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is windows xp no matter how hard you tweak it, just completely dry sounding ?
Keep pushing !
Follow Ups:
Gang,
Look, XP is loved by many, but not by me. It was significantly better than the ones before it but it lacks so much compared to Vista&7 that it just does not make a good Audio Product.
I have been told time and again all the stuff that changed between XP and Vista and I keep telling everyone to upgrade to 7 but people don't like change. Well that and they are worried that everything goes to hell... which it usually does. The tasking, audio stack, USB, PCI/PCIe, almost everything in Vista/7 was upgraded to make audio better. Too bad they missed such simple things like 88.2/176.4 (even though I told them about this 5 years ago), Class 2 USB Audio and other stuff.
You also need to realize a thing about drivers. One nice thing about Apple is your drivers are always up to date. In Windows you have to constantly look around and see if something has been improved. It can make or break your system.
Thanks
Gordon
J. Gordon Rankin
Hi Gordon,
Have you been trying Win8 at all and if so is the RC worth using yet in terms of sound quality?
Thanks,
Jeff
Your other hardware mods can set the SQ base.
Start with Jriver and Kernel Streaming. If you dont at least do this, then the SQ will be dissappointing IME.
Jplay is really the best option for PC I think.
The OS should not have that big of an impact on sound. For XP it may be important to eliminate the XP sound drivers.
OS sounds different on the same hardware.
For some reason XP Pro 64 bit sounds good and 'right' from the box.
" is windows xp no matter how hard you tweak it, just completely dry sounding ?
The short answer: "No!" It depends on how your entire system is set up.
For us to make intelligent suggestions as to how to help, you will need to tell us what equipment you are using and what software you are using and how you have set this up. The audio signal that comes out of a DAC connected to a computer audio system depends on complex interaction of computer hardware, computer software, and DAC hardware, and the sound that you hear depends on the components (e.g. amp, speakers, and room) downstream of the DAC. It would be helpful if you could explain why you think the problem is associated with the computer and its operating system as opposed to some other part of your system.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
i was kinda intrigued by what the guys said about cplay sounding like a 10k $ cd player so i went thru the motions, got to the point of nlite-ing an xp home install to around 230mb (480mb installed). it was tedious but the end result was quite nice. anyways, after the delivery of a few half round bass traps, i tried windows 7, and now windows 8. windows 8 was quite a leap as after having to install the drivers in compatibility mode, out of the box (no tweaks), i listened for a while. i had the impression that xp sounded a bit dry and not as dimensional compared to windows 8. it could be first impressions only though. but i've been through a few cds.
Keep pushing !
indecision will be what I'd call the worst friends on this route.
First, You have to decide once and for all, if it's just a player of Your choice in a full fledged machine, or a dedicated server, and, as You are complaining about cplay, then it's going to be a cmp-cplay server.
IF it's a cmp-cplay server, then You will soon learn that cplay sounds worse alone, than through cmp.
2. If You start slimming cmp machine, You will soon notice, that the sound is getting more and more resolute, but a lot of familiar sounds in familiar songs will change drastically, they will even change place and not only depth-wise, Every step You take will peel another murky film from the sound screen, and AS A SIDE EFFECT, the sound will get dry, dry dry, more and more dry and precise, untill You reach appr 20 mb threshold and 0,5 mb threshold on the registry size. When You reach this, substitute fonts, reduce video, there will be a kind of breakthrough, a very big leap forward, when You would not be even anticipaiting any major progress. The sound will loose all character, that we usually speak of. It will be aggressive on some wavs and smooth on others, but it will be the sound of original recording, not Your computer. It will only have one characteristic effortless representation of sonic truth to appr. 95% of what's there.
the highs will be super resolute but silky smooth, even "furry", the bass from even small speakers will be very precise and surprisingly deep. The mids will have the depth and sonic truth, when You will say, - A-ha, That's What they really were playing, then...
We have the precedent when one of our most active cmp-slimmers would suddenly loose patience and stop in the middle. He hasn't reached the threshold and now is saying that cd player sounds better. So, it's decide and be patient and do not waver. Just walk this way to the end ONCE.
I know that it SEEMS very long and hard and maybe unnecessary, but it's a hobby, isn't it, so why not educate Yourself. At least You will know from Your OWN experience, what slimming the OS brings. If You are not ready, try to listen to Winamp. It's not dry and is sounding good for many.
