2.09 sound quality

[acg]

Anthony, it would be great if you told us something more about your vibration isolation stuff. With those results, it's worth knowing. Please.

Juan

I will share Juan,but to be honest I have just started on the project.  The way I see it there are three stages and I will start a thread after I have completed the second stage...which is 90% done.  This month hopefully!

[juanpmar]

Anthony, it would be great if you told us something more about your vibration isolation stuff. With those results, it's worth knowing. Please.

Juan

I will share Juan,but to be honest I have just started on the project.  The way I see it there are three stages and I will start a thread after I have completed the second stage...which is 90% done.  This month hopefully!

Thanks Anthony, I'm curious, it seems like an elaborate project.

Regards
Juan

[PeterSt]

I only have 2 cores (i3 6100T) and the only core assignments I can choose are 'No Appointment' or 'Core 1-2'. I chose the latter.

It now seems that the RD problem is related to the Q5 setting: Q5=0 no problem, and Q5=1 RD connection disappears.

Hi Dennis,

With two cores you can not set Q3,4,5 to 1 as this hogs two cores for playback and nothing else will work (well). Although I don't have the experience, I think it is best to set none of the three to 1 and then see whether the stuttering helps.
In the Processor Settings section in Settings, there's "Not Switch during Playback" setting. You can engage that and see whether it helps. Higher than 1 is allowed for each and the higher the less stressing on the processor cores.

Otherwise a surprise for you by now : your laptop is far from "capable" for XXHighEnd. This is not about the processor speed, but about possibilities in general. Do yourself a favor, get something decent and be guaranteed that you only thought that XXHighEnd brought you good SQ. You will see ...

Kind regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

Before v2.09 things were more balanced tonally and very pleasant to listen for a longer period. This came back with the new settings although a little towards the too relaxed end.

Bert, maybe I can agree with you. But partly because of an other reason : the highs are too gray.
As far as I can see, this is controlled by the SFS alone. So have this high Q1 setting and the SFS controls the character of the highs and in the end this started to disturb me (too much of a flavor). My SFS is back to 0.9 and the rest is unchanged (see my sig as of this moment).

OK, (for myself) I added a small gag as announced : Q1 can now be 48 and xQ1 can be 50. All still works and I am not sure whether it makes a difference again.

Peter

[Rmalits]

Hi Peter,

I read your so detailed and straightforward report from last Sunday a couple of times and did some intense testing yesterday.
As you described, all seems to be a bit crazy now. And that's the way I see it too. Maybe there are several innovations and changes that are interacting now, building up something special - predominantly in a very positive way, especially with your actual Q settings.

I try to recall my experiences during the last two months:

- First, the 3G upgrade brought already significant changes like more precise, "detached" sound, stronger basses, nice highs. But all this in a more decent way, not as extremly as it is now together with 2.09 and the latest Q settings.
- Release 2.9 brought the biggest impact on this, espacially for highs and basses. As I stated before, I switched a dozen of times between release 2.07 and 2.09, because it wasn't so easy to find a judgement about the "new" SQ.
- Finally your so different new Q parameters brought amazing effects.

I never had activated OSD text since more than a year. So, for sure all this mentioned above does not depend mainly on it. I just tried OSD text yesterday once, for a short time only, because with the actual setup it really has a horrible impact on SQ.

An interesting point probably related to this: For me, as a NAS user, cover art never shows up in unattended mode anyway. Instead of seeing it on the screen I get a short glitch a few seconds after the song starts (when the cover  art should probably show up).
With lower buffer size (like 14x5 or below), there is nothing like this to hear, no glitch at all.
The higher the buffer size the stronger the negativ influence of this kind of disturbing activity obviously is. That is perhaps the reason for the behaviour with OSD text too.

The last two days I played with :
Q1 x xQ1 = 30x40.
Q3,4,5, = 1,1,1.
SFS = 20.
ClockRes = 15ms.
Custom Filter = Highest for 705600.
And just mentioning : Appointment Scheme = 3-5.
And thus OSD Text = Off. Wallpaper (front and back) On.

Peter, with your new settings most of the tracks I listen sound incredibly good now. Trumpets don't sound hard and harsh any more, but airy and very "real" instead. Voices are tremendously present and realistic.
With these new settings it's again a new experience, amazing clear, airy and natural sound, with acoustic instruments too (what's always a good indicator). So that's another big step foreward.

What's so impressing is this extremly dynamic sound. For years I was searching for more dynamics in the tunes. Now, sometimes with some songs I am thinking... "Isn't that maybe too much now, especially for the basses?"
Stong, precise highs usually bring precise and punchy basses. So probably the +6dB in the high frequencies is one of the reasons for that.

