Here’s a new feedback today. It’s been a while since last time I see Fidelizer feedback with motherboard’s sound card on serious system.

Hi Keetakawee,

Thank you for the Christmas present. This critique is my Christmas present to you. 🙂

My system is as close to audiophile as I can get on a budget. I built the computer using a motherboard which has a Realtek chip on it which can capably do 24 bit, 192,000 Hz. Having the DAC on the motherboard eliminates USB latency because the info is travelling at motherboard bus speed. Motherboard manufacturers have started using onboard chips with sound card performance due to the demands of average gamers these days and it’s a bonus for music lovers. JRiver ais my player app. I used foobar for a long time and one day decided to try JRiver on a whim. JRiver was able to bypass the Windows sound settings completely (which foobar was supposed to do and did not) and sounded better to me, so I thought it was worth the reasonable investment. I think when foobar was new it was comparable to JRiver in sound, but foobar does not get updated much, and I think JRiver has done a better job of keeping up with the times. With the free version of Fidelizer I didn’t hear any improvement with up-sampling in JRiver, but after upgrading to pro the up-sampling seems to do a little ‘smoothing’ of some of the harsher sounding mid frequencies at volume. Or maybe I’m just imagining it. 🙂

The signal is going by cable to my vintage Luxman LV 105u hybrid integrated tube amplifier with MOSFET output stage. This little darlin’ of mine is rated at 70 watts per channel, but has very high current capability, and can get much cleaner and lounder than other high end consumer amps which I have owned with much higher watts per channel ratings. I love reggae music amongst other genres, and just love the sound of the bass from this amp. More note than boom. The biggest investment was my large Mirage speakers, and not only are they very accurate and musical, but they do disappear at higher volume levels as the name implies. Other than the source, the whole system is vintage because I’m vintage too, and I keep us both well maintained.

Upon inital installation I chose Purist and Audio Player from the wizard, then looked at advanced settings to see your defaults for this setting. For daily PC use I will use less extreme settings but for serious listening I reboot with serious settings. I left networking on for serious listening breaks. I still have to do a test with that one final ‘no networking’ tweak. Do you think I’ll hear anything? After trying all the various combinations in the processor priority setting I find I agree with your preference for Long/Fixed as the processor priority setting. It was interesting though, that my self powered Polk Hampden ‘computer speakers’ seemed to benefit from the Long/Variable setting. They are however obviously not as accurate or muscular as the Mirages with the tube amp.

With the Mirages and the new version 8.0 I noticed even more clarity over the full frequency range. I heard even more distinct vocals, backup vocals, guitars, keyboards and horns, even when when things get musically busy and all were competing for midrange space. The bass was perhaps even a bit more well behaved than the previous version. The kick drum and bass guitar could each be heard even more distinctly while competing with each other for the woofers. At the high end cymbals, like everything else, sound like they’re in the room. The improved imaging from the pro versionis new improved, and is another reason I think your creation is well worth the money for anyone who imagines they have a fine ear for sound and music and a music system which can make good or better use of a cleaner source. Now I have to re-listen to my entire music collection.

Merry Christmas to you too.

Today’s Realtek audio chip is performing hires audio much better than before especially when some motherboards use good quality capacitors. Happy listening. 🙂