This is a bit of a fun topic, but it may help you to find how revolving your chain is.
For those who read this later than the current 0.9z-8a version, go to here and ONLY download the main zip from it (there may be additional zips in there later) :
XXHighEnd Model 0.9z-8 (XTweaks and official W8 support) Then go to this post and unzip the XXEngine3.exe which is downloadable from there over the folder you created for the normal download above :
Re: 9Z-8a and SFS.
Now set the SFS (Split File Size) in Settings at 2 for 705600 Redbook (CD) output but devide it for each lesser output your DAC can take. So, if that is 352800 make the SFS 1 and when it is 176400 make it ~0.5. This is about the frequency of "ticking", and when this little rule is applied ticks will express at 4-5 times per second.
You may read into the subject somewhat by means of the topic of the last referred to link.
Now, I myself already had problems hearing them after being pointed to it by Bert (see that topic). But, since I was told they were in there, I finally could hear them. Later, a but knowing about the signature, I could here it in some other tracks as well. In the numerous albums I played after this knowledge, not.
Do notice that it needs the download of the second link above because otherwise the ticks are more profound (from the original download only).
Next I thought how it could be possible that Bert came up with it while I myself did not. Moreover, the few who responded to the download of the second link told "hey, thanks, ticks have gone now !". Only Paul, per another topic, just yesterday mentioned that he too could perceive the ticks.
And so it got me thinking :
We are with a few out there that undertook everything and all to eliminate (by itself inaudible) noise. I should be amongst those, Bert will and Paul is. Not everybody will be at the same level with this and besides not everybody's chain will be as resolving, this noise level matters.
Since I yesterday found the culprit, which I found to be easily measurable as well, we can now wonder what the state of our system is when we NOT hear those ticks. Not much good perhaps ? Well, it shouldn't be the best.
FYI, the ticks are about illegal tranients happening this 4-5 times per second, which is from one sample to the other. Actually it is about missing samples, which is why the too high change of level-step occurs. But, it really is from one sample to one other sample. Not longer. So, for 705600 output, think that the tick lasts for 1/705600 of a second. This *is* a bit of a moot thing because any voltage jump implies for something we could call a tick, but still it is about the shortness of it and this relates to the electronics used and speedyness of the speaker. IOW, when all can't follow this jump, it will express as a kinf of sweep and won't be a tick at all (and it will be inaudible).
It is like Paul just described in the other topic
Ticks are Back) : the louder the music the more audible the ticks should be. This is difficult, because the louder the music, the more it will overwhelm the ticks.
Killing Engine3 right in advance of playback *does* make a difference in this case. The point of skipped samples (so, which samples) will change (this is inherent to how the bug is). However, once a second Play attempt has been made without killing Engine3, all subsequent attempts will work out the same.
Now, after putting out this long introduction, can you hear the ticks/anomalies or can't you ?
The better you can, the more resolving your chain is.
If you can't at all, you know what you might want to do.
As said, a bit of a fun topic, but it could be a nice test.
Peter
PS: Any version newer than 0.9z-8c will not exhibit this.