It's only the basses what still give me to think now... they become so strong and punchy. That was already my first impression, when I got 2.09 to run on my audio PC. And with the new settings the basses get even more punchy, maybe the additional 16dB you described above.
Maybe that's the point Juan was described above.
For sure, all this depends on the type of music, on the recording, on the acoustics in my living room (I have got stong basses anyway due to the geometrics of the room)., So perhaps it's just the room modes which exagerate now and sometimes become annoying.
Let me say it like this: about 90% of the songs produce spectacular SQ now. It's he minority that causes too strong, umpleasant, sometimes annoying basses. Maybe there is no pleasant way to listen to these songs any more with higher volume (in my room?).

Therefore I was trying different filters yesterday. For the first time, ArcPrediction is an option for me, specially for easy listening. And the second highest custom filter (25010) always works fine. That's the one I was using most of the time anyway. And now again in prooves to be the best for me.

You are right, we have to re-adapt ourselfs too, to a new style of listening. I am on this path since 2.09 has been installed. What makes this a bit difficult are the so huge changes of SQ in such a short period.

Thanks a lot for all and especially for your detailed explanations last weekend.
It's great how openly all these issues are discussed here.

Kind regards
Richard

[PeterSt]

Thank you so much for your extensive reporting, Richard. This should be very helpful. And if not today, then "tomorrow".

The Wallpaper thing remains to be intrigueing ...

Best regards,
Peter

[Nick]

I had chance to listen with the settings your posted Peter.

Q1 x xQ1 = 30x40.
Q3,4,5, = 1,1,1.
SFS = 20.
ClockRes = 15ms.
Custom Filter = Highest for 705600.
And just mentioning : Appointment Scheme = 3-5.
And thus OSD Text = Off. Wallpaper (front and back) On.

They have turned arround my opinion in my earlier post a couple of pages back.

I think there is defiinatly somthing good coming together with the high q1 values now that I have q3,4,5 =1, OSD text off and clock res 15ms also set. SQ is very coherent with very high detail levels and impact in highs (stength of cymbels for instance) is better. Purity of the highs could cut glass when music denands (in a good way).

Can I suggest another setting to try which is related to system overhead.

For a while I have been using windows network card interupt moderation settings to tune sound. There can be quite a SQ difference from this. I think it plays to the idea of lowering windows overheads.

Fron memory to set the n/w adaptor interupt moderation rate.

Control panel => device manager => network adaptors => double click the used network card => select advanced tab => in the settings list make sure interupt moderation is enabled => set interupt moderation  rate to the desired value from low to extream or adaptive (I gravitate to a setting of High or medium).

Reading around this the setting controls the hardware interupt frequency the network card generates. There are quite a number of additional settings in the advanced tab that can influance sq, but interupt moderation is interesting to try in combination with the new setting above.

Kind regards,
Nick

[PeterSt]

Super thanks for that, Nick. I guess I am going to try when this all has settled somewhat.

Cheers,
Peter

[PeterSt]

I don't know how to explain it, but what happens in half of the tracks is something which never occurred before : something like spell-bounding.
OK, that didn't make sense.

Maybe especially with my "test signals" music (think stuff from Gaudi and 200 others) there can be this "scratching" super saw upsweeping kind of sound. You probably won't what I mean by it becase you'd need to be in the kind of GOA scene (which I am not but this is a successor of House and we all know what that is) ... but think of a scratched LP. No wait, what a DJ does back and forth to make that bzhoop sound, often used in hip-hop. Or at least that is where it emerged, I think. Combine this with "super saw" which is a modern synth technique (sound); Yello in their latest Toy album uses that too in half of the tracks, but (luckily) mildly. Now :

What is totally new in our "SQ" of today is that this leads to Explosion or World's Destrucion or something of that kind. Not sure to what degree it requires my speakers to incur for this, but each time such a thing happens, it is total-shock. It seems to be related to inifite speed (try to find music with super saw synth sound) and how the slower starting on-off sound ends up in a higher frequency on-off and that in half of a second. It comes across as world destruction indeed and this is merely because you don't know where it ends. I just said half of a second, but would this frequency increase - which also carries increase in level - last twice as long, your windows will go out or the ceiling comes down.
This is a bit how I warned for things breaking, which is serious.

So if I now listen for 30 minutes to music, I will have said SH*T! for 30 times outloud - so many times this happens. But again, it is the type of music for a larger part.
Point is : previously not even one time SH*T! happened, so this is all new (and I am really not aware of using new speakers, amplifiers, DACs or USB cables). And again I say : how ever can this be happening.

