And now my sound is SCARY

[Gerard]

Peter,

I wonder with this OS on Ramdisk is there still difference between W8 and W10?

 

[PeterSt]

Hi Gerard,

I can't tell but I am pretty sure there is because W10 itself sounds quite charachteristic (don't you agree ?). So that character, which is mainly in the highs for the more explicit sound did not change with the RAM version (I am not sure it got emphasized, but it merely is about the "presentation" which changed.

I must admit that I should test this with W8 just the same, but it takes quite a lot of time to set up a first OS like this (opposite to cloning a disk for a second). But I like W10 better anyway ...

Peter

[Gerard]

Hi Gerard,

I can't tell but I am pretty sure there is because W10 itself sounds quite charachteristic (don't you agree ?). So that character, which is mainly in the highs for the more explicit sound did not change with the RAM version (I am not sure it got emphasized, but it merely is about the "presentation" which changed.

I must admit that I should test this with W8 just the same, but it takes quite a lot of time to set up a first OS like this (opposite to cloning a disk for a second). But I like W10 better anyway ...

Peter

Ok 

[juanpmar]

Peter,

The ultimate goal seems to be a Music Pc with nothing inside except the motherboard and memory. Now that the music is on a LAN, to put the OS and XXHE on Ram is another step in that direction. A big step forward that requires, as it seems, overcoming enormous difficulties.

I would like to make a couple of questions about something much more ordinary, I'm a little embarrassed due to the high level of this topic, but here are the questions: what about the cpu fan? Your XXHighEnd PC has one fan and I have three. And, what about the power supply? Is there a way to feed the PC with an external power supply? We know they have also influence in the SQ.

Regards,
Juan

[christoffe]

I would like to make a couple of questions about something much more ordinary, I'm a little embarrassed due to the high level of this topic, but here are the questions: what about the cpu fan? Your XXHighEnd PC has one fan and I have three. And, what about the power supply? Is there a way to feed the PC with an external power supply? We know they have also influence in the SQ.

Regards,
Juan

Hi Juan,

in my opinion Michaels fanless PC configuration with an external PS is a good starting point. I got my none switching external PS for the laptop, and the SQ improves  with more details and a very quiet background. We don't need the >150 Watt CPU's for the best SQ possible, except you like speed for processes (FLAC to WAV conversion etc)  prior the start of the music replay  for your convenience.

Joachim

[music33]

Hi Peter,
I am very intrigued as it sounds like a lot of research went into this.  Another possible approach is to use WindowsPE (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709665(v=ws.10).aspx).  Just reading about it, I have my doubts it would work as you would need to figure out how to load the drivers you need among other things.
Do I sense a new version of the XXHighEnd PC...

[rakeshpoorun]

And of course, if one looks carefully, there is this chinese company that seems to promise just such a solution.

www.disklessangel.com/en

"Our product 'Diskless Angel' can take Microsoft Windows 7/8/ME/NT/2000/2003/XP/Vista to run totally in RAM under diskless condition, it can serve the purpose of environmental protection, saving power consumption and elimination of virus infection (virus will be destroyed after rebooting the computer once virus infection occurs)."

Obviously one does not know until one tries it.

Naturally, given Peter's enthusiastically contagious expose above, I would be inclined to put more trust in Peter's solution given that it will take into account the environment of the XXHighend PC.


Best regards
Rakesh

[PeterSt]

And of course, if one looks carefully, there is this chinese company that seems to promise just such a solution.

Odd ... I know that and now I have been looking for 15 minutes why I never dove into that. Must have been something ... (wrong with it).

[PeterSt]

Another possible approach is to use WindowsPE (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709665(v=ws.10).aspx).  Just reading about it, I have my doubts it would work as you would need to figure out how to load the drivers you need among other things.

I have tried that, but it can't work with audio - uhm, IIRC because I tried so many things.

