xxHE with xxPC and Wyred 4 Sound DAC2 DSDse

[charliemb]

Hi Peter

I've mentioned playback errors and erratic behavior before but have not specifically posted until now.  I've also mentioned that I like AI, but please ignore that for now as with this report I am only using Custom or ArcP filters.
 
Before I begin the list let me first say that to minimize the potential for user error,  2.09 has all of the default settings unchanged.  So this means, Q=14,0,0,0,   clock is 1ms,  processor arrangement is set to nothing,  no KS just whatever xxHE chooses for the driver which what is provided by Wyred.  You know the defaults better I.  
Exceptions:
     I told in settings that my DAC only goes to 384.  I believe nothing else was changed in Settings.
     In playback, I change from the default Custom filter to other custom filters to try them, or ArcP,  but this doesn't seem to make any difference.

I run under Minimized OS.  
When I run Attended, problems are few;  some but few,  I'd say that overall Attended is acceptable.
Therefore the behaviors I experience below are related much more to Unattended playback.

Specifically with 2.01 and now 2.09 I see the unexpected behavior I enumerate below.  (Please ignore the settings in my sig at the time of this writing.)

• Almost every time I start a new session from boot, if I select a set of tracks using my mouse pointer via click, or shift click, or mostly Ctrl-click, instead of playing all of the tracks I selected, xx goes into Unattended mode and plays the first track and after it is finished with the first track it stops playback, exits and comes back.  I didn't hit Alt-x but sort of behaves as if I did.  Maybe more precisely, it behaves more like I selected only one track.   An odd thing that happens on this first playback is that, when the OS comes back, it plays the Windows sound clip that normally plays late in a new boot cycle well after the Windows welcome sound clip.  It is a long beep, a single beep.  This long beep only happens on the first playback.  This happens so consistently that I almost want to say that it happens 100% of the time.
• Similar to the above, except on subsequent playback instances and with no OS beep, xxHE will just stop playing after the first selected track, or stop playing after another track I selected that is not the first track but is sooner than the last track I selected.  Similarly, it stops, exits, and returns to the OS with the UI.  When it comes back,  all of the tracks are selected.  So it knows about them, it just doesn't play them.   Sometimes less than all of the tracks show as being selected, with the played ones unselected and the unplayed ones selected.
• If during Unattended playback I hit Alt-x, I often,  more the 50% of the time, get the dreaded "This error should not happen.  Please just restart xxHighEnd."  This one is a pain because by the time I click okay, and slowly move my mouse pointer to close xx, it pops back up again ... not allowing me to close it.  Rinse, Repeat.
• If I hit Alt-E to pause,  when I come back two or five minutes later and hit Alt-P, xxHE skips to the next song.  It doesn't continue playback from where I hit Alt-E.
• If I hit Alt-E to pause, and am gone for too long,  like 10 or 15 minutes, when I come back there is no xx as before.  Instead there is an the OS background image but no icons.  If I then hit Alt-p either nothing happens or playback starts from the first track selected and not from the track that was playing when I hit Alt-E.  This is frustrating because I could be 12 tracks into a classical CD and I have no idea were I was when it starts over from track 1.
• Sometimes when I select individual tracks, say four, it won't stop at the last one and just keeps on playing unselected tracks that are after my last selected track.
• Sometimes, after misbehavior, when I hit Alt-P, nothing happens.  I have to kill the Engine and try again, at which point it starts playback.

All of the above points are being experienced with 2.09.  2.01 was similar.

In case it matters, I set my volume to -6 db as recommended for Custom Filters.

As frustrating as these things can be, somehow, xxHE is still my favorite player.  I must be crazy!

Charlie

[PeterSt]

Hi Charlie,

I just read this quickly. Before answering this extensively tomorrow (close to 1am here now) I wanted to let know you this for better context :

Alt-E does not work since 2.07. It Pauses all right, but won't continue where it left off. I think this is in the Release Notes, or at least I intended it to be. It is part of the unfinished job of "fast response" on the volume change and Alt-N(ext). Say it was difficult.

More tomorrow and thanks for holding on !
Peter

[PeterSt]

So Charlie, let's go :

In playback, I change from the default Custom filter to other custom filters to try them, or ArcP,  but this doesn't seem to make any difference.

If you mean during playback, that is right. The setting is only captured when a new Play is initiated. This counts for everything and all. Not things like Volume Change of course.

When I run Attended, problems are few;  some but few,  I'd say that overall Attended is acceptable.

 
Interestig in itself because in my view Attended is not OK on many aspects. But notice the relativity of this : all I actually say is that UnAttended if super fine. However, not for you and the question is why. Hopefully we'll get somewhere with this now !
One thing which slips my mind : if you have any form of anti-virus etc. running, it will definitely cause problems of a nature without logic.

Allow OS to change ratio = OFF

Please change that to On. I am pretty sure that XXHighEnd is doing things with this (and only during UnAttended) and I have no idea what will happen when it is not allowed. You may not like it for SQ (??) but you *have* to try. If it helps, we'll see what to do next.

We must (both) realize that nobody is using WASAPI any more. Are you ? if Yes, it can be the problem as nobody runs into issues which may have sneaked in, in 7-8 or whatever years. At least I myself never ever use it.

