My first Windows 8 experience

[christoffe]

The only other thing which might explain it is that I have spent months building and carefully installing, through trial and error, bass traps/absorption panels at reflection points (walls and ceiling--floor has heavy wall to wall carpet) and diffusors in my man-cave listening room on the 3rd floor.

Hi Boleary,

Room treatment is related to acoustics. A simple definition is "acoustics deals with what sound does in a room" (see "Acoustic Design For Home Studios" by Mitch Gallagher, chapter 1)

The room treatment is the physical basis (controlling reflections and reverberation, bass traps etc) for a superb sound.

Joachim

Well, everybody may think about this as he likes, may find whatever "scientific" papers he likes ... if you only know that I totally disagree. It would be the very first thing to DESTROY your measure on how your system behaves.

I won't say that treating the room isn't good to get sound to perfection, but I do say that it is the most wrong thing to do to judge your system for behavior in the base.
Although I must have said it a 100 times, you may have missed that it is my sheer measure to get rid of any single standing wave (low frequency *and* high frequency) up to any most difficult corner in the room. And so I don't use any room treatment, rather have curtains open than closed, and no XXHighEnd or driver or whatever will go out when I suddenly perceive *any* anomaly regarding this.

The basis of our hobby is physics and there are tons of literature available how to built the perfect room (Opera houses, studios etc.) for music performances and replay.

Please see the two links only.
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/318/mini-courses/papers/rooms/Gade%20-%20Handbook%20Ch9.pdf

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/archive/pdffiles/architectural-acoustics/bbc_guideacousticpractice.pdf

The XXH software is creating the BEST SQ in your room only, and no other room will be on par with your SQ!
You are measuring and adjusting the software to avoid your room abnormals. (cause and effect) Everything counts, even the material of the wallpaper.
So, my standing waves are different to yours due to the different room sizes and material of the walls etc.

Individual room treatment is mandatory for an excellent SQ. In other words, a very expensive chain will have a nasty SQ in an untreated room, and a small budget chain will have a superior SQ in an optimal treated room.
 
This is my experience over the last 25 years, even with XXH.


A link to handle abnormal room echoes/reflections via software.

http://www.lyngdorf.com/technologies/roomperfect.


Joachim

[PeterSt]

The XXH software is creating the BEST SQ in your room only, and no other room will be on par with your SQ!
You are measuring and adjusting the software to avoid your room anomalies.

Maybe I am not sure how to interpret this in the proper context, but that said, you can't be more wrong (well, nobody is "wrong" as such, but you appear not to get what I mean, said and do).

A link to handle abnormal room echoes/reflections via software.

http://www.lyngdorf.com/technologies/roomperfect.

Yes, and you should be banned for coming up for such a most devistating thing.
I'm only kidding of course ...
... to some extend.

Regards,
Peter

[AlainGr]

I must admit that I never took care of the acoustics during all these years... I always procrastinate about it

Was it easier to do this before ? I mean, if we change software versions (Windows, XXHE), isn't it normal that it will need to be done again ? Sometimes the changes can be so outstanding that it would be like changing the speakers, the amplifier, piercing the wall to add a new window...

If I was to do this, I would think twice before deciding to get a new component that would oblige me to go through the same process... And for me, a new XXHE version is like a new audio component each time.

I never thought I would perceive a software this way, but from hearing what W8 now does in addition to XXHE, well...

Alain

[esimms86]

Well, that is the crux of the problem. Windows in any version is made for the business user first and foremost because that is Microsoft's bread and butter, and then second comes the home user who essentially is running MS Office(they hope) and Internet Explorer(probably) and precious little anything else. The audiophile users make up the smallest niche whereby they(we) get little by way of consideration.

I honestly feel bad for all developers of audio software who have to deal with new iterations of the OS, effectively fixing what wasn't broken in their software when running the previous OS. And then, of course, the new computer audio user who has recently a new PC is, by default, starting out with W8 and they just want things to work, otherwise they'll get their music software from somebody else(even if it doesn't sound as good as the more challenging software might).

Of course, we can all hunker down with our W7 software, not allow any updates from MS(well, we shouldn't anyway)  and then software developers like Peter(in the general category since there are no software developers like Peter except for maybe Miska on Windows side and Damien on the Mac side) can write code for a W7 exclusive XXHE.

Except, of course, it means being a bit reactionary and defintely not "future proof," whatever that elusive (and foolish, in my view) term is supposed to mean.

Esau

[PeterSt]

Well spoken Esau. Thanks.
If it only weren't so challenging with in addition that WOW which IMO *is* deep down in there this time.

