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xxhighend- too good to be true?
Mar 13, 2011 at 5:01 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 33
curiousmuffin

curiousmuffin

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i cannot believe what I'm hearing with this player. more defined bass, airier highs and bigger dynamics all that. and the volume is a notch louder. What&%? but I'm wondering if this is but a dsp effect. I mean how can this player sound so different from the others (foobar, winamp) even when they all three go for the same goal of achieving bit perfect playback? I've compared winamp and foobar through kernel streaming to XXHE doing the same. I'm suspecting that it's a dsp effect because I get a slight ear fatigue after a song, though this could be due to the unwanted tubes in my dac rearing its ugly head again from xxhe granting it more transparency. (i doubt it though. like i said, i think it's a dsp effect)
 
Mar 13, 2011 at 5:22 AM Post #3 of 33
harder for me to a-b that way since i don't have a db meter.  but some of my reference songs i've heard many times through foobar with various volume levels. judging from my memory on their sounds, i can still claim that xxhe sounds different regardless of volume. 
 
Mar 16, 2011 at 12:26 AM Post #4 of 33
No loudness matching etc. needed, XXHE is indeed a phenomenal player and the latest version really knocked it out of the park. The presentation is very different than just about any other player I have tried - depending on the settings used - and the newest version is as close to analog I've heard yet.
 
Mar 16, 2011 at 2:33 AM Post #6 of 33


Quote:
curiousmuffin said:
i cannot believe what I'm hearing with this player. more defined bass, airier highs and bigger dynamics all that. and the volume is a notch louder. What&%? but I'm wondering if this is but a dsp effect. I mean how can this player sound so different from the others (foobar, winamp) even when they all three go for the same goal of achieving bit perfect playback? I've compared winamp and foobar through kernel streaming to XXHE doing the same. I'm suspecting that it's a dsp effect because I get a slight ear fatigue after a song, though this could be due to the unwanted tubes in my dac rearing its ugly head again from xxhe granting it more transparency. (i doubt it though. like i said, i think it's a dsp effect)
Click to expand...



I'm pretty sure it's not a dsp effect. It also does not sound like you've been spending time with the different settings and modes. If you have questions you should ask direct at the phasure.com forum...
 
Mar 16, 2011 at 9:22 AM Post #7 of 33
Yes it is too good to be true. Cannot distinguish xx and foobar(wasapi, spdif into dac). 
I think all the "slider bars", xxenginge## and whatever it does is only a packet of eq settings premade from the developer. If it works for you and you like it is nice. If you would like to tweak the sound youself it is always possible to do it with other players. 
It's user interface is ba far the worst I have ever seen and used. It is slow, luggish and the last version I used (3.9 something registered) did not encode flac and converted it to wav because the developer says it it sounds better. Well it does not!
The forum (xx-forum) is filled with people praizing the developer and takes the incredible lousy explanations for granted. "win vista sounds better than win7", "win7 sp1 sounds better than win7" etc. It is just a bunch of crap. I work as a computer engineer and an audiophile. testing all the OS's as media players. Have a good stereo system and good ears. I have never witnessed so much fail information and crap coming from a forum before. Sorry to say..
xx (and itunes) is more of a virus than a good program (for pc that is). 
 
Well maybe the upsampling algoritm is better than most other players. So if you have a "hi-rez" dac and could benefit of that - maybe , just maybe xx is the "program for you"
 
Mar 16, 2011 at 12:34 PM Post #9 of 33
well there's no exact science when judging sound quality. isn't subjectivity basically opinions? having listened to xx a while longer, i can say that... yes, i agree with bambadoo. i think it's crap. i have a very specific reason, though. it gives me ear fatigue. it's bright sounding. some upper end freq is accentuated to give that perception of 'clear' sound. i think the old rule applies here- if it looks like crap, it is... well xx certainly looks it, acts it, and as far as my ears know, sounds it. that's just my opinion :)
 
Mar 18, 2011 at 11:24 PM Post #12 of 33
Yep, I've got a hard time believing that XXHE is bit-perfect...I think its coder should make a youtube video running an AC3/DTS pass-through test, playing around w/ the different "engines" in realtime. The diff. lies only in software-induced jitter? Prove it.
 
But tbh, the GUI is horrid..that'd be a no go either way, even for free.
 
BTW, you guys tried uLilith? There are features I prefer in other players, but none of those I tried has the same sound as this player. I even got an uber-skeptic friend of mine to try it, and he's hooked. Everything's processed in 64fp(VST plugins/volume attenuation/lossy audio decoding), it simply sounds extremly good through ASIO4ALL.
 
Reclock has its own sound too, but I find it too upfront and bright for music...fantastic for movies though.
 
Mar 20, 2011 at 12:04 PM Post #13 of 33
Didn't the developer himself say that he eq'ed it?
 
Stealth audio player
http://andy-audioplayer.blogspot.com/2010/05/stealthaudioplayer-next-step.html
 
No front end GUI, pure WASAPI/ASIO player.
 
 
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