Almost every time I start a new session from boot, if I select a set of tracks using my mouse pointer via click, or shift click, or mostly Ctrl-click, instead of playing all of the tracks I selected, xx goes into Unattended mode and plays the first track and after it is finished with the first track it stops playback, exits and comes back.  I didn't hit Alt-x but sort of behaves as if I did.

Somehow I tend to think that this is from your 2.01 install - not your 2.09. This very problem heas been dealt with, and I'd even say you announced it (and I suppose it was solved in some intermediate version (like 2.06b etc.). Am I wrong ?
Let's assume I am wrong and this is from your 2.09;

Very many things don't work out right after a boot because the OS is so erratic at that moment. This can take many minutes (on whatever maintenance).
This issue could be special to your "copy to RAMDisk" behavior. Maybe something is wrong there. Not even sure whether you are using that for this list of issues, so just saying. But if you do, try to use it without RAMDisk and see whether it changes things. Do notice that I won't be talking about RAMDisk issues itself (but see below) but about that first copy from disk to RAMDisk and there something being wrong or unexpected (my side and theoretically also your side).

*No Playback Drive*

I can't be sure whether this is consistent with your *"No RAMDisk*" but do notice that No Playback Drive is not allowed to combine with using a RAMDisk (I am not talking about RAM-OS Disk, where it *is* allowed).

Also, I'd have tp specifially point out that when the RAMDisk runs full, that too will bring totally illogical errors. Things just stop working well. At least with IMDisk there is not enough protection to tell you the "disk" is full (and this in itself will be because of the way MinOS has been set up).

An odd thing that happens on this first playback is that, when the OS comes back, it plays the Windows sound clip that normally plays late in a new boot cycle well after the Windows welcome sound clip.

I'm afraid you must rephrase this, or elaborate. I really can't see what you are talking about here.

It is a long beep, a single beep.  This long beep only happens on the first playback.  This happens so consistently that I almost want to say that it happens 100% of the time.

... and combined with this one, I am completely lost. No beep as such is a Windows welcome etc. sound clip.
The *fact* that you receive beeps (if really beeps) is telling; there shouldn't be. But you talk as if this is normal.
The FACT that you allow Windows sounds is telling seriously much. This can't be because XXHighEnd uses the sound device exclusively. So or you disallow playback and imply an erroneous situation (XXHighEnd can't start playback because of a Windows sound playing), or the OS might crash (sort of) because it wants to play a sound but can't. You really have to shut this off.

Similar to the above, except on subsequent playback instances and with no OS beep, xxHE will just stop playing after the first selected track, or stop playing after another track I selected that is not the first track but is sooner than the last track I selected.  Similarly, it stops, exits, and returns to the OS with the UI.  When it comes back,  all of the tracks are selected.  So it knows about them, it just doesn't play them.   Sometimes less than all of the tracks show as being selected, with the played ones unselected and the unplayed ones selected.

None, NONE of this is happening ever. Not in 2.07, 2.08 or 2.09. And I use it every day, several times (mostly to skip tracks I don't want to listen to this time).
One thing : You need to use 2.09 because of timing problems introduced in 2.08 which in itself tried to solve something (I forgot) in 2.07 and which IS related. It will be due to the slowness of your PC somewhere that it is an issue in the first place (for 2.07 !) and only in 2.09 this was definitely solved. So I hope this was all judged in 2.09.

Btw, this shouldn't be related to the selection of tracks as such, but to things needing to wake up between two tracks and which isn't given enough time. Then playback stops (UnAttended thinks it is not fed with new data - hard to explain).
Set your disk spin down time to 5 minutes or more.

If during Unattended playback I hit Alt-x, I often,  more the 50% of the time, get the dreaded "This error should not happen.  Please just restart xxHighEnd."  This one is a pain because by the time I click okay, and slowly move my mouse pointer to close xx, it pops back up again ... not allowing me to close it.

First off, there is no need to restart XXHighEnd (for a long time I thought that myself, hence the message). I think I can just as well eliminate the message. Still it testifies that something is not right. Btw, be very careful that this is not from 2.01 because everything was diferent regarding this, back then. Please confirm.
I receive this message maybe once per week and on W7. I think you use W7 too, right ? All I know or can tell is that this can be related to WASAPI again because the initialisation is different for that. And my W7 only has WASAPI devices.
Not sure what to do with this because it again is something with timing. If you have this 50% of the time, maybe your underclocking doesn't work out as intended.
Notice that my W7 is the development machine which is "slow" because of loaded with many things. On the Audio PC I never ever have this. Never (and this is underclocked to 500MHz but not the way you did it - as far as I can see, that is).

If I hit Alt-E to pause,  when I come back two or five minutes later and hit Alt-P, xxHE skips to the next song.  It doesn't continue playback from where I hit Alt-E.

As said (previous post), at this moment this is not supported.
You can still mimic the situation by bringing up XXHighEnd, press pause in there, maybe press pause once again right before you want to restart playback, and press Play. That works. Or drag the time slider to any position, followed by pressing Pause and next press Play.