Oh well, I won't give up anyway I guess. But at least for tonight I have decided to give W7 another listen. This must be after 3-4 weeks of W8 only. Curious what I will find. I hope I won't be too confusingly reporting tomorrow ...

Best regards,
Peter

[AlainGr]

Well spoken Esau. Thanks.
If it only weren't so challenging with in addition that WOW which IMO *is* deep down in there this time.

Oh well, I won't give up anyway I guess. But at least for tonight I have decided to give W7 another listen. This must be after 3-4 weeks of W8 only. Curious what I will find. I hope I won't be too confusingly reporting tomorrow ...

Best regards,
Peter

There are things that are not written, but I am sure that these silent words are grateful for the wonderful work you do. Being a pioneer is an ungrateful job. You have to open a new trail "again", in the dark (no access to the hidden code), forced to do "trial an error" in an attempt to understand what happened or at least to "work around" problems that arise, even having to undo things that were good with the previous version...

You have to be hard headed for the job. but you have proven this too

Alain

[Jud]

The very same guy I had a constant fight with in a multi-thousand post thread and who was head development of the Vista Audio stack at MS. Was, because he left MS after that job. I never talked directly to him ever since, but he is the guy who could really tell, would he have been on the W8 (audio) development team. Heck, maybe I should contact him.

Regards,
Peter

Might his initials be SB or LO?

[manisandher]

Nah, AM for sure.

Mani.

[Jud]

Nah, AM for sure.

Mani.

Thanks, Mani - got it.

Back to the sound and Win 8: Things are sounding very, very nice here.  "Best it's ever been" doesn't mean as much from someone like me who's been using XXHE only a relatively short time, but it does happen to be true.  Details of settings and setup in the sig.  I used a product called Primo Ramdisk to make the RAMdisks, because it offers something called Direct-IO that makes some file operations quite a bit quicker.

As soon as I got everything playing in my usual setup (minimized, unattended, phase alignment on), it was evident that vocals were much improved - much more open, airy, much more there and real.  Since at that point the only change I'd made was to put XXHE on a RAMdisk and assign another RAMdisk as the playback drive, I have to attribute the improvement exclusively to that.

However, the airiness was too dominant at that point, not allowing the "body" of the vocals and instruments to come through with sufficient dynamics and drama.  I tried various SFS settings, but didn't arrive at one that sounded just right until after some adjustments to XXTweaks.  I initially set the Nervous Rate to 100, which now sounded quite a bit better than 99; then adjusted Balanced Load into the upper 60s; tried a lot of SFS settings, eventually going higher than I'd ever tried before, and settling on 450; then tweaked Balanced Load again, arriving at 71 which just sounds great.  70 and below are too mild ("saltless," to use Peter's word), 72 makes everything too "breath-y," almost sounds like noise beginning to creep in.

I have a very modest setup for XXHE here in my office, cheap DAC, old amp (well thought of, but not terribly expensive when I bought it 20-some years ago), $100 mass market bookshelf speakers sitting atop a glass desk, and it really shouldn't be sounding as much like a high end audio system as it does - but it does.

By the way, let me recommend some music: Mark Knopfler's and Leonard Cohen's latest recordings, "Privateering" and "Old Ideas," respectively, are what I was testing with when the sound really got dialed in, and they're both excellent.

[PeterSt]

All right. I just looked it up, and it has been since the 8th of January I have been using Windows 8 for listening sessions (read : working day is over, so now play music). So this is over a month. Now back to Windows 7.

Started out with some Dead can Dance because it was visible in my Library because of something Mani came up with about it, a week or so ago. Never played it before, or at least so long ago that I can't remember. Right away I thought that it was a good thing not to A-B or IOW to not play familiar music or even bands. And remember what I said yesterday : when you don't know about more detail etc., so what. As long as you are satisfied.

Perceiving the "naturalness" of it, I thought to find something which I again never play, and which would exhibit possible similarity -if there- on mainly the cymbals but which also would show the size of cymbals. Remember, in W8 I regard them too small (too much metal) and with that too similar over tracks (and in the end albums). So I thought of Weather Report. This is how it immediately shows that Chine cymbals do exist, or anyway I noticed that Weather Report uses quite a few different kind of these. Notice that Chine cymbals are those "dirty" sounding "hats" with the edges curled upwards. Because this is quite heavy on the cymbals I thought it was a bit messy and I changed my SFS from 2 to 60. Just to make a difference. I didn't change that (with no real reason) for the remainder of the session.

I can't express the difference much, but somehow with the above two examples I heard music. Something which comes together in the *depth* of the stage. Hard to see where the plane of the music is and although I explicitly watched for it, I could not see it. No sound from speakers anywhere.

