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cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player

41.183.0.21
Posted on December 30, 2007 at 05:42:01
cics
Audiophile

Posts: 1320
Joined: November 9, 2006
cMP

The open source high-end Memory Player

December 2007

Music delivery is perfected. cMP (cics Memory Player) delivers memory playback (without RAMDisk or other utilities) thereby eliminating disk interference during playback.

In creating cMP, its critical objective was the implementation of fundamental designs that:

  1. Remove disk traffic interference during playback without having the inconvenience of manually loading files into a virtual RAM drive, etc..
  2. Ensure time critical sample delivery to the external DAC. Streaming of samples from precision upsampled (to 24/96) sound buffers to the soundcard must be fast, lean and mean! There's no room for any bottlenecks or overheads here, otherwise we risk increasing jitter and compromise Bit Transparency.
  3. Provide better power supply and remove the need for a ferrite core on the mouse connection.
  4. Provide flexibility to choose any player (Foobar2000, Winamp etc.).
  5. Further minimize the Windows footprint to that more optimal than XP's Embedded SP2 operating system as used in large scale commercial applications. This provides the foundation for the 2nd design goal.
  6. Offer a CD/DVD-ROM drive without impacting sound quality.
  7. Offer proper remote usability as locating that mouse cursor from a distance is cumbersome.
  8. Contain costs but also allow for a complete elegant one box solution.

Such designs in theory should render a stunning sonic experience. Its implementation however was a massive challenge. Did this theory meet the sonic expectations? Yes as evidenced in cMP's bit perfect performance and ultra low jitter.

How does it sound? The most descriptive word that comes to mind is emotional. cMP's sonic purity is truly profound. It grips those musical lines across any genre with remarkable precision. Soundstage improves, there's better layering and even more ambient information. Bass is tighter, with natural vocals & instruments.

FRONT



BACK



More pictures and screenshots are available from the cMP documentation link provided below.

FEEDBACK

Pre-release testing by music lovers located all over the world yielded further insight and perfection of cMP.

  • A music lover based in the US with limited or no computer training:

    This has been a great way to learn about computers in addition to making something very useful for enjoying music.

    Compared to my ###### (read expensive high-end traditional CD transport), even with some tweaking and learning left to do, this sounds much better. Dynamic, yet relaxed (effortless?).

    I started listening last night at 7:00 and had to force myself to go to bed at twelve. Amazing spaciousness. It is truly getting close to GREAT analog and is much better than average analog already. It is simply amazing.

    I found your instructions easy to follow ONCE I understood what I was being told to do. To repeat, I have never done anything like this before, so your instructions were clear without resorting to "hand holding". I think the process was easier than you warned. I kept saying to myself, "that wasn't so bad!"

    After cMP:

    My only audio friends are very analogue-centric. Sometime in January I am going to have them over to audition the cMP. I think they are going to be amazed. Of course, I am confident that JULI@ is going to be the icing on the cake. If this takes the whole thing another step closer I think they will be grateful that one can enjoy listening to CD's as much as LP's. Of course, in many ways your approach does things even LP's cannot do. It is becoming a toss-up, but the best kind; one can enjoy either one equally well!

  • A music lover based in Europe with more than 2000 CDs:

    the quality of sound reproduction is quite amazing. My motivation for building was that I am not wealthy and could never dream of, let alone buy, a high-end CD player. Even this project was considerably more than I could properly afford and I began it with some trepidation. But it's been well worth it.

    After cMP:

    I spent several hours last night testing the latest cMP. I did several A/B runs with cMP on the one hand and Foobar launched via old batch files and reading direct from disk on the other. There is no doubt in my mind that the sound using cMP is a significant improvement even with my modest setup.

    The quality is quite stunning, significantly better than previous. (My partner agrees with this - she's no audio junkie but she is an informed music lover.)

  • A music lover based in Australia:

    I have been wanting to relay to you my own experience with your methods and give you some feedback . So far, I have found your approach produces very good results so I must convey to you my thanks and appreciation. At some point soon I will formalise my thoughts and send them to you or post them. I believe what you have done has become an excellent resource/asset to people interested in PC Audio.


FEATURES

  1. Disk traffic interference during playback is eliminated. Advanced RAM playback is based on available physical RAM (as reported by Task Manager or Process Explorer). This means up to 4GB (XP's limit) can be used allowing for 24/192 RAM playback. Recommendation is to use 1GB RAM (which yields available physical RAM of ~830MB - enough for any CD at 16/44.1). cMP achieves memory playback via the system cache and not through a simulated virtual drive. This approach removes Windows disk I/O overheads (irrespective of whether disk is physical or virtual) hence, it's more optimal.

  2. Extensive Windows & Player (Foobar2000 or other) optimizations yielding much lower jitter and bit perfect delivery. System level optimizations are done at runtime (which cannot be achieved using .bat files and utilities like Process Explorer). cMP is designed to work with 32 CPU cores!

  3. Open architecture. cMP allows for any player to be used: Foobar2000, XXHighEnd, Winamp etc. (player just needs to handle .cue files like foobar2000 otherwise play entire .wav). Any ripper software can be used (as long as it conforms to .cue single file standard like those created by EAC). Additional flexibility is provided, for example use cMP to drive your HTPC playing any movie from any genre (a .cue file for each .iso file is needed).

  4. All .cue files are processed by cMP which means the player focuses only on playing the CD. In Foobar2000, the album list control component is not needed. In techno speak this is called separation of concerns.

  5. Power delivery to the mobo is improved by further reducing interference. The need for a ferrite core is removed.

  6. Full function remote control using a wireless mouse is achieved. Your entire library can be navigated: play any CD, eject it, jump to any track or change volume. This is achieved using just ONE mouse button: the Wheel! Use the mouse as a normal one (left-click) or hold it in your hand (like a remote control) and wheel away using your thumb. Of course other buttons are used for more convenience. There's no need to find that tiny mouse cursor and left click! (You can still do this if needed).

  7. Your entire library that you so diligently ripped is fully compatible with cMP. No proprietary / lock-in stuff here which forces you to re-rip. Just point cMP to your music folders containing .cue and .wav files (or flac or other). cMP supports any content file as long as cue files are defined for them. For flac content files, the known EAC bug of adding an additional .flac suffix to the content file's name must be removed (otherwise your cue's content file directive will not be found).

  8. CD/DVD-ROM drive is implemented without compromising playback quality. For the purist, this can be unplugged without opening computer or rebooting.

Bottom line: cMP is a (one box) highly advanced memory player that's easy to setup and use. cMP's core strength lies in newly developed operating system software components (built in c/c++) that uses XP SP 2 as a foundation. Windows Explorer is done away with while cMP takes over and more. Bit perfect delivery is achieved yielding an ultra high resolution of more than 23.5 bits (a limitation in measuring instruments prevents measuring cMP's perfect resolution). DAC's have yet to achieve this resolution (as a minimum of 141db SNR is needed)! For cMP's bit perfect measurements, see (Bit Perfect Measurement & Analysis ).


GETTING STARTED

Visit cicsMemoryPlayer.com where you'll find detailed easy to follow instructions and much more.

Ensuring clean AC power delivery to equipment is very important. For DAC, pre-amp and amplifiers, use a dedicated AC circuit. For source equipment, use another AC circuit as this is where cMP's main PSU should be powered from. Use another less important AC circuit for powering cMP's 2nd dirty power inlet. Use of quality power cords and line conditioners is recommended.


Special thanks to those that provided such brilliant feedback and suggestions during pre-release testing. cMP's software is at version 1.0b as more feedback is desired. Your input, insights, criticisms, experiences and suggestions all help.

Thank you.

 

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RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, posted on October 26, 2017 at 14:54:58
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Just got back a bit into audio and i fortunately have a cmp2 box that i assembled years ago and it works!

Though it gets hung up in cmp mode. It wont revert to xp at all. I select that option, reboot and it hangs. Then after 10 min of a white screen i cut power and it auto boots to cmp mode.

Any thoughts? Also should i set cmp memory load to NO??

Anyhow big hats off to cics and his hard work and keeping his site up and running.

Thanks man!!!



Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, posted on October 4, 2019 at 10:37:53
Gaston
Audiophile

Posts: 13
Location: Rotterdam
Joined: July 8, 2012
 Hello,

Is there anyone who has all the cics MP2 Memory player information available?
I have printed everything years ago and built one, but lost the copies and I can not find the information on line anymore , like the manual(s).
My player has been stored for a while and I like to get it up and running again, for me, or for a friend.
The website seems to have replaced and that site does not have the manual available.

I am playing from a normal laptop right now, which sounds a great deal better than the CD player I had and I want to hear the difference and then give it top another audio lover.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!!

Sincerely,

Gaston

I can be contacted by email: dcd_gaston@hotmail.com

 

Site seems to be back up, posted on April 7, 2020 at 15:29:59
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Try this link:

http://cicsmemoryplayer.com/index.php?n=Main.HomePage

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, posted on October 12, 2019 at 17:51:38
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 If you havent try the email on the website.

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, posted on October 29, 2017 at 20:20:04
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 I solved it. I had a 2nd drive and it was farter along i guess in the cmp2 build and disnt suffer any of those issues. It also had Lynx drivers so i switched to the lynx! Sojnds much better than my m-audio card feeding the Birdland odeon ag dac. Probslably more a comment on the m-audio card than anything

Cics if you want to update things with current mobos and chips that would rock but i bet you are just listening to music!

Anyhow thanks again and this cmp2 box rocks!

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, posted on December 11, 2017 at 16:37:43
JBen
Audiophile

Posts: 3082
Location: South FL
Joined: May 18, 2008
Contributor
  Since: July 26, 2010
 Sorry I wasn't around to help you at the time. Glad to see you around.

I still use cMP2 as the base for my PC music playback. Had to drop cPlay when I went to DSD but cMP is doing wonders for the improved Foobar 2k, and even JRiver.

It still pains me that you left and never took the MMGs to where they could because you were on the right path. My sibling pair, bi-amped and using Parasound MOSFET power amps with a class-A DAC, would have kept feeling the kinship strongly if your MMG's and two Halo A21 had stayed.

But, cMP2 and your new cans will also do great. Enjoy!

 

Does cplay cMP’s software run on win 8.1? , posted on December 3, 2014 at 05:14:58
Night Fung
Audiophile

Posts: 2
Joined: December 3, 2014
 Does cplay cMP’s software run on win 8.1?
I cannot run my cMP’s on my win 8.1 laptop. error message:"Process:

Explorer exe terminated. ERROR: unable to get access priviledge.

How to get through this? Please help. Thanks.
Night Fung

 

RE: Does cplay cMP’s software run on win 8.1? , posted on December 3, 2014 at 07:53:12
Night Fung
Audiophile

Posts: 2
Joined: December 3, 2014
 Dave,
oh I see. thanks!

 

RE: Does cplay cMP’s software run on win 8.1? , posted on December 3, 2014 at 05:35:21
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 I cannot run my cMP's on my win 8.1 laptop . . .

cMP.exe is a replacement for Win XP's shell and, as such, won't run on later versions of Windows :<( though AFAIK cPlay.exe does.

HTH

Dave

 

RE: Does cplay cMP’s software run on win 8.1? , posted on December 3, 2014 at 22:45:01
internethandle
Audiophile

Posts: 42
Location: CA
Joined: November 30, 2011
 Actually, it runs just fine on Win 7, been using it for some time. Wondered about Win 8/8.1, not surprised it doesn't work there.

 

adding a second hard drive to cMP, posted on October 20, 2014 at 04:32:21
urlicht.55
Audiophile

Posts: 2
Joined: October 20, 2014
 I have a "classical" cMP BIOS + software setting.
Now I am having trouble adding a second SATA hard drive. The slimmed Windows version does not seem to recognize it.
Hope I do not have to rebuild the whole system...
Any suggestions ?