If I hit Alt-E to pause, and am gone for too long,  like 10 or 15 minutes, when I come back there is no xx as before.  Instead there is an the OS background image but no icons.

Maybe it is not important for me to understand, but I don't anyway. But as said, the whole of Alt-E does not work, thus better not use it like this. See above for what to do.

A last thing for now :
It seems that a larger part comes from rebooting. I hardly ever do that. Maybe for that reason I don't see what you see, because I see it maybe once a month and think "oh well". But anyway I don't recall anything else than all being slow at first.

Peter

[charliemb]

So Charlie, let's go :

If you mean during playback, that is right. The setting is only captured when a new Play is initiated. This counts for everything and all. Not things like Volume Change of course.

No.  Never during playback.  Sorry.  
When I do change the filter, I either stop or pause in between.  
And before now I had always killed engine3 between filters but that never made a difference.  
 

One thing which slips my mind : if you have any form of anti-virus etc. running, it will definitely cause problems of a nature without logic.

No antivirus is even installed on this machine.  No network either, just for this reason.  

Allow OS to change ratio = OFF

Please change that to On. I am pretty sure that XXHighEnd is doing things with this (and only during UnAttended) and I have no idea what will happen when it is not allowed. You may not like it for SQ (??) but you *have* to try. If it helps, we'll see what to do next.

This is a Motherboard BIOS setting.  It was already set to ENABLED.  I don't know how that happened.  But okay, it's on.

We must (both) realize that nobody is using WASAPI any more. Are you ? if Yes, it can be the problem as nobody runs into issues which may have sneaked in, in 7-8 or whatever years. At least I myself never ever use it.

In 2.09 I didn't change anything on purpose.  I took the default.  xxHE defaults to the Wyred-provided driver "Digital Output (Wyred 4 Sound USB...)".  I believe this is Engine#3, which is WASAPI, yes.

"Digital Output (Wyred 4 Sound USB...)" is the same setting xx went with in previous versions when I tried to set to KS and xx would switch to "Digital Output..." via a bug without informing me (other than clock resolution warnings but I digress).

ERRATA:  I also tried 2.07, not just 2.01 and 2.09.  Same problems.

I will switch to KS now, of course.  But I'm confident that won't help because 2.01 and 2.07 had these same problems and I used KS exclusively in 2.01 and 2.07.  

Though right now I'm loving the sound of Engine#3

Almost every time I start a new session from boot, if I select a set of tracks using my mouse pointer via click, or shift click, or mostly Ctrl-click, instead of playing all of the tracks I selected, xx goes into Unattended mode and plays the first track and after it is finished with the first track it stops playback, exits and comes back.  I didn't hit Alt-x but sort of behaves as if I did.

Somehow I tend to think that this is from your 2.01 install - not your 2.09. This very problem heas been dealt with, and I'd even say you announced it (and I suppose it was solved in some intermediate version (like 2.06b etc.). Am I wrong ?

2.09.  I checked to make sure I wasn't making a mistake here.  2.09
And it was never really solved for me.  With 2.01, for a while things seemed like they were working and I remember posting that 2.01 was the first truly reliable version for me.  But I was wrong about that but never reposted until now.

Let's assume I am wrong and this is from your 2.09;

Very many things don't work out right after a boot because the OS is so erratic at that moment. This can take many minutes (on whatever maintenance).

Zero maintenance.  I'm not on the LAN.  There are no updates, no antivirus.  I've disabled updates.

This issue could be special to your "copy to RAMDisk" behavior. Maybe something is wrong there. Not even sure whether you are using that for this list of issues, so just saying. But if you do, try to use it without RAMDisk and see whether it changes things. Do notice that I won't be talking about RAMDisk issues itself (but see below) but about that first copy from disk to RAMDisk and there something being wrong or unexpected (my side and theoretically also your side).

I'm not using RAMDisk.  Sorry.

*No Playback Drive*

{Further RAMDisk comments deleted since I'm not using it.}

An odd thing that happens on this first playback is that, when the OS comes back, it plays the Windows sound clip that normally plays late in a new boot cycle well after the Windows welcome sound clip.

I'm afraid you must rephrase this, or elaborate. I really can't see what you are talking about here.

It's not the first sound that Windows makes: Windows makes a first sound while booting, but before user log in.  This first sound is the famous "TA TA TA TAAAAAAA" that we all know.  Not that one.  The one I'm talking about is the first sound that Windows makes after a user logs in, which for me is just pressing Enter since I have no password.  This second sound is just a "TAAAAA."  It is playing through my DAC to the speakers.  It is like a single tone.  No "song."  It is like the sound of trumpets.  I checked just now and it is the user log-in sound, which is the same as the "Windows theme change" sound.

It is a long beep, a single beep.  This long beep only happens on the first playback.  This happens so consistently that I almost want to say that it happens 100% of the time.

... and combined with this one, I am completely lost. No beep as such is a Windows welcome etc. sound clip.
The *fact* that you receive beeps (if really beeps) is telling; there shouldn't be. But you talk as if this is normal.

As I boot and before I run xxHE, Yes,  it is normal.  Why not?  Windows sees the DAC via the driver and plays the tone marked for user log in.  So that is normal.
What is not normal is that tone playing when xxHE is running and coming out of Unattended.