Then I thought of finding something which would show the difference to *you*. Something very explicit. Still I did not want to hear back any explicit difference with W8, so I thought to find something for me unknown from Jonas Hellborg. From the album I know "Elegant Punk" this is very high dynamic somewhat higher keyed slammed bass. I recall  when Normalized Volmue is let loose on that, it's set 12dB louder than my set average and when nothing is done about it, at the first stroke the windows (pun) go out. And so I found *another* album of him which I never played before. Now :

The sheer fact that I right away denote this album as the best I ever heard on *drums* tells ME everything. But careful, because it may be interpreted differently by you than how I interpret this myself. So what do *I* say ?

- It will be a very good recording but the chance that a third album I pick is the best ever ?
- It WILL be the *relative* difference to what I have been listening for for over a month.

And further :

- More analog it can't be with all these nice dynamics;
- The differentiation between all what is hit is by accident (??) what I was looking for, and found it right away.

Notice the importance of NOT A-B-ing which makes you an objective listener.

Now the fun, hopefully. I did not compare this with W8. I actually don't want to know. I could be in denial, but at a so normal listening sesssion without anything to complain about I don't WANT to be in this stress of getting it right. Heck, it *is* right, now. It was and still is. In my view it can only happen that for elements I will regard W8 better again, but in the mean time I will be annoyed about too many other things not working. And when for album A it works, then for B through Z it won't. And so the fun :

I have put a track to FileMail for the first 10 of you who are serious about this and want to compare. Do notice that you have to be able to compare and so you need W8 and W7 on a dual boot or other switchable means. You'd have to announce yourself in this topic for it and I will send it to the email address as listed in the forum, unless you denote otherwise.
Then I like you to report about the differences you hear. "W8 sounds better !" will not do. You really must try to pull out the elements like I tend to do it. This is also meant to be a sort of self-learning exercise; that you not net choose for the best, knowing from me that any disturbance should be rejection. It could mean rejection of both W7 and W8, but then the why is important.

All I can give you as a sort of placebo is that to me this sounds the most close to live drums and I can add that the other day I was in the hall hearing my son taking his daily drum lesson, thinking that we are still so so far off. But this was with W8 playing at the same time, and I never thought we were so far off. We are, but it didn't occur to me so explicitly. Placebo ? actually not much. It was with another album obviously, and I myself never listened to W8 with this one / track. So it is all up to you.

The goal ? well, if people are able to point out how this track sounds better on a majority of elements on W8, there will be better motivation to continue seeking for how to get there.
Don't forget to play it at your normal loud levels, so you won't be able to think that dynamics are not hurting you just because you play it softly; it has to work all the way.

Peter

[boleary]

Am I too late for filemail?  If not I'd be happy to give it a listen. Having dodged the snow storm and having worked all day yesterday "tracking down witnesses" I have some time today to give it a listen. Thanks!

[manisandher]

OK, here’s my take on all of this… FWIW.

When I first heard W8 in minimized mode, there was something so different (and attractive) about the sound that I stayed up half the night listening to music and enjoyed every minute of it. But interestingly, it was pretty much all rock, and the ‘edge’ added to this type of music by W8 (in minimized mode) seemed to bring it more to life – it gave me a bigger kick.

But it’s definitely a ‘strange’ sound. Actually reminiscent of Windows Server, when I played around with this a few years ago. You’d come out of a listening session with a buzz in your ears and slightly disorientated. Very similar.

Right now, I think we have to admit that we’re so far off our ultimate quest – to eliminate the effects of the OS on the sound. And this is not surprising – as other people have said, the OS designers hardly had SQ at that top of their priority list. But what Peter has given us is a way to tweak the OS (and a bunch of other things totally unrelated to the OS which help massively with SQ) to get the best out of it, and as a result, we can achieve a very reasonable sound that exceeds any other digital transport that I’ve come across.

But this situation really, really pisses me off. We’re always at the mercy of the OS. Maybe we should just resign ourselves to this and do what we’ve done in the past whenever a new OS or an SP1/SP2 comes around – pool our resources to find how to get the best out of it using all the tools in XX. It’s a lot of work and bloody frustrating for us, and I can’t even imagine how it must be for Peter. But what other choice do we have?

Well, a couple of years back I decided to try an alternative approach to see if it had any merit. It was Miska’s ‘Network Audio Adapter’ approach. I won’t go into details here (just do a search on it), but essentially it tries to really eliminate the effects of the OS on sound, acting as a (galvanically isolated) buffer between the main PC (with W7/W8 and software player) and the DAC. I have it setup right now in my main system, and even with a Mytek DAC, which is clearly massively inferior to the NOS1, I’m getting a really nice result. But most importantly from my perspective, I can make changes to the main PC which seem to have zero impact on the sound. For example, there seems to be absolutely no difference in sound when XX in engaged in the main PC and used to switch between normal or minimized state. I know that not all services would have been closed down without XX being used as the player, but still there should be a big difference in resource usage between the two states. And yet the sound through the NAA seems unaffected.