 

RE: adding a second hard drive to cMP, posted on October 20, 2014 at 05:33:36
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 Hope I do not have to rebuild the whole system...Any suggestions ?

Phew. This thread is still active (just) even though it's now seven years old - is that something of a record?

You shouldn't have to rebuild. First, I'd try temporarily re-enabling relevant services such as Logical Disk Manager.

Second, I successfully added a third network drive to an ultra-slim XP system by manually editing the Registry after a bit of searching for this and that. I also managed to replace the system drive by installing the new drive on a different computer and exporting its Registry entry. That gave me the correct syntax for editing the relevant entry on the cMP2 machine.

IOW, you need to footle around a bit but my experience suggests that you'll get there before long. Needless to say, you MUST make an imagefile of your cMP2's system partition before touching anything - but I'm sure you knew that.

HTH

Dave

 

RE: adding a second hard drive to cMP, posted on October 20, 2014 at 06:04:51
urlicht.55
Audiophile

Posts: 2
Joined: October 20, 2014
 Hi Dave,
Thanks a lot for the ideas ! I did not think about exporting the registry entry.
7 yrs,,,, Yes, it might well be a record.
And, SURE, I have plenty of imagefiles :))

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, player excited!!, posted on July 3, 2014 at 05:52:00
m.v.kints@gmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: vlaams brabant
Joined: July 3, 2014



Hello guys (and girls of course)

i'll introduce myself shortly... i'm matthieu, student and new in this world. we'll i'm now here as i got (thankfully) persuaded by a friend to turn an old (slightly less compatible) system into an music player.

so i started: and beside some minor hick-ups things work fine.

my system:

mainboard: ASRock P4-dual GL915
CPU: intel celeron 2.80 GHZ (single core, single thread)
mem: 2 GB RAM DDR (PC3200-400mhz)

onboard vga: GL910 / 915
soundcard internal PCI: soundblaster live, value

unfortunately does my mainboard doesn't allow me to make much changes (couldn't even lower my cpu multiplier or make mem modifications) besides some real minor ones.I used a old (thought high quality psu) that i took apart, took all the additional antenna wires not needed out an have it running like that uncooled.

as i couldn't get my cpu multipliers down i couldn't take the cpu fan of, so that is still spinning but i did find a nice ssd of 120 GB, enough for now. it is all sitting (unprotected) on an 18mm MDF board and will soon be encapsulated by a aluminium perforated sheet box, and all parts in separate compartments.

i used this system none the less to get started, as budget is REALLY tight i can't go around and by stuff needed so i have to search 2e hand which is not always readily available

anyway, non the less i got things working.

that is besides cMP, it well starts up, but as soon as i tell it to start playing it crashed with the notification. 'player excited' cPLAY works fine on its own.

i tried all (first the more logic, than the less) setting, but nothing worked.

is my issue mainboard settings related or is there something else i'm over looking. we'll i hope someone can help.

none the less i'm really happy, as i finally got some proper sound in my room. Although i can only listen through a headset :(, but i hope to get my hands on a t-amp or equivalent pretty soon. and than hopefully some nice speakers.

it will be a slow proces... but at least i got started.. which took me about 2 years i think.

thanks in advance...

Matthieu

ps: hope this site will be back up soon... grrh why hack a site like this :(


 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, player excited!!, posted on July 3, 2014 at 18:23:11
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
 Hi,

A few hints here and there to troubleshoot.
You said cPlay is working, so I suppose it works in Windows Mode (before entering cMP), therefore you're 100% cPlay is using ASIO.
From your Diagnostics it seems that your card is not even initialized.

In cMP Settings have you tried "Critical" under Optimize? You seem to have it on "Player".
In Suspend try different settings.
Is RAM Load on "No"?
Control your settings in C:\Program Files\cics Memory Player\cicsMemoryPlayer.pth that they actually point to real directories on your disk. Sometimes using foreign versions of XP this matter is overlooked.

Good luck!

We have and Italian cMP2 site on nexthardware.com if it may interest you.

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, player excited!!, posted on July 4, 2014 at 04:35:13
m.v.kints@gmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: vlaams brabant
Joined: July 3, 2014
 thanks Bibo01(A),

this last point did it, for some silly reason, things went wrong during installation and my windows drive ended up being the d/: instead of c/: so when i read your comment i immediately thought, ah that has got to be it, just got a chance to check it and indeed..

works fine now :D

well at least cMP starts cPlay.. if everything is stable.. that will be to check another time.. but at least i got to that point.

thank you very much, saying this slightly ashamed as i should have thought about it myself :(

kind greatings,

Matthieu

next job:... get the bios of my mainboard unlocked or find a new mainboard /cpu/mem setup..

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, player excited!!, posted on July 3, 2014 at 09:09:30
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Try http://www.tasteuk1.webspace.virginmedia.com/cicsmemoryplayer/cMP2_Index.htm#cPlay

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, player excited!!, posted on July 3, 2014 at 09:36:17
m.v.kints@gmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: vlaams brabant
Joined: July 3, 2014
 Thanks,

I had those pages printed out on paper, handed over to me by that friend.

read through them but never read anything about trouble shooting or this issue. thanks thought!!

kind regards

Matthieu

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, player excited!!, posted on July 3, 2014 at 08:58:07
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 it crashed with the notification. 'player excited' cPLAY works fine on its own.

1. Have you enabled Diagnostics? (Click on the icon, bottom LH corner of the cMP window.) Mostly they tell you what you already know but not always. Maybe worth a shot.

2. What "level" of cPlay are you using? The more "advanced" versions use instructions that are not available on older CPUs and behave as you describe. Try an sse2-compatible version and see what happens.

HTH

Dave

 

RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player, player excited!!, posted on July 3, 2014 at 09:28:27
m.v.kints@gmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: vlaams brabant
Joined: July 3, 2014
 I used cMP_1_2final_setup.exe and cPlay_2_0b39_sse3, and tried now the sse2 version. but cPLAY works fine and cMP work stable to untill i want to play music, anyway, it didn't have any succes.

and yes I use diagnostics, see the image i added in the thread.

i've just posted a post on bios-mods.com to see if i can get more adaptation out of my current mainboard.

se if that might help.. not sure if i can, and not sure if it will help but i can at least try.

thanks for the support, really much appreciated.

kind regards.

matthieu

 

Help-What do you use to rip and/or create cue files, posted on August 21, 2013 at 09:50:57
LanceL
Audiophile

Posts: 10
Joined: January 7, 2012
 Help-What do you use to rip and/or create cue files
especially for your cmp/cplay machine
Thx
Lance

 

Exact Audio Copy (EAC), posted on August 21, 2013 at 10:14:29
rickmcinnis@dogwoodfabrics.com
Audiophile

Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
 as recommended by cics!

 

RE: Exact Audio Copy (EAC), posted on August 21, 2013 at 10:29:20
LanceL
Audiophile

Posts: 10
Joined: January 7, 2012
 Thanks...any particular settings to ensure success with cplay

 

fixed..thx to all, posted on August 22, 2013 at 12:04:21
LanceL
Audiophile

Posts: 10
Joined: January 7, 2012
 Thx so much for your help…between your comments and at the suggestion of the DB poweramp programmer to upgrade/reinstall the program I am now up and running…..I believe the dbpoweramp version/install was the main culprit…but bottom line I up and running
Thx again for your time and help

 

help-error only works for flac total_samples count in streaminfo, posted on August 18, 2013 at 19:26:31
LanceL
Audiophile

Posts: 10
Joined: January 7, 2012
 error only works for flac total_samples count in streaminfo
this is the error I get when I try to play a album ripped in dbpower amp with cue files created via RCC....the cue files look the same as albums that do play ...can someone assist
Thx in advance

 

RE:cplay dsd capability , posted on June 22, 2013 at 08:55:32
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Any enterprising cplayers out there that can add dsd file capability in cplay? That would make cplay that much better.

 

RE:cplay dsd capability , posted on July 10, 2014 at 05:23:06
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 JBen can you pls share the CMP pth file you used to run J River? For some reason my attempt did not work. I used

CUE_PLAYER #N "c:\program files\J River\Media Center 19\Media Center 19.exe" %C

Appreciate a response.

 

RE:cplay dsd capability , posted on July 10, 2014 at 23:08:45
JBen
Audiophile

Posts: 3082
Location: South FL
Joined: May 18, 2008
Contributor
  Since: July 26, 2010
 In posting about it, I may have mislead unintentionally. I did not use the "path" to call execution in via "full cMP". I should have said that I called Foobar2k and JRiver from their desktop icons...

...in the [cMP-controlled] WinXP environment. The reason is that cMP optimizations begin even before the full force of the cMP "shell" is activated. No matter which of its 2 modes this altered Windows install boots into, cMP is always calling the shots to some extent. cMP is really always on. To the naked eye, a normal boot & desktop may look ordinary yet cMP (plus other changes) is already in effect.

Since I had the Schiit Loki for just 3 days, I went for installing & running these programs and the drivers this way:
-- a fully cMP hardware/OS optimized per Cics instructions (normally used for cPlay only)
-- booting into this cMP/WinXP install (but not into the full cMP wrap or shell, where cPlay is the only one used)
-- running each (Foobar2K and JRiver) as separate programs "off desktop icons"

I should have made this clear. My apologies. I am adding other details in the reply to your email. (Edit: In doing so, I just realized that it is well worth keeping a good backup of the whole system. My cPlay install became somewhat corrupted when I added Foobar & JRiver but I left it as is... planning to restore the backup.)

 

RE:cplay dsd capability , posted on June 22, 2013 at 17:04:00
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
 I gave Steppe cPlay source code. Perhaps he can conjure something up with his programmer friend. I do not know if DSD is among his priorities...and I have not heard from him in a while.

Furthermore, do you have in mind DSD through DoP or ASIO direct?

 

RE:cplay dsd capability , posted on June 24, 2013 at 06:36:08
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 I sent Serge several emails on other topics... I have not heard from him either.

 

RE:cplay dsd capability , posted on July 3, 2014 at 22:52:34
JBen
Audiophile

Posts: 3082
Location: South FL
Joined: May 18, 2008
Contributor
  Since: July 26, 2010
 The situation was to test a Schiit Loki USB DSD DAC that I only had for 4 days. This forced me to install Foobar & JRiver for the first time ever on the audio PC which was built to run cMP/cPlay...nothing else. It felt like I was violating somethin'! The tests did not last long enough for me to be "sure" about all this below, but this may indicate how badly I'd prefer to have cPlay do DSD playback, lest I be dragged down the dark path, LOL!

I must say that the Loki did a superb job (for its price) under Foobar with DSD material.

OTOH, with PCM material, it DID NOT as good as my non-DSD USB DAC and cPlay. Still, under Foobar upsampling (SOX) and converting to DSD, I suspect that I can live with it after it fully breaks in (and after "tweaks").

The cMP wrap does help and I wonder what the Loki could do if cPlay could see it in DoP mode or even PCM to DSD (which Foobar & JRiver facilitate).

Surprisingly, this cMP'd PC accepted the install of both Foobar & JRiver (v19) without major fuzz. JRiver lightens up in terms of loaded code, forced by how slimmed down the WinXP has been made. Mainly, by dumping much of its visual eye candy. As a result, it was the best sounding JRiver install I've ever heard....which still does not make it dear to me.

In any event, Foobar is lighter still in terms of code. As a result, this latest version of Foobar got damn close to the best that cPlay has had to offer. So close, in fact, that for the first time I am wondering...

...ahhh, the dark forces of convenience!

 

CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on April 30, 2013 at 23:52:33
sebnest
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: Berlin
Joined: April 30, 2013
 Hello,

I purchased the ASUS Xonar Essence One DAC and wanted resample with 192khz via USB. Unfortunately I've got Problems with the ASIO drivers as they are fixed in 16 bit, but Cplay and CMP just allow 32bit drivers.

