Conveniently Randomize, how ? (0.9y-4)

[Eric]

Peter,
(this Post should go to a different thread I think)
for sure I know!!
Actually I was totally flabbergasted when I first played with double, AP. Stunning sound and very analogue. The best I have ever heard. Now the interesting point is that my first listening sessions were through my Weiss Medea which is an OS DAC. I am really curious if you will be able explain the logic of why AP sounds so excellent on the Weiss Medea. Of course, I also tried the No Oversampling option in XXHE and did all the comparisons between the DACs. I recognise everything that has been said about this on the forum, to the point that I discovered that some albums that I remembered as good recordings now appear as unbalanced to me. Some recordings now sound a little harsh in the mid-highs and flat in mid bass. I also recognise the findings about the soundstage. It is clear that AP forces me to revisit my reference points. Also your contribution on "what is true" appeals to me as true  . So I decided to postpone my judgement until I have been able to do more work on comparing the various combinations and possibilities. I will come back to this soon. One conclusion stands: I do not ever want to go back to 0.9y-3 or earlier. Just listen to Eric Clapton's Unplugged album and you will immediately know why. 
Cheers,
Eric. 

[PeterSt]

Dear Eric,

Of course I know you are one of the more serious audiophools from Holland, and just tried to challenge you at saying something about the Arc Upsampling, missing your comments so far. Of course you can copy-paste your comments into the other thread to have everything together, but for me it is important just to know your first findings. I will learn about your more definitive later (I sure hope).

And you know what ? I think the very first album I tried with Arc Upsampling is the very same Unplugged, and I recall asking my wife to tell me what it was, that being an album I own forever, but didn't play it for a long time. She couldn't guess ... that much had it changed ... But for me too it was something like HUH ?!? WHAT !

At this moment I wish I knew why it works on OS just the same. As I like to know why hires material sounds less good.
Thank you Eric,
Peter

[Eric]

Peter,
I performed some basic testing  with all 13 tracks from 1 album in the result list. I did Rightclick on Track 01 - ,Play Each - Randomly - Autoselect
The following happened.

- If I select 5 items, the fowwing tracknumbers are highlighted in the Library Area: 02,05,06,09,11. In the Playlist the following tracknumber appear (in that order): 12,13,12,10,01. As you can see it contains a duplicate (12). The selection in the Library does not match the selection in the Playlist Area. 
 
- If I select 10 items, the fowwing tracknumbers are highlighted in the Library Area: 02,03,04,06,07,08,09,10,11,12. In the Playlist the following tracknumber appear (in that order): 04,09,01,08,03,12,11,04,10,10. As you can see, again it contains a duplicate (10). The selection in the Library does not match the selection in the Playlist Area.

- If I select 13 items (=the number of tracks in the Library area) , the systems hangs. Checking Windows Taskmanagement shows that CPU usage by XXHE goes above 40%, and it stays there for at least 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, I cancelled the task XXHE. 

- If I select 15 items, the following tracknumbers are hightlighted in the Library Area: 02,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,12,13. In the Playlist area I now see 10,04,09,08,13,06,03,07,01,04,09,02,01,10,01.  And no hanging system!

I repeated the last test several tims, Rightclicking different Tracknumbers to start with,  and everytime the selection in the Library Area does NOT contain track 01.

I hope that this behaviour gives you a clue about what is happening.

Cheers, Eric.

[PeterSt]

Thank you very much Eric.

Do you select the Items in the Library Area "normal" or with Checkboxes (the Chk checkbox being ticked) ?

[PeterSt]

Wait a minute ...

You weren't that user who couldn't get the tracks in albhabetical sequence number (which would be the 01, 02, 03 etc.) per track "somewhere", were you ? Or in other words, if you look in the Library Area, are the tracks there properly sorted in the first place ? (and do your tracks indeed have those sequence numbers in them ?)

