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Post by Pinch on Aug 28, 2014 11:19:32 GMT
For those of you with Windows-based FBA set ups, a new version of Fidelizer has been released: www.windowsxlive.net/fidelizer/If you haven't used Fidelizer before, it's a small (free!) program which performs various system optimisations, with a view to improving audio. I've found that it makes a small, but still notable and worthwhile improvement. The changes remain in place until the machine is rebooted, so nothing is altered permanently. I tried the new version yesterday, and it seems to be an improvement on the previous version w.r.t. the system's stability while Fidelized, and some problems that I had playing very high res files appear to have gone.
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Post by ChrisB on Aug 28, 2014 14:07:22 GMT
I tried this but it made me grow a beard and smoke cigars.
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Post by Pinch on Aug 28, 2014 14:40:54 GMT
--------the-joke-------->
O /|\ <--- me | / \
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Post by MartinT on Aug 28, 2014 15:35:47 GMT
Umm, you digitised yourself?
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Post by Pinch on Aug 28, 2014 15:48:26 GMT
Indeed! But I also discovered the 'code' tag - could prove useful for the RPi threads
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Post by gazjam on Aug 28, 2014 18:06:18 GMT
Big fan of Fidelizer. Use it in my W7/8 server builds, happily used it on my own box of tricks until I went the way of tweaked Server 2012/AO.
Everyone with windows based music server should at least try it.
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Post by ChrisB on Aug 28, 2014 18:53:39 GMT
--------the-joke-------->
O /|\ <--- me | / \
Sorry. My sense of humour. ..........Fidel
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Post by gazjam on Aug 28, 2014 19:28:49 GMT
People, we have just achieved Peak Beard...
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Post by Pinch on Aug 28, 2014 19:56:33 GMT
Of course!
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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2014 20:18:30 GMT
Interesting Gary have been toying around with twin PC set ups and various software even had one "famous" uk computer audiophile guru here recently with his version of the twin i7 mega server transport set up using the much vaulted jriver/jplay windows 8 and fully optimised even ran the daft hibernation mode? That grinds the PC to a halt lol We'll after 5 hours of fiddling and tweeting around he was ready to roll paired this up with dac's from £2000 to big ticket numbers Said gent was surprised at performance of his very expensive carefully followed audiophile set up with the usual mr pangs USB card and Santa cables plus USB cable not sure of the total cost he wasn't giving anything away there It was the first time I believe he has listened to high end equipment in his words for me it was very interesting as I have tried the this route before with mixed success anyhow the presentation was very stark, detailed plenty of slam lots of dynamics and 'twas very quiet impressive stuff however it was very mechanical sound and although solid in nature it was two dimensional (clarification here compared to the basic cd transport we used as a comparison) i also found the the sound grating and irritable after 20 minutes or so that said it was a very impressive sound in its own way we tried various files, rips, commercially available and some special studio masters I have as well as different sample rates which ever dac we tried it always ended up sounding mechanical somewhat ected, some how manipulated like an old tact room correction system would deliver the sound i also suggested he tried the sound without jplay being used as the driver now that ladies and gentleman was worth the price of admission to a stones concert to see his face when the first note of the first bar was played The the results when compared to a previous twin PC set up (sever/slave) were different in the areas of detail, sheer presence, inner detail, noise floor and dynamics i would hypothesis that the jplay is having a very marked effect on the sound, make no mistake is does present a different sound though I would say not necessarily for the better, impressive sounding absolutely musical that's very debatable he was curious about the single box replay PC that was sat on the rack and asked for a listen but that in Hans Christian Anderson land is another tale!
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Post by Stratmangler on Aug 28, 2014 23:13:51 GMT
Out of curiosity I gave Fidelizer 6 a run on my laptop running Windoze7. I immediately noticed that things sounded different playing music through the replay chain employed, but I was not entirely sure it was an improvement. Just to be certain I rebooted the laptop and tried playing the same music file again, preferring the non Fidelized version - there's much more life and presence.
