though very hard to capture there because of reflections). They do from 20-20000Hz (and more I'm sure, but I did not test that) ...
They do NOT with an oversampling DAC (at 10000 they're already nice sines, but depending on the amount of oversampling of course).

Peter