SQ of 1.186, best ever! (Again)

[christoffe]

Dear Joachim,

A good test record for the 3D image is :
http://www.amazon.com/Tenderness-Al-Jarreau/dp/B000002MMU/ref=sr_1_12_title_1_aud?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1391768033&sr=1-12&keywords=al+jarreau

Tonal balance of drums, title 2:
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Garden-Stanley-Clarke/dp/B001VFM0QU/ref=sr_1_8?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1391768160&sr=1-8&keywords=stanley+clarke

As you may know I am always in for such little "games" and I really did it (it appeared I have both albums);
What you also may know from me is that when I am challenged by examples, I will not hesitate to vent my judgement. For the better or the worse. So example : people tend to come up with super Hires such and so, give an example, I listen - debunk it for whatever I *hear* to next support that my whatever graphs and show it is stupidly upsampled or whatever has been the matter. Didn't happen often in this forum (because the challenging doesn't happen often here) but elsewhere yes. So hey, if you tell me that something is good, it better be good before others judge it as good while it maybe is not. Understand ?
It is and remains my little game though, so don't feel personally attacked only because it was you who accidentally came up with it. It's just to learn from, well, hopefully !

Hi Peter,

what a reply!

The links of the music titles were meant for a comparison between W7 and W8 only, not for an evaluation of the recordings itself. I concede that this titles are not the best samples in terms of quality, but nothing better came in my mind for a link at Amazon.

The Stanley Clarke title highlights the dynamic range of the cymbals as hearing in live concerts of Jazz Trios or Quartets. With W8 the cymbals are in the foreground, and with W7 the cymbals are not the major instruments anymore.

On my system (with W8) the hittings to the cymbals on track 2 are very good to hear as per your comment. The replay of the bass drum and Toms Toms are very poor on that track.

I do hear music at a SPL's well below 80dBA (at the listening position) most of the time. Higher SPL's as you are used to, very seldom.

My speakers are from YG Acoustics and the amplification is a NORMA integrated. The integrated has a frequency response up  1.8MHz, and that is the trick. I hear details as never before. The voices are amazing.

If the effort is not to big it would be nice to receive your two samples.

kind regards

Joachim

[PeterSt]

The links of the music titles were meant for a comparison between W7 and W8 only, not for an evaluation of the recordings itself. I concede that this titles are not the best samples in terms of quality, but nothing better came in my mind for a link at Amazon.

The Stanley Clarke title highlights the dynamic range of the cymbals as hearing in live concerts of Jazz Trios or Quartets. With W8 the cymbals are in the foreground, and with W7 the cymbals are not the major instruments anymore.

Hi Joachim,

I must admit that while yesterday I "knew" I wasn't much in for comparing to W8 (so I didn't on purpose), today I forgot about that and the actual subject. Well, not really because I stepped down to now predicting what would happen. But I should have emphasized that and since I really forgot myself ... Apologies.

Anyway it is still so that I described the cymbals as they are, thus the most upfront. Thus already too much in W7, so what about W8.

What I also should have emphasized better is that while I now obtain all the details from W7 (to my belief), W8 can only be way over on it. So this is why I proposed the tracks, so you can observe for yourself. But this of course first needs tracks with the "real detail" and this realy is something else than Jazz etc.
Summarized, if all is right you'll find this "way over" under W8 just as I do here, and it shouldn't mean that it goes to the trash bin because of bad recording; it's the other way around;
Our big goal is to let everything work well, and the, say, more poor recordings which play less nice under W7 should not need W8 to perform on par while another half won't play any more at all.

All right. I'm uploding the files and in 20 minutes or so you should receive an email about it.

Kind regards and thanks a lot.
Peter (very curious to learn your judgements)


PS: This *does* need a somewhat higher volume if you want the highs to be energized in the room; I play these close to 90dBSPL (1m) for the peaks which is also important for W8 not hurting (when too soft nothing is really harsh or hurting).

[PeterSt]

Can you indicate the song from Shpongle that you are talking about ? I could get it on Qobuz and try to understand what you mean...

Alain, that would be track 02. But maybe it is not important; I just picked the two first tracks I played yesterday to remain objective. So most of the sh*t is like this "music" and it is only that this track was in my Demo Gallery from W7 eras and I couldn't play it any more under W8. So, sub-objective.

By the way, you scare me with the test music you use 

Well yes, "test music" indeed. But for me this wasn't music as such as well, at first. I just learnt that this type of music contains all there is to "test" for, but next got involved because when things start to work well it's just so d*mn interesting that nice (Jazz etc.) tunes contain nothing really much. And yes, one can try to observe vinyl needle ticks because the're often in there (with thrown remarks that there's dust on the needle which I receive regularly ), but you can also try to look for them once you know they are there, to next know that something is not right with your system when they are *not* there any more. It's just transient response testing.
Same with the sub low. It's in actually nothing much, but in this type of music it is everywhere.

