09-u8 vs 09-u12

[SeVeReD]

How I play it:
Q1 = 14
can't double/can't over
16/44.1 wav files
Well it's taking me forever to get a grasp of my systems' new sound as a bevy of changes have taken place, (biggest being home electrical changes, and new amp and tube swapping).  But things are shaping up and when playing the audiophool game of back and forth between u8 and u12 I've come to like the sound of u8 more.  u8, for me, has a larger, more 3d, cohesive, natural soundstage.  u12, while sounding less 3d, sounds uneven... sometimes the mids(female vocal area) jump out of place and sound over the top ... not a natural dynamics.

But, for a large portion of my wav files, I keep running into "cracks" that start to play along side the music.  With u12 I still have wavs that pop up the "crack detect" warning, but if I don't get that warning then the WAV will play fine.

Could it be that I just need to build a new computer sometime?  Handle these new XXHE versions better?

[PeterSt]

Could it be that I just need to build a new computer sometime?  Handle these new XXHE versions better?

No. Why ? your system is just fine. If you'd only reconize that the cracks are just there !
Two topics in this area :

1. You'll get a message when the cracks are there, and this message is justified;
2. With the last versions (the ones with the Mem checkbox) all is just more accurate again.

I too perceive the "cracks" far more than before. Btw, they are not cracks, but ticks.
I have told you about what I found in your example files, and this is just not right. Or it is, and you should perceive those ticks.
Strangely enough it listens like vinyl very much, although I hardly can imagine this is the intention for those particular albums.

u8, for me, has a larger, more 3d, cohesive, natural soundstage.  u12, while sounding less 3d, sounds uneven... sometimes the mids(female vocal area) jump out of place and sound over the top ... not a natural dynamics.

This is another matter. Firstly, you are not alone, and secondly I myself am unclear on what I think of the versions after 0.9u-8.

Also, think of how hard it is : I start to hear transients which just are in the data (them being wrong by itself IMHO), and now I must think this is worse for accurate playback ? that's a tough one ...
But also : who says that those transients should lead to ticks ? can't my DAC follow ? and, will the oversampling DAC smooth them out ? (hmm ... I should try that for fun). Officially not, because this is not a matter of too steep transients. They are just plain vertical in the digital data, and go over a range of 60000 within the max of 65536. There is nothing to smooth out, although the analogue part will round a bit at the start and end of it.

On the other side, we must think of what is happening really; we try to follow the digital data, which actually just *is* about small squares. Do we even want to follow those ? I say yes, that is, up to now that is what I tried to achieve. But there may be a stage that is over the top. With 44.1KHz anyway ...

As I said earlier, I will build in the choice for the 0.9u-8 way of working vs. the later versions. It is very easy and it won't deteriorate either way.