My first Windows 8 experience

[BertD]

Thanks...

Mmm 2 RAMdisks! And XX playing from one of them....

This will be a bit more complex to have that loaded automatically at startup using a batch-file.

O well, if the sound is okay then I'll just have to create it like that. 

Thanks for the tips.

[PeterSt]

Fine. But how did I achieve this ?

First off, as promised I made the OS even less noisy. Should be better from theory anyway, up to some extend perhaps (see my "randomize noise" subject I sometimes talk about).
A new XXHighEnd version is needed for this, and by itself it is good to go. But, I want to change a few more things first.

Notice that I am not sure whether the above helped by itself. It should be counterproductive and make it worse. But :
Since my time for listening and comparing is virtually zero, I did not sort out which causes what. So, I did more things at the same time, and the above was done because it's just the general "progressing" for XXhighEnd and so far it always led to the better sound. It is important not to miss that I did not take the route of more noise, which seemed to be the solution to this all, as suggested earlier in the topic.

Then I changed my only disk in the system from a SATAIII connection to a SATAIII connection om another chip. This latter is merely by accident, but it could be important that I had to change a BIOS setting to let this work and which is not advised by the Motherboard. Think like a message "Do you want to set this anyway ?" and you know enough. This is about some chip (did not sort it out) which by default does not allow a bootable disk to be there. So, SATAIII, but not bootable (I never heard of it before, but alas).
May it be important : this chip will be something about EMedia.

In the mean time I most probably found the worst mistake "Mr NOISE" (who should be me) can make : I had a switching power supply in the mains ring (separately earthed) of my audio system. This went a bit unnoticed because the two audio PCs I use now are in this same ring, while the "XXHighEnd PC" was connected to that via an extension block. All still OK because of the PC noise which is lead away via USB (and the NOS1), but not okay for the monitor('s switching PSU) I also plugged in there. Looks harmless because "PC gear", but not quite the situation for my W7 Audio PC where the monitor is in the normal house ring.

See below how the noise of a switching PSU can look like, which in this case is from a laptop and when in a separate earthed ring is harmless. This is 40mV of noise, while virtually nothing (a few uV) should show.
I now envision this "switching" sound from Left and Right which I almost literally described like switching, earlier in the topic.

But where does this leave us all ?

First off, it is clear that reports about the SQ of W8 were inconsistent. Maybe it is good I made this mistake (and assumed it really is the most of the culprit) so people could learn about this strange sound.
Important : I used the exact same switching PSU in the same extension box for the W7 install on the very same machine. It did NOT bother me. At least not that I noticed.

It should now be so that those experiencing this same strange sound, are subject to a similar situation. So, find your switching PSUs in the audio mains ring, plug them elsewhere and done.

Yea ?

I'm afraid not. Not, because not everybody will be able to do this, for the sheer stupid reason of not having a separately earthed mains ring. BUT, I actually do not even know that this is about earth influence, but it can be expected. Anyway for those without separately earthed rings, you can always try that other house ring (which you will have for sure);
When the only switching PSU you really can't get rid of is your monitor's PSU you can always pull the plug (from the wall !!) and try whether it indeed is your culprit. If so, you can see further what to do.

Outside the above, I think it may be quite difficult for us all comparing apples to apples, while W8 suddenly unveils this sh*t. I don't think you need a new XXHighEnd version to go on route and find your switching PSU's, while OTOH for most it should be so that they are out already. But still, even with me this was not so ...

One more thing for those who don't know it :
The PC, containing a swithcing PSU itself, should be on the same earth (ring) as your audio gear. This does not seem so logical, but it is so. BUT, while this counts for NOS1 users for sure (and/but how I can derive things from my own situation which should be general though not 100% sure) it *should* be the same for everyone, assuming there's an electrical connection between the PC and the stereo. To this I must add that USB is special and might work out differently than coax/SPDIF, which I don't know. Also, with Toslink/SPDIF there *is* no connection, and now it is better to have the PC on a different earth.

Peter


PS: And then to think that only during this writing I think of me now having TWO PCs connected to the audio (earth) ring, while one of them is not connected to the noise guiding away means at least the NOS1 takes care of. Will SQ improve when I change that ?
Maybe. But I only tell you this because it is so easy to overlook something ...

[juanpmar]

So, here is my "pop up" :

Sound is now plainly nothing less than superb.
Do you hear ?

Look at my sig as per the 5th of February 2013 and notice the ** denotations, indicating which parameters were changed compared to my previous settings (like I do it always with these **).
Yep, including SFS=2, meaning : I just tried that to be on the most nasty side possible, but it is not nasty. Not anymore and not at all. Never tried higher as of now.