I've read that foobar could solve the problem, as you can adjust the bit settings in the foobar options. But after the Installation I can't run foobar on my CMP² pc!

The fault message is as follows: The programm couldn't be started, because DSOUND.dll could not be found.

So I downloaded this dll file and pasted it into the foobar folder. Then the message disappeared. But then I get a new fault message:

Der Prozedureinsprungpunkt (in engl. procedure starting point?) "OpenVxHandle" couldn't be found in the DLL "KERNEL32.dll"

I use Windows XP. Could anyone help me?

Thank you very much.

Best regards,
Sebastian

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 16, 2013 at 23:20:22
audiodan@tiscali.it
Audiophile

Posts: 108
Location: Cagliari - Sardinia
Joined: July 7, 2009
 Hi sebnest
I'm using an excellent Asus ONE (and ST and STX too)from his launch on 2011 with a full cMP2 PC and I find this DAC really astoundig, specially if you fit 7 Burson opamp inside!
I cannot understand which kind of installation of XP pro you have done, if is a regular installation with cics' optimizations only,a nlite slimmed type, a Mihaylov or a steppe slimmed type, if is a SP2 ( I prefer it) or a SP3.
I think that it's very important to install the soundcard drivers and every program you need on a pure cMP2 and only after this step you'll can go towards other optimizations.
About ONE driver, you'll install not the last ones but the previous version in a regular cMP2 so, after the foobar installation, you'll search the ASIO options to set ASIO at 32 bit and 10ms. At this point you must have a perfect cMP2. Tell me if you'll have further problems
Daniele of Italian Forum of cMP2
http://www.nexthardware.com/forum/cmp2-cmp-cplay/

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 21, 2013 at 08:42:50
sebnest
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: Berlin
Joined: April 30, 2013
 Hi Daniele,

thank you for the post. I have sold the asus DAC in the meanwhile. I think I have installed XP SP3 Professional. I also use NLite and minlogon.

The problem was that I can't install foobar to adjust the Bit of the driver. I just got fault messages when I trief to install foobar.

Actually I use the "Kabelpeitsche" with the coaxial cabel, to use the 192khz.

Best regards,
Sebastian

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 01:16:31
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 I use Windows XP.

I built a setup for a friend who has a Asus Xonar Esssence PCI card. It wouldn't work with cPlay either as its drivers have the same bit-depth problem as yours but it has worked fine with F2K for over two years.

DSOUND.dll is normally found in C:\Windows\system32. Copying it there will probably uncover a new problem rather than fix the old one but it's a start . . .

I'm sure you know this already but, just in case, remember to edit the line in cicsMemoryPlayer.pth starting with CUE_PLAYER #N so it points to your F2K folder.

Dave

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 01:29:09
sebnest
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: Berlin
Joined: April 30, 2013
 Dear Dave,

thank you very much. What do you mean with F2K? Are these drivers? I don't know them.

And what do you mean with:
"edit the line in cicsMemoryPlayer.pth starting with CUE_PLAYER #N so it points to
your F2K folder. " ?

Much appreciate,
Sebastian

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 02:23:10
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 What do you mean with F2K?

Sorry about that. Being a bit lazy, I used "F2K" as an abbreviation for foobar (foobar2000), no more.

In C:\Program Files\cicsmemory_player (or wherever cMP is located) you'll find a file called cicsMemoryPlayer.pth. It points to various programs used by cMP.exe, one of them being, for obvious reasons, the music player.

By default, it points to cPlay.exe but, in your case, needs to point to foobar. It thus needs to be something like C:\Program Files\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe.

HTH

Dave

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 08:44:09
sebnest
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: Berlin
Joined: April 30, 2013
 I have a file with name: C:\Programme\cics Memory Player

There i find the pth data. Should I now add the foobar Part into this folder, or should I Overdrive the Cplay part?

I would write:
CUE_PLAYER #N "C:\Programme\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe" %C

Tranks for your help :-)

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 04:14:46
sebnest
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: Berlin
Joined: April 30, 2013
 I have a file with name: C:\Programme\cics Memory Player

There i find the pth data. Should I now add the foobar Part into this folder, or should I Overdrive the Cplay part?

I would write:
CUE_PLAYER #N "C:\Programme\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe" %C

Tranks for your help :-)

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 05:20:58
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 CUE_PLAYER #N "C:\Programme\foobar2000\foobar2000.exe" %C

Change the line that points to cPlay.exe to the above (assuming that's where you have installed foobar) so cMP launches foobar instead of cPlay.

Obviously, foobar has to be correctly installed beforehand. I suggest you ensure it works with your ASUS device in "XP Mode" (i.e. using the normal windows shell) before you configure cMP.

HTH

D

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 06:30:27
sebnest
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: Berlin
Joined: April 30, 2013
 Thank you. The prob. is that also in the normal XP "mode" I can't run foobar. I get the fault messages written in my first thread.

Maybe I abbort my try to connect the DAC via USB. I use the Juli@ via Coax Straight Wire Infolink cable and can run 192 kHz.

Or is USB really that much better?

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 07:29:55
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 The prob. is that also in the normal XP "mode" I can't run foobar.

I'm not competent to comment on ASUS/USB v juli@/SPDIF. However, the latter device would allow you to use cPlay which many feel sounds better than foobar and open you to getting help from the many inmates who have built cMP2 systems using it.

Is there any reason why you can't start again with your XP installation? That's what I'd do.

HTH

D

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 08:00:07
sebnest
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Location: Berlin
Joined: April 30, 2013
 CMP and CPlay are working fine together. I just wanted to use foobar to can adjust the ASIO driver from 16 to 32bit to can use the asus DAC via USB.

On the CMP of CPlay "level" I am not able to adjust the driver bitrate.

Thank you very much for your support. Maybe another user has the same konfiguration and can help?

Regards,
Sebastian

 

RE: CMP² and DAC ASUS Xonar Essence one + foobar, posted on May 1, 2013 at 08:41:12
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 I just wanted to use foobar to adjust the ASIO driver from 16 to 32bit

1. cPlay works with 32-bit data only;
2. The ASUS driver does not support 32-bit data;
3. Therefore cPlay does not work with the ASUS driver.

4. Foobar supports bit depths of 16 & 24 (& 32);
5. The ASUS driver supports bit depths of 16 & 24;
6. Therefore foobar works with the ASUS driver.

D

 

Has anyone compared running with disabled video and enabled network?, posted on January 18, 2013 at 12:54:11
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 What I mean is that there are obviously detrimental effects to pretty much anything - and that includes video adapter. Classic cMP recipe favors video, with control via KB/mouse/remote - with everything pertaining to networking disabled.

It seems logical to check whether the opposite approach does less harm. Of course, we're not talking about enabling WiFi, either onboard or via adapter - that would unacceptably degrade the sound quality, in my experience.

Instead, music PC is either hardwired to the router, or connected to wireless AP - with video adapter disabled in BIOS. Control is performed by a tablet with remote app specific to the media player.

Of course, disabled video can be major invonvenience, including inability to perform some functions on startup, that can't be automated via scripting - for instance, setting PCI latency with configuration tool.


Thoughts?

 

Here's what I'm going to try on new cMP build (awaiting parts):, posted on January 22, 2013 at 12:06:19
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 1. Classic cMP - no network, monitor attached, control via KB with touchpad

versus

2. No monitor, no KB, video adapter is either disabled (in BIOS or in Windows - whatever doesn't prevent XP from loading), or its impact is reduced by butchering Registry. PC hardwired to router, control via laptop for the lack of a tablet.

In preparation for cMP build, I'm doing some tests on AMD-based Windows 7 laptop, more or less optimized using cMP recipe, connected via Wyred4Sound uLink async USB-SPDIF converter. There, comparing sound quality with all networking hardware disabled, I clearly hear large negative impact of simply enabling 4 services required for wired networking - without even enabling hardware. The sound becomes duller, with reduced dimensions of the soundstage.

So, I guess my results are different from what's reported in this thread, and they don't look promising for networked solution. The only question is whether defeating video to some extent (if I'm successful at it on real cMP build) will outweight the negative impact of the network.

 

RE: Has anyone compared running with disabled video and enabled network?, posted on January 20, 2013 at 14:59:13
hfavandepas
 Hi Carcass93,
I could never hear any sound quality degradation when using the wired network on my cMP setup. I also don’t see much more latency when using wired network.

But I did hear a sound quality improvement when reducing the USB-polling frequency as suggested by Ryelands. And I also could see much more latency when moving the PS2 or USB mouse around. So I thought it would be nice if USB would not be needed at all and could be disabled in the BIOS.

When I started too power the ESI Juli@ digital part with separate clean power I also thought about polluted ground connections (I don’t mean the safety earth) so in the end I followed Cics recommendation to use a high quality optical connection between cMP and DAC for galvanic isolation. For this reason I also did not like my Sony Bravia LCD TV (which I use as PC monitor) being hardwired too my cMP via the VGA-connection.

But when disabling USB and disconnecting the VGA to my Sony TV, I have too look for some methode of remote control.
Using the wired network and the VNC server software on my cMP setup did not lower sound quality in my setup. Also there’s hardly any rise in latency.
I liked remote controlling my cMP setup with VNC very much. There are lots of VNC clients available for tablets and smartphones.

When inmates started slimming the XP OS software and reported very nice sound quality improvements, I tried too follow that recipe, but I hated how that crippled my cMP machine. Since other inmates reported very good results with running Music Player Deamon on a slimmed Linux OS (Puppy Linux), I switched too MPDPUP. Which has also lots of vey nice MPD-clients available for tablet and smartphones. I like the MPD-clients even better, than the VNC-remote controlling.

So in short:
I could not hear any sound quality degradation from using wired network. But I could hear sound quality degradation from using USB.
Not using a hardwired VGA connection to a (TV/PC)-monitor, did not give me any sound quality improvement, but I want it for ease of mind when thinking about clean power and clean grounds.

Mark

 

RE: Has anyone compared running with disabled video and enabled network?, posted on January 20, 2013 at 16:51:26
JBen
Audiophile

Posts: 3082
Location: South FL
Joined: May 18, 2008
Contributor
  Since: July 26, 2010
 LOL! Mark, your post comes as I was about to mention something that runs - seemingly - contrary to what you just said about USB. In fact, contrary to what I had expected, given other people's comments in the past. So, this is just reporting in process, not "saying". I'll post more details later as I dig deeper. For now, I am just curious if someone has seen this before.

To put it in some context, I am tweaking this new cMP/cPlay box. Previously, I used cPlay in my HTCP box. The phenomena I'll describe ALSO happened in the HTPC with cPlay, albeit too subtle for me to be sure. (I now suspect it was being masked by it not being a dedicated box like the cMP box.)

Here we go. In recent days, I've had my "test music selection" in the internal hard drive only. Yesterday, for the first time, I plugged my music USB drive to the new cMP box. I was bracing for a drop in SQ. It never happened. Just the opposite.

The USB drive beat the internal one. I spent last night and today confirming and trying various config variations. No dice. USB is beating internal.

Like I said, this is not new. It was happening before. The difference in the HTPC is so faint (but repeatable) that years ago I chalked it up to "astral strangeness"...not worth mentioning here. Yet, on the cMP box the contrast is remarkable.

It is interesting that the ONLY difference between the USB drive and the internal one is the degree of glare. The internal drive has more. The USB drive barely any. The violins give it away very quickly but it really is pervasive as one listens. Nothing else changes. This "glare" difference is easily heard in speakers and headphones.

In the new cMP box, the USB card is a USB-3. In the HTPC box, the USB card is USB-2. The external drive is USB-2 (WD MyBook). The internal drives are SATA. All drive or partitions where the music is located are NTFS. However, I just realized the main partition (of 2) on the cMP box is FAT32 (I now have to try placing music in there to see if it makes a diff). The cMP box has no Windows cache in disc (it is all memory)

After many tests, one nagging suspicion is that the phenomena "could" be caused by the AMD chipset on both mobos (same chipset but different motherboard brands & AMD CPU types, though). The HTPC runs Win 7 Pro. The cMP box is XP Pro.

