Ya ya ...
My first Windows 8 experience. Seems like yesterday, but is 29 months ago by now.
What did I say in there for the first line ?
First to the conclusion : I don't know.
3rd line ?
Degree of happiness : Low.
But we got there in the end ...
... And with Windows 10 we are there from the start.
It took me 8 hours before the first sound was singing. This included the install of the W10 OS itself, the first trials of XXHighEnd and see how the OS is actually named internally so the software could be adjusted to recognition and now officially install. 6 hours from the start I was as far as booting into MinOS before even listening to it in Normal OS but all went black and stayed that. Wonder oh wonder I could revert to a before made Restore Point (with the help of the install DVD) and in the end all was fine again.
What was not 100% fine was the at first failing install of XXHighEnd halfway which brought me some very interesting "noises" because of even more interesting settings I wasn't aware of (at first). Also the NOS1a Driver installed with 16ms of buffer size (is that always so ?) and that did not work well (scratching sound). After setting that to 4ms all seemed OK but what a "strange" sound. Was this normal ??
Then I found Q1 to be at 0 (this is not really 0 as such and Q1 can even be set at -4) and lastly the Device Buffer Size to be 1024. That all together brought a ... well, interesting sound (I am actually very serious). But I thought it couldn't be a good thing, and so I set all to "normal".
This was day before yesterday and the 2.5 hours of listening brought me some getting used to. I liked it, but maybe there wasn't 100% consensus about that with the family. Also it was a bit of randomly playing a couple of things, more focused on "does it work" and "what all works" than the SQ.
Anyway this ended up in Unattended Playback in Normal OS and with only Desktop Services shut off (the remainder wouldn't work yet).
Then came yesterday.
Of course my W10 was broken in now for a day (haha) and all what could have changed things was that somewhere during the day the PC was accessed directly (instead of via the remote) which must have changed some internal setting and which made it hibernate/sleep (otherwise it didn't fall asleep although I never set any setting for that (falling asleep would be the default)). So, this should incur for a typical situation that I rebooted it, knowing what all awkwardness can spring from using PC's which had been sleeping and now continue for audio playback (since Vista that is). But I didn't and even after noticing that no USB DAC was connected any more - which one minute later was after all (after me bringing up the NOS1 Control Panel ?) ... I started playback (ignorantly).
What I now noticed more than the day before is that there's something in the highs of which I wonder whether it belongs there. Something like too prominent "belling" which could well be distortion. But was it really ? I couldn't detect it hence decide and instead put up another album of which I could expect the highs to excel if highs are for the better anyway.
And from there I have no memory ...
It was going through my mind that nobody needs a new DAC or NOS2 for that matter.
They just need this !
... what a freakin' experience.
I can explain all with one strange expression only :
Don't play anything with human voices, or you'll get mad.I have been talking more often about the crying babies in music and that they appear to be real babies in the room. And how the better the music reproduction becomes, the more of those voices start to be real and you look up who is saying something (which thus is nobody). And now ?
Now this happened 10 times per minute for each minute. Unbearable !
Although it was very difficult to concentrate on aspects, I tried to hear what actually was so much better. I believe the bass is for sure; There's unheard definition in it. The highs are totally different (and I mean totally) and although I can't describe it, I think I can firmly say that it is the opposite of the famous Windows 8 Robots highs. Not that I ever declared that Robots playing the music spring from wrong highs, but I think that is quite obvious (too square at the micro level or something). There's singing all over; it's like the one sample now knows how to control the next sample. How the both are to be connected (this is stupid talk of course but I'm looking for a metaphor which accomplishes what I hear).
What could be the most interesting is what I talked about in the beginning : what I experienced when I had my settings wrong. So outside the scratching I could super clearly hear a level going up and down and this was in a fashion which should be impossible with digital. So all my buffers were way too low (like Device Buffer at 1024 *and* Q1 at 0) and why do I have in my mind that the NOS1(a) doesn't even play with those low buffers. But it now did anyway and the sound was too interesting to think it is normal. Still it has to be technically normal because as said, digital anomalies are not able to produce what I heard. But what did I hear then ? a super detailed flanger in voices etc. ? This reminds me of me ever back saying that I could suddenly hear how Neil Young is not at a fixed distance from the microphone and that he always moves backwards and forwards. So the level of his voice gets softer and louder (flanger). It was this what I heard throughout at these first 10 minutes or so before I found out about the wrong settings and I didn't hear that back after the settings were "correct". Still I was reminded of it by my writing of the last sentence above the horizontal line (above). So it must be so that something of it is still in there and it is about how "samples connect".
Maybe all is wrong. And well, in that case I still had the best hours of playback of my life, yesterday. Amazing.
Windows 10 itself is quite a pile of sh*t. MS is saying that upcoming July 29 it will be available to the public. Well, if that really happens we are guaranteed to have an all buggy OS; To me it seems completely impossible that all what's in there for bugs at this moment is going to be solved in these few weeks left.
But do I care ?
This is a dangerous question. No, I don't care if I can stick to what I have at this moment. But I can already see that what others have at this moment is WORSE and I would not be able to live with that. So now my advice is this :
Go to the download page right now and download the version I have which hopefully is still the same (build 10074) :
http://windows.microsoft.com/nl-nl/windows/preview-isoThis is a Dutch page, but scroll down to the "Downloadkoppelingen" you see close to half way and choose the first one : Engels (Verenigde Staten)
N.b.: This Dutch page is the only one I could find that avoids registration and stuff).
Download it (64 bit version), and use the "Windows 7 Download tool" to make a bootable ISO DVD of it (don't attempt the USB stick unless you know you have one of which you know Windows will be able to boot from it).
Install this on a new hdd hence do not make a dual boot etc. and most certainly do not upgrade from an existing OS.
Really, do this as soon as possible; today they are at version 10130 and I heard rumour that they want to make that the version to download (from there). But it s*cks.
Do not connect your PC to the internet or otherwise cause the automatic updates to be shut off *first*.
By the time you have it running, XXHighEnd will be able to deal with it in public version. I'm eager.
Peter