Hi Peter, congratulations for your sound. Would you please explain certain things that I don´t understand in your signature?. Sorry if you already have explained part or the whole of it before, in such a case please drive me where the information is. Things are getting more and more complicated with W8, now even with the power supply. What I´d like to know for now as detailed as possible is:

- XX on 1GB RAMDisk (IMDisk). How to create that RAMDisk (IMDisk). What is IMDisk?. So far XX was in the same drive than the OS.

- music through WiFi somewhere and somehow. So far WiFi was prohibited due to interference. Please could you explain it further?. How do you receive the music and how you manage the music you receive by WiFi?.

-  Minimize OS. So, definitively you use Minimize OS?.

Regards,
Juan

[Scroobius]

Ha ha maybe my ears are OK after all I just dug out the text of an email I sent to Nick recently about W8.

"Windows 8 here is the clear winner - by a country mile. I went back to 7 the other day and could not believe the difference 7 sounded confused and lacking in clarity. Which was a surprise as I was more than happy with it before. BUT I find that 8 needs real care and attention to get the sound right. By care and attention I mean that it is incredibly revealing. The smallest changes are easily audible. If I had not removed all fans and switched everything off that can be switched off then I may well have a very different impression of 8. As it is though I am hearing the clearest most delineated sound I have heard anywhere. There is a natural roundness to the sound that is very lifelike.  And unlike the posts about sound stage mine has improved and is more "outside the speakers" however some of that may be down to my new "friends" - see links below.

The sound stage in W8 is better than 7 in that I can clearly here things I could not hear before - the smallest sounds are separated out and can be heard clearly.

I am the biggest skeptic about the latency settings. Big latency just does not sound right to me - it seems to smudge over things and seems to be a fix that covers other problems and ameliorates edge in the sound (I know that is probably the opposite to what we would expect technically) . I have to say though at SFS=2 there is a slight edge to the sound but it really does sound to me as though it is not W8 or XX producing the hardness it is probably the computer or electrically added edge to the sound - after all we cannot get rid of everything i.e. the mobo ha ha. Of course that is only a guess. Who knows?

But anyway there is no going back to 7 my ears tell me that 8 sounds stunning."

Good to know that my VERY OLD (before Mani says that!) ears have not let me down.

By the way I do have a separate mains supply with balanced transformer.

Cheers

Paul

[PeterSt]

Juan,

- XX on 1GB RAMDisk (IMDisk). How to create that RAMDisk (IMDisk). What is IMDisk?. So far XX was in the same drive than the OS.

This should be of not much importance for anyone. In my case it is though because I only have the OS disk in there and, say, I don't want it spinning. This is part of a far larger project.
If you want a RAMDisk, just use what you are used to. This one works too but with more hassle. Or maybe not. Anyway I regard it not important *for you*.

- music through WiFi somewhere and somehow. So far WiFi was prohibited due to interference. Please could you explain it further?. How do you receive the music and how you manage the music you receive by WiFi?.

You're too early. I put it in my sig like that for a reason. Still I need to mention it because it is my consistent situation and it may matter. This is only proven when you all can't get it done, while I now can. Notice though that I have this way of working for a longer time, and it didn't help a thing.
It is part of the same project as from your first quote above.
When it is time and ready, I will express about it of course.
Of course to me it proves some other way around (and what you actually ask about) : it is harmless. But don't think you can now just start using WiFi. What I do is quite (ehm, very) special, has not been done before and officially can't work.

-  Minimize OS. So, definitively you use Minimize OS?.

Definitely.

Regards,
Peter

[juanpmar]

Thanks Peter

Juan

[PeterSt]

Good to know that my VERY OLD (before Mani says that!) ears have not let me down.

Hey Paul. Thanks for sharing this. But aren't your ears somewhat bigger than average ? say like mine ?
hahahaha
Tried to find a smiley for it, and came up with this one :

[Leo]

Re signature W8: Cool when idle = 1 ????

[Jud]

First off, as promised I made the OS even less noisy. Should be better from theory anyway, up to some extend perhaps (see my "randomize noise" subject I sometimes talk about).

Thank you!

Then I changed my only disk in the system from a SATAIII connection to a SATAIII connection om another chip. This latter is merely by accident, but it could be important that I had to change a BIOS setting to let this work and which is not advised by the Motherboard. Think like a message "Do you want to set this anyway ?" and you know enough. This is about some chip (did not sort it out) which by default does not allow a bootable disk to be there. So, SATAIII, but not bootable (I never heard of it before, but alas).
May it be important : this chip will be something about EMedia.

Not completely understanding.  Right now I have XXHE, the OS, and Galleries on a SATAIII SSD.  I suppose having the SSD is a bit like having a RAMdisk, but when it's time, please let us know if it makes a big difference whether these things are on RAMdisks or on an SSD (or together or apart).

