[jtwrace]

Geoff,
I was a dac-aholic until I got the Meitner MA-1.  I'm cured now. 

Have you ever compared it to the NOS1?  Do you think the Meitner is really that good?

[ted_b]

Have you ever compared it to the NOS1?  Do you think the Meitner is really that good?

No and yes. 

[jtwrace]

No and yes. 

Do you use it for DSD now?

[ted_b]

Do you use it for DSD now?

Yes, absolutely.  I just built a wonderful CAPS V2+ server, and use the Meitner with JRMC 18, DoP WASAPI-event style.  Best digital I've ever experienced, period.

[jtwrace]

Yes, absolutely.  I just built a wonderful CAPS V2+ server, and use the Meitner with JRMC 18, DoP WASAPI-event style.  Best digital I've ever experienced, period.

Mini is gone too?  Do you have a thread on all of this?

[ted_b]

Mini is gone too?  Do you have a thread on all of this?

Mini isn't gone, just backburner as I eval the new CAPS.  it's not a fair fight, though; the new CAPS is freaking unbelievable.  I will get all my thoughts together.  Sorry for hijack.

[jtwrace]

Mini isn't gone, just backburner as I eval the new CAPS.  it's not a fair fight, though; the new CAPS is freaking unbelievable.  I will get all my thoughts together.  Sorry for hijack.

Well, not gone but not in use...gone from the shelf!     I look forward to your thoughts and seeing you next week. 

[ted_b]

Well, not gone but not in use...gone from the shelf!     I look forward to your thoughts and seeing you next week.

Not gonna make RMAF I'm afraid.  First miss in several years.    But I'm committed to CES.

[raov1]

Hi,
Considering this is still a NOS-1 thread 
NOS1 DAC and XXHE has become the centerpiece of my equipment.
It has redefined how I listen to music (and it will for most audiophiles).
Here is a little more info, most people will consider computer audio to be the easy way out, just press play; but Peter considers it to be like Vinyl, you have to tinker with it to get music. Semi DIY.
XXHE is a complex program, which has a steep learning curve. It is an all out assault on music in the software domain, without compromise.
Considering its centered for CD, I've played 24/94 and 24/192, and 352 as well, without issues.
I've had, and still have ongoing issues with the program, but, when it plays music, its just right. Your room transforms into the recorded venue, it doesn't take effort to imagine, or pay attention to details for the cues, its all there in spades. Every single instrument can be followed to infinity with their decay and tonal texture. There is so much information, its actually distracting. Vocalists just appear in front of you (figuratively speaking). Most importantly, the high frequencies have been dealt with, so the music is very smooth and non-fatigiuing. Its ~vinyl quality, if not 100% so (I cannot attest to this as I've not hear a lot of vinyl setups)l!!
This is a reference grade DAC and software, it has been compared to DACs in the >50K range, and I can attest to this.. Please don't ask me for comparison, when one listens to this level of quality, it's irrelevant.
With this working in your set-up, it will let your system shine to the max, or like me, things down stream become the weak point.
Thank God its just the subs for me!
If I have to say 2 words- "Just incredible"!!!

Regards,

[jtwrace]

Not gonna make RMAF I'm afraid.  First miss in several years.    But I'm committed to CES.

What?  The audio pioneer isn't going to the biggest and best hi end audio show?    

Yes, absolutely.  I just built a wonderful CAPS V2+ server, and use the Meitner with JRMC 18, DoP WASAPI-event style.  Best digital I've ever experienced, period.

Does this mean that you no longer use the Mytek for DSD?  A one box solution is where I want to go. 

Hi,
Considering this is still a NOS-1 thread 
NOS1 DAC and XXHE has become the centerpiece of my equipment.
It has redefined how I listen to music (and it will for most audiophiles).
Here is a little more info, most people will consider computer audio to be the easy way out, just press play; but Peter considers it to be like Vinyl, you have to tinker with it to get music. Semi DIY.
XXHE is a complex program, which has a steep learning curve. It is an all out assault on music in the software domain, without compromise.
Considering its centered for CD, I've played 24/94 and 24/192, and 352 as well, without issues.
I've had, and still have ongoing issues with the program, but, when it plays music, its just right. Your room transforms into the recorded venue, it doesn't take effort to imagine, or pay attention to details for the cues, its all there in spades. Every single instrument can be followed to infinity with their decay and tonal texture. There is so much information, its actually distracting. Vocalists just appear in front of you (figuratively speaking). Most importantly, the high frequencies have been dealt with, so the music is very smooth and non-fatigiuing. Its ~vinyl quality, if not 100% so (I cannot attest to this as I've not hear a lot of vinyl setups)l!!
This is a reference grade DAC and software, it has been compared to DACs in the >50K range, and I can attest to this.. Please don't ask me for comparison, when one listens to this level of quality, it's irrelevant.
With this working in your set-up, it will let your system shine to the max, or like me, things down stream become the weak point.
Thank God its just the subs for me!
If I have to say 2 words- "Just incredible"!!!

