My first Windows 8 experience

[Scroobius]

I think it could be time to enlist the help of other ears to come along and listen to what I am hearing. So Mani and Nick (and anyone else?) you are most welcome to come and help (as I am beginning to feel a bit isolated  ). But first there are those mystery feet and (not mentioned before) I have small "sugar cubes" and resonators providing room treatment. So first things first I will remove all of those tonight and listen again. The Bybees will have to stay the thought of taking my speakers apart again - uurrgghh. And anyway I would find it very difficult to believe that they would do something different to the sound under W8 (hey but who knows).

Just a note about stereo imaging - It certainly does sound very different here in W8 compared with W7 but it does not sound *wrong* or *phasy* but for sure I will listen again tonight with the room treatment stuff removed.

Just a note again about my listening environment - it is about as difficult as it is possible to get (no sorry Nick you have to get top honours there!!!). I mentioned elsewhere that it took me a long time to get it to sound good. There is a big suck out in the lower registers and just about every speaker (inc. big and small transmission lines, quad esl) I have tried here just sound awful. It is only pure luck that I ended up with AN/E's and I have been able to improve the bass by moving the speakers very close (5cm) to the rear "walls" so boosting bass (rear firing ports!) to the point where it actually sounds OK now. But the character of the room is still dry and there is very little of the standing wave and "boxy" effects that can occur in many other "normal" rooms. So maybe my very odd room shape could be a factor here. There is also no wall or hard shiny windows between the speakers but I think that is a good thing to balance off some of the bad things about the room.

Anyway more fun for tonight.

Paul

[Leo]

Well , my two cents comparing W7 and W8 using the Hellborg test track. I used my 'optimized'(copy of Peter's actually) settings for both OS, using 2 Ramdisks for each, same volume setting (-19,5)
The differences are huge and I will probably lose all audio-respectability with my preference for W8.
There is much more to listen to and to me absolutely not artificial sounding but very real extra detail on most instruments. When the bassdrum is used it is almost startling with  detail in the attack and development of the sound. With W7 it is just a low thud. When the bass guitar plays I hear a growl on the string attack with W8 which I can not find when listening to W7.
The origin of the sound seems more constricted with W7, it is much more tame to me.
Only thing could be that the spread of the cymbals from left to right was very wide in W8 making the drumset larger than life . This aspect seemed more realistic with W7.
Well whatever the road from here will be I really hope that this lifelike and exciting aspect of W8 will be part of it.
Leo
PS
this was after two runs of the track on both OS, tomorrow I will try again and see how stable my opinions are

PPS
I did not check for this roomfilling aspect mentioned in the previous post as I was glued to my seat

[BertD]

Well , my two cents comparing W7 and W8 using the Hellborg test track. I used my 'optimized'(copy of Peter's actually) settings for both OS, using 2 Ramdisks for each, same volume setting (-19,5)
The differences are huge and I will probably lose all audio-respectability with my preference for W8.

Hi Leo,

I am in favour of W8 just the same but I did not compare the Helborg test track... I have listened for a few days to W8 only and I just love what I am hearing.

Clean, clear, tight, stable and a solid listening window where nothing jumps out or shows articial affects.

I can truely see what is happening now, much less "virtual".

No reason for me to go back to W7! 

[Nick]

Paul hi,

I was going to pm you to set up a visit to yours. I'm really interested to catch up. We will certainly have a lot to try out Personally I would not get worried about what you are hearing, I was astounded by how easy it was to hear that the Adnaco was not as good as direct usb connection. I would be very happy to come and lend an ear.

I am keen to try our DaCs back to back as well, you will know why 

will pm you,

Cheers

 Nick.

[Scroobius]

Hi Bert - what changed in your setup? the last post of yours I read you preferred W7. Just interested to know what you changed.

Paul

[Scroobius]

Nick - You are always very welcome. I would also be interested to also compare amps as I now have the BG NX's and I seem to remember you have installed caps but I cannot remember what you ended up with but I know you have a different arrangement to me.

It would also value your opinion of what the room treatment things I have now do to the SQ.

Paul

[manisandher]

Paul, Nick, if you happen to be meeting up any day this week, I might be able to join you. Just let me know...

Cheers, Mani.

[BertD]

Hi Bert - what changed in your setup? the last post of yours I read you preferred W7. Just interested to know what you changed.

Hi Paul,

Several things changed (more transparancy, more dynamics, more resolution) and W8 could not ruin the good mood so something is very right!

Using Peter's settings.

But I have not heard W7 with the changes to the system (speaker wire, RAM disk and one other which I want to keep for myself at a moment).

I will go back to W7 soon (easy job with the multi-boot PC) and then I'll know.

Bert

[CoenP]

Jud post #279 describes exactly what I am observing in my system. No setting or tweak up to today has been able to change that. In fact when I switch back to win7 ANY music I play sounds so engaging that i find myself listening to complete albums, where in win 8 it takes an effort to listen into 2 minutes into a track. This IS about the musical fabric that is lacking in win8.

