Phasure Mach III Audio PC with Linear Power Supply

[PeterSt]

OK, this beats all.

Yesterday I organized a "Hip-hop" evening for myself. Played a bit of early (MTF) Ice-T when sound was still really open and uncompressed, followed by a(n again MTF) older Paris album I did not have yet. And well, when the lyrics are not tooo "advisory" ... nothing sounded so good and honest ever before.
After two hours of these "cool beats" - seriously finding nothing wrong with it, I thought it was time to anxiously ask Ciska here whether she could explain to me what is bugging her (regarding the Stealth III, see previous post). The surprising answer : nothing, it sounds enormously good.
(and I did notice here swinging all the time on this MTF this and MTF that, and wondered)

Bbbut, I thought you found something to sound nasty for you ?
Yeah, no wonder with all these ticks and sparks and other fast stuff - that is no music. It already wasn't but now it is crazily emphasized and I guess it makes me crazy.
Aha. It depends on the music.

All right. As I do regulalry, I tried a few Thrillers and Bads from Michael Jackson, to see whether that can be played now. Another big surprise : gone were the synthesized drums.
Huh ?
Well, I told you, the highs are super special (and addictive).

But the by far biggest surprise was yet to come ...

As a kind of reward for being nice to me (on the SQ subject) I played a few tracks from Nina Hagen which is a favorite of her.
Saw her explicitly focusing with a big grin on her face but I also noticed THE novelty of the year (or century) ...

So ... we are all familiar with the "plays one octave lower", right ? But did you ever hear of "plays one octave higher" ? I personally don't. Until yesterday, that was;

And I now start to understand why these highs can be "appriciated" so much. But it needs the music to see through it and grasp what it actually is about. So :

Nina Hagen, to me, always has been some punky gothic with an interesting voice. Today she's suddenly a most hey-keyed soprano who - as I can now hear - ends sentences (as a gag ?) with another extra octave (just for a small half of a second). IIRC Kate Bush has a bit of the same but more as part of the sentence (but also very short) and less as a gag.


Summarized for now, I described the Mach III as going two octaves lower and now thus one octave higher as well. So it is an strange way of adding "dynamic range" to your system.
And oh, for those interested in emphasized electric basses this is what I found on Tidal yesterday :

https://listen.tidal.com/album/70518588

Although that too was planned to be part of the hip-hop evening, this album appears very special and is not really De La Soul as we're used to. It's almost exclusively cool bass riffs with a depth and strength ... well ... you know. No lyrics. In the screenshot you see the tracks which went into my Demo Gallery.

Peter

[PeterSt]

Just a very general remark as of July 11, 2018 :

Might people think : why don't we hear more of new customers ... well, the processors are very hard to get (was already waiting for many weeks, and another 4 were just added today).

Don't tell : there is one 14/28 available.

Regards,
Peter

[fmanheck]

I just returned from holiday. sandy beaches...warm sun...pampering service... great food and drink....

I missed 2 things while gone. My very cool dog Bruno

AND my Phasure Mach III music playback system. 

I am not giving up either. You should grab the one nobody is speaking of

[Robert]

Yes I would dearly love to order one waiting for my fortune to arrive. I suspect this upgrade is massive and logical. In fact one should start at this point, the source has always been critical. I've priced the parts only, not including case, for 14/28 in New Zealand and they come to the price of Peter's completed, tested version. So Peter's pricing is certainly very competitive.

Interesting that progress on DAC technology globally appears to have stalled.

Robert

[PeterSt]

I am not giving up either. You should grab the one nobody is speaking of

Hi Fred,

Remember the dialed in settings as of now. Then try these :
SFS=140.19
Q1=30
xQ1=11
Q3,4,5=1
ClockRes=15
CoreAppointment=3-5
NOS1 Driver Buffer = 16

(this gives sluggish response on about everything but Stop - I don't care a bit).

For me this does miracles with the 10-20. Now I like to know your (relative) perception with the 14-28.

Thank you Fred,
Peter

[manisandher]

Number of Cores	Original Price	Current Price	As of date	Linear PSU	SQ relative to Mach II
8/16	2700	2700	May 18, 2018	Yes	?
10/20	2980	2980	May 18, 2018	Yes	++
12/24	3300	3300	May 18, 2018	Yes	?
14/28	3900	3900	May 18, 2018	Yes	++++
16/32	4350	4375	May 31, 2018	Yes	++++
20/40	5000	5150	May 31, 2018	Yes	?
22/44	6300	6350	May 31, 2018	Yes	?

Peter, do the entries in the 'SQ relative to Mach II' column still stand in your opinion?