The replay chain consisted of -
Windoze7 lappy - Foobar2000 c/w ASIO drivers - EMU 0404 USB - Goldring DR-150 headphones.
Any suggestions on how to improve the situation? I found that using Fidelizer made the top end polite, far too polite, and as a result threw a muzak blanket over things. Consequently the life was sucked out of the material played.
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Post by Pinch on Aug 29, 2014 9:25:03 GMT
Hi Strat, I'm not too sure what to suggest. What level of optimisation did you go for? Your description is interesting though - taken one way, it corresponds somewhat to what I'd expect, as I've found that Fidelizer can tame the edgy upper mids that, in my set ups, have been a feature of vanilla PC playback. So, in a way, a more polite top end is what I'd expect. But we're probably talking about different things. I do seem to remember the developer mentioning that newer versions were optimised for Windows 8, so perhaps you'd have more luck with an earlier version. If you're interested in playing with older versions (I found 2.1 to be most stable in Windows 7) I can dropbox them a stick a link up here.
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Post by Stratmangler on Aug 29, 2014 9:52:15 GMT
I tried both the audiophile and extremist settings - it's not a case of I played with it once and it didn't work. I heard the same effect with each setting, and it was not good.
A more polite top end is another way of describing what I heard. Sucking the life out of the music is a more accurate way of describing it.
I'll see if I can locate an earlier version and have a play with that.
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Post by Stratmangler on Aug 29, 2014 10:33:17 GMT
Hi Pinch
All paths seem to lead to the latest version, so any chance of a link to earlier versions?
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Post by Pinch on Aug 29, 2014 10:54:11 GMT
Here you go! The zip contains versions 2.1 - 5. The changelog on the main page describes some of the differences between the versions. I found that, stability-wise, results can vary according to system architecture, e.g., on some Windows 7 machines, 3 works like a charm, on others it caused them to lock-up pretty quickly.
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Post by danielquinn on Aug 29, 2014 10:54:33 GMT
Turning music in to 0 and 1 that be the work of the devil that be , you'll stay away if you no whats good for you .
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Post by brian2957 on Aug 29, 2014 11:27:59 GMT
I tried both the audiophile and extremist settings - it's not a case of I played with it once and it didn't work. I heard the same effect with each setting, and it was not good. A more polite top end is another way of describing what I heard. Sucking the life out of the music is a more accurate way of describing it. I'll see if I can locate an earlier version and have a play with that. I was using Fidelizer 3 and was quite happy with it . I upgraded to 6 last night and thought something wasn't quite right . However , I slept on it and I've been listening to some music this morning and agree with you Chris . The new version does indeed seem to suck the life out of the music . I've gone back to version 3 and will be giving 2.1 , 4 and 5 a listen . Thanks Mr. Pinch
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Post by Pinch on Aug 29, 2014 11:37:42 GMT
No problemo! And interesting! Perhaps 6 is indeed a step back. I confess that, since my digital listening has been mostly Pi-based recently, I haven't given it a proper go yet - just quickly tested to see if some problems that I'd had with 5 were fixed. In terms of sound quality, 5 has easily been the best for me so far - a proper step up over previous versions.
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Post by brian2957 on Aug 29, 2014 11:48:35 GMT
I was using version 3 , however I'm listening to version 5 just now and it does seem to be an audible improvement so thanks for that . I will leave links to all the versions and have a play over the next few days. Aye sometimes a new version of something can be a step in the wrong direction .
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Post by Stratmangler on Aug 29, 2014 13:02:28 GMT
Thanks for the link Pinch. It was interesting to play with the different versions. I've tried 2.1 and 3, and whilst giving far superior results to 6, they still do the same thing, just to a less pronounced degree, and that is they change the original signal. For me that's enough, and it's a step too far. I will not be playing with Fidelizer any more, it subtly (or not so subtly) re-equalises the top end and sucks the life out of the music.
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