It also starts to explicitly occur how black the background is. It almost comes across as all totally silent while music just plays (at loud levels). I am sure this contributes to this "world destruction" sense, as all comes as a surprise. And that with music I have played a 100 times if not 1000.

This is about dynamic behavior which explicitly has envelope. Maybe you need to have experience with programming synthesizer sounds, but envelope is how a sound evolves from 0 to maximum level and back to zero (think of one piano key and how it evolves). What now is occurring is that the envelope has many variations under way, and these now can be perceived. Think of this mentioned half of a second developing slowly, has some acceleration underway which also decays (the scratching with super saw sound which latter is on/off in itself) and from half on it accelerates to infinity, luckily suddenly ending or else things would break.
This variation in the envelope was just not there.

Below you see a super simple form of a tone (voice) with a decresing attack (the opposite of what I am talking about) a lowering in level (the decay), a duration of the same level (sustain) and how the sound dies out (release). And that a 500 times in half of a second and this suddenly being discernable.

A bit of background :
https://youtu.be/S0a-OPbCI88

And with this example of super saw, try to envision how a large and fast system (with 2.09 XXHighEnd) can make things dangerously for the energy emitted :
https://youtu.be/Lk47wt-ho5A?t=959

OK, now I'm sacked.
Peter

[BertD]

As far as I can see, this is controlled by the SFS alone. So have this high Q1 setting and the SFS controls the character of the highs and in the end this started to disturb me (too much of a flavor). My SFS is back to 0.9 and the rest is unchanged (see my sig as of this moment).

The lower SFS saves the day...  at 20 all is boooooring with thin high frequencies, no punch in the bass, no clarity, no warmth and voices without body.

Will play with SFS more but for sure not going back again to the low Q settings... (where did all the detail go and as you mentioned before
 the stuffed ears are back again.)

Bert

[arvind]

Hi Peter,

After various trials with the Q & SFS, in my set up, the best settings are as per my signature. However Q14/xQ10 also gives very good sound. Maybe marginally lacking in the bass punch, but overall a good balanced sound.

Best regards,

Arvind

[Rmalits]

When I was writing my last report here Nov. 14th, I had my equipment running continously for 8 days.
The next day I rebooted the audio PC and switched the NOS1-a off and on with an interesting effect: The too hard, a bit annoying basses in some tracks were gone. SQ was well balanced over the complete frequency spectrum. There wasn't this kind of too much dynamics in the sound any more.
So, probably I had kind of low level distortion after running the systems for 8 days, what I could realise well in a few tracks only. I dont't know if it was something like Peter is describing above. For sure it was on a pretty low level and therefore a bit hard to dedect. And I changed the Q parameters a lot during these 8 days and therefore believed that this caused all the changes of SQ.

I had only time 2 or 3 hours to listen then and I don't know if it's the rebooting of the audio PC or the switching off/on of the NOS1-a what brought this positive effect or maybe both.
I will do some more investigation on this when I will be back home next week.

Kind regards
Richard

[acg]

Yep, you've gotta power cycle both the nos1a and the pc or the sound eventually degrades.   I don't really know why.

[PeterSt]

Yep, you've gotta power cycle both the nos1a and the pc or the sound eventually degrades.

Or maybe power cycle the PC and unplug and replug the USB cable.

There's so much going on with that USB ... you don't want to know. If you already look at the DC Offset on the NOS1-USB and how this is influenced by the USB cable with the PC Running ... So when DC Offset is in order it can only point at some groundloop going on (but now over the interlinks). So envision what actally happens when that groundloop can be broken by replugging the USB cable.
Btw, normal situation of breaking the groundloop is by detaching the connection to the output (which is the power to the DAC or to the DAC board Sw#2).

Peter

[juanpmar]

Peter, after some time without unplugging the NOS1 I observe a variation of the dcoffset from the reference value, 0.77 / 0.55 to 0.98 / 0.79, maybe more. When I unplug the dac, the reference value only lasts a few minutes and then gradually increases until reaching the aforementioned values ​​where it remains stable with small oscillations. I can not say that due to this I notice a deterioration of the SQ but it is certain that when the dac, the Audio Pc and the USB cable are unplugged for one hour or two, an improvement of the SQ is noticed.

In some post I read that it has to do, as you mention, with the grounding of the USB cable and the dac. I have removed the black wire from the grounding of the NOS1. Previously I was isolating the USB cable to avoid touching the Audio Pc chassis, then this isolation was combined with the Intona and now it continues with the G3. Are normal these variations of the dcoffset because they are the consequence of the absence of grounding? Is there a point when the variation of the dcoffset is stable (more or less) in the highest values when should all be unplugged?

Regards,
Juan