The FACT that you allow Windows sounds is telling seriously much. This can't be because XXHighEnd uses the sound device exclusively. So or you disallow playback and imply an erroneous situation (XXHighEnd can't start playback because of a Windows sound playing), or the OS might crash (sort of) because it wants to play a sound but can't. You really have to shut this off.

Well,  this could very well be THE problem.  Why does Windows want to play the "User Log In" sound?  Maybe because xxHE is changing the theme?  (Windows uses the same sound for theme changes as for user log ins.

How do I disable windows sounds?  Just go into Control Panel and turn off windows sounds?  
Or is this something I must do within xxHE?

I couldn't figure it out.

Similar to the above, except on subsequent playback instances and with no OS beep, xxHE will just stop playing after the first selected track, or stop playing after another track I selected that is not the first track but is sooner than the last track I selected.  Similarly, it stops, exits, and returns to the OS with the UI.  When it comes back,  all of the tracks are selected.  So it knows about them, it just doesn't play them.   Sometimes less than all of the tracks show as being selected, with the played ones unselected and the unplayed ones selected.

None, NONE of this is happening ever. Not in 2.07, 2.08 or 2.09. And I use it every day, several times (mostly to skip tracks I don't want to listen to this time).
One thing : You need to use 2.09 because of timing problems introduced in 2.08 which in itself tried to solve something (I forgot) in 2.07 and which IS related. It will be due to the slowness of your PC somewhere that it is an issue in the first place (for 2.07 !) and only in 2.09 this was definitely solved. So I hope this was all judged in 2.09.

Wow.  None of it?   That is bizarre.
For sure I'm using 2.09.

Btw, this shouldn't be related to the selection of tracks as such, but to things needing to wake up between two tracks and which isn't given enough time. Then playback stops (UnAttended thinks it is not fed with new data - hard to explain).
Set your disk spin down time to 5 minutes or more.

It is set for 20 minutes.

Maybe unrelated, but I sometimes get a "Data did not arrive in time" message wherein playback stops,  but that one happens maybe only once per night.  Alt-P solves that one, so no problem and that's why I didn't report it here.

If during Unattended playback I hit Alt-x, I often,  more the 50% of the time, get the dreaded "This error should not happen.  Please just restart xxHighEnd."  This one is a pain because by the time I click okay, and slowly move my mouse pointer to close xx, it pops back up again ... not allowing me to close it.

First off, there is no need to restart XXHighEnd (for a long time I thought that myself, hence the message). I think I can just as well eliminate the message. Still it testifies that something is not right. Btw, be very careful that this is not from 2.01 because everything was diferent regarding this, back then. Please confirm.

Confirmed.

I receive this message maybe once per week and on W7. I think you use W7 too, right ? All I know or can tell is that this can be related to WASAPI again because the initialisation is different for that. And my W7 only has WASAPI devices.
Not sure what to do with this because it again is something with timing. If you have this 50% of the time, maybe your underclocking doesn't work out as intended.
Notice that my W7 is the development machine which is "slow" because of loaded with many things. On the Audio PC I never ever have this. Never (and this is underclocked to 500MHz but not the way you did it - as far as I can see, that is).

Yes, Win7 Ultimate.  My underclocking is only ~30%, meaning it is running at ~70% of full speed.  That shouldn't be anything severe, just plenty of guard band.  Should I change this?  To full speed?   Your underclocking is much more severe as I recall.

If I hit Alt-E to pause,  when I come back two or five minutes later and hit Alt-P, xxHE skips to the next song.  It doesn't continue playback from where I hit Alt-E.

As said (previous post), at this moment this is not supported.
You can still mimic the situation by bringing up XXHighEnd, press pause in there, maybe press pause once again right before you want to restart playback, and press Play. That works. Or drag the time slider to any position, followed by pressing Pause and next press Play.

OK thanks.  I'll try that for now.

If I hit Alt-E to pause, and am gone for too long,  like 10 or 15 minutes, when I come back there is no xx as before.  Instead there is an the OS background image but no icons.

Maybe it is not important for me to understand, but I don't anyway. But as said, the whole of Alt-E does not work, thus better not use it like this. See above for what to do.

A last thing for now :
It seems that a larger part comes from rebooting. I hardly ever do that. Maybe for that reason I don't see what you see, because I see it maybe once a month and think "oh well". But anyway I don't recall anything else than all being slow at first.

Peter

Maybe you should boot every once in a while  

Many thanks,  and thanks again.

Charlie

[PeterSt]

Charlie, I removed a superfluous [ quote ] in your text to make it readable better.

[PeterSt]

OK. Thank you for the extensive answers. Here are a few responses again :

Zero maintenance.  I'm not on the LAN.  There are no updates, no antivirus.  I've disabled updates.

I wasn't referring to updates. There's a lot the OS does (needs to do) after a boot and it can take minutes (observe a slow laptop and you may count 10 minutes before all dies out).
Don't neglect this for any issues you encounter right at the first playback.
Also notice that there are a few things shut off at first (by XXHighEnd) which don't come on again when playback finishes. So there too a source of "misery" lays.