On a related subject, I just found something surprising. If one leaves a USB cable unhooked from the computer but hooked to the USB drive, the cable projects a major electromagnetic field (detectable 1 foot+ away). When close to other audio equipment, it can affect SQ. However, once the cable is connected at the other end also (the PC), the field collapses.

This came about yesterday. The equipment started sounding funny at one point. I ran my trusty electric field detector around. Amazingly, it was from the music USB drive that I had unhooked from the HTPC an hour before (planning to connect it to the cMP box later). The drive box had a strong field but the USB cable itself carried it all over! More by instinct than by design, I plugged it into the cMP box. The field collapsed instantly.


 

I don't think it is contrary, posted on January 21, 2013 at 01:12:38
hfavandepas
 I don't think it is contrary
------------------------------
Hi JBen,
I don’t think what you are hearing is contrary with mine or other peoples
comments.

I suppose your internal SATA drive is a HDD-sata drive, not an SSD-sata
drive?
In my opinion you compare the electrical noise injected by the HDD-sata
drive with the electrical noise injected by the (self powered?) USB-HDD
drive.

Removing HDD’s from your cMP-setup and using a little internal SSD-sata
instead, will give you a sound quality improvement ‘bordering on the
absurd’. As one inmate here on the PC-asylum nicely described the sound
quality improvement he got, when he removed the HDD(s) from his cMP setup
and mounted a little SSD inside.

A side note: do you hear a sound quality improvement when you lower the
USB-polling frequency? You do not mention this.

Also I would preferably use a NAS too store my music-library on (NOT an
external USB-HDD). If your MoBo has a modern 1Gb/s Ethernet port and also
your NAS has a modern 1Gb/s Ethernet port, you can connect your NAS
directly too the ethernet port on your MoBo. No home-network or special UTP
crossover cable needed.

Chipsets and processors all do have their own sonic finger-print. But I do
not know if one chipset is more sensitive ‘sound quality wise’ too injected
electrical noise than an other. So I do not dare too speculate if it has
something too do with the chipset and processor you use.

“the cable projects a major electromagnetic field, when close to other
audio equipment, it can affect SQ.â€
That’s why I completely switched too pro-audio-gear. When using pro-audio
gear you can use shielded, balanced XLR connections system-wide. (although
my XLR VoVox direct-S interconnect wires between pre-amp and active
speakers are not shielded. But VoVox explicitly stats this on the package.
Since I use shielded mains cable everywhere and no other major
electromagnetic field sources are around (at least not any that I can think
off that would cause distortion), I dare too use these unshielded VoVox
direct S XLR-interconnects between pre-amp and active speaker.

Back to topic: I think you should first remove your HDD’s from your cMP
setups and change too a little SSD for OS only. Than check again what
impact the external USB-HDD has on sound quality.

Also start with bringing injected noise from the ATX-PSU further down
through simple filtering on the P4 and P24 (extra caps as describe by
Ryelands) or if funds allow use SOtM-filter sets. I have not tried SOtM
filters myself, but their concept is clear too me and people on the net in
audio-forum report these filters do work.

Mark

 

RE: I don't think it is contrary, posted on January 21, 2013 at 08:55:04
JBen
Audiophile

Posts: 3082
Location: South FL
Joined: May 18, 2008
Contributor
  Since: July 26, 2010
 Thanks, Mark. Yes, an SSD is in plans.

For now, I am going step by step into this; to gain a better feel for "what does what". Since, at its worse, the new cMP box is still better that the previous setup, I can live with a few weeks of incremental steps.

This USB external vs SATA internal is one curious thing...just one of more to come, I suspect. I should add that the USB drive that I tested with does have its own walwart switching power supply. These are nasty little fellows, as you know. Thus, it is intriguing that the darn drive still manages to out-smooth the SATA internal. Or, maybe that's just it! Maybe the fact that the SATA drive is inside the box, closer to the PS, is the cause. I'll be looking into it later (easy to place that drive "outside the box") LOL!

BTW, pending more strict testing, having the ethernet on vs off is not making an audible difference so far. However, I have not tried listening to files drawn from the network yet. I left testing this for last.

On the electromagnetic fields, I do have to be careful here. I have a very crowded setup and no XLR capability for now. Thus, all power cables are shielded and I also place much emphasis on cable management & routing. It is challenging but it works. However, the new cMP box is not yet inside this environment. I placed it far away enough such that once I maximize its capabilities, I'll know if something gets screwed up once it is in "its final place".

 

RE: Has anyone compared running with disabled video and enabled network?, posted on January 18, 2013 at 16:06:04
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 It seems logical to check whether the opposite approach does less harm.

It's a fair question. It's difficult to say whether it does more or less "harm" as it's hard meaningfully to compare the two setups. Eschewing "classical" cMP2 pretty well from the off, I've been running a "headless" cMP2-type system without KVM for several years. (There's a description of an early setup of mine on the cMP2 website.)

I can see no reason why using KVM and a PCI-based soundcard is inherently better than a headless setup that, say, pulls data over a LAN and outputs it via USB. Sure, there's a LAN overhead but, especially with a "super-slim" XP setup, it's pretty small.

Obviously, there's an overhead with video as well. Some users report sound improvements from unplugging the monitor, separately powering the mouse and keyboard and so on. That suggests there's something to be gained by not having them in the first place. So who's to say which is better?

I chose to go "headless" because it suits the way I use my system; I set it up as best I could (there's not much left to tinker with) and got on with, well, using it. The difference between a more-or-less "unslimmed" XP config and a full hair-shirt version is, I suspect, far more substantial than worrying about whether there's keyboard connected or not.

I forget who reported some trials on this (tests would be too strong a word) but he came to much the same conclusion. Ditto enthusiastic reports from folk who've gone from cMP2 to an mpdpup setup.

I'm not sure that XP (unless perhaps XP embedded) can even load if the video is disabled in BIOS but I have deleted a heap of video-related stuff in the Registry. If I connect a monitor to my audio PC, I get a blank screen - I can only access the PC via the LAN. There's certainly no Registry entries left for keyboard or mouse, unused USB ports, etc. Many entries associated with the one USB port that XP knows about have also been deleted. A good asynch USB-to-I2S is a big step up from a what's it called (adaptive?) but even that responds well to OS slimming. No doubt some will say (once a week for several years) that in an ideal world a DAC shouldn't be affected by the source but for now they are.

All this faffing about does make for great for clarity of sound but it won't win any prizes for its flexibile interface. Then again, my record deck can't run spreadsheets either.

HTH

 

RE: Has anyone compared running with disabled video and enabled network?, posted on January 18, 2013 at 20:31:01
JBen
Audiophile

Posts: 3082
Location: South FL
Joined: May 18, 2008
Contributor
  Since: July 26, 2010
 A few months ago a friend and I gave up on attempts to mod minixp into accepting USB the way I needed. I had been counting on this before jumping to cMP. (cPlay however, has been in use for years in a "compromised" HTPC box. It did very well if I ran some scripts and turned things off).

I then looked at "mpdpup" and salivated a little...but it will have to wait for the next upgrade cycle (no drivers for my current USB sound device).

So, recently, I put together the basic cMP box. I am still in the process of tweaking things.

Relative to the video, which I have at its most base setting, EVERY step on getting closer to remove it has brought added benefits.

However, I am mystified by an unexpected result. For now, to turn off the monitor, I use UltraVNC. I can then access the screen from a tablet or another PC.

The expectation was that using VNC (and its CPU load) would STILL damage the sound. Yet, even with the dual core CPU basically using one core and at 900Mhz, using UVNC still fails to change the sound character. It stays great! At this CPU speed, I can force minor dropout if I move the screen elements too suddenly...which the "remote" function makes easy to avoid.

OTOH, just turning the monitor on is enough for me to notice a slight degradation...which BTW does dot even register as a change in the Task Manager, if it is on. Yet, the same Task Manager yells out if UVNC is on. Nevertheless, the sound is virtually the same in all respects; tonally, dynamically and image-wise, etc.

The mystery got to me so bad that I've had to try different audio systems and various headphones instead of speakers to make sure, to the extent that I can. A neighbor even blind-tested me and I him...none of us could cath a difference repeteadly.

Has anyone seen anything like this before? BTW, UVNC is arriving via ethernet. The wireless access is elsewhere.

 

RE: Has anyone compared running with disabled video and enabled network?, posted on January 19, 2013 at 02:43:04
Ryelands
Audiophile

Posts: 1867
Location: Scotland
Joined: January 9, 2009
 BTW, UVNC is arriving via ethernet.

Thanks for an interesting note. If you're not already using UVNC's "mirror driver", it's well worth loading it onto the cMP2 box. Much like you, I don't find it makes for a difference in sound but do find it makes the system more responsive.

 

ESI Juli@ XTe (Juli@'s new PCIe version), posted on June 8, 2012 at 12:07:03
hfavandepas



Hi All,

Is there someone who already heard the new ESI juli@ XTe?
Can't find it on sale here in the Netherlands yet.

I'm specially interrested in the new digital section.

Looking at the product pictures I see changes at the voltage regulation section on the digital part right next too the X1 clock.


Mark

 

Carcass is right, ESI REALLY stuck to it's guns..., posted on June 25, 2013 at 21:02:32
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
 There's a thread up on the Tweaks Asylum where a guy is asking Q's about the PCI-e version of the Juli@ and posting some useful info (and I'm also communicating with him privately).

Key things so far:

1. Both the digital and analog sections are functionally very similar to the PCI version.

2. They do some filtering of the motherboard voltages. They also make the -12v from the +12v using a switching inverting regulator.

3. They have a PCI-e to PCI bridge on the card which is what allows them to basically use a very similar processing circuit to the PCI version Juli@.

IMHO, based on all of this, I don't see how the PCI-e version would be an upgrade over the PCI version on a motherboard with a PCI-e to PCI bridge. Plus it has an onboard switching regulator.

Maybe usage will prove me wrong. But I see no driving reason to try one as an alternative.

Greg in Mississippi



Everything matters!

 

I see they REALLY stick to their guns., posted on January 9, 2013 at 12:49:09
carcass93
Audiophile

Posts: 7181
Location: NJ
Joined: September 20, 2006
 The only question here is "Why?":

- coax SPDIF via breakout cables - the same as before
- no separate power connector - the same as before

Whereas commonly available ASUS Essence STX has both of those done right - and comes with proper 32-bit ASIO driver (lack of which was ASUS' downfall).

Frankly, this affection for Juli@ was puzzling to me 4 years ago - and it still is.

And, answering the obvious question whether I listened to the card myself - yes, I did, to unmodified PCI version, long time ago, right at the time it was recommended by cics. It was - in every way possible - sonically inferior to EMU 1212 and ASUS D2X, except for the ability to work with cPlay, which required 32-bit ASIO driver.

 

My experience was: the juli@ digital part works great when applied as Cics recommends, posted on January 11, 2013 at 06:48:16
hfavandepas
 Hi carcass93

I never bought/ heard the ASUS Essence because it initiately had no asio drivers available.

But I also had the EMU 1212 card, side by side with the Esi Juli@.
However I did never used the ESI Juli@ with the crummy coax SPDIF via breakout cables.
Right from the beginning I used the ESI Juli@ card as Cics recommends in his cMP-project: through the S/Pdif optical-out with a HIGH QUALITY optical glassfiber cable.
I frist tried the Juli@ digital part with the ‘plastic’ optical cable that came with my RME HDSP 9652 card. This sounded just okay.

After that I decided too buy an Lynx EAS16 digital interface card. The Lynx EAS16 too me sounded the best from what I had tried so far in 2008.