In the mean time I most probably found the worst mistake "Mr NOISE" (who should be me) can make : I had a switching power supply in the mains ring (separately earthed) of my audio system. This went a bit unnoticed because the two audio PCs I use now are in this same ring, while the "XXHighEnd PC" was connected to that via an extension block. All still OK because of the PC noise which is lead away via USB (and the NOS1), but not okay for the monitor('s switching PSU) I also plugged in there. Looks harmless because "PC gear", but not quite the situation for my W7 Audio PC where the monitor is in the normal house ring.

See below how the noise of a switching PSU can look like, which in this case is from a laptop and when in a separate earthed ring is harmless. This is 40mV of noise, while virtually nothing (a few uV) should show.

It should now be so that those experiencing this same strange sound, are subject to a similar situation. So, find your switching PSUs in the audio mains ring, plug them elsewhere and done.

Yea ?

I'm afraid not. Not, because not everybody will be able to do this, for the sheer stupid reason of not having a separately earthed mains ring. BUT, I actually do not even know that this is about earth influence, but it can be expected. Anyway for those without separately earthed rings, you can always try that other house ring (which you will have for sure);
When the only switching PSU you really can't get rid of is your monitor's PSU you can always pull the plug (from the wall !!) and try whether it indeed is your culprit. If so, you can see further what to do.

Outside the above, I think it may be quite difficult for us all comparing apples to apples, while W8 suddenly unveils this sh*t. I don't think you need a new XXHighEnd version to go on route and find your switching PSU's, while OTOH for most it should be so that they are out already. But still, even with me this was not so ...

Yes, unplugging SMPSs is what the fellow I've gotten my cables from for years (and about whom I PMed you in connection with the feet) has always advised.  He too, with his partner, actually tests all this stuff, so no matter how far out it seems, he has the measurements and the listening sessions to back it all up.

One more thing for those who don't know it :
The PC, containing a swithcing PSU itself, should be on the same earth (ring) as your audio gear. This does not seem so logical, but it is so. BUT, while this counts for NOS1 users for sure (and/but how I can derive things from my own situation which should be general though not 100% sure) it *should* be the same for everyone, assuming there's an electrical connection between the PC and the stereo. To this I must add that USB is special and might work out differently than coax/SPDIF, which I don't know. Also, with Toslink/SPDIF there *is* no connection, and now it is better to have the PC on a different earth.

Interesting - is that because of USB's included power leg?  Wonder how battery and/or linear supplies might play into this (though there we are talking either money for such a supply for a desktop, or laptops)?

[PeterSt]

Re signature W8: Cool when idle = 1 ????

Yes Leo. I talked about that a few times;
Windows 8 behaves strange with =0. Also see here : XTweaks : Cool when Idle and Windows 8.

Peter

[juanpmar]

Hi Paul,

In your signature you have this:  PA=ON *-ve*. What does that -ve mean?.

Do you have actualized your signature, don´t you have stops?. I ask it because you have the same processor/configuration as me.

Regards,
Juan

[PeterSt]

Not completely understanding.  Right now I have XXHE, the OS, and Galleries on a SATAIII SSD.  I suppose having the SSD is a bit like having a RAMdisk, but when it's time, please let us know if it makes a big difference whether these things are on RAMdisks or on an SSD (or together or apart).

For now : No way an SSD is or behaves (or sounds) similar to normal RAM.

Interesting - is that because of USB's included power leg?

USB is hard to understand; By now I forgot the exact setup how to see/measure, but think like this :
In the NOS1 there's an USB display. Initially we thought to power this by USB power. Nicely convenient, especially knowing that no 5V supply is in the NOS1; we could not get it to work, unless it created DC offset (which is very specially setup in then NOS1 anyway and the reason why it happened in the first place). Then we found that once USB was powering this display and with the notice it is completely isolated from everything, we could measure 5V DC from ANY connection, be that the plus from XLR, the minus from XLR or signal ground to PE (Protective Earth). To me this said something like "and thus all three should be connected". But they were not, obviously. What it next told me is that USB creates 5V DC on PE anyway. Well, at least this happened with the isolated display. 5V DC on PE means 5V DC on the Neutral. 5V DC on the Neutral means a not so nice sine on your mains. 5V DC on our Neutral at 230V mains a more nice sine than 5V DC on your 115V mains.

Are we getting somewhere ?
It is all one big pile of sh*t.

What NOS1 users will know is that switching off the PC (reboot it) *may* incur for DC offset on the NOS1 (there are meters for that on it). Whether this really happens depends on ... I don't know. But since the NOS1 creates its near zero DC Offset from what I call a "mechanical balance" it will be about sudden *change* in DC Offset on the mains and next the balance is off and can't be restored. Oh, it will ... just switch on the PC again.
This is all very trickery stuff and for example, you can't pull the USB cable either. That too creates an imbalance, but this is logic (to me) because a ground is pulled away, or better, a groundLOOP is broken.

