Okay ...
It looks like I am getting really good at these kind of games, because I seem to be able to predict quite well what is going to be needed when something goes into the wrong direction (SQ wise).
So where were we ? white-harp sound. And IMO a real flavour and flavours are no good at all times. I am not sure I could have lived with this sound in general (so maybe I could) but the flavour would kill me in a couple of days.
Now what could be "applying" that flavour ?
Stupid thing is that this brought me to quite different thinking and I mean, thinking of a different subject, possibly not a problem at all. Now, today is riddle day and I will tell you two things upfront :
- I am not going to tell what I did but what I did was about that "other subject" and it solved the white-harp in the mean time;
- The SQ is now so that I want to invite the whole world to listen to it (sort of : that proud I am now - sounds childish eh ?).
So that other subject :
What I saw from measuring real time from music playback (this refers to the "Ambient" topic) was that even at tip-toeing through the room this could easly be seen in the lowest frequencies (through FFT measuring). So, the floor is one big resonator and it's my thinking that music playing itself should be hammering on the floor far worse than my tip-toeing so I wanted to solve that. Keep in mind : I came to this subject (again) because I wanted to solve that white-harp, and the idea I got could solve that too with something "additional" but clearly belonging to the same base solution.
What I applied I thought of only yesterday morning, and it was executed in a total of 2 hours. I needed to buy something for it, could not find what I want, found something that maybe could work but already in the car back I could reason it wouldn't - that was brought back and something else was bought and after that it took 30 minutes to apply whatever that was.
Yes, these were hints.
But here are some more :
The thing I did is already too ridiculous to even ever think of, and thus I thought ot it. I don't think this has been done anywhere in the world because it really is too outrageous.
It also took around an hour of preparation through Google with actually no real result other than whatever I applied is only a base setting and it is tunable to a high degree. *How* to tune it is about a subject which is an existing subject but I don't think that Google will ever bring me the real figures needed because what is applied for "common applications" is way way off for what I need here. I think that even an engineer with knowledge in the field would have quite some problems with it. The engineer would need to know the math involved.
So I applied that base setting, and that worked right out of the box.
Still, although I don't seem to lack anything at this moment (but see short description of SQ below) it will be pure accident that something worked to begin with.
For another reason, what I have now can't stay. The change needed WILL imply a different SQ looking from the technical angle, but maybe it is not audible.
Because I always think it is useless to apply tweaks others won't be able to, I already know this will be an "upgrade" which Phasure can provide.
Possibly nobody will apply such upgrade because it is too ridiculous to be sighted. Your family and neighbours will tell you that you now have really really turned crazy.
There will be quite another reason why you will scratch your head 10 times before you will even start thinking of daring to do it.
It is part of the process of isolating the USB (card) on both ends, which means that in the NOS1 you need to apply a small tweak too. Outside that, I mean that I could reason out that the riddle-tweak was needed now from the sheer "deducing" thinking of what else could further be the matter. And that turned out to be true.
Although I talked about an "upgrade", you, like me, can start applying it right today. That is, if you did not throw away anything that came with your NOS1 as how it was shipped to you. In that case you trial setup will cost no 40ct in whatever currency.
So, who knows what I did here ?
Start shooting as much as you all can. The more ridiculous the better chance you have.
SoundFirst off, all what started to exhibit from isolating the card at the PC's end ( and with Windows 8 ) is still quite there. So, music comes from everywhere (a bit depending on the music itself) and what's perceived of it seems impossible.
Notice : This is now W7 but I'd have to try W8 again with this. I don't give it much chance though.
None of the strangness I wrote about is present anymore. I can focus again where I want, and music is not perceived as test signals anymore.
We listened to some commercial music (that's how I call it) like Sanctuary from Chris Jones. We know the track quite well and it is unbelievable what's all more in there than ever before. This includes things like the whoooha (assumed you know the track) that starts in the middle and floats to whatever eternity to the left. That is, I don't recall floating anything (try it).
Ok, there's more in all again - nice.
It suddenly feels like LP, to the sense of "okay, this can't go wrong". What I'm talking about is the infinite headroom perceived, before things going wrong. It just won't ever. And if you now include all the detail ... Crazy.
*What* you hear is freaking unbelievable. The signature of the Silverstone is still clearly present (the detail-separation) and I am confident that without this card nothing of the kind can happen.
Unlike W8 there is no liteness of the highs anywhere and the detail has only become more of it. This is because the detail is not in the devil but in the mid. This now *also* unveils the real detail in the highest frequencies. Say the vinyl like ticks (if you ever pereceive such sounds in the first place because it really needs that "ambient" stuff which often uses that (say transients only of a few samples of length).
A remark on the bass, again to be sorted out better : It suddenly seems as if more tracks make use of normal sines for the lower frequencies; in the shorter time I had so far this all seems to be correct (because the square like is still there too in other tracks). Anyway, what this should tell (if right indeed) is that "something" is able to let distort the lower frequencies so much that a sine there is no sine anymore at all but is deformed towards more square. Harder to explain, but since this is about the lowest frequencies anyway (say 24-30Hz) this is very apparent. How ? Well, a sine of 25Hz is hardly audible, but harmonics implied because of distortion are and will overwhelm the 25Hz. So, 25Hz will become 50Hz for 2nd harmonic distortion and will become 75Hz for the 3rd and this *always* is better audible (and make vanish the fundamental (25). So :
What - I'm confident - the riddle-tweak indeed does, is counteracting the feedback of the music itself, which especially in the very low frequencies make let the floor act like this resonator, that implying even more low frequencies (call it ambient if you like - realy so) but because of another frequency (all depending on the floor concerned) that now distorting the 25Hz (etc.) and turning that into more square sound (think low frequency rattle spaceship synthesizer and you get the idea). Now, you will never be able to detect whether this is right or wrong (because synths involved) and either way it sounds interesting. But now look here :
At the very first sounds I payed something totally different happened and it was beyond my experience so far;
Now there was deep down earth rumble coming from afar and dying out way far into space of which it can easily be seen that it was meant to be like that. This, while previously this was way interesting synth sound and it must have been so that unreal harmonics were creating this sound (you never knowing they were unreal). And so suddenly I explicitly here the sub low everywhere, which thus now is in more tracks again than I knew.
In the mean time such tracks sound way black, and not the black everybody talks about. Black is black because there is this very low frequency only (but normal music playing around it) while the nothing being around that low frequency sine wave creates an explicit black background to that frequency.
I must (sadly) say it again : This will be nothing the far most of us will be able to perceive anyway, because it *first* needs that undistorted (under 3% THD) woofer output at these low frequencies and I don't think anyone has that. When that is not the case, now the false harmonics spring from there and there's nothing left to do.
Something else is that my carefully tuned 18Hz woofer output under the condition of the "3% rule" should be re-done, because theoretically the distortion I measured has been subject to the very same I just described (floor resonance) which should imply that the Orelino speaker can be tuned "better" again (read : can reach 17-16Hz with the same "under 3%" figures).
Btw, I'm playing with SFS=220 and Q1=14 x 1 now, but this is merely the result of day before yesterday's attempt to bring down the the white-harp sound. I just left it be.
So everyone, ... what did I do ?
Peter