After 2008 I started too experiment with better power supply and I found that Cics recommendation always delivered as promised.
I also separately powered the ESI Juli@ with +5 and + 3.3 V (cutting the PCI-fingers and removing the onboard 3,3 V regulator).

I’m firmly route in the ‘Bits-is-Bits Camp, but finally I decided too follow the last recommendation from Cics cMP-project that I had not implemented so far: using a high quality glasfiber toslink cable.
I decided too buy the cheapest high quality optical cable: Van Den Hull opto coupler MKII. As I still was very sceptical.
I also wanted too have a 100% perfect galvanic-isolation between my cMP-pc and the Layry DAC / Klein & Hummel O300 active speakers.

But whow…. I now could hear what Cics meant. Some sort of home-coming. After this I sold of all my cards and settled on the separately powered ESI Juli@ with high quality Toslink.
Was it the galvanic-isolation? Was it the high quality glass-fiber toslink? Or Both?
I will never now, but it sounded WAY BETTER and every sound card I used for digital interfacing until than. So I sold them all.
Keeping the moded Juli@ digital part and the high quality glassfiber toslink.

In 2010 and 2011 a friend if mine was looking for better sound quality and invited me many times too join him on listening sessions. He also came by with demo machines he got too audition at his home, but he also took them too my home, too hook them up too my Klein & Hummels O300 active Speakers. This way I heard about every good (AD-)DA converter between $ 1.500 and $ 5.500. Mostly Pro-audio converters but also some DAC’s from HiFi origin (Perfect Wave, Ayre, NAD, and some others I forgot) My friend really took the time too work through his LONG ‘short-list’ :-)
Mostly I heard these converters through my friends MAC-book, using Pro-Logic as software player (I-tunes really sucks) and USB-out or Firewire-out) into my Klein & Hummels O300.

It was only than I started too realise how good Cics cMP Project was. A tweaked (separately powered) Juli@ digital part used with a high quality glasfiber toslink cable is a very high quality digital sound card interface. Even though you need an relative expensive high quality glasfiber optical cable, it’s is an very cost-effective high quality solution too transfer your music bits and timing bits from the PC too an external converter.

I now don’t use the cMP/cPlay software any longer but I still run the cMP-hardware.
On the cMP-hardware, I now run Music Player Demon (MPD) on a slimmed Linux version (Puppy Linux).
Put together: better known as the MPDPUP-project.
It outperforms the cMP/cPlay setup by a fair margin.
Especially on: micro-details, music texture and imaging.

But I still use ALL (!) lessons learned from Cics cMP-project.
- importance of clean power and galvanic isolation
- Don’t use more hardware and more software processes than strictly necessary.
So also:
- slimmed OS-es: slimmed XP / slimmed Linux (Puppy Linux)
- slimmed hardware: no keyboard, no mouse, no HDD or SSD, no VGA screen attached, etc.

I now try too figure out how I can boot puppy linux over my LAN with help of PXE booting.
This way it is no longer needed too boot MPDPUP from an USB-stick, which would allow for disabling USB in the bios.
From Cics project I learned and heard (!) how USB has a negative impact on sound quality.
(I don’t hear any negative impact on sound quality when using LAN)

Why this looooong story?
Too share through the Audioasylum that I found (out the hard way) that ALL (!) Cics recommendations do really work.
Including Cics firm recommendation too use the ESI Juli@ dgital part with a high quality glasfiber optical toslink cable.

Mark

 

RE: ESI Juli@ XTe (Juli@'s new PCIe version), posted on September 15, 2012 at 19:08:33
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
 I took a quick look at the PCI-E specs and see that it only provides +3.3v & +12v. So they are going to have to do some switching regulator & converter tricks to provide +5v (if it's still needed) -12v (for the analog Opamps), and a nicely-filtered +3.3v.

Curious to see what they do. But I suspect this version will not respond to separate-power mods as well as the PCI version.

Greg in Mississippi
Everything matters!

 

RE: ESI Juli@ XTe (Juli@'s new PCIe version), posted on June 11, 2012 at 21:57:34
Toni
Audiophile

Posts: 44
Location: NL
Joined: January 29, 2002
Hi Mark,

From the ESI forum:

We expect that Juli@ XTe will ship some time in late May or early June.

Toni

 

Cannot find a seller in the US, either, posted on June 8, 2012 at 23:46:42
rickmcinnis@dogwoodfabrics.com
Audiophile

Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
 I would like to give it a try, too.

I have a "regular" one on order that I have not received. I am going to try to change my order to this if it is really available.

After my experience with the H61 board and finding that what used to be "true" is not necessarily so it could well be that PCI-e might not have as many problems NOW as it might once have.

Thanks for the notice.

 

RE: Cannot find a seller in the US, either, posted on September 11, 2012 at 01:06:24
smicyta
Audiophile

Posts: 125
Joined: February 19, 2010
 >>>After my experience with the H61 board and finding that what used to be "true" is not necessarily so<<<<

I had change from H55M UD2H to a H61M S2P B3 + G440 combo and I would say that it is worse than the H55 + i540 combo in sonic quality, though Jack had reported otherwise. I wonder if it is due to the converter chip.

What is your experiences with the H61 against the H55 board?

Regards

 

Seemed much better to me ..., posted on September 13, 2012 at 06:25:14
rickmcinnis@dogwoodfabrics.com
Audiophile

Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
 I found it superior.

I removed the stuff JW recommended. He is using the CELERON version of the cpu, I am not.

I had removed the same stuff from my H55 board so it was a fair comparison, if such a thing is possible with audio assessments!

What is the converter chip you mention? I do not know what you mean. Are you referring to the PCI bridge? If so that is what I was referring to - I think we might have overstated the importance of a dedicated PCI link.

But, who knows? AS with all in this crazy obsession what works for one system could very well not be so good for another.

 

RE: Seemed much better to me ..., posted on September 14, 2012 at 08:22:20
smicyta
Audiophile

Posts: 125
Joined: February 19, 2010
 Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I was referring to the PCI bridge.

Maybe for my case it could be that I am too acclimatized to the sound of upsampling to 192kHz via SRC 145dB which is now not possible with the Celeron processor.

regards

 

But I am not using the CELEERON processor and I, too, unpsample, posted on September 18, 2012 at 14:06:18
rickmcinnis@dogwoodfabrics.com
Audiophile

Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
 are we missing each other's points?

 

Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on May 27, 2012 at 11:24:55
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
 Well, with the help and EXTREME assistance of Grant, I've joined the Super-Slimmed cMP/cPlay world. That plus his foray into memory timings have made for some significant improvements in my unit's sound… dare I say a 'breakthough' level of improvement?

Given that and also given that I've not gotten any further on MoBo Mods with the older G31 boards both Grant and I have, I've decided to move up to the H61M-S2H series Mobo (which will force me to do some MoBo Mods).

But both of these have left me with some questions... And a few musings...

1. For a die-hard Juli@ user, the GA-H61M-S2H board is the right one, correct? And according to JackWong, I want the 1.2 revision, not the 1.3?

2. Rick, I know you had commented about the trials of getting an adapter to use your old processor cooler on the new socket. Did you ever find one or did you resort to buying a new cooler?

3. I know several of you have DOMs now... And more than a few have SSDs. And I bet even more than a few have both DOMs & SSDs. My question is what configuration has turned out to be the best optimization of the tradeoffs for a super-slimmed system with no networking? Small DOM, midsized SSD, larger HDD? Small DOM, larger HDD? I'm leaning towards the first of these, but that means that I have to turn on both sets SATA inputs in the BIOS & will mean a slightly larger driver & Windows footprint. I wish I could buy a sufficiently large SSD to hold my music, but those are still, sadly, out of my budget! What I can afford is a small DOM for the OpSys, a medium SSD (128Gb - 256Gb) for my favorite music, and a 1TB or more 2.5" HDD for the rest of my music. I'd power all from a separate 5v supply initially and split it into multiple supplies later.

Then on the musings side... First I was not fully prepared on how disabled the Windows setup is with a 'Super-Slimmed' system. I had been looking for a wireless mouse that I could use with a PS/2 port... But without the CICSREMOTE, it is just a mouse. So I'm currently using a PS/2 keyboard, separately-powered of course, and using the keyboard commands. I've been looking at ways to do a better command input with remote capability using the keyboard... I was going down the path of hacking a keyboard and using a remote board with relay outputs to select the different keys. Key combos would require a little circuitry to enable, but was all doable. But talking with the owner of one of the companies that made the relay-output remote boards, he turned out to be an audio buff who did a lot of work setting up fancy HT systems. He had a better suggestion... Get an older IR-connected wireless keyboard, use a learning remote to learn the signals for each of the command keysets, make sure it's a sophisticated-enough remote that you can program multiple key outputs into a single remote key press, and voila', you have a remote-control for a cMP! Brilliant idea! And much cheaper & easier than the path I was taking.

I have some IR-connected wireless keyboards on the way to try out.

2nd musing... I can recommend the daily thought-posts on various aspects of Audio and the Audio Business by Paul McGowen of PS Audio. You can see them here: http://www.pstracks.com/category/pauls-posts/ and there's a somewhere on that page link to subscribe to them as I do. In one interesting post a few weeks ago (http://www.pstracks.com/pauls-posts/software-jitter/6180/) Paul was talking about 'software-induced jitter'. Hmmm... Where have I heard of that before? And the interesting thing was that from a hardware manufacturer's perspective, their solution was to increase the power supply count and reduce the potential for interaction between various sections of their transport's & DAC's circuits. Hmmmm... That suggests some JackWong-ish additional MoBo mods based on his separate-powering of the memory!

Finally, I have been very remiss in reporting the current status of my extreme Juli@ mods... And will stay that way for a bit, need to leave the house for awhile, but will try to get that update posted later today or tomorrow!

Thanks for all the work, all the answers, and all the fellowship!

Greg in Mississippi

Everything matters!

 

RE: Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on January 29, 2013 at 07:35:10
mrporcelain
Audiophile

Posts: 222
Location: Victoria
Joined: April 1, 2005
 This is possibly a stupid question, but in cmp can you use keyboard shortcuts to shutdown the PC? Does Alt+F4 work? I don't have one currently connected to try it out.

 

IR-wireless keyboards with learning macro/activity-capable remotes update..., posted on June 9, 2012 at 18:48:58
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
 Everyone, thanks for your responses.

Update on the IR-wireless keyboard / learning remote experience...

First, for a slimmed-down system, I now consider a remote keyboard a minimum for controlling the beast... If for nothing else, if you use the cPlay volume control like I do, it provides listening position volume (and balance) changes. I went with IR-wireless keyboards because of trying to control them with learning remotes, but you can go with an RF-wireless keyboard if you want. But a side-benefit of the IR-wireless is a little less RF pollution floating around in your listening room.

So that part is to me, an unqualified success. I've tried two different types of keyboards and the one I am using going forward is this one:

http://www.dsi-keyboards.com/solidtek-ir-wireless-keyboard-with-built-in-trackball-ack-571.aspx

The 573 model appears to be the same thing. DSI keyboards does not list it, but I've seen them on Ebay.

I also picked up a 2nd, used one from this manufacturer from Ebay that had a trackball instead of a pointer. Both will work with both receivers, so they haven't changed the protocol.

Two pluses to this one... First, you CAN get it from a retail source (IR-wireless keyboards are pretty rare nowadays). And second, it actually sounded better, even being separately powered, than the other I tried (also used from Ebay, a Sejin Earthwalk... Listing here:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/370584786218?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

I did not expect this at all... I had received the Sejin keyboard first and compared it to my wired keyboard. I couldn't hear an obvious difference, but over time, the system didn't excite me like it had before adding it. Still, I persisted, thinking it was something like weather or my moods (I was freshly recovering from knee surgery then). A few days later, both of the Solidtek ones arrived. I could immediately hear an improvement... In fact, I felt they sounded better than the wired keyboard! Weird. I'd guess it has something to do with digital noise fed back into the Mobo by the dongle, but in any case, I'm happy with the sound and not gonna spend much time fussing with it.

