NOS1a and Q5 & W7 vs W8

[CoenP]

Hi there NOS1a owners,

Anybody notice a difference between Q5 set to 1 and set to 0?

(black wire connected and USB3 card connect to chassis)

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Hey Coen,

I'm afraid too few "a"'s are out there at the moment. But I have one, so I should be able to participate.
That is, if I survive another evening with Windows 7 (which you use), which is not likely because by now I HATE it.
I know I know ... this is another story. Anyway, I use W7 for the past 5 days or so (something forced me ) and if I still have it by the end of the day I will try it. However, you must placebo me first, because I don't like to waste even more time on this awful sound I receive myself from it.
I use Q5=3 which is fairly random (Q3 and Q4 at 0).

Of course you don't need to tell and possibly someone else comes up with some judgement after all, but I doubt it (I don't think others with the NOS1a use Windows 7).

Regards,
Peter

[CoenP]

Ok

Exaggerated emotional sound-experience: compressed vs bombastic. I definitely prefer the latter, a "live" sound. (Not saying which is wich).

Now with the nos1a maybe I should give win8 another try tonight...

Regards, Coen

P.s it should not matter, shouldn't it?

[PeterSt]

P.s it should not matter, shouldn't it?

No.

Re: Orelo MK-II Imaging

[CoenP]

Now with the nos1a maybe I should give win8 another try tonight...

Regards, Coen

P.s it should not matter, shouldn't it?

I forgot about the WIN8 quirks (like the stopping) and after some forum reading a few reboots and playing with the settings to get error free playback, I finally managed to play a couple of complete tracks!

Wow, what a laser beam focus...and how little height that beam has.  Actually, after a little accommodation I wondered where all my musical details had gone and where the naturalness and where the easiness, etc, etc. Why do I stop each track? What a total lack of listening enjoyment.
Ah, deja écoutée.

ASAP back to WIN 7 with its imperfections and now I hear Miles playing tunes on the trumpet again. What a beauty and relief!

Now what about Q5...

regards, Coen

[CoenP]

While thinking over what I wrote above, it occurred to me that the sound presentations of win7 and win 8 somehow make sense.

That is that one can think of a recording containing a certain intensity of the instruments.
Now if we "blow up (like a balloon)" this sound it would get less dense, bigger and vaguer but allowing for details to appear and develop: hence the WIN7 sound.

Otoh, if we would concentrate (in the vertical plane for arguments sake) this recording everything becomes very intense and clear with very good localization, but intense tones can get too intense and obscure nuances (and musical information is lost): hence the WIN8 sound.

At my place of course.

Of course I have no clue about why/how this take places, but the NOS1a is not immune to it.

regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Coen,

You used the same machine for the both OSes ? So nothing else different regarding the noise environment ?

And uhm ... only when I was finihsed last night with playing music, I thought about your Q5. It can only mean I was happy enough with how it was now (also referring to my other post from yeterday). Anyway, apologies that I forgot.

Peter

[CoenP]

Hi Peter, same pc, same bios, same xx version, same devices disabled in the os device manager.

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Thank you Coen.

[PeterSt]

So Coen, I tried it. But in an hour of time I couldn't find differences. I also tried the Q3,4,5 = 1,1,1 setting because that appears more logical to me to impact, but no.
SFS was 20, ClockRes was 15. Core 1-2 for the 8 core in there.

This wasn't critical listening, but I never do that. This can imply that I should have let it stay for a day at least, but now this won't work for me becaue of the (W7) sound I don't like much to begin with plus I am not used to it at all.

Regards,
Peter

[CoenP]

Thanks for the trouble Peter,

Things are very different in here with the Q5 settings. I must have some "leak" in my system that makes the PC and some software settings audible. Most likely not via the NOS1a but through something else; prime suspect is the pc.

I am still puzzled why you experience a difference between the two OSses and prefer win8 over win7.  From my perspective win8 sounds truely horrible.

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

I am still puzzled why you experience a difference between the two OSses and prefer win8 over win7.  From my perspective win8 sounds truely horrible.

Coen, What about saying that the jury is still out ?
And please notice : Many if not most prefer Windows 8, so wondering how personal me can be out of line (or something ).

Are we going to change the subject ? hehe

Yesterday was my 8th day with Windows 7. On the first day my perception was "way more palpable". More smooth. No lack of accuracy that I noticed, because the palpable overwhelmed. But that really did not last a day before the grey took over. This ended up in last Saturday's "not listenable" any more. A next day this was counteracted by not playing the music which would show the nastyness. A next day I was fed up with that, but ended up by not even having the lust to look for a next album to play when the former was finished.
Then I found the new speaker settings;

The second day of that already made me think that I was able to quite mimic the W8 sound. One difference always to be there : the low end. There's no definition in it, but (therefore) sounds more low. This is acceptable for me, because when needed I'll dial out bass. Which I did not because the W7 is temporary for me.
Maybe.

Yesterday I could have gone back to W8 but I did not because I liked to try your Q5 thing. But merely : I knew in advance that I would not care much. Maybe I was even more interseted in whether I can survive W7 in general.
And again I noticed that the difference with W8 has vanished a lot.
It's a bit like LP; With W8 we can easily be wrong (too harsh because of too much accuracy or something like that) while W7 gives way more headroom. But there's a caveat and this could resemble your situation :

I know that you too can play with your speakers / crossovers what you want. You too may have set it all to some mere extremes others do not. So just think : While I have made my W7 acceptable by means of (strange) speaker settings, what would happen if *I* now go back to W8 ? I realy know the result in advance : all will be totally out of balance. Way less perceived bass (no matter more accurate) which is not able to mask to way too much highs. So both with work in the wrong direction and I will be there with ear plugs in.

If I try to map this on to your situation, then you must lower the tweeter output by some 3dB and what needs to happen with the bass I don't know. This is because I can survive both, but W7 feels like showing 4dB or so more of it. Point is, this masks the boosted tweeter for W7 and is thus dangerous (for proper judgement). Theoretically I (and you) could add 4dB of more bass when using W8 but this will not be for the better (because the bass in W7 is not for the better). Thus solution : lower the tweeter with 3dB.

I left out the 1K-5K attenuation (for W7) because you will not be able to do that.
And of course nothing is as easy as I say because you can not just "lower the tweeter". Still you can try (put a 5.6 Ohm or so resistor in series).

Today I will be back on W8. Well, I am curious myself.

Peter

[CoenP]

Thanks Peter,

I have been thinking about my speaker balance. The last time I voiced it was in my m-audio thuneau pre-xx days. It could very well be that that sound in retrospect was more similar to win7 than 8. I remember that even small changes in slope and co point made an enormous difference.

I am also not excluding the possibility of interaction between the PC psu and the psu(s) of the "power" amplifier. This is a very likely candidate both via the USB ground wire (wich is connected) and the ac power line.

I am encouraged in this line of reasoning since some of you notice far little difference between settings. It must be somewhere in my setup.

It takes a little thought how to properly tweak the low-mid-high outputs. There already is a negative slope from 12k downward and some dips and ups in the midrange,etc,etc. this is not a quicky!

Regards, Coen

[PeterSt]

Coen,

Best would be to bring your car to this place at some stage. I owe you that one anyway.
At least that would sort out personal perception.

Regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

I have changed the title of the topic somewhat and included "& W7 vs W8".
I saw no good reason to start a separate topic for the W7 vs W8 thing with the notice that I wanted to start one myself about this a week ago, but all went a bit differently and now it automatically emerged in this topic.

Peter