Mani.

[fmanheck]

Thank You Professor Peter

I love homework assignments.

I'll report back later

[PeterSt]

Peter, do the entries in the 'SQ relative to Mach II' column still stand in your opinion?

Hey Mani,

Yes. But very far and very theoretically I'd have to dedicated more value (say another +) to the 10/20 which I am using myself. It is just that the emphasis is so much different from what I recall of the 16/32 and 14/28 (which latter two sound very much alike). Also : the more I use the 10/20, the better I can find "the settings" for it (takes time).

I suppose this is not very helpful, so please ask more if needed.

Regards,
Peter

[fmanheck]

Ok I have done some serious listening using both sets of settings.

The new recommended settings do sound different and I would say better but not dramatically so. When the sound of the music is as good as it already is; even not dramatically better is still a significant improvement. For me the most noticeable changes are a greater sense of richness of tone and not sure how to describe the next change but I'll try.

It almost seems that the music seem to be  "slower" with the new settings. By slower I am not talking about quickness and speed, but rather you seem to hear and process the music with a greater sense of detailed recording space and my mind seems to have more time to better resolve the musical picture. I am not sure my explanation make sense to anyone but I really do not know how else to describe it.

2 music tracks I am very familiar with, both from a live perspective(seen both artists many times) and recorded (listened to may times) are Lucinda Williams album - This Sweet Old World and song "Sidewalks of the City" and Bruce Cockburn album  Charity of the Night and song "Strange Waters" illustrate the sense of increased tone and better resolved musical picture.

Lucinda's track just oozes tonality. Check out the guitar and her voice. So naturally raspy and life-like.

With Bruce the song is filled with musical detail a good amount which seemed to be of that cliché "hearing new details on very familiar recordings". The treble and the bass both extremely lifelike together.

Both songs sound just fantastic and I'll be keeping these new settings. Thanks

[PeterSt]

So (Fred), it goes on and on and on. Currently you should be having the better sound from what I have ever heard.
But little secret : I sneaked a 14/28 in the house (again) so I now can theoretically try those new settings with that processor too.

Something else is that I am pretty sure the sound is getting better and better - almost noticable each day (with the 10/20). So I start to wonder what is subject to this "burn in".
Fred, do you have a similar experience ?

Peter

[Rmalits]

Hi Peter,

timing looks ok for me as I will be sailing until the beginning of September. So if the Mach III will be finished in September, that would be great.
So, please send me the invoice. Delivery and billing adress as always.

And I would like to try a shorter "lush", like 1m or so. Please put it on the invoice too.

Kind regards
Richard

[PeterSt]

Thank you Richard, very nice.
We will make a special Lush for you.

Best regards,
Peter

PS: I split your post from Re: 2.10 sound quality.

[Beauchamp Michel]

Hi Peter,

Regarding the core reduction, was this a one time attempt out of curiosity or do you see enough potential to further push the investigation of this phenomenon? Could I do it myself on my Mach III, 16/32 cores? And pushing it even more, could this kind of function be added in a future software release?

Thanks,

Michael

[PeterSt]

Hi Michel,

Regarding the core reduction, was this a one time attempt out of curiosity

It was out of curiosity but obviously when I attempt such a thing I might have an idea about the result in advance. But it worked out way better than I could imagine.
And mind you please, I only tried 10/20 on the 14/28, but it can also be set to any number under the maximum (like 12/24, 8/16, etc. and in your case also to 14/28).

Could I do it myself on my Mach III

Yes, very easily :

Cause the BIOS to appear (press F2 or Del once you see the number F4 on the bottom line of the monitor (monitor and mouse/keyboard have to be connected in order to get in the BIOS), go to the second menu option - Advanced, go one line down to CPU, press enter on it and change the "All" next to number of cores (similar) to any lower number. NOtice that only the major numbers are listed there (like 15,14,13, etc. for your 16/32).
Press Esc one time, go to Exit in the roght hand side, click it, select (the default) save and let it boot.

Check whether it worked in TaskManager - Performance tab.

You can do this "from" any form of OS (incl. RAM).

could this kind of function be added in a future software release?

What's setable regarding this is out of my sight. However, what's set can be seen and utilized. That happens by standard. No software changes needed for that.

Kind regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

All,

I'll insert a link here to the possibility of the setting of the number of Cores in the Stealth Mach III :

The greatest invention in/for Audio (Lush^2)

Over there is has been combined with the Lush^2 USB cable, but both are different subjects, though were used together to explain behavior of actually both.
I hope this keeps it clean better. Above this post I just combined with two post from over there because they really belong over here.

Thanks,
Peter