OTOH, success with the learning remote has been illusive, but not impossible. So far I've tried two brands of currently-available learning remotes that support macros (also known as 'Activities'), one from RCA and another from Logitech. The RCA one has learned two commands out of perhaps 30 tries and I can't get it to learn them consistently. The Logitech one did not learn any commands.

I've also tried a couple of software packages that emulate remotes on older handheld computers. One was TotalRemote by Griffin Software (who currently makes remote software for the Iphone, along with other handy toys for your smartphones) and it included a hardware dongle that fit into the handheld computer's headphone out jack. They provide this because even tho most of the older handhelds of the early-to-middle 2000's had IR ports, those ports were generally not suitable for consumer remote use.

I tried this software along with the dongle with Compaq IPAQ 3730 and 3740 handhelds, and also with an HP IPAQ 2210. It would memorize the keyboard commands, but the keyboard's dongle never recognized them or even saw them (the 'activity' LED did not flicker). Then the 2210 also had a consumer-level IR port and that was an option for outputting the commands from TotalRemote. This too did not work.

But the 2210 also included a piece of SW pre-installed call Nevo, from Unversal Electronics. That SW DOES both memorize the commands from the IR keyboard AND controlled the system through the dongle. SUCCESS!!! But at several prices... Not least of which is that to duplicate this, a person would need to purchase one of these HP IPAQ 2210's or a similar model with the Nevo SW (making sure that it ACTUALLY had the Nevo software on it before laying money down... I've seen reports that some firmware updates to these devices erased the Nevo SW). I've looked for and found a number of then IPAQ 2210's on US Ebay for $25-$90 USD. Some other IPAQ models also included this software... You can find more info on this Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPAQ

Do note that the one I have has the 2.0 version of the software. Some of other listed came with the older version and I can't guarantee that they'll work. Actually, I can't really guarantee that any ones but the 2100 will work... But the other models with Nevo 2.0 are probably worth a try.

The other cost is in command delivery speed. The Nevo SW is slow, at least on the 2210. This is not an issue with many commands, but where you need to transmit several-to-many sequential commands, it can feel very slow. Nevo transmits multiple commands at a rate just under one a second when you tap the command button on the screen multiple times. Macros, where you've recorded a sequence of multiple commands that are transmitted via one button tap are almost 2X slower. In comparison, the same commands from the keyboard are transmitted about as fast as you can key them... And I suspect that a hardware remote, if one can be found, will at least be faster than the SW solution.

So there IS currently a path to a fully-remote cMP via a learning remote and an IR-wireless keyboard. It is limited by the models of keyboard (for good sound) and models of remote (for ones that work). Both are a little pricer than I'd like... For example, the Solidtek keyboard new from DSI Keyboards is $40, while various other used IR wireless keyboards on Ebay can be 1/2 that. Then the handhelds with the Nevo SW will likely be at least $40 or more, once you get a new battery for the unit (any LiPo pack that came with one of these handhelds will be dead by now). Learning, macro/activity-capable hardware remotes can be had for under $20, the Logitech one I tried was a model 600 and just under $50. Then the current solution is also not as usable due to the limited command transmission rate. But it does work and is pretty darned cool!!!

I'm reaching out to the guy who told me about this technique to see if he knows of any other HW remotes that may work with the IR keyboards. Hopefully he will know or will be willing to let me send my spare keyboard to him so he can try any remotes he has on-hand (he's been doing HT installations for some time, he might have a variety of ones in his junk box). If anyone out there has a learning remote and wants to try it with the IR keyboard, but you don't want to buy one, I'm willing to send my spare out to people in North America to try.

And if anyone can locate any other brands of IR wireless keyboards, they'd be worth trying. But I'm staying away from the Sejin myself, based on my SQ results with it.

Gack, another ultra-long post. Gonna quit for the night!

Later!

Greg in Mississippi
Everything matters!

 

So how do these work?, posted on June 10, 2012 at 06:40:56
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Hey Greg very interesting. Is the software on the remote? Is the keyboard also replaced? I get that it can be externally powered but don't understand how it works and it works with a JW slimmed done system wow....gotta get me one of those. Do you just replace existing remote/keyboard or do you have to start JW from the beginning so that its part of the system?

 

Sorry, I can see I left out some important details..., posted on June 10, 2012 at 10:19:01
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
 Short answers... yes, the software is on the remote, the keyboard needs to be replaced with a IR-wireless one, and because it is a standard PS/2 keyboard, it doesn't require any changes to a JW slimmed down system. No need to redo the slimming... just replace the keyboard.

Now, for the gory details...

First, cPlay (and Windows) can be entirely controlled by keystroke commands. The cPlay keystroke commands (except 'k' & 'l' for balance, which were documented in the cPlay release that added these keystrokes) are documented online on the cPlay Guide page ( http://www.cicsmemoryplayer.com/index.php?n=CPlay.Guide ). And I am sure that the stock windows keystroke commands are documented somewhere, but I've known the ones I needed for a long time, so I never tried to hunt the entire list down.

But to make it easy and put them all in one place, here are the keystroke commands you need to know:


Navigation in a list (of Genres, Performers, Recordings, or Tracks, depending on where you are):

Up Arrow = up one line

Down Arrow = down one line

Page Up = up to the top of the current or previous page

Page Down = down to the bottom of the current or next page

Home = up to the top of the list

End = down to the bottom of the list

Enter = open/play highlighted list item



Playback control:

p = toggle play / pause

. = stop

[ = Jump to Previous Track

] = Jump to Next Track

- = Skip Backwards

= = Skip Forwards

Esc = Exit playback (this works only when the cPlay window is not
minimized)

Alt - F4 = Exit playback (this works in all situations)

Alt+Space, then N = minimize window

Alt+Space, then R = restore (maximize) window



Volume/Balance/Phase:

Shift+Home = volume up (I hit these keys at the same time on the keyboard

Shift+End = volume down

; = toggle phase 0 / 180

k = balance right

l = balance left (These may be reversed, I'm not sure)

All of these are built into Windows, cMP, and cPlay and need no special programs to enable. They are there now. You don't need to redo the slimming process for this to work. All of these options work with the any PS/2 keyboard and standard PS/2 keyboard driver that is enabled on all super-slimmed cMP/cPlay machines. No additional software or drivers needed.

For us super-slimmed users with no USB, at the minimum you want to get a PS/2-connected wired keyboard. Although I've not checked, I believe these are still available new and definitely available in New-Old Stock and used. Also, many USB keyboards will work through a USB-PS/2 adapter.

But the bonus is setting up for remote command of your cMP/cPlay machine.

One way is just to get a wireless keyboard. If you just want to control it by entering keyboard commands, either an IR or RF (typically 900Mhz or 2.4Ghz) keyboard will work. The trick here is to find a PS/2-connected wireless keyboard. USB keyboards should work through a USB-PS/2 adapter, but I have not tried this. But IMHO, if you have a choice between IR or RF, you'll likely have a better chance at no SQ hit with IR. The only drawback to IR is that it is line-of-sight (where RF can be transmitted from the next room in most cases)

And since these are still PS/2-connected keyboards, they work with the driver already in your super-slimmed cMP/cPlay system.

Then the gold is in using a remote device to send the keyboard commands to the PS/2-connected, IR wireless keyboard's dongle. This provides you with a smaller, more convenient remote device AND keys that correspond to what you want to do, so you don't have to remember that you enter Shift+Home for Volume Up. You just hit the 'Volume Up' key on the remote! KEWL, huh?

And this is where I'm a little stuck so far. To do this, you need a learning, macro/activity-capable remote that will learn AND transmit the keyboard commands. With the keyboard that I've used, I've only found one remote that works... An HP IPAQ 2210 with the Nevo remote software. Other remotes MIGHT work with other keyboards... But since I only have two types and one sounds better in my system, I'm sticking with better sounding one. Other IPAQs with the Nevo 2.0 software will likely also work... See the link to the IPAQ Wiki in my previous where it lists those models. And the guy who turned me onto this trick said that it was something he had commonly done, but did suggest that he generally used higher-end learning remotes in these setups (which can range from $50-$500).

My suggestion for those who want to do this today is to get one of the keyboards I recommended in my previous post, setup a separate power PS/2 extension using batteries (I'd suggest disposable D-cells to start), and get one of the HP IPAQs that is listed as coming with the Nevo 2.0 software in the IPAQ Wiki. The IPAQ 2210 definitely works, but I strongly expect that any of the other models with the Nevo 2.0 software will work ok. If someone tries this, I'm happy to work with you to get your remote working right.

Then, if you want to help in the search for alternate remote, try other learning remotes to see if they can learn and then transmit the commands to these keyboards (I typically try the Skip Back '[' and Skip Forward ']' keys as my test cases as they are easy to program and hear the results if they work). Try any learning remotes you have around the house, any your friends might have, any you can purchase and easily return if they don't work. Again, I've tried both RCA (RCRN06GR) and Logitech (Harmony 600) remotes, along with the old Griffin Techologies Total Remote (which you won't find anyway). And there are other smartphone options today, such as Griffin Technologies' Iphone / Android phone remote devices.

Here's the pix of my remote screen:












Theob, I know this was a long answer to your questions, but I hope I've given the basic info that I left out in the beginning.

Later!

Greg in Mississippi
Everything matters!

 

RE: Sorry, I can see I left out some important details..., posted on June 10, 2012 at 16:23:18
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Hey Greg,

Nice post along with your earlier one!!

Crazy question. Why a keyboard over a mouse? Assuming that one can find an wireless IR mouse, is there a benefit of a keyboard vs the mouse, or a keyboard is just easier to find in IR??

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

Here's why..., posted on June 10, 2012 at 17:36:31
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
 Several reasons I've moved towards keyboards instead of a mouse...

1. As you suggested, IR mice seem to be rarer. One thing I pointed out that is worth repeating... All three of the keyboards I've gotten so far have built-in pointers... Two have trackballs, the other (the one I got new from DSI-Keyboards instead of used on Ebay) has an oversized pointing button. I don't plug them in and use them most of the time, but it is nice to have them in the same physical package. To use, insert the PS/2 mouse plug into the Mobo & reboot. In the super-slimmed setup I'm using, the mouse is needed for updating the settings in both cMP & cPlay... But all playback activities can be performed by a keyboard, as I laid out in the post above. Do note that the pointing devices in these keyboards are only 2-button ones, but that doesn't matter as much without cicsremote.

2. In a super-slimmed setup where you have removed cicsremote and disabled the ability to use it, a mouse is just a mouse and no longer provides shortcut commands that cicsremote facilitated (basically what cicsremote does is translate specific mouse button pushes & movement commands into keystokes to drive the cMP, cPlay, & Windows keyboard shortcuts). So while a mouse can be used remotely if it is an IR or RF wireless one, it doesn't transmit specific commands... You select list items and press buttons to make the system do what you want. That means that you have to leave the command buttons in the cPlay display... And the super-slim setup I have from Grant does not have these. It also puts a higher premium on being able to see the pointer and where it is on the screen relative to the list items or command buttons... Less of an issue with a keyboard, in many cases I can transmit most or all of the commands I want without having to see the screen. For example, I don't need to see the screen to minimize or maximize, start or end playback, raise or lower volume, or swap phase. With a mouse, I need to put the pointer on the right buttons or area on the screen to do any of these.

3. Related to the previous point, while you can use a learning remote (within limits) to send the discrete keyboard commands, that doesn't work for a mouse, since what it sends are not absolute discrete commands, but largely directions except when the mouse buttons are pressed. So the mouse is the only remote option... With the drawbacks above.

