My first Windows 8 experience

[stefanobilliani]

May I download it from Windows 8 to the windows 7 folder ? ( not having to connect again from 7 ) .

Thanks

s

Stefano, maybe I don't understand what you want to do. I can say Yes, but the remainder is up to you ... Anyway I think I know what you are doing, so you will be OK at all times ?

Peter

[PeterSt]

Bert, man, it actually has been a long time that you couldn't get something done while others had problems (not sure whether I have my symantics right). Please feel free to email me in more detail what happened now, because at this moment I can't get it.

Have a good night of sleep (at home) anyway !
Peter

[PeterSt]

I just loaded 9z-8-2 under W7 and it certainly does sound like W8. All the good aspects I liked under W8 are there now and I just played Dinah Washington "Mad About the Boy" which under W8 could strip wallpaper and now it sounds listenable. So I am not tempted to go back to W8.

Paul,

Might I have won you, I should have won all, right ?
But be honest about it. That is sufficient ...

Regards,
Peter

[Nick]

The installation of 09-z82 on W7 went fine (once I managed to down load it   ). First impressions are of a land mark release ! W8 levels of detail but with warmth and ambiance. Transients are in a totally different place, fast with the correct levels of weight / delicacy. Timing is superb (not a strong point in W8 for me) familiar tracks are bowling along beautifully.

Many thanks to you Peter.

Cheers Nick.

[stefanobilliani]

Also for me installation went great . All fine from activation to minimized and stop all services in unattended . Listening . Timing is very good yesss , and Sound !


Thanks

stefano

[stefanobilliani]

May I download it from Windows 8 to the windows 7 folder ? ( not having to connect again from 7 ) .

Thanks

s

Stefano, maybe I don't understand what you want to do. I can say Yes, but the remainder is up to you ... Anyway I think I know what you are doing, so you will be OK at all times ?

Peter

Peter , I have seen your response after the installation . Well I did all ok in W7 . No worries .

Thanks again :-)

[AlainGr]

Honey, I'm home !!! A little late, but certainly not going to bed without trying this new piece of art AGAIN

Alain

[AlainGr]

"When the Best even got better" Can't wait... But have to...

You only have to wait until you're home but then please do NOT forget to set XX (better talk OS) in normal state before you update.

For the first time I forgot this and now I have to re-install W7 again to have things working properly!!!!!!! 

Bert

Hi Bert,

You kind of saved my life... I was about to trigger the new version without first going back in Normal OS mode...

Thanks

Alain

[Scroobius]

Peter - I listened for some time last night and the jury is still out (partly because I got to be "brain dead" after so much comparing) more (relaxed!) listening tonight.

Of course I will be objective ha ha  - Nick is coming over soon - I am sure he will provide his usual honest and balanced view.

Cheers

Paul

[Jud]

Jud,

I am not cryptic at all when I say that I just can't get it right and there's not even a small margin. At least here the sound is annoying, annoying and annoying; must pick proper albums to enjoy some music, and I am not used to that. I like to play 1 hour of music in an hour and not spend 45 minutes of that hour to find an album which sounds right.

I have no other logical explanation than too few noise on one side (which is far sought anyway) and too many strange things going on at the other (one of them the "raw screen" being a form now).

I know I told about having found something. So, maybe I did. But I can't proove it. So I gave up on that and never mind.

Have a look at this, particularly at the manufacturer's response:

http://www.computeraudiophile.com/content/508-t-elektroakustik-dac-8-review/

[PeterSt]

Well Jud, at VERY fast glancing over this, the only conclusion I can have from it is : again totally inconsistent. So, veiled, less high frequency output ? I guess that is the last thing we would say in this forum. Or ?

Thanks for the link,
Peter

[PeterSt]

I might add (without bad intentions whatsoever) : The reviewer, owning an Alpha and liking that (still, as far as I know) very much, judges "lacking highs" ?
I mean, if anything is lacking highs it is this DAC I just mentioned (I just tried to cover it up somewhat ).

So, totally inconsistent. But isn't that just Windows 8 ?

Peter

[Jud]

Hi, Peter.  My thinking was more along the lines that the manufacturer says "Gee, everyone liked USB best before Windows 8 and its new USB driver, now the first review after Windows 8 likes another input better."

Just wondering if the driver or something else low level in Win8 audio specific to USB may be responsible for the problems we're all hearing.  Of course that is terribly vague since I don't really know anything, but perhaps it might give you a clue?

[PeterSt]

So, this all went quiet, but I never stopped. Well, I worked on W8 by bits and pieces because I never wanted to experience music through W8 (it drove me crazy and felt another listening night would be wasted for the xth time), but eventually I think I got it nailed.