Regards,

Thank you very much for the feedback.  Sonically the NOS1 gets high praise.  What's surprising is that everything I've read everyone seems to say the same thing.  Sonically it compares to almost nothing but it's not user intuitive and is buggy.  The latter of the two are what worry me.  I want to listen not constantly hope that the darn thing will work.  Peter does say that if the PC is purchased from him and it's all setup it will work without any issues.  Just press play...

[raov1]

JTW,
I would say its a no brainer!
Just one more thing, DACs in general are considered as a single entity. But here XXHE and NOS1 work hand in hand. That's how Peter is able to get excellent specs. Without XXHE, NOS is just a non oversampling DAC .... A good one though. Without NOS, XXHE will be a good software player, but together, using all the features of XXHE, Peter is able to use the Dac's potential to the fullest. Also the innovative set-up makes it future proof, all software upgrades can be downloaded and immediately implemented.
Regards,

[geofstro]

raov1, there is no question in my mind at all concerning the sound quality of the combination of NOS1 and XXHighEnd. It is the best result I have enjoyed from digital so far. I believe Peter knows how much I respect him for what he has achieved in terms of sound quality. He's always pushing the envelope further as well and the latest version of XXHighEnd with the Phase Alignment feature has taken it to new heights. My concerns revolve around the issues of usability, because these will prevent a lot of people from going with Peter's approach.

You mentioned vinyl, well I'm somebody who's coming from the Vinyl era and part of the trip with vinyl was always the pleasure of holding that LP sleeve in your hand. The format was large enough to really appreciate the cover art, as well as flip over the cover, read the liner notes or pull out the lyric sheet; etc. CD's never allowed me to appreciate the album artwork and the print in the booklets are en eyestrain to read. And yet many of my customers cling to the CD medium because they like something tactile to hold onto that encapsulates and represents the musical experience in a physical form.

There has always been one dominant music format. First the LP then the CD, now what? Most people probably think the latest "format" is MP3. It's all abstract now though. The tactile, kinetic aspect is missing.

For me the way of putting those qualities back into the experience today is the iPad. Admittedly one of my customers remarked one day; "that's a bit large for a remote control isn't it?" Of course he didn't really get the point. The iPad is big enough for me to appreciate the cover art once more, just like with vinyl. I'm also setting things up so when I buy an album on HDTracks or Qobuz I can automatically upload any pdf sleeve notes that are provided to iTunes and have them synced to my iPad, for reading, if I wish, whilst listening to the music.

Yes there is a way to operate XXHighEnd with an iPad; but I wouldn't bother for reasons I gave earlier.

In my experience there are plenty of people out there who want the very best sound quality, and many who can afford it too; but they also want the fun and convenience aspects of the whole experience,  and why not? They have kids and many other activities to give there time and energy to. When it comes to listening to music it should be a relaxing and at the same time uplifting and highly enjoyable experience. Not a vocation in itself! Vinyl was never so difficult for most people. Give the disk a quick wipe, place it on the platter, move the arm over the lead in grooves, lower it, sit back and enjoy the music!

Peter has achieved the heights of digital sound reproduction. The next frontier must be combining that with the same fun and convenience of using an iPad to interact with an iTunes or J R Media Center library. Of course, I'm only taking the iPad as an example of my preferred way of interacting with music. Some people like to use their large plasma or LCD screens and who knows what the future will bring? That's why I'd be hesitant in claiming anything to be "future proof".  I believe the convenience and fun aspects are important in bringing a much wider audience to true HighEnd sound and allow the industry to thrive once again. OK, I'll climb down from my lectern now. 

[PeterSt]

Hi guys - nice to meet you all here.

Let me start out with saying that I sure hope that I don't offend rule #2 here in a first post. I'll just try to create some understanding (I guess especially for jtwrace).

Sonically the NOS1 gets high praise.  What's surprising is that everything I've read everyone seems to say the same thing.  Sonically it compares to almost nothing but it's not user intuitive and is buggy.  The latter of the two are what worry me.

I would be worried too. So, consensus here. What's slightly wrongish though, is that the NOS1 would be buggy of some sort. Of course it is not; it would be a most bad thing and nobody would buy it.
But maybe you wanted to refer to the software alone ?

Okay, even that ain't buggy and I think it is sufficient to browse through the forum to find that out. However, of course occasionally someone tries something which hasn't been tried before and isn't much obvious at the same time; geofstro gave a perfect example of that (about AIFF not wanting to play over a network*share* (solved) plus FLAC containing coverart not wanting to play (not solved yet)).

