0.9z-8-3a

[PeterSt]

Hi Arvind,

The Release Notes only suggest the consistent combination to use for best SQ and only subjective to my own listening and idea. That's all !
And the most important part of that is that I now can use no PA for the better. That this goes along with XTweaks Ultimate should not confuse you by thinking that XTweaks are not possible or allowed with PA in use.
And also the other way around : Do not use XTweaks Ultimate and try without PA is a kind of useless, because it would imply the situation from earlier versions, where we about all choose to use PA (including me).

I hope it is clear now !
Peter

[arvind]

What about this setting (W7 / NOS1) :

All what's in my sig, except for Q1=30 and xQ1=10 and next the most important :

Core Appointment Scheme = Nothing plus Clock Resolution = 0.5.
This latter combination might do tricks.

Try this on music of which your think it sounds the most (nice and undistorted !) fresh and dynamic but with the freshness in high resolution "more square" (could be synths).

Now let me know what you perceive for changes ...

Peter

Hi Peter,

The above suggested settings brings the SQ very close to PA on, however it's still a bit harsh & the vocals come a step forward.

To conclude I find that PA on, XTweaks off is number one, followed closely with the above suggested settings.

Best regards,

Arvind

[boleary]

The above suggested settings brings the SQ very close to PA on, however it's still a bit harsh & the vocals come a step forward.

Peter, regarding your latest suggestion, I agree with Arvind's findings concerning PA off. To me, in my system, the more forward vocals are accompanied by a subtle harshness that takes me back to pre PA days.

Arvind, have you compared 8-3a and 8e? It should be easy for you to try since you don't have xtweaks on in 8-3a--you won't need to do any reboots.  However, you will have to open and then close 8e and then reopen it to get the autohotkeys working correctly. Ignore any reboot message that might come up in the process of opening and then closing 8e.

Just wondering what your impression of this comparison might be cause you seem to be the only other person to report that 8-3a has a bit of harshness with PA off. Here, with 8e, having both xtweaks and PA engaged sounds best.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it seems that in the past there was pretty much agreement about the SQ with each new development in XXHighend. Now though, it seems we may have reached a place where the software is generally so good that  settings, and perhaps even versions, are now more system dependent. There is the subjective element too, but  I think that plays only a small part, if any, in the current split of opinion regarding "what sounds best," because for so long consistent consensus seemed to be the rule.

Just my 2 cents....

[GerardA]

Well, Boleary I have to confess that I experienced some harshness that I was not sure was caused by XXHE. Especially this happened when Adele sings a bit higher and louder. I was thinking it might be the recording but am not sure and not really able to test it now.
It's a shrillness that's realy unlistenable and I suspect it's only one particular frequency range that has this distortionproblem. Maybe somewhere around 2 to 5 kHz?
I guess everyone has Adele? and can test this?

[hf]

Based on Boleary & Arvinds findings and Peter's suggestion I did a test this evening. I tried the following:

1) Ultimate xtweaks - pa off - 15ms - core scheme 3
2) Ultimate xtweaks - pa off - 0.5ms - no core scheme
3) Ultimate xtweaks - pa on (strenght 1) - 15ms - scheme 3

In my system and my ears 3) sounds the best, then 2) and finally 1. But: it is close, very close sometimes (especially 2 and 3)
I didn't a test with ultimate off since I'm loosing this 'easy-going' and part of the emotion in the music. Note it sounds beautiful but with ultimate on is becomes more involving.
Differences I notice: in 3, less (subtle) harshness; but I like that voices come more forward like Boleary noticed. And with 2 and 3 the sound is more open compared to 1.

Hope this helps and/or gives other ideas.

[PeterSt]

I guess everyone has Adele? and can test this?

Adele is a pain and exactly for the reasons you told, Gerard.

But if course this is head in the sand, and it actually should be a good measure. So, I always say "nothing is caused by the recording". Maybe if you can't get it right in 10 years it is. But we all know how super-many "recordings" improved over time, and maybe one day Adele will do too.

Peter

[arvind]

The above suggested settings brings the SQ very close to PA on, however it's still a bit harsh & the vocals come a step forward.