That's the way it is here, I do not intend to judge anyone in this forum on an opposite experience.
The pro-win8 lot have something fundamentally different in their systems or rooms. This could be about the filtering or absence thereoff in the playback chain. I don't buy this is a matter of (bad ) tase.
We should be able to sort this out together.

For your entertainment hereunder some stuff I tried:

XX on a primo RAMdisc on win7 did no good to the sound, adding a nasty edge and destroying some of the musical magic. I was under the impression that Primo does not support win8, so I did not try. I might as well give the IMdisc a shot. I suspect however that this will not change win8 into a super win7, but if it does that would be nice.

I got some progress in win8 and win7 with disabeling the motherboard devices that are not in use (mobi usb3, com ports, unused usb2 chipset, etc) with "device manager". The sound gets a little more coherent, nothing really big.

Regards, Coen

[BertD]

Filemail?

Hi Peter,

Is the track still on-line? I would like to play it before going back to W7.

Bert

[BertD]

Thanks Peter,

I just played it on W8 for a few seconds and got very confused about the sound. Nothing adds up and all is extremely phasy as if polarity is f*cked up all over the place.

Unlistenable but totally different to all recordings I have played on W8 before where I never heard things like that...that's weird.

Totally stupid mix as if all is playing in and around your head but not in front of you as usual.

One solution to make it sound more acceptable is to exchange the absolute phase (only possible without PA activated). This way things have more their place in the reproduced image (without describing this as a natural image).

Tried W7 but that did not work, somehow explorer is corrupted and does not want to start. My guess is that the W8 Shell replacement changed things within the W7 directory...is that even possible?

I will try to re-install (repair) W7 later so that it will play there too but I can't imagine that W7 will change that Jonas Hellborg track into a normal recording because if it does then all my other recordings will probably sound wrong...

Bert

[Jud]

Jud post #279 describes exactly what I am observing in my system. No setting or tweak up to today has been able to change that. In fact when I switch back to win7 ANY music I play sounds so engaging that i find myself listening to complete albums, where in win 8 it takes an effort to listen into 2 minutes into a track. This IS about the musical fabric that is lacking in win8.

[snip]

For your entertainment hereunder some stuff I tried:

XX on a primo RAMdisc on win7 did no good to the sound, adding a nasty edge and destroying some of the musical magic. I was under the impression that Primo does not support win8, so I did not try. I might as well give the IMdisc a shot. I suspect however that this will not change win8 into a super win7, but if it does that would be nice.

Regards, Coen

Hi, Coen.  Primo RAMdisk works without problem in Win8.  I have both the XX drive and Playback Drive in both OSes on RAMdisks configured with Primo as "direct I/O," which all the reviews say is faster.

But even with this setup on Win8 (exactly the same as Win7), I heard what I heard.

Funny that Win8 does enough things very right that I thought when listening to Win8 exclusively it was the best I'd ever heard XXHE.  But then I compared to Win7 and that was it, literally 5 seconds or less and I knew.

[Jud]

Thanks Peter,

I just played it on W8 for a few seconds and got very confused about the sound. Nothing adds up and all is extremely phasy as if polarity is f*cked up all over the place.

Unlistenable but totally different to all recordings I have played on W8 before where I never heard things like that...that's weird.

[snip]

I will try to re-install (repair) W7 later so that it will play there too but I can't imagine that W7 will change that Jonas Hellborg track into a normal recording because if it does then all my other recordings will probably sound wrong...

Bert

Hi, Bert.  I am wondering if the way the track falls apart on Win8 has to do with the rhythmic complexity and instrumental interplay.  Everything I was listening to when liking Win8's presentation so much was more like solo vocalist with a couple of instruments accompanying, and rhythmically simple.

I had to get to bed before getting the chance to compare any other tracks in the two OSs.  I will try to do that in the next day or two.  But it would be difficult for me to believe that Win7 could get the Hellborg so right and helplessly screw up everything else.

[BertD]

Hi, Bert.  I am wondering if the way the track falls apart on Win8 has to do with the rhythmic complexity and instrumental interplay.  Everything I was listening to when liking Win8's presentation so much was more like solo vocalist with a couple of instruments accompanying, and rhythmically simple.

I played some big brass bands too where some sounded weird and unacceptable but different (for now I blame that on the recording) but also some that sounded very much okay and spacious and deep as if all was happening there and not in my head.

I hope I can get W7 back to work quickly to be able to check out the weirdness... 

[GerardA]

Peter, I would like to do the test too, but I already threw 7 out.
Maybe I'll have to go back to get more happy?

What I think happened here was a change in sound during one album on Win8. I played for my children a K3-album ( ) and they are happy to jump around. But the first track already sounded weird. A lot of bass but like it was mixed with glue and could not get loose. Mid's sound recessed, highs not airy.
But since the kids didn't complain I left it on.
But a couple of songs later the sound became more normal.
I thought maybe it's warmup of the amps or me getting used to it.
But then it shouldn't be a 'new' experience. And I heard it the first time I tried Win 8 and thought I got rid of it when I changed to your settings.
After reading your distortion story I felt I could write this without making a fool of myself!