Serge.
If You want to use windows 7 or anything beyond XP, You better try jplay.
Edits: 05/04/12
'You will soon notice, that the sound is getting more and more resolute, but a lot of familiar sounds in familiar songs will change drastically,"
Please cut out the exaggeration. If one has a half-decent DAC no change of player or operating system software is going to make a drastic change to the sound unless the wrong bits are being sent to the DAC. There may be a difference, but it's going to be at the threshold of perception, probably difficult to pick out reliably in blind testing, i.e. a subtle difference.
This type of exaggerated statement is one of the reasons why audiophiles are not taken seriously by many audio professionals, who refer to these people as "audiophools".
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
No, masochism or doing things the very hard way just because it can be done.
Optimisation here seems to be the word for self gratification.
''You reach this, substitute fonts, reduce video, there will be a kind of breakthrough''
The same things happen when the hardware and power supplies are improved and when the machine is made totally headless without any form of display etc.The same things also happen with cpu core isolation and priority re-assignment. cMP sticks to low quality power supplies and allegedly defeats jitter using standard pc hardware.
You have 100 variables, how many permutations are there to adopt? 100 x 99 x98 ------ all the way to x1!
The same things happen when the hardware and power supplies are improved and when the machine is made totally headless without any form of display etc. The same things also happen with cpu core isolation and priority re-assignment.
I can offer assurances based on experience, not speculation, that a system using an industrial-quality CPU c/w a good linear power supply and configured as you suggest benefits greatly from the measures Serge and others describe under the general heading of "OS Slimming".
As an example, simply removing the Resources in a small number of key OS files such as shell32.dll can radically change the sound quality of a PC-based system. If, as happens, the changes are not uniformly for the better, the remedy lies elsewhere.
To argue otherwise is to introduce a logical absurdity - that the presence of software crud with no function in a dedicated audio system (and precious little in a workaday one) is a prerequisite to optimal performance.
The notion is IMFFHO too fatuous to discuss but, if you find it hard to accept, just try opening the likes of shell32.dll in a Resource Editor. In, say, the XP Pro version you'll find dozens of bitmaps for Win 2K and XP Embedded and scores of icons neither of us has ever seen on any monitor.
cMP sticks to low quality power supplies and allegedly defeats jitter using standard pc hardware.
No such claim is made. I don't know why you and others feel so strongly the urge to talk nonsense about the cMP2 approach - it's not as if you've ever heard one. What are you so frightened of?
In any case, "OS Slimming" has little to do with cics's approach except insofar as the latter provided a starting point for the former. As it goes, I suspect cics agrees with you on this one. Which makes you both wrong, I fear.
And while we're at it, the notion of deleting superfluous resources has nothing to do with cics - it was first suggested by a lad from France who seems to have quit the forum shortly after describing his results.
You have 100 variables, how many permutations are there to adopt? 100 x 99 x98 ------ all the way to x1!
You'll need to clarify that one. I fear you won't.
The problem is that you are working with a close-source operating system and can have no actual understanding of what these "unnecessary" processes are and how they affect the sound. You may make incremental improvements, but there is no theory behind your tweaking, and hence you will ultimately be limited by ignorance. (Willful ignorance in this case, as it is part of Microsoft's business strategy.)
This kind of tweaking is what technicians and repairmen do, not engineers or scientists. It may be useful, but it's limited.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
have been trying to explain the whys and wherefors to these inmates, but they either lack comprehension or the open mindedness to comprehend.
It's a lost cause and I don't respond except when they insist that the cics 'receipe' is the path to optimisation, whatever they think it means.
The problem is that you are working with a close-source operating system and can have no actual understanding of what these "unnecessary" processes are and how they affect the sound.
I didn't mention "processes", necessary or otherwise; I talked of Resources, a different thing altogether. Neither you nor fmak seems to know what a "Resource" is in this context.
This kind of tweaking is what technicians and repairmen do, not engineers or scientists.
If the engineers had done their job properly in the first place (as you repeat ad nauseam , they haven't), OS config "tweaks" aimed at getting the best out of PC audio would largely be unnecessary. As it is, they go with the territory.