Of course, when you'd look at the current messages anno September 2012 in the forum you will see spades of "Phase Alignment" issues, but I grant myself that, it being the most complex thing I ever made in my (IT) life. And I'll grant you to look at that as buggy (well, solved by now, but anyway).

The point is though, that there's so many user-unfriendly features in there which all hammer on the OS which is so against us audio freaks, that sometimes "we" can get wild of things not working, while actually again we oursevels dialed in extremes which are not, say, tolerated by not-so-much on par machines (take random laptops) for the indeed extreme job. Allow me to give an example which hopefully clarifies somewhat :

The lowest level kernel buffers of the OS are designed to contain milliseconds of audio data. XXHighEnd however, is able to tweak that into "minutes". Remember, kernel buffers and not a buffer size which you may see in e.g. Foobar or Jriver etc. So, what is it for ? well, better sound of course. All in there is for that. Now, to an experienced user it is obvious that when the 1ms buffer is turned into a 60 second buffer, this implies a burst of data processing which has to be performed within the time frame available (which could be milliseconds only). When this can not be done, sound stalls. Yea, obviously ... But only "obviously" when I am telling it you here and now, and not when you pressed play, are at that moment obviusly not looking at the tooltip telling you so, and sound suddenly stops after 60 seconds after pressing play and you sipping a beer. Point is : it is you who dialed it in a sort of explicitly. So, your fault ?

No. Buggy ? No. My fault ? actually yes. Thus better leave out the option ?
Hmm ...

And so a fairly (ahum) complex player emerges but all for the good cause. And I don't see anybody hate it ...
... once it's understood somewhat.

Peter does say that if the PC is purchased from him and it's all setup it will work without any issues.  Just press play...

Correct. But in the proper context. Thus, when we deliver that PC it is meant to come along with a NOS1 and it is for those who have the idea to never get round with all the options. And of course, people ask me what to dial in to receive the best SQ. Well, if I knew myself ... (then all the options would not be there in the first place). But for the NOS1 it can be done "preconfigured" ... until someone (forum) comes up with a new Walhalla combination. Okay, so we all change. And say that happens once per month.

So, "just press play". Yeah, right. But not for long, because the whole thing is made for tweaking (not only the software but also the PC now). So you won't last long.

I hope this post was appropriate; I'll try a second one after this.
Regards,
Peter

[PeterSt]

The iPad example from geofstro is, I think, another good example of what one may dislike, only because of we ourselves try to achieve the best SQ.

So yes, having the LAN active is not the best for SQ; having WiFi active in an Audio PC is the worst (completely measurable as well). WiFi avoiding in the Audio PC can easily be done, but it would still need the LAN. Hence that solution via Bluetooth, which may seem as awkward as it gets. And I don't say it isn't ...

Now the story is sort of the same as I tried to explain in my previous post : If you want the best SQ we choose for the awkward solution. And well, even I might complain. But still me myself and I won't switch on the LAN. Oh, I like a remote too. So, I dig it.
In the mean time it took me several months (throughput) to workout this solution (which was theoretically possible according to what my mind told me) and if only iPads and Androids and whatever Smartphones would allow this Bluetooth connection it would have been a nobrainer. But they don't. Doh, even Microsoft drivers don't allow it.

So if I'd think this is all is too awkward and indeed now dig the sacrifice on SQ, then I get my iPad or anything and connect it over WiFi. And not by means of RDC but by any means I like best (just saying). However, geofstro is completely right that it will be an "RDC Type" connection.
Now things get a bit difficult, because while we could want any user interface that browses our collection better than the base (which just is the XXHighEnd user interface) then, well, I better had made that base the best first. That is, I don't see why not. But why not ? ehm, because I'm not capable in doing that ? looks like a good reason to me. One thing though, the base user interface can be formed and tweaked and scaled such that it operates on the Tablet and even Smartphone (with presets and everyting). In other words ... that one thinks the normal XXHighEnd user interface can be better is totally accepted, but I don't see myself making a better remote than XXHighEnd itself with everyting and all under your finger tips as how it is now.

Conveniency *is* important, but Sound Quality rules. Or ?
Of course we agree. But point is : it maybe looks like I can do everything and all, but even I have limited hours in a day. So SQ has priority. It must have.

Okay, it sure looks like I'm complaining. But I can tell you, it is not easy to be a first with everything. Or to squeeze out that again better sound a couple of times per year. For the software only it should be undoable already. Then crazy me thinks a D/A converter can be topping it off. All new (especially the first version of the NOS1), all differently setup than all we know, 768 input and such and blablabla. Let's design a nice PC to go along with it. Oh well.
And my job is running a company in ERP software ? haha. At least I must be crazy ever attempting it all. But my fun is : I am doing it for you out there. No wait, I started out doing it for myself and now I share. Looks DIY to me, to answer *that* question.

