2.09 sound quality

[Nick]

I just applied the 2.09 patch. looking at the release notes they seemed to mainly talk about bug fixes for 2.08 and some additional features. Boy SQ came as a surprise 

Overall the 2.09 sound "pops" much more than with 2.08 in a very good way. There is more presence and dynamics. The response is more extended with more energy in the highs and bass is just in a different class, so much more tune full whilst being better damped and delivering greater weight. My only issue with 2.08 was that somehow the musical event (or liveness) was just ever so slightly diminished, whilst in many other ways 2.08 was big step forwards. 2.09 really seems to pull so much together, to my ears its a good deal more "real", I am defiantly looking forwards to spending more time listening  .

Thank you Peter !

Nick.

ps I hope that there is an under the covers reason (ie in the software) for what I heard 

[PeterSt]

Nick, beware, this is what I wrote on Saturday Morning (but I never posted it because I got unsure) :

The very special sound of 2.09

This time I will be the first myself with expressing about the SQ of a version. This is because I already have it, and you don't.

I describe the sound as "very special" because it is at a so large distance from what we are used to that again it is hard to grasp what happened.

Important : Although I describe this sound officially from 2.09, I can not tell whether some or all of it was already in 2.08. This is because only 4 days ago I discovered a combination of settings and other matters, which possibly would have worked out the same 2 months ago (say the start of 2.08).
You will see below that the special sound possibly is not for everybody, but it is hard to see how the same would work out with different hardware etc.

[...]

These are the two most special exhibitis from this sound :
1. The bass which is now playing super-separately as if the bass player has his own amplification in the listening room;
2. The highs which seemingly are added with 6dB but only beyond at a certain threshold of frequency (say of 8KHz).

Ad 1.
Any electric bass now exhibits as the individual fast keys being audible (can I say bass walks ?). They just jump out so much that tracks become unrecognizable of it.

Ad 2.
This implies a detail unheard. So, people may recognize (vastly) more detail in a similar realm from the G3 - well, this makes that 10-fold (maybe this is figurative, but as long as you hear me say "infinitely" than it's OK ).
This makes my "electronic music" unrecognizable. And I mean completely.

Yesterday I was playing something from Ron Boots (this is a synthesizer artist) which was in my Demo Gallery and which I thus play more often. Well, no-way I heard it ever before. The combination of mentioned bass and highs make his (analogue) synthesizer sound so full and warm and inmensely detailed on the squares which are super square *and* super soft, that from start to end (of 10 minutes) you listen with open mouth and a "how can that happen".

[...]

I left out a few passages because they were subjective to reasons which I invalidated later. As a matter of fact, I thought that it was because of a combination of settings, but by now I already know it is merely just 2.09. And Nick, your post certainly helps me with some confidence. But I'd say we both write rather similar about 2.09 ...

Thanks man,
Peter

PS: People should not look at my sig at this moment.

[Nick]

But I'd say we both write rather similar about 2.09.

Without a doubt Peter, you capture what I am hearing what you are describing above. Bass is such good fun, and as you say partically playing electronic music, it drives the music forwards so well now. All of this really was not the case with 2.08.

I have managed to listen to some more snipits today and applied your xx settings, WOW its such a great sound, the sense of fun and energy in music really comes across.

Regards the 6db change in volume, I hear this too. I have another way of getting a similar effect in my PC which you will know about. Interestingly the sound quality that comes with the extra volume here is very similar in character to 2.09 - pushing in a very similar direction indead.

More time listening is needed but form the point of view of a sheer fun enjoyment factor coming from the music, I think 2.09 may turn out to be amongst the best releases ever.

I cannot stop  when I am listening.

Nick.

[manisandher]

Just upgraded to 2.09...

And I love the way it sounds! To my ears 2.09 sounds like a natural extension of the Lush cable. It's almost as if Peter has taken what he learned from developing the Lush cable and somehow incorporated it into 2.09 (though I doubt this is really possible).

The overall sound seems mellower and fuller. There used to be an ever-so-slight edge to the mid-range on my system (especially at higher volumes), but that has totally gone now. I can listen at pretty much any volume and the sound remains perfectly balanced throughout. Nothing screams anymore, and yet all the details remain in buckets. The bass seems fuller and deeper, and the highs more 'shiny'.