However, expert critics (such as you) typically give us rather more by way of theoretical "explanation" than practical guidance beyond, perhaps, a few banal remarks about disabling AV software.
As this is nominally a hobbyist site, this is a handicap.
It has fallen to those further down the food chain (many of whom, incidentally, are rather better informed about pertinent topics than you credit) to address the issue as best they can. As ever, the first steps are, almost by definition, groping the dark.
It may be useful, but it's limited.
That's the sort of vacuous remark that reads well at a glance but, on examination, turns out to mean little.
I'll reply to fmak shortly.
Please define it in the right context, otherwise nobody will know what it means either (including you).
Please define it in the right context, otherwise nobody will know what it means either (including you).
In Microsoft Windows, resources are read-only data embedded in EXE, DLL, CPL or . . . MUI files . . . Windows has a set of predefined resource types [inc] cursor and animated cursor, icon, bitmap, dialog box, template, font, HTML document, string and message template and file version data.See? Not difficult, not even for scientists and engineers.
Tell us how it affects sound quality in non-voodoo terms
Edits: 05/05/12
This is Microsoft lingo, not standard computer science terminology. Of little use except to Microbrains.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
This is Microsoft lingo, not standard computer science terminology.
Microsoft being only a bit player in modern computing was, of course, why I was careful to use a cap "R" for Resources and wrote "in this context". As the OP made it clear that the context was Windows XP, my use of the term was perfectly legitimate.
Your being too lazy to look anything up before posting cheap remarks? Not so much.
Of little use except to Microbrains.
Gosh. Are scientists and engineers always this ungracious when they lose an argument?
Tell us how it affects sound quality in non-voodo terms
Yup, seems they are. Well, some of them. OK, OK, two of them.
In short and FWIW, my take on the "slimming" initiative is that a small, informal team has done something just a little bit special that hasn't been done before which might turn out to be a worthwhile contribution to PC audio.
That so-called professional "scientists and engineers" prefer noisily to dismiss its efforts rather than evaluate them properly let alone (so help me, the very idea, Well I'll be damned, whatever next, FFS, etc etc) lend some of their expertise is sad but not surprising.
You might forgive some of us who aren't particularly knowledgeable or interested in the peculiar terminology adopted by Microsoft for certain of their operating system "bling". Furthermore, since you talk in terms of winning and losing arguments, in the future you may wish to take more care with your capitalization. Not counting "Subject:" lines, your use of "resources" and "Resources" comes out approximately equal in this thread.
More to the point, you have not provided any explanation for why removing these software objects from certain files might affect sound quality. Without an explanation (theoretical, practical, or speculative) there is little value to others who know better than to wander into immense forests without a map.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
Hello, everybody.
I soon learned not even to attempt to enter arguments here, but just for the sake of information, I want to tell What removing the resources does.
First, apart from exe and dll files resources are also found in sys files, that are also DLLs, btw.
Second. If You open Your regedit. Well, it's a program, and go here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Session Manager\KnownDLLs
You will see the nasty list of big dlls, that are mapped into memory from boot up and to the end of Your session.
Now most of these dlls and especially shell32, user32, gdi32, common controls, common dialogs... are not only extremely rich with those resources, but are the part of the user side of windows system activity, so whenever You even move the mouse cursor, all these dlls are active and tracking Your activity to "help" you.
Third. even if You are doing nothing, these nasty dlls are tracking Your doing nothing and are polling all system processes AND themselves to be ready to "help" you.
Below is the citation from Raymond Chen
The Windows feature informally
called ‘Known DLLs’ refers
to a list of DLLs (Dynamic
Link Libraries)
that are given special
treatment by the kernel’s module loader. ...
... Preloading DLLs
allows apps to start
faster, but at a price
of greater boot
time and decreased
memory
This is from the article from microsoft support center.
So he, who is not blind, knows now that memory and kernel (with our beloved kernel streaming) are affected by these dlls, and these dlls contain The biggest amount of resources. The same apples to debug information and resources in sys files.
The abovementioned resources are mapped into memory, and some of them are actually AVI videos. Just imagine now, that while You are playing music, Your system is always ready and willing to play you a silly avi that's already in the memory.
Serge.
This appears to be a bit of a hobby for those who think they 'can'.