And before now I had always killed engine3 between filters but that never made a difference.

No need to kill Engine3 for that. Killing Engine3 is only useful when you ran into some sort of erroneous situation (OK, that's your's often).
If you don't hear a difference, we must assume it is not easy to perceive. Technically the differences between the filters are quite large. And no reason to assume something is not working, regarding this (and in your situation).

I believe this is Engine#3, which is WASAPI, yes.

Notice that Engine3 is the only one there is. It serves WASAPI and it serves KS (ever back there was also an Engine1 and Egine2).

In 2.09 I didn't change anything on purpose.  I took the default.

I see you are referring to this quite often, including me knowing the best what the defaults are plus stupilating that they will be good. Please don't take that assumptions ...
Far better will be to copy my settings, apart from those your DAC will not allow for. Example : the Q3,4,5 are mostly used by me (say 999 out of 1000 days) and I thus know the exact response of those settings in relation to many other settings. And, this is all related to how a next track (part) loads. So my 1,1,1 does it 180 degrees different from your 0,0,0. Of course your 0,0,0 should work just the same, but when you have problems it is better to use mine. And explicitly not the defaults because a. I don't even know them really and b. I never ever use them.
The defaults are there to suit most and were set maybe 5 years ago for the last time. With a new setting which requires attention it will be obtained in the SettingsPreset.XXSI file and/but only for that single setting "observed". The others remain 5 years old, so to speak.

*No Playback Drive*

Strange hint perhaps : I like you to switch this On now; it will avoid any issues with your Music Disk. The OS disk is needed anyway, but now, in advance of playback, all will unconditionally be copied to your C: drive (or RAMDisk when you use that). The OS Disk usually keeps on spinning for its own reasons, while that other disk will spin down after 20 minutes when it was not accessed, and might it take too long to come up, then you will receive this :

Maybe unrelated, but I sometimes get a "Data did not arrive in time" message wherein playback stops,

All these changes are to eliminate all possible causes. When things are OK, later (but hopefully soon), we'll slowly build back (or just found the reason and can reinstate all you like best, at once).
FYI : There's a total of 14 seconds available to prepare the track and this includes the wakeup of the disk. I have one myself which would not suffice (takes too long to spin up).

Why does Windows want to play the "User Log In" sound?  Maybe because xxHE is changing the theme?

This is interesting (and I didn't get that till right now ). The answer : I don't know. This is the OS and it might change per OS version. The thing which is crucial for you : I don't even know how Windows boot up sounds sound. Or any sound for that matter; Since some OS (W8 ?) it defaulted to no sounds, and prior to that I am sure we all shut off the sounds explicitly. Really. All but you, apparently. Haha. Bbbbbut, I now see the potential (quite explicit) conflict : XXHighEnd maybe soing something, the OS producing a sound and next the lost crashes (to some degree). And the bad thing : I don't even know about it, because I didn't hear a Windows sound for 10 years on my audio PC. Never actually. It is the prerequisite for enabling Exclusive (hogging) of the audio device ...

Also funny : When you'd use KS this can not happen. The Windows sounds don't operate on that (as far as I know/recall). Next up is : When you are in MinOS and disabled WASAPI at going to MinOS (see in Shut Off Services section), there *is* no sound device for Windows. Only your KS device and only for you ...

Just in case and because you tried the normal means, look below (picture).
RightClick the loudspeaker icon in the Taskbar Tray - Playback Devices, select Sounds tab (see picture) and select No Sounds.
More below in that picture you also see the Play Windows Startup Sound unchecked (might that matter for you).

Maybe I did not respond to everything, but I hope this is going to help now !
Regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

Another hint :
Never use the Tidal player (desktop or Chrome Broswer) because it too hogs the WASAPI sound device and nothing will play in a means which can't be comprehended (no error message etc.). Notice that the player "being there" is sufficient to let all fail.

This won't be your situation, but just mentioning it because it will lead to the (I think !) same issues.

Peter

[charliemb]

Thanks Peter.  

You've given me much to try.   I will try each one.

Maybe I'll try one by one, hoping to discover better sound at the same time.  For sure I'll start with turning off system sounds and then 1,1,1 and see since that is easy.  Playback drive will be harder because I have to remember how to do it and, I may have disconnected that drive internally since I preferred the sound without playback drive.   I'd be tempted to try RAMdisk first since I know I didn't like the playback drive sound.   But since there could be complications, I'll skip RAMdisk and try Playback Drive first.  I think I took good notes on how.

Looking forward to the best XX experience yet.

Thanks,

Charlie

[PeterSt]

Charlie,

Now I see you writing about the Playback Drive ... I made a mistake with this advice. This is indeed not easy at all as it requires another partition the least (or another disk/medium, as you imply). I should have said :

Activate "Copy to XX Drive by standard".
This does exactly what I intended (per my description) but in a very simple way. You won't have "SQ Control" with this really, unless playing from the OS disk coincidentally sounds good.

The Playback Drive will sound different per "media" (it can be anything) and even brand.

Regards,
Peter

[charliemb]

Hi Peter

Thanks and some good news!  