And now I really use this for music playing of which it already is very interesting what changed all *now* with a new version or setting.
It is coincidentally also the type of music I receive the least complaints about here. It's always quite easy going and not jazz tooting or rock smashing or women crying. All so-to-speak of course, but still; I try to play the most and the loudest possible and that needs the least complaints about it. But don't tell.

Best regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

All right. I'm uploding the files and in 20 minutes or so you should receive an email about it.

Kind regards and thanks a lot.
Peter (very curious to learn your judgements)

Hi Peter,
got the files and WOW, what a 3D effect. Never heard it such like that.
I'm comming from the Jazz side and the melody of the tracks from Tau Kita and Enthogenic are very intuitive and logical. Nothing unusaul for me.
The seagull flies under the ceiling in the outermost right side in my room at the end of the tune.

The track from Shpongle has in the end a very deep bass, and in appr. the middle of that tune the sound is extremly room filling to just outside of the speaker vertical plane. Room filling.

This a very good tracks for a demonstration. In your big room the sound must be overwhelming.

Thanx for the files. I have to go and listen again!!

Joachim

[PeterSt]

That was quite unexpected ...
I really anticipated to be debunked for whatever reason.

Thank you for trying Joachim. Really nice.
Best regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

That was quite unexpected ...
I really anticipated to be debunked for whatever reason.

Thank you for trying Joachim. Really nice.
Best regards,
Peter

Enthogenic The seagull is running flying for the fourth time. Amazing!

Edit: I hear three 3D rooms, left (was not emphasized very often), center and right. The mixing is quite ok.

[AlainGr]

Can you indicate the song from Shpongle that you are talking about ? I could get it on Qobuz and try to understand what you mean...

Alain, that would be track 02. But maybe it is not important; I just picked the two first tracks I played yesterday to remain objective. So most of the sh*t is like this "music" and it is only that this track was in my Demo Gallery from W7 eras and I couldn't play it any more under W8. So, sub-objective.

By the way, you scare me with the test music you use 

Well yes, "test music" indeed. But for me this wasn't music as such as well, at first. I just learnt that this type of music contains all there is to "test" for, but next got involved because when things start to work well it's just so d*mn interesting that nice (Jazz etc.) tunes contain nothing really much. And yes, one can try to observe vinyl needle ticks because the're often in there (with thrown remarks that there's dust on the needle which I receive regularly ), but you can also try to look for them once you know they are there, to next know that something is not right with your system when they are *not* there any more. It's just transient response testing.
Same with the sub low. It's in actually nothing much, but in this type of music it is everywhere.

And now I really use this for music playing of which it already is very interesting what changed all *now* with a new version or setting.
It is coincidentally also the type of music I receive the least complaints about here. It's always quite easy going and not jazz tooting or rock smashing or women crying. All so-to-speak of course, but still; I try to play the most and the loudest possible and that needs the least complaints about it. But don't tell.

Best regards,
Peter

Thanks Peter. I understand and can imagine with all the sounds that I can hear in this that it can cover a lot of aspects you are verifying...

I have an album from Ian Brown. Lots of synthesizer, but also lots of distortion, since some songs are compressed to death and go at the saturation level. What a shame... Good music though.

Alain

[boleary]

Well, with W7 I'm finally able to listen to 1.186 without feeling half crazy (in W8 it sounds so good and bad at the same time). Not sure about all XX settings, but I did increase clock res from .5 or 1 to 15, which really helped the highs and reduced the overall wooly sound of W7. So without reservation, I can finally agree that 1.186 really is the best ever. So 3D sounding!

EDIT: Updated settings below.

[PeterSt]

For those interested in Windows 7 : I think I have been able to get the bass as tight as W8 can do it. So, this lacked IMO somewhat for W7, and this is/was because the W7 OS behaves totally different from W8 and W7 seemed less "controllable".

Yesterday I have been working for 4 hours or so on changing settings and observing W7 behaviour (that guy who developed XXHighEnd should be eliminated from this earth) and from pure theory (observing graphs and such) my hereunder settings emerged. And you know what ? it worked.

With "tight bass" I mean a bass which in the area of 25-35Hz vibrates in the room on the proper frequency, no matter where you are. Also it should not "zoom" which is about the same property.
Along with it, again more freshness was achieved, though this was not the target. Notice though that my earlier mentioned "lift" of the F-M curves now could be brought down again ( Re: SQ of 1.186, best ever! (Again) ). "Could be" and not sure yet whether I'll let it stay like that, but on some older material I could now hear too much (highs) of it. Or maybe better : too dynamic. This is all nit picking though ...

