I myself am still not conclusive about how W8 manages to create a ridiculous stereo image which profoundly occurs when you are NOT in the middle between the speakers. All seems to be super hard panned and it is as if previously 2/3 of all samples got mixed (swapped) in the 2 channels making it more mono.
But this is not why I'm calling ...
Already day before yesterday I had a bad day's ending because I suddenly heard how all was a pile of distortion (no worries, read on !). And not by a small bit.
I have always been raving about Led Zeppelin I, II, III, IV and its profound better sounding in the highs and cymbals. It just doesn't match or fit the Deep Purples of the same time.
I regularly try A Whole Lotta Love (LZ II) to find out what's actually slamming (Dang-Dang) after the holographic cymbal hitting mid section, always waiting for the day that I hear an instrument instead of distortion only (on those Dangs). I always do so when a siginificant SQ increase was achieved. Like I think it has now ...
And then I suddenly got it ...
It started with that LZ I from day before yesterday's ending;
Totally unlistenable. Like I played with SFS=2 while it can't have that (ok, in my view and system). Tried everything and all, but no tweak could make it better. I checked whether it was the same LZ I version I must have played a 300 times by now in life (possibly more).
Because the LZ selection was still in my Library, yesterday I thought to proceed with LZ II. A Whole Lotta Love. Why not. Maybe it now worked ...
The last time I played it I thought I had gotten closer to "what's that instrument ?", but yesterday it only got worse again.
That the cymbals now were flying from complete outsides of the speakers did NOT make it better, but that is W8 and I don't know what I need to get used to or what it is I need to do to get rid of it. No cymbals are that far apart, no matter this is an explicit mixing for that "flying". Just unnatural. Ok ...
Then I heard that same distortion from LZ I. Actually these LZ albums are quite nice to perceive the distortion I am talking about because LZ makes use of quiet parts with sudden attacks of sound. That Dang-Dang is an example, but the second track on LZ II is an even better example. Nice quiet playing (no distortion) and then the sudden hits on a snare drum.
Ouch.
What happens all over in at least these two LZ albums is that the analog output has been far too high. In Dutch we call this "over stearing" but I'm sure there's a better English term for it (my over stearing is a literal translation).
Now, how can it be that I never heard anything of this kind - not a single thing OR it must be the Dang-Dang from A Whole Lotta Love - while now it makes it unlistenable ?
Because I now was on the track of sheer ANALOG distortion (but from the recording of course), I listened with my ear in the horn, and hearing what you hear then makes you sure to never play those albums again. You may not perceive it from the distance as explicit distortion, but it just is there and it is not small.
On a side note, or maybe not, just *because* of the troubles I'm having or had with W8, I forced myself to tweak for the better. People may recall the necessity for similar when the NOS1-USB was ready, all should be okay, but sound was the worst. This is the time I *had* to create what we today call Minimized OS. Yes, it may occur strange or impossible to you that I can just force myself to improve (only ?) when it is really needed, but this *is* how it sometimes goes. So, I did similar now for W8 (could be revolutionary when it's out).
But it looks like it gets worse of it.
It now is as far that I yesterday played an album, which I own for two years or so, it is with Dutch lyrics and I think I have played it 10 times before. Already the first time I was familiar with it because it contains songs in, say, earlier versions from those I already knew, and nothing strange with it. Playing it the 2nd up to the tenth time, same story. But not yesterday. I G*d d*mn never heard the whole album before and the singer was not the original one. Well, it was, but I couldn't recognize him and I tried hard. Really focused on everything, but it was and remained a completely new album to me.
I searched the Internet for other's judging "strange behavior" from W8 and audio, but only found fairly mild "better"'s or "hear no difference anyway". Well, those guys and gals are lucky and have a problem. Or are they lucky and do not have a problem, but I (or we ?) have ? And we are UNlucky because of that ?
Something is over the top here. Suddenly my speakers can't follow fast attacks and produce analog distortion. Well, maybe not. But if I now hear distortion which is in the recording while I never heard that before at all, what's to be good about it.
If ... IF ... *IF* more accurate sound implies less mixing in-air and that somehow creating the hardest panning in virtually ALL albums I played so far is the way to go, then ... it is not for me.
I have more albums with too hard panning, and I said it before, the NOS1 unveals that because of a special channel separation; no mixing engineer will have heard it like this. Well, that is how I think. But this is a handful of albums. Now they are all like this. No even crazy mixing engineer forms albums like this. Still they now are so.
I have one HUGE problem with this all :
I was so fed up day before yesterday about not getting it right, that yesterday I thought to play an evening with W7. I had to test something in there anyway, so I thought to combine it. My playback session under W7 from yesterday lasted exactly 10 seconds. What a SH*T sound !! Totally saltless. MONO !! (relatively).
This is how super-fast we get used to things. Unbelievable actually.
So we have to continue with W8. But it seems to have problems which I can't overcome. This is because I can't tell anymore what is right and what is wrong. I mean, I can try to "tweak" back that normal stereo image, but what if the mixing as applied just does not allow for it ? This means that the recordings are wrong.
What role play horns here ? Something tells me that their directivity helps separating the stereo image into 2x "a channel". I know we are with a few horneys overhere and a bunch of normal radiating speaker owners. It could be interesting to see how the both camps have different opinions (Juan's being there already as an "opposite").
By now it is true ... When changes from OS to OS are so super drastic, it is time to make my own OS ...
Peter