I just tried the same as you did (though with an album of 10 tracks and output 6), and I see nothing going wrong ...
Ok, one thing : indeed the first track in the list never gets selected. And now I think of it, I know what that is.

[Eric]

Thank you very much Eric.

Do you select the Items in the Library Area "normal" or with Checkboxes (the Chk checkbox being ticked) ?

Peter,
Chk checkbox is unticked.
Tracks in the Library Area are sorted in alphabetical order, except when special character appear in the name. This is a different thing that I reported earlier, but it is not the case here.
I did not select the items myself. A selection (determined by the system) in the Library Area gets highlighted shortly after I press"Go" in the Combobox.

Eric

[PeterSt]

I don't get this !
(and you are not the only one that has this, as it appears)

The selection in the Library does not match the selection in the Playlist Area.

I just ask this to be sure : ... And this selection also isn't the same after the tracks have been loaded in the Playlist Area ? (actual question : So the selection didn't change after you first saw it (after Go)) ?

[Eric]

Peter,
just to be sure that I am clear on what I do.

1) I start XXHE.
2) Playlist contains no tracks, I click Library.
3) I go to Galleries embedded explorer and select 1 album.
4) At the bottom, I select "t" for Tracks and click "Search". Now 13 tracks appear in the Library Area.
5) I Rightclick on Track 01, Play Each - Randomly - Combo: AutoSelect LibraryItems, 5, Click Go
6) Now from the 13 tracks, the following 5 tracks get highlighted (selected by XXHE) in the Library Area: 02,05,06,09,11. The other 8 tracks also stay in the Library Area, but they are not highligted. 
7) Now I click on Playlist.The following 5 tracknumbers appear (from top to bottom, in that order): 12,13,12,10,01.

Now I Clear the Playlist, Exit XXHE, Start XXHE and repeat the same sequence with the following result.
6") Now the following tracknumbers get highlighted in the Library Area: 02,03,04,05,07.
7") I click on Playlist.The following 5 tracknumbers appear (from top to bottom): 07,08,07,06,11.

When I repeat the experiment with Combo: AutoSelect LibraryItems, 13, Click Go,
XXHE hangs. This behaviour is repeatable and it only happens when I choose 13 in the Combobox.

Interesting, isn't it?
Eric.

[PeterSt]

Eric, thank you (you are really overdoing it ). What's new of course is your original selection from Embedded Explorer, but that is exactly what I did the last to ever get one album in there.

Interesting, isn't it?

NO !!

The hang I can imagine, because I take care that not any item will get in the result twice, and with the skip of the first (which is a bug) things will go wrong in that area. But no matter I "take care of that", for you this doesn't help a bit.

Do you perhaps recognize that your "selection means" is set differently ? like "one click" does the same as normally double click ... something like that ...

Below is 20 tracks with 8 output, done exactly the same as you.

[PeterSt]

Eric, try to help me find what is going on by examine other similar features. Please do this :

Go to the bottom option of that Randomize menu, enter the number you want to select and click Go. As I said before, it is this funciton which is being called, and I think at your side that works correctly too. But now click Load. If all is right those randomly selected tracks will be loaded in the Playlist Area (but in alphabetical sequence). But if all is REALLY right, and I mean consistent, that too in your case must come up with something else.

Please let me know.

[Eric]

Peter,
this way it works fine, the selection appears in the Playlist in alphabetical sequence.
So, if I understand what you are saying, this is not consistent...........
Eric.

[PeterSt]

After you looked at the Playlist, the selection is still there as it should ? (in the Library Area)

[Eric]

Yes.

[Eric]

The strange thing with track01 is that, although it is never selected in the Library, sometimes does show up in the Playlist.

[PeterSt]

Yes, I saw that from your last example.

At least I know now in which part it goes wrong at your side, which only is the "shuffeling" of the selected items (this is the only thing not happening at using that other function).

I gues I must give up on this, and rewrite that part so drastically that it will work on your side (and maybe not on mine anymore, hahaha).

Thank you for your time for now Eric.