That I received a "so spatious !" several times is something else, but assumed Brian doesn't say it because I started the "3D" subject - it just is so. And mind you please, this "so spatious !" was without asking for anything ... it just was the remark out of the blue and was relative to how the sound was the past couple of days already. So it goes on and on and more and more fast as it seems.

So the settings :

This picture I made anyway yesterday for the XXHighEnd PC BIOS topic (remember, this is for Windows 7 and Windows 7 only !) :

Do not change one bit of this. So *all* is as important including the 64 you see there.
Also note that changing even one of the others (which may come across to you as quite strange) will let rise your processor's temperature siginificantly.

The other parameters I already put in my sig yesterday, but the key ones I'll list here. Notice these came from the 4 hours of pressing play and looking (not listening) and they should be dead-consistent :

ClockRes = 15.
Although other settings may approach the behaviour with 15, it is always 15 coming out as the better one (and this has always been so for me with W7).

Q1 = 6 (xQ1 = 1).

Q3,Q4,Q5 = 1,1,1.
With the notice that I had to look at everthing with Q3=0 because otherwise all is hogged and nothing can show.

Core Appointment Scheme = 3-5.
This one is crucial. Notice that I explicitly tried all of the others which makes it a very tedious job, especially combined with the XTweaks settings, which in themselves allow for an infinite number of setting combinatons.

SFS = 0.40.
With the notice that I didn't play around with this one all that much. However, before changing the XTweaks settings drastically, this came out as the better one for the bass to begin with, combined with Q1=6.

For NOS1 owners :
NOS1 Driver Control Panel, Buffer Size = 16ms.
This one is crucial too.

What's left to say is that the past few days I play with the LAN On in the combination of "Shut down ALL Services", Keep LAN = On and Persist On. This combination is not possible in 1.186a (so it will be new) and I had to create it for myself because the Dynamic Off/On LAN doesn't work well for Windows 7. It is way slow (can easily take a minute to come up) and it doesn't allow me to quickly change tracks/albums once playback is going on. So now in my situaton the LAN Services keep on running and I really can't be bothered much if we look how relative all is and what super changes were achieved in a couple of weeks only.

Peter

[CoenP]

Peter,

If I look correctly at the picture you didn't apply the XT tweaks settings (based on the values between brackets)...
I presume you have archived best SQ with them activated...

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Haha, yes Coen. But that screen shot wasn't even taken from the audio PC and this one is in Normal OS Mode.

Peter

[boleary]

That I received a "so spatious !" several times is something else, but assumed Brian doesn't say it because I started the "3D" subject - it just is so.

Good assumption. The sound in my room is like going to a movie theatre with speakers that generate specific sound from specific places everywhere in the room.....and this with a $2,500 pair of speakers.

Will try your suggested settings sometime this weekend....long week ahead at the workplace.

[mood]

Dear  Peter,
I would like to express my appreciation for the SQ of the latest version of the XXHighendplayer.I listen a lot to pianomusic both classic and jazz. In some recordings for example Impromptu's from Schubert played byMaria Pires and some recordings of Bill Evans you can almost hear the width of the grand piano.A friend of mine who plays grand piano told me that the low registers (left hand) have improved. Also in large orchestral piece for example "the Grand Wazoo"of Frank Zappa much more depth, spacious , and richness of details. One can see in my signature that i paid a lot of attention to the powersupplies.
It is exceptionel to experience that the music is off of the speakers!

My compliments,

Jan

[PeterSt]

Thank you for your kind words Jan. Also and especially from you as a non NOS1 owner.

Best regards,
Peter

[phantomax]

Hello,
Some days ago I pointed out that trough headphones the SQ with XXHE 1.186 on W8 was the best ever while with loudspeakers was by far not so good.
So time to try the XXHE last version on a new partition with W7 again as Peter has recently suggested. Well, with headphones I think the SQ has improved but it's not very apparent and more listening is needed. But with loudspeakers the difference is very clear and for the better of course. More bass, fresh highs (as I allways remember with W7) and the music out of the box again.
The difference between headphones and loudspeakers is narrowed again and this drives me to  the following thought:
With headphones you perceive the spacial sensation in a quite artificial way with one ear not listening nothing of what the opposite ear is listening to. While with loudspeakers the two ears are listening the two speakers simultaneously (not to mention the third ear of which Peter talked about). So there must be something in the way that system behaves with W7 or with W8 that makes the difference between headphones and loudspeakers so ... different.

Maxi

P.D. Same settings as Peter except SFS 4