''I can offer assurances based on experience, not speculation, that a system using an industrial-quality CPU c/w a good linear power supply and configured as you suggest benefits greatly from the measures Serge and others describe under the general heading of "OS Slimming".''
Nobody disputes this, but you cannot convince using 'evidence' unless you have experience of a variety high end plyback systems.
The issue is:
How far does one go with disabling hundreds of tabs and for what valid reason? What is software jitter? The assertions and erroneous 'jitter' measurements that are contained in the cics papers certainly do not explain the change of sound quality for the better, which is confined to experiences with one player with more than 39 versions written for 4 or more different operating characteristics of cpus.
A simple demonstration of what I and others have said, is simply that KS and Exclsuive Mode offer different sound qualities from ASIO. The player buffer size also affects sound quality. With such variables. how can inmates claim that cMP and cPlay offer optimisation of playback from a PC system? Also, such 'optimisations via minimisations' for best SQ is directly contradicted by MAC users with 'power' computers, high end audio replay equipment, and who have access to a wide range of players designed for audio.
Hey Fred,
A simple demonstration of what I and others have said, is simply that KS and Exclsuive Mode offer different sound qualities from ASIO. The player buffer size also affects sound quality. With such variables. how can inmates claim that cMP and cPlay offer optimisation of playback from a PC system?
The fact that cmp and cplay were written for specifically for optimizing performance with asio and for the smallest buffers is how. Cics spent most of his time as I see it on "asio refinements" and sliming down his code.
Also, such 'optimisations via minimisations' for best SQ is directly contradicted by MAC users with 'power' computers, high end audio replay equipment, and who have access to a wide range of players designed for audio.
I dont think so. To conclude that you would have to slim down the mac and compare. Please point to anyone who has done that. The closest I recall are the mach 2 folks and IMHO their results are in line with cics' principles. They are now in the same position that most of us cmp2s were in before cics came along...they just dont know any better.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
These guys have much better replay systems than you have.
You have no idea how my system sounds, or theirs for that matter (you seem to have issues with their systems too). We have no idea what your system is either. For someone so proud of their great system you sure are shy about listing it.
But it doesnt matter fred how great their systems are. Have they minimized OSX??? have they minimized anything? No. Not that I have seen. Show me such a post. So how can they or you know any of the effects that minimizing would have. Again you seem to think that experiments have no value and that you simply know it all. You dont.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
Your words.
that you know nothing about.
That is from a song named "Faith" by the Southern Death Cult. To understand that you need to have heard the song or at least read the lyrics. It is if anything an indictment of Faith and nowhere near what you seem to think it is.
Though as usual you have a history of commenting on things you have little experience in.
More Fmaking going on with nothing but personal attacks in the face of an attempt at discussion. I answered your question:"With such variables. how can inmates claim that cMP and cPlay offer optimisation of playback from a PC system?"and you refused to answer my request:"I dont think so. To conclude that you would have to slim down the mac and compare. Please point to anyone who has done that".Your response was that you somehow knew that the "mac guys" had a better system than mine, and now you attack my tagline.
Grow up Fred.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
should anyone know about your cults?
This whole endeavor should be about the music....
Try to be a bit more discerning when you come here.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
You are the one who constantly butt in with narrowly conceived comments that are not to the point of my posts.
Fred are you off your meds? You are becoming ridiculous.
First off, you asked a couple of questions in this post:
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/10/108251.html
I answered them specifically. You didnt like the answers or didnt understand them and threw a tantrum as you often do and suddenly accuse me of butting "in with narrowly conceived comments that are not to the point of my posts." That is just too funny.
There has to be some psychosis that causes people to lash out and accuse people (wrongly) of the very behaviour that they themselves exhibit.
Next you will accuse me of not being able to have a discussion or dismissing the sound of something I have never heard....
Now please talk about computer audio or dont talk at all.
Both you and Tony seem to not see why slimming the os could possibly make a difference. Here is a related question that maybe experts like yourself can answer: Why would putting cues and .wavs in the same folder not sound as good as having cues in one folder and the files in the other?? See the post below.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
"Both you and Tony seem to not see why slimming the os could possibly make a difference."