Windows Embedded brings us further and I have had that running (not from RAM but this is (now !) just a next step). But it is almost undoable to get this going in the way you like it because it costs half a day to set up one OS and try it ... thus boot and find that something is missing. Up comes a next half of a day.
So I gave up on that.
Btw, things can be automated to some degree so this half of a day becomes 30 minutes or whatever, but this was too difficult to get going (ok, for me, so what about some education).

Peter

[PeterSt]

Do I sense a new version of the XXHighEnd PC...

what about the cpu fan? Your XXHighEnd PC has one fan and I have three. And, what about the power supply? Is there a way to feed the PC with an external power supply? We know they have also influence in the SQ.

At this moment the least I see happening right now is a stripped down version of the PC; exactly the other way around as how it was made at first. So at first it was made for being able to house xxTB of hardisks, a pile of USB(3) connections etc. and all flexible, while now that can all be literally stripped off. It can, but whether that's really doing something to SQ depends. So, *that* (SQ) will depend largely on varying draw and e.g. a USB connection may be (if at all) leaking some draw but it will not vary. But I'm also thinking about ground loops, so ... all not much clear yet.

Fact is that I have detached my 3 chassis fans for more than a year now, because there was the OS 2.5" hdd in it only anyway and the CPU (though cooled (in silent fashion)) is not warmer than 40 Celcius at any time (plus I have the lid off all this time).

The power supply is another thing and as was just talked through in the other topic ... let's say that Anthony is working on that and I am waiting for it (and remember, I have one but it didn't work out and at some stage I surely can't do all at the same time PLUS what Anthony plans is way beyond anything "normal").
Something else is that I feel that the "normal" linear power supply is NOT doing what it theoretically promises. I see no proof of it anywhere and to give one example from our own circles : even Mani stays silent.

Anyway, not easy to answer these questions. Say I'm not prepared.

Regards,
Peter

[christoffe]

Something else is that I feel that the "normal" linear power supply is NOT doing what it theoretically promises. I see no proof of it anywhere and to give one example from our own circles : even Mani stays silent.

Regards,
Peter

Hi Peter,

Since one year I’m going a different route (8xAP only) with a laptop, which is with the performance  in comparison to the “others” very slowly (especially for 192KHz files I have to avoid) , but the SQ was superior to my audio PC with an I5 processor.

As I wrote a couple of days ago, the “100W HDPlex”  LPS arrived and the SQ improved with a very quiet background and “digging out” more details (not heard before).

My conclusion: “Something is going on with the SQ using a LPS”.

Joachim

[manisandher]

Something else is that I feel that the "normal" linear power supply is NOT doing what it theoretically promises. I see no proof of it anywhere and to give one example from our own circles : even Mani stays silent.

I'm very happy with my ATX LPS. It's really hard to attribute exactly what's it's done to the SQ because I made so many other changes at the same time, but my feeling is that the sound softened ever so slightly. I could make a proper comparison by putting the SMPS ATX back in, but I really don't have the inclination to do this as I'm happy with the sound. (I still want to upgrade to XX2.02 and try W10 at some point though.)

So, no other reason to stay silent other than I'm happy with the sound.

Mani.

[PeterSt]

Thank you, Mani.

Peter

[PeterSt]

As I wrote a couple of days ago, the “100W HDPlex”  LPS arrived and the SQ improved with a very quiet background and “digging out” more details (not heard before).

My conclusion: “Something is going on with the SQ using a LPS”.

Thank you too, Joachim. But ... where did you write that ? I missed it (and now can't find it).

Thank you,
Peter

[Leo]

Rakesh, you quote me where I say that I cannot tell what each of the modifications on their own bring to the overall sound. Only that the combination was very good. And than you turn it around 180 degrees (again) and sarcastically comment on my 'claims' that I can make that kind of distinctions on what each of the modifications bring separately. Either you do this misinterpretation on purpose or, however hard your teachers tried, you should ask for your money back.