SQ of 1.186, best ever! (Again)

[Gerard]

I raised my CPU from 12 too 22 and now i can play SFS 0,08 and a Buffer of 2 ms.

 

[JohanZ]

....raised my CPU from 12 too 22

Hi Gerard,
What did you raised? I can't imagine that you mean core's.
Best regards johan

[PeterSt]

This is a bit of a very accidental happening / story :

I just come back from Bert's from one of our regular ("speaker") meetings; this meeting ended with a small listen with my pre-announcement "better not do that because so many things changed at my place which you didn't hear yet that I can only say that what I'll hear will be sh*t".
So, sound was quite okay and I think better than the previous time, also knowing that Bert too went back to W7. Nice.

I don't even know how it happened, but we ended with Roberta Flack - Killing me Softly, probably because I mentioned here in this topic. I think I told Bert how enormously good that now sounds, do he wanted to try.
Hmm ... didn't last long before I said "No way. And you know what ? you lack all the mid - somehow". Ok, any one named Bert would be disappointed and so he obviously was. "But hey, I'm just a few steps ahead of you, that's all. In the mean time, show me your Q button settings".

For you all, notice : There's a lower keyed electric guitar playing there which I'd dedicate "pure mid". Listen to it. How profound is it ?
Here at Bert it was actually lacking. It was not there and only because I knew it it had to be there I told about it. No guitar = no mid.

Aha. Bert noticed right away that because of some quirck elsewhere his SFS was set to his old (my old !) 0.40 and that had to be 0.10. So, that was set back to 0.10 and we replayed the track.

This time I saw another one's jaw dropping, although I had difficullties in holding mine. That guitar was now the most loud instrument and only the voice was a small tad louder.

But didn't I tell you ? all happens in the mid for changes lately, and this is a crazy example of it. Coincidentally for Roberta Flack from one of my previous posts and I didn't know about it (for this particular merit). Can we now envision some small in the back (synth) roar that suddenly determines the whole track because it becomes totally profound (including all the on/off square happenings) ?
So use this track (no, nice song) to tune this mid.

All what happened was the SFS from 0.40 to 0.10.

Btw, Bert had dialed in the NOS1 Control Panel at 8ms and his PC runs at 1600MHz. So this could be important for those who can't get done the 0.10 because of too low speed.

Peter

[PeterSt]

....So I'd say 0.08 is better than 0.10 again.....

Hello Peter,
I'm have made the switched to a new motherboard Intel, i7, Win Pro......The lowest SFS for the moment is 0,25 and sometimes a stutter. Do you have suggestions how I can get it lower. What parameters do i need to change?

I like the sound of this low sfs very much. A lot of details and soundlayers.

Best Regards Johan

Johan,

I think your best option is to lower the buffer size in the NOS1 Driver Control panel (as far as possible) and possibly another Apointment Scheme combination. Lower the ClockRes might help too, but only try if it helps because it may not the better option for SQ.

Otherwise what Gerard meant is the processor's frequency. With my XTweaks settings this is only allowed to be changed in the BIOS (so let my XTweaks settings as they are). Notice that this (BIOS) can only help you when you *first* have put that down (like to 1200MHz) which you will have done earlier (like a few days ago I mean). If you didn't do that then skip the BIOS changes because it will already be "high".

Peter

[briefremarks]

I'm not sure this is in the right place.  I've spent the last two weeks listening to the latest release of XXHE, and all I have to compare with is my former setup using JPlay.

This is preliminary, an evaluation ahead of getting the XXHE PC and the NOS1 DAC.

The sound is incredible, once certain parameters are in place.  I still do not have completely uninterrupted play--can play about 10 tracks before XXHE quits for reasons that I'm sure are related to some random services on the VAIO laptop I'm using.  My purpose was evaluating SQ, and this is the best sound I ever have had from my system.

Played around with Q settings and SFS primarily.  The biggest influence by far was Q5=1.  Really extraordinary.  Still tweaking a bit, have kept Q3=1, Q4=1 without change.  After setting Q5=1, the major element was getting good SQ and uninterrupted sound, which currently is SFS=2.0, and Q1=20.

Going to 0.4 on SFS seemed to collapse the sound stage, but I need to do this again to make sure.  Could not get uninterrupted play with Q1 any lower.  This is still the demo version, will get activated soon.

Rest of the system is: Empirical Audio Overdrive DAC, no pre-amp, active ASP crossover/EQ and Linkwitz Orion speakers.  Goertz low impedance speaker cables, and low capacitance interconnects from Blue Jeans Cable. 

The overall SQ is extremely "real" a huge improvement over CDs from a modified transport as well as JPlay. 

Listening to Bill Frisell's Blues Dream, a really great album, as I write this.

Looking forward to being a part of this community!

[PeterSt]

Thank you for your comments and welcome !

The reason why all suddenly stops after a (random) while is easy : Demo version.

Now wait for the moment you got out of that, because really a few things more will be happening then.

Also notice that the (IMO) real deal is around Q3=1, Q4=1 and Q5=1. But maybe you knew that already and you tried (works in Demo as well). Would be good to know because I think everybody uses the 1,1,1 combination and you can have find a better one.