My next step will be to compare W7 and W8 using an NAA. And what if I find there is no difference in sound? What if the type of hard-drive makes no difference? Or the number of devices connected to the main PC? Or whether you’re using PAN, LAN or even wifi? If all these things make no difference, then I think we can assume Miska is really onto something.

So where does this leave us? Here’s my ultimate dream setup:

- main PC with W7/W8 (shouldn’t matter at all)
- although HQPlayer is cable of excellent SQ, and even though most of the controls in the Settings area should become obsolete, I’d rather use XX
     - I prefer the library management
     - I really, really want to use phase alignment
- of course, the NOS1 DAC – it’s simply the best I’ve heard

What would it take to achieve this dream setup? Obviously, Peter and Miska (Jussi) need to work together on it, and find a mutually beneficial way to do this. There would need to be appropriate drivers made for the NOS1 to work under Linux. And I think that’s it. Let me tell you, I am willing to put in as much effort and energy (and contribute financially if necessary, albeit with limited resources) to make this happen.

Meanwhile, let’s do what we've done in the past - get the best out of what we have. Peter, a PM is on its way. I’ve got a problem with my W8 drive (I don’t think it appreciated being uplugged whilst being in minimized mode) but I’ll reinstall W8 no problems. W7 is still working perfectly.

I hope I’ve not spoken out of place with this post. Just sharing my feelings.

Mani.

[Jud]

Peter, if you don't get 10 otherwise, I'm happy to do it.  (If you do get 10 otherwise, I'm happy to sit back and let others do the work.  :-)

[PeterSt]

Mani,

but essentially it tries to really eliminate the effects of the OS on sound, acting as a (galvanically isolated) buffer between the main PC (with W7/W8 and software player) and the DAC. I have it setup right now in my main system, and even with a Mytek DAC, which is clearly massively inferior to the NOS1, I’m getting a really nice result. But most importantly from my perspective, I can make changes to the main PC which seem to have zero impact on the sound. For example, there seems to be absolutely no difference in sound when XX in engaged in the main PC and used to switch between normal or minimized state. I know that not all services would have been closed down without XX being used as the player, but still there should be a big difference in resource usage between the two states. And yet the sound through the NAA seems unaffected.

This is a bit tough to respond to, without drooping into stuff which can't be understood anyway. But I'll give it a try.

First off, of course it doesn't matter a single thing for e.g. Minimized OS or not, working this way. And yes, afterwards you may say "of course" just as well, but in the mean time you mention it as a virtue. But it is no virtue.
All you do is make your playback "PC" independent of any control. As if control weren't needed. So result ? whatever is in there, can't be changed. Not this way.

The other part of the "issue" is that you now blindly assume Linux is any good. Of course, it is actually the same topic as in the previous paragraph, but it really is not (good) at all. And so ...

So all you desire is no influence from the OS.
Well, wrong. Wrong as long as an OS is playing ball for you.

Also notice that you put this only from the perspective of the by itself nice wish. But if I look hard I can quote text from you where you explicitly state that this NAA doesn't cut it either. And it doesn't or otherwise it's sheer coincidence and you can't even compare with other settings in there;
Miska is not me, and his approaches are totally different, any sort of "XXHE" approach being far from him.
To name something (and have a point), this is not about galvanical isolation and noise from there, or otherwise Nick/Paul would have had better result with their isolated USB connection to the NOS1-USB. Well, it went worse of it (and 100% logical for me and which is why I promised that in advance). Many reaons for it, and none of them you will find in any Linux (or more lean OS) solved.

While you remain right on hating any OS influencing your sound, you will *have* to recognize that influencing the OS for that sound is key to get it right. Otherwise you are stuck once and for all.

The way to go is a different one. It looks a bit like this NAA from Miska, but the approach is different. My way. You will see, hopefully soon ...

Thanks for the input !
Peter

[boleary]

Will give a more detailed response, but for now let me just say that whatever is behind the "Wow!" factor of W8 is front and center on the Hellborg track. Geeze it sounds alive and tonaly/harmonically rich with each and every instrument. A good track for experiencing the opposite and hearing the "Wow!" factor in W7 is Wonderful World, Eva Cassidy, from the "Wonderful World" album. It's not recorded well, you can hear a piece of equipment buzzing during the recording (might be a live recording).

It almost sounds like a decision was made to swap the tonal/harminc richness from vocals to instruments from one OS to the other. Just a very uneducated but informed by ears guess.......