First and most important: last night I heard the best sound I've ever heard from my system.  And this was obvious within 10 or 15 seconds of my first playback.  Part of this is that I'm using an ISO REGEN which made a big difference even before these latest changes.  But the sound was staggeringly good.  To help describe how big of a difference,  this was with ArcP which I happened to have set from the night before.  ArcP in my system has always sounded dry, on a scale of DRY<->LUSH, too dry as if too much was missing in the highs.  Well not last night.  Last night ArcP sounded right.  Probably in the mid scale between dry<->lush.

I suspect it was because I set Windows sounds to off, as you showed me.  The only other things I did at first was set to KS, and 111.  That is aside from booting probably 10 times the day before and going into BIOS several times, and back out;  who knows if I affected something by doing all of that to the system.  

    [Editorial: Assuming this big gain in SQ was due to disabling Windows sounds, what the heck!  Just doing that makes such a big difference?  I'm sorry but a good Audio Linux as a base OS is probably a much better platform for xxHE.  How many years did I waste just because I never turned off Windows sounds?  Crazy.]

Although there was great sound at first, there was a strange problem which I solved by setting to Core 3-5.  In case it gives further clues, the problem was that playback in Unattended didn't get to the cover art until after the last track played.  Instead of the cover art, I saw only the Windows desktop image.  After the last track, cover art displayed for a few seconds until xx came back.
     Core 3-5 changed the sound for the worse so I had to go to a few other changes to get close, Straight Continuous and Q1=6,  in addition to 111.  
     I then spent the rest of the night listening to ArcP with these settings;  three hours.  Wonderful!

The problem of stopped playback after the first or any other track never happened.  BIG WIN.  AMAZING to me.  Again this is with ArcP, which has always been more reliable than the Custom filters.  Next I will try the Custom Filters and hopefully the joy continues.

That's the good/great news.  
And now the bad     Twice I received the "This should not happen please restart xxHE" error.  How can I disable this?

And now to address your specific comments / questions,  the quoted text is yours:

me knowing the best what the defaults are plus stupilating that they will be good. Please don't take that assumptions ...
Far better will be to copy my settings, apart from those your DAC will not allow for.

I went looking for your Win7 settings on the forum and I cannot find them.  Can you post your latest Win7 settings or send me a .XXSI file?

some OS (W8 ?) it defaulted to no sounds, and prior to that I am sure we all shut off the sounds explicitly. Really. All but you, apparently. Haha. ...  It is the prerequisite for enabling Exclusive (hogging) of the audio device ...

Over years I've spent many nights reading this / these forums and somehow I missed it.  
So all these years I didn't have exclusive access to the audio device?

Actually, it seems like choosing the "no sounds" profile does nothing more than disassociate .wav files with system events, as opposed to disabling sound interrupts or bypassing code; unless built in / under the covers it does something to reconfigure the OS.  
      Alternatively, would it be more effective to chose the default sound device to be the motherboard audio device.  Then it is just bits going to another DAC.  Maybe not.  Just a thought.

Also funny : When you'd use KS this can not happen. The Windows sounds don't operate on that (as far as I know/recall).

Isn't my problem direct evidence that this can and does happen when I use KS?  Doesn't exclusive KS access mean that if xx is playing then Windows cannot grab the device until xx releases it?

Next up is : When you are in MinOS and disabled WASAPI at going to MinOS (see in Shut Off Services section), there *is* no sound device for Windows. Only your KS device and only for you ...

I can't listen to my DSD collection if I disable WASAPI within xxHE.  I listen to DSD with HQPlayer, ASIO, which doesn't work if xxHE disables WASAPI.  So I leave it enabled to avoid rebooting just to listen to a few DSD tracks.
     

[Feature request: Why not support DSD playback for DSD capable DACs by simply sending the DSD file through the USB interface, no decoding or conversion to PCM?  Just send the file over DoP (by which I mean DSD over PCM standard, which to you boils down to a simple header before the raw data transfer.  Do I oversimplify?  Of course there is no benefit to NOS1 owners, that I understand.]

And from your latest post:

Now I see you writing about the Playback Drive ...I should have said :
Activate "Copy to XX Drive by standard".
This does exactly what I intended (per my description) but in a very simple way. You won't have "SQ Control" with this really, unless playing from the OS disk coincidentally sounds good.
The Playback Drive will sound different per "media" (it can be anything) and even brand.

I suppose this could be moot if my success continues.  But I will keep a note of it.  Actually,  this shouldn't have an effect because my playback drive is powered down permanently / and possibly the SATA cable unplugged,  so xxHE probably already sends the data to the C drive.  The only other drive is where the music is stored, but I don't think xxHE uses this drive other than to pull the tracks and gallery stuff.   Let me know otherwise.

Thanks    You've been a great help.

Charlie

[charliemb]

Hi Peter

Sorry to report that it's not over.  Still have problems.  Tonight I twice ran into the original problem discussed above where playback stops after the first track plays.  And Six times in four hours I received the "This should not happen just restart xxHighend" message.