4. In my setup and with the mice and keyboards I tested, I got a SQ hit with all of the PS/2 mice I tried relative to any of the PS/2 keyboards I tried. I don't know why, but the newest mouse was the worse sounding, the older mouse was better, the PS/2-connected trackpad was best, but all were worse than any of the keyboards. When testing, each was used alone and each was separately powered.

The main thing that drove me to work through this was that the super-slimmed setup I'm using does not retain the playback control buttons on cPlay, so I had no way to change volume with just a mouse. I have a fairly 'hair-shirt', super transparent 5 step shunt attenuator using a Daven silver-contact switch with a nude Vishay in each channel as the series element. But five steps does not provide a lot of volume-setting finesse AND it sounds best with the volume all the way up anyway. So I generally listen with it set to the max volume & adjust the volume level with cPlay's volume control. When I started using this super-slimmed setup, I couldn't do that with only a mouse... Hence searching for & starting to use the keyboard commands and then searching for a way to do that both remotely AND easier than picking up a keyboard & keying the various keystrokes needed.

Later!

Greg in Mississippi
Everything matters!

 

RE: Sorry, I can see I left out some important details..., posted on June 10, 2012 at 13:28:10
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Outstanding answer thanks!

 

RE: Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on May 29, 2012 at 07:55:12
rickmcinnis@dogwoodfabrics.com
Audiophile

Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
 Don't remember when JW mentioned which revision of the board was recommended. I suspect when he bought the board he got what was available.

Getting an adapter is not a problem if your heatsink has hole spacing that will fit the new footprint of the socket. If it doesn't I doubt you will be able to use an adapter anyway. If it does look at the mfg's website.

I had been using SATA DOM (128mb) with my previous FAT32 JW install. Over the weekend I converted to NTFS, and YES the micro-shell will work with NTFS just as Serge said it would BUT for some reason the same install I had made with an OCZ SSD will not work when copied onto the DOM. Same procedure I have used for several installs that were all FAT32 - but now with the NTFS install it says there is a disk problem. I deleted and created the partition a few times, used different sizes of partitions, can't remember the name of the thing with the numbers but I tried DEFAULT and 4096 and it made no difference. I can find nothing on the web that hints at a problem using NTFS and DOM SATA but I am having a problem.

I used the DOM just for the sake of eliminating clutter. I do not hear any difference. With the FAT32 installs I used a 50mB partition for both the OCZ and the DOM. But, if you are to use FAT32 you should not have any problem at all.

I went to NTFS after Serge mentioned how much memory FAT32 uses for the HDD. I have no idea what this means but I thought why not try it? I do not hear any difference and if there is one it is so minor that my ears have forgot what the old one "did". I still have a music HDD in FAT32 so I will eventually try them both but at this point I am not motivated to do it. The NTFS version sounds very good.

Taking the components off is actually pretty easy once you resign yourself to do it. One thing I did that gave me confidence is to makes some heatsink/shields with copper sheeting to guard components you do not want to remove. I used a MAKITA heatgun that had an 0.5 inch accessory nozzle made focusing the hear easier.

There is no question the H61 is superior. And it will make life much easier on your power supply.

Are you going with the single or dual core processor? That is the big decision. Also, update the BIOS. They recently added a new update.

 

RE: Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on May 29, 2012 at 16:03:33
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
 Does your SATA DOM (128mb) take power from SATA plug?

Is anyone using a SATA DOM which take power from SATA and with what mobo?

 

No, there is a plug for the 5 volts, posted on May 29, 2012 at 19:07:21
rickmcinnis@dogwoodfabrics.com
Audiophile

Posts: 3040
Location: Atlanta
Joined: December 15, 2003
 I would rather power it myself than have it powered by the MB.

 

What Theob asked, posted on May 27, 2012 at 21:36:30
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 and how do you power a ps/2 mouse separately?

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on May 27, 2012 at 16:32:29
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Hey Greg what's a DOM? Glad to see you have done the jw system...really great sounding.

Although after some tweaking I got mine really sounding good then I went to see a Detroit Symphony concert sitting 2nd row center. The dynamics were so frightening I could not believe. Had to stop listening to my system for a few days to decompress. I am fully decompressed now loving my system once again.

 

RE: Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on May 28, 2012 at 09:10:22
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
 For both Theob & Dawnrazor...

A DOM (Disk On Module) is a small solid-state harddrive in a form-factor designed to fit directly on either the SATA plug or the IDE plug on a motherboard. The IDE ones are powered via the 5v IDE pins. The SATA ones supposedly have 2 flavors... Ones that are powered via a separate connection & ones that are powered via pin 7 on the SATA port. I don't understand the latter... As best I can find, there is no power on the SATA port. However, they sell them, so I must be missing something.

Several people have considered or gone to them... rickmcinnis@dogwoodfabrics.com, jackwong96, Mihaylov, and Douwe01nl. From the little info I can glean, using a small DOM (128Mb or so) for the boot volume of a slimmed-XP cMP setup can yield sonic improvements. Some useful reading on the topic are in the following:

http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/10/109063.html

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=pcaudio&m=98676

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=pcaudio&m=101320

And the main source mentioned is:

http://www.memorydepot.com/ssd/listcat.asp?catid=satadomD150SV


Then for separate-powering a mouse or keyboard, the PS/2 connector provides +5v. Easiest way to separate-power them is:

1. Get a PS/2 extension cable.

2. Carefully strip back a couple of inches of the cable's outer insulation about 1" or so from the plug that goes into the motherboard.

3. Plug the cable into a powered motherboard.

4. Using a meter on DC voltage, carefully measure the red wire to ground on the PC (back of the case) to confirm it is the 5v wire. If it is not, measure the other color wires until you find the 5v wire. (Note that this is important... I used a PS/2-to-PS/2 power takeoff adapter I had from an old peripheral and it had the color code reversed!)

5. Also carefully measure the black wire to ground to confirm there is no voltage on it, then use the meter to confirm continuity between the black wire and ground on the PC.

6. Once you have the 5v wire and ground wire, cut the 5v wire and connect a 5v source to the side that will go to the mouse or keyboard. Easiest is a battery-holder for 4 D-cell batteries... Typically keyboards & mice are pretty low-power devices and while I've not tried them, 4 D-cells should last awhile... And likely be a pretty good sounding power source. Connect the ground of the 5v source to the ground wire, but do not cut it. Just carefully strip back some insulation. (I use the DIY 5v DC power supply that used to power my USB ports for the wireless mouse & screen's touchpad.)

7. Insulate your connections. These are low-voltage, so good electrical tape works as does heatshrink.

Note that generally the keyboard or mouse has to be plugged in and powered when you boot the PC for it to recognize the device.

I've found small SQ improvements by separate-powering either or both my mouse or keyboard. But I got larger improvements selecting mice... for me none was best, any mouse was worse than none, separate-powered or not.

I tried three mice, a new-ish PS/2 with a bright blue LED, an old USB via a USB-PS/2 adapter, and an old PS/2-connected trackpad. The new mouse sounded the worse, the trackpad was best... But still better was to just use the keyboard and leave the mouse disconnected

Note that I did NOT try various keyboards for SQ impact, but suspect the simpler, older ones will work better here too.

More later!

Greg in Mississippi

P.S. Theob, yah, listening to live music will ruin your stereo for you for awhile UNLESS you have a MUCH better stereo than most of us have (or can afford!)


Everything matters!

 

RE: Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on May 28, 2012 at 10:14:34
theob
Audiophile

Posts: 3180
Location: ann arbor michigan
Joined: November 4, 2000
 Thanks Greg

 

RE: Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on May 28, 2012 at 09:50:23
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Thanks Greg,

DUH that all makes sense. I thought you were doing it at the mobo not at a cable.

One thing just to check my reading, is that the ground is still connected to the computer, you are just tapping in from the new psu right??

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: Moving up to the H61 boards & slimmed-system HW Questions & Musings..., posted on May 28, 2012 at 13:21:51
GStew
Audiophile

Posts: 633
Location: NE Mississippi
Joined: September 21, 2001
 Dawnrazor,

Yes, you need to keep a ground connection between the mouse/keyboard and the motherboard AND also connect the 5v supply to that ground connection. The only connection you are cutting is between the motherboard 5v connection to the mouse/keyboard in the extension cable and connecting the mouse/keyboard side to the 5v supply.

Of course, if you wanted to get REAL fancy, you could setup an optical or GMR isolator on the data lines and break the ground. But I REALLY don't think that would be worthwhile. (Don't think I haven't considered it, tho!)

Later!

Greg in Mississippi
Everything matters!

 

Atom-Asrock revisited, posted on May 18, 2012 at 14:51:24
Douwe01nl
Audiophile

Posts: 71
Location: Amsterdam
Joined: September 29, 2011
 Hi all, some time ago i posted about an Atom-based Asrock-mobo which sounds very good, i thought mainly because of simplicity combined with good power handling (6 chokes, which is very nice for Atom boards).

For what it's worth (not many Asrock users), this AD525PV3 has a few nice bios features i explored just lately.

One is rComp-settings which took me some time to understand. Some time ago i asked the Asrock-guys about rComp, but they directed me to the seller (which i didn't try yet).
With rComp setting you can change the way the memory controller handles traffic between CPU and RAM. What i understand of it is that the memory controller compensates fluctuations in board temperature, CPU-load, and measures every n milisec (i don't know what is the standard interval). By changing the settings from auto to 00h the interval is longest (or maybe switch off the measurements) resulting in less traffic and subtle better SQ.

Other bios settings are about the sata SSD (i use 1GB Disk on Module, fed by LiFePo4 battery).
Bios allows to change PIO-setting (0,1,2,3,4).Its about bandwidth and speed of data transfer. Modern disks have PIO 4, which means they can transfer data at high speeds, at cost of CPU-activity.
When setting PIO to 0 CPU gets more rest, which should be beneficial to SQ, and it is (in my setup).

Third is UDMA-setting of harddisk. Asrock bios allows me to change UDMA6 (high transfer speeds) to MWDMA0 (Multi Word DMA). This changes the data transfer cycle time from 15 nano sec (UDMA 6) to 480 nano sec (MWDMA 0).

Result of the PIO and DMA tweaks is better SQ, subtle, but definitely there, enough for a satisfied smile.

Douwe
(CMP setup: Junaids iso, awe, maxmem, pmtimer, minint)

 

Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on April 26, 2012 at 18:58:30
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 I looked in the archives but everytime there is a rec, the board is unavailable.

What does one look for outside of a pci slot these days?

I am looking to buy from Newegg.com or amazon.com so ideally they would be available there.

Also my 55/ I3 cmp2 box didnt quite work out. It could never upsample past 192k where the 31/e7400 had no problems, and ideally I would be able to upsample with the new board/ cpu combo.

Thanks!!



Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on September 3, 2012 at 00:45:19
zoran.obrad@gmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Joined: March 6, 2012
 Thank you Bilbo01,
only one more qustion on this ( italian )url
it is for h67m but is it for h61m good as well
Zoran

 

RE: Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on September 3, 2012 at 16:51:01
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
 Right there is a thread on a Gigabyte h61m-d2-b3
It seems that sometimes the H61 models have a bios with less options.
However, procedures are the same.

 

RE: Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on September 3, 2012 at 00:55:16
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
 Yes.
:-)

 

RE: Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on June 9, 2012 at 08:35:42
play-mate
Audiophile

Posts: 948
Joined: November 21, 2008
 Hi Dawnrazor,

As reported earlier, the 61´ chipset is really "formidable" !
It supports the i3 -2100T or -2120T CPU´s on the 1155 socket.