Regards,
Peter

[manisandher]

Bokko

Referring to that Norwegian speed skater (not his sister) and maybe some debacle on Norway's decisions in the realm of Olympics, I think (but not sure) it was him who experimented skating the 10 Km not by a nice build up and skating equal rounds of around 30 seconds, but do one round in 25 seconds, a next in 36 to catch some breath, and so on. This didn't work.
It is now the same principle I apply for the energy used by the system as a whole in reasoning how the low SFS will be the better one. Net energy used is the lowest (measured) at equal rounds, while my focus has been in that area (energy usage) for maybe 4-5 months now.

In the end it will be about noise again I suppose, but something more should be going on for the reasons of it. I now think like things heating up in that 25 second round, while it only slowly (or too slow) cools down in that round of 36 seconds. The real low SFS (of 0.1, but can be lower) will imply all rounds of 24 which needs some real training of course (system has to be on par) but obviously when that runs, the guy doing all the rounds in 24 seconds will easily win over the guy doing 30 each round.
Something like that.

I've been thinking about this a lot recently. What you say makes sense. But there's always been something that I haven't managed to get my head around. As a generalization, lower SFSs sound brighter and fresher, and higher SFSs more 'woody' and smoother. And it's with higher SFSs that I have some trouble. Let's say SFS=120. Wouldn't we expect to hear the sound change within each cycle of SFS activity? I mean, within each cycle there should be a burst of activity for a short period and then things should settle before the next cycle. So I would expect a yo-yo effect - the sound yo-yoing from fresh to smooth within each SFS cycle. But this doesn't seem to be the case at all.

Mani

[PeterSt]

Correct Mani. That is, while I would expect the same, I never noticed that either while of course explicitly watching for it. But no. This is how I told about the cooling down (see that quote). But still a guess. Anyway, when that would be in order the "yo-yo-ing" as you said it could be smeared so much that it goes unnoticeable ?

Anyway, to me it is clear that you did not observe the latest findings (on Windows 7 !) with SFS=0.1 and around that value (like 0.11). I mean, then your expression about the SFS low and high values would not have been like how you just did - at all ...

Thanks,
Peter

[AlainGr]

Peter,

If you ever listen to Roberta Flack again, it would be interesting to know at what time that guitar that we suddenly hear, which tells us we have reached a sweet spot ?

Whenever you can of course...

Thanks,

Alain

[briefremarks]

Wow! Wow! Wow!  I've spent about a week now listening to various albums, and the sound with XXHE is really astounding!  I imagine everyone on this forum has already experienced this, but I'm still amazed because I had always imagined that the sound I had before was about as good as it could get.  It does make me realize that the Linkwitz speakers are extremely good, and I think a lot of Orion/LX521 owners have no idea how good these speakers can sound with a really good digital front end.  I should get my activation mail soon, which will let me try additional settings, and then the PC + NOS1 DAC are next.

Ramesh

[PeterSt]

If you ever listen to Roberta Flack again, it would be interesting to know at what time that guitar that we suddenly hear, which tells us we have reached a sweet spot ?

Alain, second 31 into the track ...

Peter

[AlainGr]

Been stuck with headphones for the last month... I am about to explode ! I am eager to listen through my "boxes" instead

Now playing with Peter's parameters, apart from adjusting some trimpots to not have any hiccups... NOS1 buffer at 12ms, Q1 at 14, SFS at 0.1... Still there is a small problem when one song overlap with another (there is an hesitation), but no click...

Alain

[PeterSt]

(there is an hesitation),

There is. And because there is no click anymore indeed it is less noticeable.

[PeterSt]

All,

To stirr the pot AGAIN, and after all these many hours of listening and observing and trying to get real merits ...
I dared to try Windows 8 again;

I think I can see for sort of technical reasons that Windows 8 must be the better one, no matter it may not sound as the better one. May not, because I am not even sure about that at this moment (it is just too different in the end).


With my change to Windows 7 some 5-6 weeks back by now, I recall my remark "not sure about the bass"; I took that for granted. But at explicitly showing some sub-low to someone here the other day, ... where was that.
For other reasons we had to go to W8 but right away I noticed that sub low again. The next couple of days I was practicing my "feel your woofers" theories and it is just right.
So from this alone (which seems stupid ?) I tend to say that W8 has to be the better one.

Next is how to get that highs more under control; I think I already got "somewhere" but it is not finished yet. At least I have put my current settings for W8 in my sig.

Now to shock you all somewhat :
I have been changing other "outboard" things lately and was able to make all unary "square"; things ratlle and do and it has become outrageous. So much so that I wonder whether it hasn't become too much of it, but still it is good (because just in there). Anyway, what I only now notice(d) is that Windows 7 becomes too fresh for this all, and I can't tune that down. So, the fact that W7 could be as fresh as W8 I already reported about, but now it seems "over" to me. This, while W8 makes that same fresh now silk ??
In comparison W8 still lets the music play by robots, but the sub low - actually totally lacking in W7 - makes me proceed with W8 again.

Message : Those who are in doubt and tend to try W7 ... You can, but don't be surprised when you want to go back to W8 in due time because possibly I found a cure.
At this moment it is quite difficult because of my "outboard" changes applied, but since they are for the better (for sure) they also make me "see through" better.

That's all for now.
Peter

[AlainGr]

HUM... My PC is about to get sea sick - is there an icon for this ?