There's much much more about it (*and* written about in this forum) and for example and about how difficult it actually is to have all right for everybody : The NOS1-USB's predecessor had to use another "DC control" scheme (because no USB) and while this worked for 230V it dit not work at all for 115V. Now we're dealing with mains phase related stuff which also could exhibit in countries like the UK where they are able to setup the lot in 5 different ways nobody has heard of. But do notice that there are really many ways to get the 115V or 230V to you and that they are all different for (good) audio.
That in the US the plugs fall out already when you sneeze is not part of this, but also matters I think. Haha.

Lastly, it is really NO coincidence that out of all Paul may have it right. I mean, we both sort of inifinitely worked on getting noise out of his speakers - only because I was so foolish to tell him he could be without, but without knowing a thing of his house etc. IOW, Paul *really* worked on that and apparently in better fashion than I myself.
It is also NO coincidence that you see Paul writing to Nick whom I even worked more with because Nick has noise problems more than anyone else, and when he thinks he has all out of the way, he finds ... a transmission antenna at 30 miles distance hammering on all up to his washing machine.

These stories go on and on. I thought I had my things together. But I had not. It really is the most difficult subject ("mains") and the most hammering on SQ. Now it took W8 to point it out. At least that this the status as of now. But once you have it done, it is "lonely at the top". And mind you ... read that review from 6moons again. It took them 8 bloody months. But they are not ignorant, like we in here are not ignorant. Do we know how much time we spend on reinstalling OSes, try again, try all we didn't try before, build new PC's, detach drives and what not in the HOPE we can get somewhere ? That someone like me "ignorantly" continues on that other part of the OS possibly incurring for noise, only knowing months later when the task has been accomplished ?

What a hobby. But so much worth while.
Peter

[Jud]

OK, another question about RAMdisks, or rather, about random access memory:  Can anything (besides music - I'm thinking if it can be on an external USB3 drive, it can be on a USB3 stick) be on a USB3 stick, or is that just stupid even to think of?

(I know I have a lot of questions - this is the way I become when I get very interested in something, as I am in following along with you through these changes.  Feel free not to respond, because I will learn with everyone else in good time.  But if it is interesting to you to talk about this, then by all means....)

[PeterSt]

RAM as such can't be on a USB stick because it is ...
ehh ...

Well, an USB stick or SSD *are* "Random Access Memory" as such, but I'm afraid we are in another leage of "RAM" here. So yes, take that literally and be confused forever.

Although there's spades more to say about it, make it more easy for yourself and think about the "lanes" to get to these types of "RAM". So, and only for one example, there's 4 lane motherboards and RAM (allowing for parallel processing of 4 memory accesses) on one side and there's "SATA ports" needed for an SSD on the other (or USB for USB connected storage for that matter). These two are totally different in the noise impeding department and are way different on speed in another. That speed itself is also about noise could be looked at from oscillators needed to let it work (like for USB), or the high speed of the CPU itself. Oscillator = noise.

I can go on and on but I hope this shows how the both of RAM types can be different.
Additionally notice that the one is tweakable in another fashion than the other. For example, internal memory RAM can be set to speeds we like. So, while my memory and MoBo can work at the speed of 2333MHz, I have set it to 1333MHz. This is the normal (or default) speed and it can also be "underclocked" (to e.g. 800MHz). Thinking in noise terms this is not only about possibly creating less noise the lower the speed because of the "drive frequency", but also thermal noise which should be less (doubtful whether we can notice this for in-PC stuff) but more important in my view : resonances of noise differing; As you can imagine, a frequency of 1200 against 800 (both running at the same time) creating a mixed noise pattern which in this case will not be a complex frequency and THUS profound, is different from 1200 against 833 which will have a more complex pattern (does not recur so often) and is therefore mere "white".

Something like that ?
Peter

[Jud]

RAM as such can't be on a USB stick because it is ...
ehh ...

Well, an USB stick or SSD *are* "Random Access Memory" as such, but I'm afraid we are in another leage of "RAM" here. So yes, take that literally and be confused forever.

Yes, thanks!   

Although there's spades more to say about it, make it more easy for yourself and think about the "lanes" to get to these types of "RAM". So, and only for one example, there's 4 lane motherboards and RAM (allowing for parallel processing of 4 memory accesses) on one side and there's "SATA ports" needed for an SSD on the other (or USB for USB connected storage for that matter). These two are totally different in the noise impeding department and are way different on speed in another. That speed itself is also about noise could be looked at from oscillators needed to let it work (like for USB), or the high speed of the CPU itself. Oscillator = noise.

more important in my view : resonances of noise differing; As you can imagine, a frequency of 1200 against 800 (both running at the same time) creating a mixed noise pattern which in this case will not be a complex frequency and THUS profound, is different from 1200 against 833 which will have a more complex pattern (does not recur so often) and is therefore mere "white".

Something like that ?
Peter

Thanks for real, nice explanation.