All this really complements the AP filter too.

Excellent upgrade Peter. Thanks.

Mani.

[juanpmar]

Hi Mani, were you upgrading from 2.08d?

Regards,
Juan

[manisandher]

Hi Juan,

No, I went straight from 2.07 to 2.09. I used the paste-over-patch and it worked perfectly first time... on both my audio PCs using RAM-OS. (Of course I booted into base-OS first, but remained in MinOS for the pasting. I tested that everything was working correctly before booting back into RAM-OS.)

Mani.

[juanpmar]

Hi Mani, thanks, I was just asking to know if you had noticed any improvement in SQ compared to 2.08d. I still have to play a bit with the speakers placement to be totally satisfied. I'll try it again in a couple of days when I get back home and install 2.09

Juan

[Nick]

Juan hi,

I rolled back to 2.08d today to compare with 2.09 as Peter mentioned he was not 100% sure if 2.08 had some of the sq benifits already. Moving back to 2.09 there is a very clear improvment , I heard  again the changes that Peter, Mani and I describe above.

Regards,
Nick.

[juanpmar]

Thanks Nick, that sounds great. When I compare both versions I'll post here the results

Juan

[Rmalits]

"What a difference a release makes..."

I got version 2.09 installed and running yesterday. I pasted it over version  2.07. So, I skipped 2.08. At first I didn't read the post above in this topic and therefore didn't expect much impact on SQ.

But... listening to the first song... what's that?! - powerfull, strong basses, incredibly clear sound and perfect soundstage.
The basses were even too strong for my ears and I was thinking: "Isn't that maybe a bit too much?". Especially electronic basses sounded to hard for my ears. To compare I changed between 2.07 and 2.09 a few times: incredible, what a difference a release makes!

Later a read the post in this topic and changed my settings to Peter's values. Yes, much better, not so hard and harsh sound any more, especially when I used Arcpredic.
In general I am not a fan of AP, because in my system it always caused too much smearing what also happens a bit with version 2.09.
I was impressed when I went to sleep last night, but not 100% convinced yet about naturalness of the sound, especially for acoustic instruments.

This afternoon... another day... and it's perfect. Somehow all what sounded a bit too hard and harsh yesterday was gone. Maybe the hardware like NOS1a and amplifiers had to get used to the new tunes too, not just my ears 

There was no doubt about great SQ for electronic music, but for acoustic instruments? Therefore I played acoustic tracks, like from Stephane Grapelli, Rob Wasserman, etc., compared SQ my amazing Platine Verdier turntable and my other DACs and I have to say:
YES! 2.09 brings amazing sound, for sure far the best I ever got out of a DAC. And it's very natural sound.

I wasn't sure about AP, switched it on and off pretty often and I prefer now to listen without AP because of the so clear and precise tunes.

Great job, Peter!

Kind regards
Richard

[tempo]

1. The bass which is now playing super-separately as if the bass player has his own amplification in the listening room;
2. The highs which seemingly are added with 6dB but only beyond at a certain threshold of frequency (say of 8KHz).

Hi, Peter,

Your description is accurate, but 2.09 makes the bass and highs sound like they are coming from speakers that are separate from the main (mid-range) drivers, which is  distracting. The music no longer sounds as well integrated as it is in 2.08d or even 2.07.

To put it another way, the sound of 2.09 is somewhat like a speaker system where the drivers are not properly aligned, making it easy to identify each driver as a separate unit. To my ears, 2.08d is much more seamless from top to bottom than 2.09.

Independently, a friend with a completely different system contacted me to share the same opinion. For us, newer is not always better, so we are staying with 2.08d as the best overall SQ to date.

I'm sure others will disagree!

Cheers,
Joseph

[PeterSt]

Ahaaaaaaaa ...

XXHE 2.08d / Windows 10 Pro x64, Build 10074

That. And for 100% sure. I desribed in on CA in between some (offtopic) lines. No mid and the worst ever.
Maybe I can find back where this was, although usually this is a tough task with all the offtpic nonsense in there.

It is funny that I can recognize it by your description !
Or just very good described by you. Haha.