This time I noticed something new.   At least one of the two times where playback stoped after the first track,  I had selected about seven tracks in a row using Shift-click starting at about track 3 or 4.  But playback started almost instantly --AS IF ONLY ONE TRACK WAS SELECTED.   Normally it takes a little bit of time for 7 tracks to load.  So it could be, and it appears, that the error is that only 1 track was loaded for playback from the beginning, and not that playback suddenly stops after 7 tracks are loaded and prepared and the first track finishes.
       In this instance,  when xxHE came back,  all seven tracks were selected (in white highlight).  That's odd, and different from the usual behaviour.  Usual behaviour that if one track plays of out 7,  then only 6 tracks are highlighted then xxHE comes back.

After the first error I set "Copy to XX drive by default."  Then I got the 2nd error one or two hours later.  So this setting by itself didnot solve the problem

Thanks,

Charlie

P.S. 2.09 is still sounding great with ArcP

[PeterSt]

Hi Charlie,

The Coverart is a thing in itself. This is a text I made for myself but never put up because it is hard to verify (it first needs to go wrong for not showing); it is an OS thing :

It is assumed that  "Don't do anything with Coverart" (in XXHighEnd settings, Coverart section) is not activated. Also it is assumed that at this time Show as Wallpaper and At Attended both are active.

Press Stop in XXHighEnd.
Go to Control Panel - Personalization.
Again click Stop in XXHighEnd.
In Personalization click one of the Themes with a background. This should now appear.
Click Play in XXHighEnd. The Wallpaper Coverart will now appear (the normal Wallpaper will be disappeared).
Click Stop. The normal Wallpaper should re-appear.

When the above all happens as described, the Wallpaper Coverart should always appear in actual form (from the track currently playing) and when played Unattended, all should be fine as well.

The problem of stopped playback after the first or any other track never happened.  BIG WIN.

It should be clear that you actually solved the problem. But it also should be clear that by means of something you brought back the problem. So the obvious : try to think of what it can have been.

Can you post your latest Win7 settings or send me a .XXSI file?

No .XXSI file - sorry !
W7 Settings (amazing that I saved them) :

W7 - February 9, 2014 (1.186-a)
XXHighEnd PC -> i7 3930K Hyperthreading On (12 cores) @*500MHz*, 16GB, Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit on SATAIII 2.5" 7200RMP spinning disk, XXHE on 2GB RAMDisk (IMDisk), music on LAN (dynamically stopped/started) / Engine#4 Adaptive Mode / Q1/-/3/4/5 = *6*/-/1/1/1 / Q1Factor = *1* / Dev.Buffer = 4096 / ClockRes = 15ms / Memory = Straight Contiguous / Include Garbage Collect / SFS = *0.40* (max 320.00) / not Invert / Phase Alignment Off / Playerprio = Low / ThreadPrio = Realtime / Scheme = *Core3-5* / Not Switch Processors during Playback = Off / Playback Drive 2GB RAMDisk (IMDisk) / UnAttended (Just Start) / All Services Off / Keep LAN - *Persist* (this is for conveniency and sub 1.186a)  / No WallPaper / No OSD / No Running Time / Minimize OS / XTweaks : *Use Settings* - *64, 1, 1, 0, 1* / Time Performance Index = Optimal / Time Stability = On / Double Octo Arc Prediction Upsampling / -> USB3 (*Silverstone *both* sides isolated*) -> 24/768 Phasure NOS1a 75B async USB DAC, Driver v1.0.4 (*16ms*) -> Blaxius BNC interlink -> Orelo MKII Active Open Baffle Horn Speakers.

Over years I've spent many nights reading this / these forums and somehow I missed it.  
So all these years I didn't have exclusive access to the audio device?

I can't tell about others, but I don't think you have missed it. It is from the time just prior to XXHighEnd and how I myself (yes me) found out that XP applied dithering by standard as soon as it went through the normal "sound path". So back at the time we already knew that XP was not bit perfect (but it could be done by special RME drivers) and everybody was obsessed about it (say that this is 11-12 years ago). Then Visa came around and with Vista it was all about "Exclusive Mode" which was new to the Windows OS. Btw, XXHighEnd was the very first player whcih could utilize the new WASAPI (18 months later a second came about - XMPlay IIRC, and right after that Foobar). Anyway, back in the days it was all about "Exclusive Mode" and how to use and and how to avoid pitfalls.

You had Exclsuve access to the sound device all right, but it is about how to sustain that. And that part can be violated. I had lenghty discussions about this with AmirM (who designed this new means of Windows audio chain).

Alternatively, would it be more effective to chose the default sound device to be the motherboard audio device.  Then it is just bits going to another DAC.

You are correct. Still it is better to just shut off all the WASAPI (WDM) audio devices, which is all what you can see when being in Normal OS. Just disable them. Btw, I have the hint that this matters for your "This message should not occur" issue. So try it. Otherwise do know that when WASAPI is shut off (do that in Normal OS) in MinOS there just isn't another choice for Sound Device but your KS device.

so xxHE probably already sends the data to the C drive.

No. When it is .WAV is stays where it is and is played from that location.

This time I noticed something new.   At least one of the two times where playback stoped after the first track,  I had selected about seven tracks in a row using Shift-click starting at about track 3 or 4.  But playback started almost instantly --AS IF ONLY ONE TRACK WAS SELECTED.