I must say that I have been motivated and also inspired by my off-line "pal" who refuses to post in the forum and often when I was listening to W7 he came up with another thing to try. Also I can well say that the later bunch of tweaks sprung from trials of the same person, which I extended to the (hopefully) more real thing. Same person who -for me- came up with the NOS1 USB3 connection. And yes I know, for us all this was Nick (who was one day later IIRC). I only want to say : some guys really are able to bring audio playback to a next level. And the big fun in this W8 case ? while this hiding person inspired me to keep on trying with discrete ideas and hunches (which I worked out), it again is Nick who actually solved this whole W8 issue.
Not that Nick knows this ...

Now briefly read this post : Re: PCI supply rail noise.

To be on the safe side (hence a sort of disclaimer) : I applied two (actually three) changes at the same time (stupid, but I couldn't test in proper fashion otherwise) : Besides adding the "PCI Supply Rails Noise" card I used an older Sharkoon USB3 dock for the hdd with music I wanted to try, plus I plugged this to the front USB3 "hub" while I otherwise I put the USB3 disks in the back port "hub", together with the NOS1. So, a different USB3 hub and a different USB3 hdd device.
And the "noise" card.
(don't get confused - the whole thing is solved by this card IMO)

Well, I see people sometimes scream about how SQ changed/improved, and of course I believe that. But what I won't believe is whoever encountered such a huge difference like I see coming from this.

So as we know W8 doesn't cut it for its various staging strangenesses which I personally bind to a too much "accurate" (??) representation which is so dynamical that the sound is drawn to the speakers too much (won't get coherent in mid-air or something) and besides that one could get crazy of the (way too high) dynamics. How this emerges is beyond me, but I think in my situation - which is the "XXHighEnd PC" - things are somewhat emphasized. So, I can recognize for some longer that the better the "playback" becomes - but also the better the PC "is" - the more this phenomenon occurs. Thus, the latest XXHighEnd versions tend to do a bit of what W8 does inherently, and/but on the "XXHighEnd PC" this is more profound. Notice that the XXHighEnd PC contains both a W7 and a W8 boot and the W7 boot there goes more towards the W8 sound than my normal audio PC (which also went the direction of W8 sound for the latest XXHE versions, but far less).

Now, mainly thinking about the brain-cracking dynamics of W8 as we know it, with the card in the PC (but mind the other two changes as well), there is no spur of anything of brain-cracking dynamics left. And as a matter of fact, the whole lot went in the exact opposite way, and merely comes across as blanketed. Still not quite because of the super refined highs and all the details remaining.

The mid is unheard (IMO) and a possible minus is that maybe there's a gap between the mid and those super refined highs now. However, I played with this for two days only and this is not enough. Surely it is not enough thinking about re-tuning XXHighEnd for this situation, which I did not at all. I just used the same settings all the time.

What you also won't know is that what I use here for XXHighEnd settings was extended with more than one new SQ "dial" and it was again made for W8 several weeks back. It improved W8 again, but didn't help enough. However, that too was used the past two days, and although I know its separated performance (separated from the other three changes subject to this post), I think these "dials" highly contribute to what I perceive now.
Anyway notice that this is for the due 0.9z-9 so at this moment you will not be able to try all, as I can over here at this moment.

Assumed that the card is doing this - which for me is likely because it is exactly what I bought it for, its effect is the most severe of anything I personally ever saw for a change. Do notice though that from the same theory I bought it for/from, this will ADD noise to a system which contains too few of it. Assumed this really is so, we apparently finally got to the stage of eliminating too much noise sources (which all together will randomize to more "white") while the few sources left are thus profound. That they, in the mean time, can imply something like we call "higher dynamics" is the sheer danger I have been talking about so often.
But maybe my theories are not correct at all.

Please don't blame me when afterwards this card doesn't do much at all and my situation as of now is caused by something else (again, see the other two changes). But even then, the most important of it all is that W8 "can be done". No doubt about that. Whether now better than W7 ? I tend to think so. But first it may take me a couple of weeks to get used to the sound and tweak it for a maybe less blanketed thing. The new "dials" add a sort of infinite new means of tweaking anyway, and I tried one setting only.

For those interested, see by current Sig.

I think you are allowed to setup your W8 machines, but I beg you to do that in dual boot fashion with your current W7. Or otherwise invest some time in setting up W7 again such that it can be a dual boot with W8.
In the mean time I will finish 0.9z-9; should be this week somewhere (but don't pin me down on it).

Peter

[christoffe]

I wouldn't do it, because Windows 8.1 will be out soon and all the hard work was for ................... .

Joachim