So of course you can stay with 2.07 and 10074, but 10074 is "obsolete" for a longer time by now - I mean SQ wise. I reulalry try it (like I did for 2.09) and it never improves. The contrary, it gets worse. And how it is now, it renders music (OK, from 2.09) completely unlistenable.

Joseph, great thanks for this (although I have the feeling that you don't thank me much).
If you want a link to e.g. 14393.0 (no further upgrades applied to it) let me know. Or 10586.0, but that really isn't the better one (did not tray that with 2.08 or 2.09 !).

Kind regards and sincere thanks for posting (I doubted a bit whether it was my ears of the day),
Peter

[PeterSt]

This is what I posted in CA, only 3 days ago :

All is a 100% matter of what your reference is, hence what you are used to (by now). Easy example (well, for myself, and you need to believe me) :
When Windows 10 came about, the first version which was supported was the (almost Alpha) Build 10074. This is still supported and the RAM-OS Disk we provide allows for booting into it with two mouse clicks (maybe three) and within a minute or two you can compare with any of the other 5 OSes on that disk, each in 4 modes (so yes, that is 20 differently sounding OSes). So, once in a while I give this 10074 a listen again to see whether it surpasses the current Build 14393.0 "reference", especially when I changed SQ in the player software.
Day before yesterday was such a day I did this.
 
Am I off topic ?
No, not really; while 10074 has been my standard for 6 months or so and found it the best, though a kind of special because it had a recognizable flavor (never a good thing), if I listen to it today, it all over s*cks. All over.

This is what I posted later, on the same day (you can see my heart was full of it ) :

So I have my own Lush in use now for quite some months. I quickly got used to its "sound" and am amazed each day again how albums I have known forever, now suddenly sound for the so much better. But ... this always has been with one consistent set of settings in XXHighEnd I was used to, hence, I never tried anything else, which I already shouldn't because of changing two things at the time (like USB cable plus settings). But a week ago I started with that, actually encouraged by a new XXHighEnd version with inherently better SQ to begin with and so automatically from one came the other. And what I now notice is that this cable allows for "infinitely" tweaking SQ by means of changes at the source (which is the playback software). The SQ suddenly is outrageous and the Lush is doing something quite differently from before : it carries another dimension. But let me quit being a commercial by means of this :
 
I started thinking about posting this because elsewhere I just posted about W10 Build 10074 and how this sounds like total cr*p now, while it has been my standard for 6 months or so. The difference ? the Lush. There is no single way that this OS can ever be made to sound satisfactory, so bad it is. There is just no mid, to name something. Bass is devastating, highs are thin as thin can be.
Point sort of is : 10074 always had a flavor which never is a good thing. But, I could like it, until a new (supported) build came about and that became the reference/standard for a longer time (these are matters all XXHighEnd users agree over easily). So, 10074 is wrong somewhere and the Lush brings that forward wherever it can. At least that is my reasoning now.
 
Yesterday it was Haloween. For me this meant that I found a couple of "Haloween" albums on Tidal, of which many appear to be up to hard core metal. It sounded gorgeous.  Now *that* is something (a kind of big victory that this can happen, right ?).
The other day we talked about Beastie Boys and how they now sound so good in a "hi-fi" system. But metal ?

This last piece refers to the lacking mid. And when I say lacking, I mean : it is not there AT ALL.
14393.0 ? all the other way around, but better balanced than a quite profound mid as how it was. At least with the Lush. So bass is better and highs are better, but probably it will be so that the mid decreased somewhat (and for 10074 all over).

Interesting eh ?

Best regards,
Peter

[Rmalits]

Hi Peter,

I have got a question about the obviously big differences in SQ between die XXHE releases 2.07 up to 2.09:
Would it be possible that these factors which influence SQ in that way, could be adjusted by the user in a future release? I am thinking about a few more Q parameters.

Kind regards
Richard

[Scroobius]

I had a chat with "golden ears" Nick about 2.09 just after he had heard the differences he so eloquently and accurately described in his post. At that time I had not had a proper listen as I had been rushing round like a mad thing doing other things. Now I have and 2.09 is superb. Detail is crazy bringing good quality live recordings to life.  I have just now increased the bass level a tad (via Hypex) and in my room it gives a more natural balance. This might be anathema but that is how it sounds on first listening but I have many different recordings and types of music to listen to before I select final settings.

Cheers

Paul