You maybe won't believe it, but this time this is interesting for me. I mean, I know about this issue, and it is beyond me when it happens. Yesterday I had it again. Hapens maybe once per several days and re-applying the same right after is OK. So this is clearly a bug somewhere (in there forever) which you now suddenly were able to let surface for the first time, relative to your old situation.
Let's say we can survive this and also that you can indeed see it happen when you pay atention; the list is just processed too soon. Btw, I am sure I did not apply a selection yesterday and of what I recall, it surely can happen without selection. What I noticed yesterday is that this was with .WAV. This is especially apparent because .WAV processes slower (one by one). So easy to see it goes wrong.
This is not a matter of finding out when it happens (I would have by now if it were this simple) but it is a matter of knowing settings where it just never happens. Apparently you indirectly know that. But still quite undoable.

Peter

PS: I don't think it is a big deal that you can't play DSD for the while that you are in this "test mode" (but I am not you). Once you know what the issue is (how it can be solved), I can solve it in the software and then you don't need to switch matters (which implies two boots in general). And as said, removing the message as a whole is a solution already.

[charliemb]

Thanks Peter.   I'll get on these to get to the bottom of it all.

The problem of stopped playback after the first or any other track never happened.  BIG WIN.

It should be clear that you actually solved the problem. But it also should be clear that by means of something you brought back the problem. So the obvious : try to think of what it can have been.

Absolutely nothing was changed from the previous session in terms of settings.  I've been very careful about changes.  No changes.  The only difference is that it was another day and a new boot.  That's all.  I didn't even change "copy to XX drive by standard" until after the problem arrived.
       One thing I can say is that I encountered several "this error should not happen, just restart xx" message before the "stop problem" first resurfaced (in case that matters).  And the stop problem.

W7 Settings (amazing that I saved them) :

Thanks.  That helps.

Quote
Over years I've spent many nights reading this / these forums and somehow I missed it.  
So all these years I didn't have exclusive access to the audio device?

I can't tell about others, but I don't think you have missed it.

Yes I remember all of that.  Well,  I missed it in the sense that my windows sounds were enabled.

Quote
Alternatively, would it be more effective to chose the default sound device to be the motherboard audio device.  Then it is just bits going to another DAC.

You are correct. Still it is better to just shut off all the WASAPI (WDM) audio devices, which is all what you can see when being in Normal OS. Just disable them. Btw, I have the hint that this matters for your "This message should not occur" issue. So try it. Otherwise do know that when WASAPI is shut off (do that in Normal OS) in MinOS there just isn't another choice for Sound Device but your KS device.

Before I do this I had better check: This implies that I have to reboot into normal OS and manually disable all sound devices that I see INCLUDING MY DAC.  Then reboot into minOS and proceed.

Wouldn't it be easier to simply disable WASAPI from within xxHE in settings?   Or does this not sufficiently accomplish what you want?

Quote
so xxHE probably already sends the data to the C drive.

No. When it is .WAV is stays where it is and is played from that location.

Most of my collection is .AIF, from ripped CDs.  Is AIF treated like wave?   (Maybe the problem surfaces when I eventually play a .WAV track)

can't play DSD for the while that you are in this "test mode"

Of course, yes, I will disable WASAPI in one form or another and lose DSD for a while.   No problem.

Also,  I'll play close attention to when playback starts quicker than expected, and the file type as I select it.

Thanks again Peter.

Much appreciated.

Charlie

[PeterSt]

Hi Charlie,

Wouldn't it be easier to simply disable WASAPI from within xxHE in settings?   Or does this not sufficiently accomplish what you want?

You understood that correctly. One thing : It allows for anomalies between normal OS and MinOS. So in Normal OS another sound device could be selected than is available in MinOS (some people don't understand what's happening regarding this). So when all is shut off at both sides the same, this "issue" can not occur.
But since you understand this sufficiently, you can now do as you please.

Yes, AIF(F) is treated as WAV.
It would be true do that not all that many people use AIF and for example, if I use it, I won't even notice it. IOW : Technically (in the start up process of playback) the both are different so if you could be so kind to keep track of whether you play AIF or WAV then possibly the problem(s) can be pinpointed to AIF. I am never thinking about these differences, but they *are* there ...

Also, please take care that your "Always clear Proxy before Playback" is activated (Memory and Disk utilizaton section). Loading will be slower occasionally but will also be way more decent.

Regards,
Peter

[charliemb]

Hi Peter

Yes,  already, "Always clear Proxy before Playback" is selected / enabled.

BTW, status for yesterday:  Clicked "Stop WASAPI" in settings and I had only half of my problem.  Second half is gone, this one: "This shouldn't happen. Please just restart xxHE"

The first half of my problem is still with me:  Three times in 4 hours playback stopped on the first song.  The first time it stoped while the track was playing, but toward the end.  That is a first.  The two other times were as before, namely after the first track plays, xxHE stops and comes back.

In all cases I noticed what we suspect, playback started too quickly, almost in 2 seconds.  In all cases, when xx came back, all tracks were selected as if they had not played.  (Because when one plays normally, that track comes back unselected and the unplayed tracks come selected.

Thanks,

Charlie