It could. If you cut down the entire forest you will remove the infected trees. While this might solve a specific problem, it would probably not be a generally viable method of forestry.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
well i did the slimming down.. it's now down to 240mb. thing is i was able to do the minlogon replacement and severe file deletion by mihaynov (not sure about the spelling) and i was amazed !!! wasapi sounds mono in comparison, j river still sounds good and even on a non tweaked windows 8 install but the cmp system is something else. i even had to reformat because of restorator taking over all my shortcuts and exe files but i was so happy when it was all done. i know there's a lot of registry slimming (mine is down to 450kb now) and file deletion.. still at less than 250mb but i am so pleased with the results. oh i also have only 12 services running when cmp shell starts.
Keep pushing !
Unfortunately you wont be happy to stop. You'll want to get a 16 mb OS and a sub-100kb hive.
If the goal is best possible sound achievable with given hardware it would be possible to get down to one or two kB of code running while music is playing, less if the only user interface required is the "reboot button". Details will depend on the sound card involved. Everything else in the system except for sound card, RAM and CPU would be out of the picture. Not loaded in RAM, all peripherals spun down, etc. All that is needed is a loop to reload the sound card buffer pointers. If the sound card DMA engine has large enough addressing and word count capability the CPU can be shut down as well, at least for moderately short playlists.
This is approaching the problem using the "start small" perspective. It has as a benefit complete control over what is happening in the machine when the music plays. Anyone who is serious about software improvements ought to consider this approach, at least as a benchmark of what is possible.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
I think you have opened up another lane. How would one do this? Is it written up somewhere?
"I think you have opened up another lane. How would one do this? Is it written up somewhere?"
Not to my knowledge. I wrote programs that ran a sound card stand-alone. It would "record" for a few seconds storing audio into RAM and then "play" back the contents of RAM. This was just a very simple program that I wrote in an afternoon so two other friends could debug a sound card we had built. There were only about 100 lines of machine code involved in this, but then the sound card was very simple, e.g. programmed I/O, no memory mapping, etc.
Anyone building a bespoke computer controlled audio product would have the necessary skills to build such a test vehicle. If one wanted to play pre-recorded music files then one would need to have loaded these into RAM memory beginning at some predefined location, as could be done by code running under an existing operating system. At this point one would have to suspend the entire operating system and transfer control to the tiny "microsystem". In addition to understanding how the sound card works, one would need to understand how the CPU works in terms of kernel level coding, memory mapping, etc. This is the kind of project that one can do in "an afternoon" but it may take months of learning about the hardware and software environment and available tools before getting to this point.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
That sounds a lot like Jplay's hibernation mode.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
> > > This is approaching the problem using the "start small" perspective. It has as a benefit complete control over what is happening in the machine when the music plays. Anyone who is serious about software improvements ought to consider this approach, at least as a benchmark of what is possible.
Do you think Bryston et.al [ie people who use Linux] approach the software from this perspective?
To me Linux still appears to be the 'ideal' OS for computer-audio. Any and all tweaks, mods, changes are do-able in the hands of a competent coder.
Lastly, comparatively speaking it seems that the Cics group is putting just as much, if not more time and effect tweaking Windows as people who use Linux. Interesting because many of these people are turned off at the hands-on requirements that are needed to get the most out of Linux, yet they are certainly hands-on with Windows.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
With Linux, it may not be necessary to strip out everything that's not necessary, as it is possible to inspect the individual trees (i.e. read source code). However, if one is just trying to play music most of what's needed in a general purpose operating system is not necessary for audio playback. With open source it would be much easier to integrate the approach I suggested into the existing system and preserve a decent user interface without degrading sonic playback than with a COTS system such as Windows.
I have some experience actually building these kinds of things. The biggest problem would appear to be figuring out how the sound card actually works, given the probable lack of adequate documentation. This could take a long time, especially if one has to get involved with FPGAs and firmware.
Tony Lauck
"Diversity is the law of nature; no two entities in this universe are uniform." - P.R. Sarkar
> > > > The biggest problem would appear to be figuring out how the sound card actually works, given the probable lack of adequate documentation. This could take a long time, especially if one has to get involved with FPGAs and firmware.
As much as I hate USB I think it might be the best way to go vs. a soundcard. For all intensive purposes usb/spdif functions as a soundcard anyway. Also alsa can do asynch, 24bit and supports usb class 2 devices natively.