Peter, regarding your latest suggestion, I agree with Arvind's findings concerning PA off. To me, in my system, the more forward vocals are accompanied by a subtle harshness that takes me back to pre PA days.

Arvind, have you compared 8-3a and 8e? It should be easy for you to try since you don't have xtweaks on in 8-3a--you won't need to do any reboots.  However, you will have to open and then close 8e and then reopen it to get the autohotkeys working correctly. Ignore any reboot message that might come up in the process of opening and then closing 8e.

Just wondering what your impression of this comparison might be cause you seem to be the only other person to report that 8-3a has a bit of harshness with PA off. Here, with 8e, having both xtweaks and PA engaged sounds best.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but it seems that in the past there was pretty much agreement about the SQ with each new development in XXHighend. Now though, it seems we may have reached a place where the software is generally so good that  settings, and perhaps even versions, are now more system dependent. There is the subjective element too, but  I think that plays only a small part, if any, in the current split of opinion regarding "what sounds best," because for so long consistent consensus seemed to be the rule.

Just my 2 cents....

Hi Boleary,

8-3a (XTweaks off) & 8g are very much the same. I just love the SQ, so musical, soft & the soundstage is fantastic.

Best regards,

Arvind

[boleary]

Thanks Arvind, am assuming you meant 8e when you said 8g. For me 8-3a sounds more rolled off or less open in the high end than 8e. And I have to agree with Peter and Gerard about Adele. Her voice seems to overwhelm the mic when she goes from 0 to 60. For me a better test of how software , etc, deals with the higher frequencies is the acoustic version of Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissett. When "things" are right, her voice sounds great but just the opposite if there's the least hash in the chain.

[henri21961]

Hello Peter I don't no what you did with the prog. but it's much more stable  with startup after loading the songs I had some little problems choose the sample ferq. but that problem is complet gone, so as you now ,I'm happy with the new xx it's stable, I can play on special mode with a firewre con. on a weiss dac, no hickups, and the min. mode with xt tweak on My 6 core amd processor works on 102 % just perfect, also when I play with Jriver on the min.mode , It sound much better then the standard mode and close to jplay only the hibernate mode have other sound and accents
xx is still my prog.

[lodewiekus]

Dear Peter I'm a newbe here but there"s nothing wrong with my ears and my modest gear, and after 30 sec. of listening to your program I knew instantly this is gonna be a hit !!@! It was like a present from hell eeh heaven !! Amazing, I've never expected this, that in my lifetime anyone could solve this problem without spending huge amounts of money. I know, I sound silly but I'm exhausted, I hardly slept within three days (or nights) and  wish all of you the best. gonna look for Black sabbath on the net iron man! Was 40 years ago.

Grtzzzzz Lodewiekus (Loek)                                                        

[PeterSt]

Hey Loek, nice little story !

I actually never realized that Paranoid is from 43 years ago by now, and how I like the album today the same as back then. Same atmosphere, everything. Still, I was 12 there, so how does it happen ?

Btw, look here : http://www.volkskrant.nl/vk/nl/2686/Binnenland/article/detail/3422131/2013/04/08/Black-Sabbath-komt-naar-Ziggo-Dome.dhtml
I won't go because I stopped after Sabotage when things started to be "noise" IMO.

Regards, and welcome !
Peter

[PeterSt]

Hello Peter I don't no what you did with the prog.

Thank you for the feedback and kind words Henri.
Peter

[lodewiekus]