These CPU´s have integrated graphics and have extremely low power consumpsion...and this benefits the PSU and traffic on the board.
These two should be avaliable in the US :

GA-H61M-S2H or
GA-H61M-DS2H

The BIOs settings are slightly different, since many of the voltage controls are simplified.
I can provide the settings if you go ahead.

greetz L.
Hysolid // Mytek Brooklyn // Spectron Musician III // Analysis Audio Omega

 

RE: Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on August 31, 2012 at 10:16:34
zoran.obrad@gmail.com
Audiophile

Posts: 7
Joined: March 6, 2012
 As I want to upgrade my previous GIGABYTE mobo (cant remember model ) + E7400 to
GA-H61M-DS2H + i3 -2100T can you please provide BIO`s
settings
Thanks in advance
Zoran

 

RE: Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on August 31, 2012 at 16:23:51
Bibo01
Audiophile

Posts: 648
Joined: December 18, 2008
 The following link should be helpful to you. It comes from cMP2 Italian site.

 

RE: Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on June 9, 2012 at 11:49:44
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Hey L,

Thanks I found the s2h and ordered it. What blind faith I have :)

I'll e-mail if I have any questions on the bios.

THANKS!

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: Mobo and cpu recommendations, posted on May 11, 2012 at 14:07:42
Laurent D.
Audiophile

Posts: 8
Location: Nantes, Fra.
Joined: July 23, 2011
 Hi Dawnrazor,

Well, I tried with a wav file with SoX/HQ. No way. (Also I looked at the CPU % using flac & 145 dB, resampling from 44 to 48 : 4%)

Is there anything to do educate the culprit ? I was thinking of disabling HDMI (I was suspecting on my side that it would see the upsampled stream as some illegal content ie did not allow it to pass by).

About the DPC latency results, does this depend of the settings implemented ?(I mean would CMP settings improve it or is the mobo simply the wrong choice ?) Will a dedicated soundcard improve this ?
(By the way, why is this latency poor for a CMP set up ? Is this explained in Cics web pages ?)

Core I3 hyperthreading: Any good/bad influence ?

The funny thing is that, this happened only twice, I had Cplay to play @ 96kHz, but it was only glitches, and on the folowing start, again the same issue).

See the pictures below. What do you think of the sampling rates mentionned on both cases ? (for the ASIO4all pic, In some circumstances it is shown 8x 192kHz instead of 8x48kHz, but It does not work either; the 2nd pic is obtained using ASIOCaps software).









One thing also, using the Hardware Buffer in ASIO4All is not good, (results in ASIOCaps then states only 44 and 48 kHZ are supported ! the above pic was obtained without hardware buffer), whereas on my previous mobo/cpu, if I remember correctly, Hardware Buffer was a key setting to get 192 kHZ).

Laurent

 

New GA-H77M-D3H: issues with resampling., posted on May 8, 2012 at 13:36:09
Laurent D.
Audiophile

Posts: 8
Location: Nantes, Fra.
Joined: July 23, 2011
 Hi,
I just bought this card 3 weeks ago, in view of a future Cmp² set up .
I just can't upsample with Cplay! (I beg yout pardon, yes, I can upsample from 44. 1 to 48kHz ! or sometimes by chance (it happened twice), Cplay accepts to play a song at 96kHz but this only this uniterrupted glitches).

Or maybe I'm doing something wrong ?? Should I play with the BIOS settings ?

Perhaps worth to be mentioned; there is an HDMI output onboard.

I installed a I3 2105 inside.

I've been looking around an ASIO issue : I could can have foobar running with ASIO2KS @ 192 kHZ but ASIO2KS is only 16 bits so not ok for Cplay. Foobar at 192kHz with "KS & soundcard" output also works.
Using ASIOSigGen, I have been able to produce a sin signal with ASIO4All at to 96kHz sampling rate, ... only when the ASIO4AALL buffer is at max or so.

Don't know what else should I try.

Laurent.

 

RE: New GA-H77M-D3H: issues with resampling., posted on May 8, 2012 at 16:14:58
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 L,

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

Have you done the cmp2 tweaks or are not. It sounds like you havent. All that disabling will help improve things. Check IRQ if you can and make sure your soundcard (sounds like the onboard audio) has its own IRQ and it is not shared.

You might be better off with an asio soundcard like the Juli@ if you are using onboard.

And run the dpc latency checker that should tell you a bit of what is happening.

Also I think you might be running into problems with the onboard audio resampling. So cplay is doing 96k and the mobo is downsampling to 48k. I had that on an old asus mobo and it caused all types if issues.

I think though it might be the I3 processor. All I know is that the old hardware with the e7400 processor had no issues with 192k, but the best I could ever get was 176k with the I3. And that took many many builds to get that.

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: New GA-H77M-D3H: issues with resampling., posted on May 10, 2012 at 13:14:01
Laurent D.
Audiophile

Posts: 8
Location: Nantes, Fra.
Joined: July 23, 2011
 Hi D.,

Thanks a lot for your help.

I ran DPC latency checker. Results seems good, see image below. What do you think ?



Regarding the soundcard, at the moment it is effectively onboard audio. I will buy the soundcard and make the dedicated CMP² PC later on (but in the meantime I want to play with settings and then to be able to make IIR or FIR filtering for multiamp). I know onboard ship will give poorer results (however the onboard one is supposed not to be the worst one (SNR claimed to be 108 or 110dB)).

IRQ : I see the audio has got IRQ no 22, it is not shared with another device. I understand this is OK.

Regarding settings, I am using the settings I had put in place when I was using the previous mobo/processor (Asus & Pentium D 915). I just changed mobo & processor and kept the HDD as is. The HDD had Two Windows boot: A first one almost fully optimized for CMP² and a second one for internet, pictures, etc. It happens that the second boot is fully operational (appart from this little audio problem...) while the first boot (which opens automacially with the CMp screen) is completely locked and then unusable now.

... Maybe I need to start the a complete reinstallation of Windows of redo the settings (at least for the boot dedicated to CMp)??

I 'll try that next WE if I have some time to spare.

You also mention : "So cplay is doing 96k and the mobo is downsampling to 48k" However, I can reach 192kHz with foobar but not with ASIO, so ...?

Laurent

 

RE: New GA-H77M-D3H: issues with resampling., posted on May 10, 2012 at 22:08:09
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Hi Laurent.

Thanks for sharing the dpc latency numbers. In the context of a cmp2 box those are really bad. Though I agree that is not bad for audio in general.

I really think the culprit is the onboard mobo. It isnt that it doesnt sound good, but that it is resampling. So the system is upsampling and downsampling simultaneously and that is causing the issue. Too much stuff going on.

The reason you can do it with Foobar is that the built in src is not as good a that in cplay but it is more processor "light". Back in the day I could do higher rates with the default foobar src with my under powered via machine. But the better src plugins wouldnt work.

You can test this theory a bit. If you are using the 145db setting in cplay try the 121db setting. If you are having trouble with the 121db setting then try sox. Sox is more light weight in its processing.

Also are you using flac? Flac is more problematic with upsampling IME. Try a wav file.

Here is a video that I made of the same file as .wav and the same file as flac and the flac stutters like crazy but the wav plays great. This was in Foobar and a lot of resampling and stuff was going on. This was with onboard and I seem to recall that it indeed was resampling to 48k from the 176k I was getting from Foobar.

I would start over myself. Those latency numbers are high. Though it might not be the installation.

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: New GA-H77M-D3H: issues with resampling., posted on May 12, 2012 at 02:03:12
Laurent D.
Audiophile

Posts: 8
Location: Nantes, Fra.
Joined: July 23, 2011
 Hi Dawnrazor,

I tried the wav file & SoX/HQ : No way.

I also looked at CPU % while running Cplay @ 145dB src, "upampling" from 44.1 to 48kHz : 4%.

Is there any way to educate this culprit ? (I mean, is there something to do do with the settings, or was the mobo's choice the wrong choice ?).
Will the future dedicated soundcard get around the issue ?

I am wondering if HDMI on the mobo is the issue (ie it would downsample the upsampled stream that would be seen as a kind illegal stream therefore down sample it ?)=> Is there a way to disable HDMI (I've looked around on google, did not find how to yet).

Regarding the issue of latency, can this be due to the above mentioned issue ? Again will the future dedicated sound card resolve the issue ?

(Regarding the future sound card, I am thinking of Auzentech Meridan 7.1 2g, Juli@ is only stereo, and at the end of the day I want to make a FIR crossover on the PC for multiamp... I am wondering if this will further complicate things?).

See also the pics below and the statement about supported/not supported sampling rate.
(On the first pic, sometimes (rarely) ASIO4all displays 8x192kHz instead of 8x48kHz (but I can't tell you why it happens "sometimes", and anyway, when this happens, I still get the issue).
(The 2nd & 3rd pic are obtained with ASIO Caps soft).

Note that with the hardware buffer on in ASI4ALL, Asio Caps removes 96 & 192 kHz from the supported sampling rates (See the 3rd pic). Whereas if I remenber correctly on the previous mobo/CPU (Asus& Pentium D 915) Hardware buffer was a key setting to get 192 kHz (145db SRC without any problems). Can this gives indication on the issue ?











Laurent


 

RE: New GA-H77M-D3H: issues with resampling., posted on May 12, 2012 at 21:37:28
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 From those picts it does look like there is downsampling to 48k going on. IIRC this is what happened to me too with onboard. The specs said 192k and you could play a file, but the output was always 48k.

A soundcard that supports higher rates would solve that issue. If you are biamping then make certain that the card you are looking at has ASIO drivers. It is pretty impossible to use FIR filters without that.

FWIW all the inmates I know who do multiamping are using the Lynx cards last I heard, including myself.

If the auzentech has an asio driver you should be OK.

Good luck



Cut to razor sounding violins

 

Some Progress..., posted on May 13, 2012 at 03:02:44
Laurent D.
Audiophile

Posts: 8
Location: Nantes, Fra.
Joined: July 23, 2011
 Hi again,

I had some progress with disabling hyper-threading and removing the "SRS sound premium driver that came along the VIA driver (SRS makes some sound processing ... that sounds odd!).
These settings allowed me to to run Cplay at 96kHZ, and 192 kHz with some glitches.(Strange thing is that I had to make several Cplay trails before it worked).

Then I enabled back the input channels in ASIO4ALL just to try ... and then surprisingly (to me) I can have Cplay to run at 192 kHz without glitches!

What still worries me is what you mention: downsampling by the mobo. maybe this happens after CPlay ? So would you know a way to monitor this?

Otherwise I went to see Serge's site. I saw his DPC latency of 1µS ... Far from th 50µS I have on my set up!

The next issue I am facing is that I have tried this morning to resintall XP pro, but now I get the blue screen when reading the installation CD!
Another few hours to spend I presume to solve the issue.

For the Auzentech soundcard, I found that review of Presto (link at the bootm), which is more or less what I want to do and Presto seems satisfied with ASIO & Crossover. So I'll probably go for it soon.

Many Thanks for your comments and help Dawnrazor, that helped me keeping trying to go ahead.
I'll see also Serge's site in depth, probably a lot to learn there.

Laurent

 

RE: Some Progress..., posted on May 13, 2012 at 05:37:37
Dawnrazor
Audiophile

Posts: 12592
Location: N. California
Joined: April 9, 2004
 Hi Laurent,

See I told you the 50ms was high!

The only way I know to know for certain what your system is outputting is to connect the spdif out and see what a sample rate a dac says. You probably arent in that position.

Anyhow glad you are making progress. That is interesting about the SRS and the asio4all settings. There clearly is some process going on that was mucking things up.

IMHO this is a great thing. It is causing you to move to a soundcard and ditch asio4all which will only help your sound quality.

Cut to razor sounding violins

 

RE: Some Progress..., posted on May 13, 2012 at 07:22:39
Laurent D.
Audiophile

Posts: 8
Location: Nantes, Fra.
Joined: July 23, 2011
 If I do believe my ears, it looks like 192kHz is really going through. Comparing 192 over to 44.1, it's easier to follow the different instruments, and overall music is more pleasant.

What's also to be remembered is that settings are'nt the same from one mobo to the other, it seems also to me that settings can be dependent of others.

Ok, now i'll try the Auzentech Meridian. Also have some work to do with reisntalling XP...

Laurent.

 

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