Still building Linux from the Kernel up to support the basic requirements for audio would be a task which might be too time consuming for the 'un-payed' lay person.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
=======
Still building Linux from the Kernel up to support the basic requirements for audio would be a task which might be too time consuming for the 'un-payed' lay person.
========
Why re-building the kernel, when most functionalities and drivers are provided as modules and when no appropriate hardware is present, they do not get even loaded?
I do not see a point in not compiling-in e.g. a networking support. Just disable your network card in bios, udev, or remove the loaded modules upon boot, if going to extreme.
> > > > > Why re-building the kernel,...
I said "Linux from the Kernel up..." these are two different things....I am sure you already know this....
What you suggested is perfectly fine, and is exactly what I do [and more] with my Linux audio-only machines.
Building from the "Kernel up" would be something like what Logitech, Bryston etc do...and I am sure you already know....they surely don't use Ubuntu and disable a bunch of stuff. Or do they????
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
OK, I misunderstood, my fault.
Building an x86 system from the bottom - debian, archlinux, even gentoo. With debian it is simple, start with the barebone netinstall and just add the packages you want. Not complicated for a noob too - just copy the package list from web site to the terminal. Archlinux is a bit more complicated, but not that much.
But those companies you mentioned design specific distributions for their own non-x86 hardware with limited resources (memory, flash capacity, cpu power, etc.). Even logitech/slimdevices did not build their SqueezeOS from scratch, they are using a derivative of OpenEmbedded http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/SqueezeOS_Build_Instructions . A relatively simple embedded solution is OpenWRT, it has a nice build system, not very complicated to add new package, rebuild an existing one with custom patches, etc. I played with it when making an internet-enabled webcam running on Asus router (WL500) for a friend of mine who had his house built by a contractor.
The question is what people gain by running a version prepared from scratch - I have no problem with having other software on my drive, as long as it is not running.
> > > The question is what people gain by running a version prepared from scratch - I have no problem with having other software on my drive, as long as it is not running.
I don't have a problem with extra software either just as long as there are no crons etc that will invoke it...otherwise it just sits there taking up a small amount of space.
What to gain by building from the Kernel up as supposed to what is meantioned before...nothing really. Perhaps peace of mind for the obsessed Audiophile is all. More importantly for me is to reduce the impact of hardware on the OS ie usb ports etc. I usually un-bind the OS from everything possible in order to reduce the number and length of interrupts.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
Hey Dyn,
Its not the hands on that makes linux a non starter for me. It is the different language I would have to learn and more importantly there are no drivers for my card. They say there might be but I havent seen them and certainly they dont come from the card maker...
Plus what people who have never done a cmp2 box miss is that the control is better than most. If I have it right I would have to use networking or a mouse with linux right?
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
> > If I have it right I would have to use networking or a mouse with linux right?
There is a Bluetooth client to control MPD, but I have not used or tested the app. Using it would mean no need for a network or a mouse.
However for someone in your case who has an excellent Cics front-end the benefits of re-working your entire front-end to change to Linux is small, not worth the effot imo. But for someone just getting started who has limited resources invested in a computer front-end it might be an option.
Dynobots Audio
Music is the Bridge between Heaven and Earth - 音楽は天国と地球のかけ橋
yes. how do i manage that ?
Keep pushing !
To get to that level you need to take the Jack Wong route, i.e., use his iso and follow his roadmap. It means going to an all fat32/windows home xp system. You lose more functionality. But my oh my, though what a sound. If you stick with xp pro you can follow Serge's (Steppe) road map which is nicely laid out here on AA.
Hello, again! If You want to go cmp-cplay way, but wish to keep the ability to turn back, then go the Initial tweaking steps. It's the hard way, but it allows to jump off any time.
Steps 1-5 will end with A VERY MUSICAL cmp-cplay setup.
The next stop will be after step 15 also almost an "audiophile nirvana".
Next stop is part 21, but after that there's no turning back.
Read through the steps, they are all there.
Serge.
Now we are trying to find a routine, when there will be NO INSTALLATION and slimming, just You copy 16 mb of selected files and make one modification to the registry, but if we will achieve it, remains to be seen. As always, it's security...
i went back to xp and cmp-cplay. at the start before tweaking it does not sound dry at all. you're right, this thing needs dedication. i have gone to 8 and back and to 7 and 8 and back again...
what are these 21 steps and where do i find them ?