Kind regards,
Peter

[raov1]

Geofstro,
In many ways you hit the nail in the head, only a selected few will dare try and will be rewarded with the ultimate music!
It's not buggy but, there are so many ways to "skin the cat" in this program, quicksand is only a click away. Luckily Peter is out there, with the necessary support.
Regarding the remote, I completely agree, having something palpable just adds to,the experience, even if its digital.
We should share notes!
Regards,

Edit: Peter welcome to AC!

[geofstro]

raov1 said:

only a selected few will dare try and will be rewarded with the ultimate music!

I'll be happy to share notes with you anytime raov1.

BTW, Welcome Peter! Your input here will be very much appreciated by all, I'm sure.

Sound quality, rules, OK! I have no argument with that. What I'm trying to encourage is that something approaching the "ultimate" will be available to more than the few "who dare try".

If Audirvana on the Mac side will someday be able to support the full 768khz rate and upsample to that rate using the iZotope upsampling filter, there will potentially be a lot more happy Mac, NOS1 users.

They may not be able to take full advantage of the "ultimate" sound quality provided by XXHighEnd; but how far will they be away from it? At this point that's a question which is impossible to answer. In any case they should get significantly better SQ than is available to them at the moment.

Since Aurdirvana can integrate with an iTunes library and you can control that with an iPad we get to my beloved way of interacting with the music Perhaps I went a bit over the top in describing why I think this is important; but it is still my contention that most people need a physical object that they can hold onto, which represents the music.

I think that's why people think "MP3" is the new "format". Because at one time we had "MP3 players" and the iPod was known as an MP3 player, even though Apple uses its own Alac format. We've forgotten about all the other MP3 players; but somehow, MP3 seems to have stuck in peoples minds. If somebody popularised a flac player, similar to the iPod, perhaps flac would become the new format? Geoff

[geofstro]

Regarding "ultimate" Sound Quality, I'm taking XXHighEnd together with the NOS1 as a kind of benchmark or reference for what is achievable with Computer Audio. Particularly when it comes to playing back the bulk of music that's out there in redbook standard. I'm also interested though, in just how much we back away from that "ultimate" if we make a few concessions to convenience.

Peter, I believe you occasionally play files from a network share yourself or have in the past. Just how much of a hit does SQ take when you do this? I'm assuming no WiFi here. The PC running XXHighEnd is connected via ethernet. If you tried to put it in percentage terms does the SQ drop to 80%, 90%. What would you estimate in approximate terms?

Another example would be turning on the LAN, just in order to be able to control XXHighEnd with an iPad or something similar. In this example though, I'm going to assume the music files are read from a Hard Drive connected directly to the music PC. The lan is just turned on in order to use the iPad. Presumably there must be a difference in SQ whether the files are read from a network drive or a directly connected disk? Which is worse SQ wise: reading music files over the LAN or just using the LAN to enable iPad use?

(What a strange coincidence, my text app auto corrected "lan" to "pan". "Peter Pan" perhaps 

[jtwrace]

Correct. But in the proper context. Thus, when we deliver that PC it is meant to come along with a NOS1 and it is for those who have the idea to never get round with all the options. And of course, people ask me what to dial in to receive the best SQ. Well, if I knew myself ... (then all the options would not be there in the first place). But for the NOS1 it can be done "preconfigured" ... until someone (forum) comes up with a new Walhalla combination. Okay, so we all change. And say that happens once per month.

So, "just press play". Yeah, right. But not for long, because the whole thing is made for tweaking (not only the software but also the PC now). So you won't last long.

IF someone (me) got off track because I got a wild hair from reading the next best computer setup is it easy to get back to where it was?  Meaning, is there a config file that is saved and it's as easy as loading the previous config file?  Or is it a bunch of knobs and buttons that are very hard to find that can take a while? 

Also, is the PC that you sell, completely silent?  My PC and HD's (AIFF) will be in the listening room.

If you tried to put it in percentage terms does the SQ drop to 80%, 90%. What would you estimate in approximate terms?

Excellent question. 

I must say that a remote (iPad and Mac Book Air) control is very important to me.  Yes, SQ is too but remote is extremely important.  OK, I"m somewhat lazy when I'm listening to digital.   

[ted_b]

Peter,
Welcome to AC.  Please make sure you read the guidelines for manufacturers
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=42858.0

[jtwrace]

Peter,
Welcome to AC.  Please make sure you read the guidelines for manufacturers
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=42858.0

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?action=about;area=industry-participant

You are free to participate in any topics that are not directly related to your products anywhere on the site. Please note that the Posting Guidelines always apply.

We encourage you to provide technical information about your products wherever they are being discussed by members, but you are not permitted to discuss product availability, pricing, future product features, or anything related to your business activities. If you wish to do so, you can do so in the Commercial Zone by becoming an Industry Associate. Alternatively, you may wish to consider becoming a Site Sponsor.

You are expected to exhibit Professional Conduct at all times.