thanks for the even so nice re but I just came out of a coma, and when you could see my typing skills you would think that I'm mentally ill...
I can,t wait to unlock your program but have at the moment not the right vitamins on my PayPal.
No job, so I belong to the losers nowadays.
A good sound helps me to forget that ! About half a year ago I bought a Xonar STX for my Stax SRM-Xh, which has survived from a disaster. I had to admit that those little silicon bast.... have made a huge improvement since the days of Black S. LOL. I was really surprised, not bad at all, besides ESR EMI drop outs from Bill, a.s.o.
So a thought lets find out what I can do to improve that, with little money, which is sometimes not poss. Butt logical thinking and studying electronics should do the rest.
And not to forget, what is the approach from other audiofiles in this ?? So I started reading, reading and reading A LOT !! Believe me Pete this is the first time I react on a forum, and (maybe) you wanna know, why.
Besides the technical "things" I missed something.
Until now I've nothing read like: Ive bin to the doctor and gave my earchannels and drums a thorough cleaning and made a app. for a hearing test. And the come out of that was that I have a dip(s) around ..... KHz.
Believe me Pete, no audiofile with gear from 4,5,6, even 7 figures who wants to know that kind of information, or simply think its not thrue or something like: I know what I'm hearing Einstein, you don't !! And that's a fact I have to admit, thats logical thinking from another part of our body: that very big chemical factory between our ears !!
And its not funny to say butt... It makes mistakes, a lot of them. Think about a magician; how the f... does he do that?
It's called the Huntington eff. I believe. Our brains expect what will happen and when it doesn,t it means crysis, chaos.
I mean to say people: be aware of this; and the result is that you give your ch. fact. the time to repare the mistakes.
Make changes step by step, butt that's the problem with our "handycap". Good sound is better than .... !!
Okay guys and girls that was a mistake i'm sorry, those damned chem. again!!
I,m gonna stop making friends now, maybe that is a fact too...

grtz Loek

[Decoherent]

Holy Moly!

This thing wipes the floor with foobar2k + ASIO! And by a huge margin!
What I had bee listening to all this time?!
Congratulations, you gave me one single good reason to use Windows!

If you just did one for Ubuntu a nice music player could be black-boxed with a simple lcd display.

Amazing work!

[PeterSt]

Hey hey ...

It is quite interesting (well, for me) that two subsequent posts with some "wow" in them, are about the NOT activated version. This, while I don't recall a single other one ever. Of course, everybody who ended up with obtaining a license will have done so for a reason, but still ...

But here's a maybe interesting little story which is not so obvious to all :

What we've always been doing with XXHighEnd, is provide a demo version which should already be better sounding than the competition. So, this is actually for free, and the only downside is the average playback time per XXHighEnd startup which is something like 30 minutes before sound stops.

But is is tough to keep it like this (better sounding with the Demo version already) because all what's in the Activated version is or has been copied by others, and is provided or for free or with some beep or the trial time expires, etc.
So, I can tell you, the really only one player out there which is genuine, is cPlay (cics started just after XXHighEnd but on a very different route, and I (or "we") never looked in there to copy smart stuff). All of the others (and this includes Mac - not Linux which is a quite different story) spring from XXHighEnd.

So, the real thing happens with the activated version, while nobody can try that (with the Demo version), obviously.

The reason why it is setup like this, is to prevent the "copyers" from instantly applying what we found out here which today at least requires a license and which otherwise would be too easy. And mind you, some of the things applied can take MONTHS really to find out how to do it, while copying it may take less than a day.
And maybe I should tell that by now some 12,000 hours of development is in there, and this is only because "we" try to be fresh, new and ahead of everything. Pioneering. This costs infinitely more than copying.

I must honestly add that in the beginning the described above was not the reason; Back then it was about the program tweaking the OS which could be "dangerous" to some, and while things got possibly destroyed (not anticipating any "OS" knowledge), it seemed better to at least pay first before whatever help had to be provided to repair things. But the world has changed since then, and a. actually nothing much goes wrong because it is all quite decent by now, and b. people have gotten more knowledged and install OSes more than I ever did myself. Add to this that other software tries to apply the same for free, and who am I to think people should be protected from this maybe more difficult environment.

Anyway, this is how I like to read posts which almost explicitly are about the Demo version only. Still, it nicely hooks in to my thinkering about how to setup Demo vs Activated in the future, because actually it is totally stupid to provide a Demo version which does not reflect the real SQ capabilities (ehm, by miles).

Possibly this is too much in the open, but people may have more ideas about this than I myself. So, if anyone has good ideas, please let know. I am not sure whether people with a license may come up with better ideas than people without, so I ask both camps to respond. I know, the not activated people merely won't know what it is (or will be) about, but exactly them may feel annoyed not be able to really trial the merits (well, this seems obvious).

So much for my Saturday morning blahblah,
Peter