Keep pushing !
a ridculous and unncessary way to get good or superb sound.
but he's right. on the fresh nlite install it was not dry sounding but i did the usual tweaks and it's closer to the dryness i mentioned in my first post. this is using cplay. the thing is, the imaging is good. not rounded like j river but very pinpoint, very room filling. now if i could get it to be razor sharp and unnatural :D.
Serge, i did most of the fishy secret tweaks. i am scared of the neptune kernel as i want to maintain being able to do a little surfing when my attention starts to wander and other mundane tasks one does with his pc.. ie. this post.. but where i can find the other 22 steps ? or is there more than one step per fishy secret tweak ?
Keep pushing !
Lesley! Substitution of native win xp-pro kernel with the nt.3.1 one
IS EXTREMELY dangerous.
It works ONLY for completely stripped 16 mb machine and is UNPROVEN yet, as I am the only one to date who managed it.
Other inmates failed, bacause, I suppose, of using
1. more than one hdd in cmp machine
2. Using more than ONE partition
3. Using Fat32 partition.
The /kernel= switch in boot.ini allows to load and boot alternate kernel so old only for a SINGLE SESSION. After this, You won't boot even with original one, unless You perform a special restore ntldr procedure. It is explained by a change to the MBR (master boot record) and its copy, making things temporary unbootable. No one has yet recreated the tweak, and though I perform it on a daily basis, I MYSELF publicly denounced it, untill we find the way to make it stable.
Serge.
Hello, Lesley. It all starts here:
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/bbs20080613.html
If You are in the classic view mode, You will have to scroll down to appr the middle of the page to see my initial post with the beginning of tweaks
This is it.
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/9/91415.html
They all start somewhat brughtly:
Cplay b41 or better. New very Important tweaks 1. 2, 3, 4, and so on
Please, note, that these tweaks are for DEDICATED CMP machine. Very soon You will lose the network capability and most of Windows' functions.
There are many posts in reply. See for Mihaylov's variants of my tweaks to keep network as long as possible, but even he at some point had to stop, for there was no turning back. See other inmates' tweaks, which are also VERY GOOD. Search. You will find 21 post with tweaks + Bios tweak with extreme memory timings and a BIG Substitutions' tweak.
They PRECEDE the nlite isos, so having installed an nlited version, You will possibly finf many of the file deletions already done.
As a result I have only
65 files left in System32 folder.
25 drivers in Drivers folder
2 screen and one ttf font in fonts
and nothing but win.ini in Windows folder.
All total is 16 mb
Oh, and there's no Documents and Settings and Program files folders.
So, decide for Yourself, if it's worth it.
Serge.
hey Les,
i am scared of the neptune kernel as i want to maintain being able to do a little surfing when my attention starts to wander and other mundane tasks one does with his pc.. ie. this post..
Well if I read this right you are using the cmp2 box to surf the internet? How is that a "proper" cmp2 box? Antivirus alone can kill your sound.
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
With cics mods it has been verified by many users that an nLite version of XP often dries up the sound.
In most circumstances is better to implement the mods starting from a full XP Pro.
with what level of replay hardware???????????????
that is going to be very hard. why does the nlite install dry up the sound ?
Keep pushing !
Does your cMP sound like a $10000 system and better than a full dCS rig?
Couple of things.
Tony is right, we need to know more about your setup.
Also were you using asio4all, real asio drivers, etc.
And 230mb is quite large...you have a ways to go.
Finally did you do the os tweaks like detuning video, etc., or just do an nlite disk?
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
Also were you using asio4all, real asio drivers, etc.
What soundcard are you using?
Afterwards we discovered faith; it's all you need
i made the nlite disk which took out a lot of the services, drivers, fonts, etc. i did the tweak on the system32 folder applications. also drmk.sys and winspool.drv.
Keep pushing !
''xp sounded a bit dry and not as dimensional compared to windows 8. ''
Not all of the cics 'optimisations' actually improve the sound. cPlay tends to be more 1D and 'hifi' than other players. J River is more 'rounded'.
yes, that's right. j river is more rounded.
thanks guys. at least i know it wasn't just me.
Keep pushing !
surprised by how well XP 64bit sounds, untouched. May be part of it is due to 32 bit players and 64 bit sound card driver???????????????????
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