I received inquiries about firmware flashing issues on Mac so I looked into it and added some instructions for MacOS. 🙂
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Developer’s self-interest scribbles
Fidelizer on Windows 10 v1803 (Spring Creators Update) Update Report
Hello everyone. Now it’s time to review Windows 10 sound quality after each update. I didn’t review previous “Fall Creators Update” v1709 before because I was too occupied with Fidelizer 8 and it somehow slipped away.
This may sound a bit late but I start to have time to write something now after updating Fidelizer Purist ROMs for iBasso and Fiio devices. There’ll be Nimitra update coming up next but before then, I’d like to express my thoughts about new Windows 10 update.
To be frank, Creators Update (v1703) has tonal balance shifted to emphasis on treble more and bass is weak. Fall Creators Update (v1709) has tonal balance shifted back to lower frequency a bit but over all performance since both builds are known with audio issues.
Now that v1803 is out, I immediate notice in improvements like this is getting better. Bass is more solid for the first time after its absent since Anniversary Update. Well, it’s still not as good as Threshold line (v1507 / v1511).
Overall this is a good update I recommend to install. It’s probably the best sounding Windows 10 since Anniversary Update. Here’s my ranking for sound quality on Windows 10 so far.
- Threshold (v1057) – By very small margin
- Threshold 2 (v1511)
- Spring Creators Update (v1803)
- Creators Update (v1703)
- Fall Creators Update (v1709)
- Anniversary Edition (v1607)
And don’t forget to re-apply Fidelizer Pro optimizations after major Windows Update to make sure Fidelizer is running with 100% optimizations. 🙂
Listening to classical music in Golden Hall, Vienna
Hello everyone. I’m back from overseas trip now so I’m resuming my work during overseas. Before I continue, I’d like to share my experience from attending classical concert in Golden Hall, Vienna.
Last year I also attended classical concert in Munich and it was a good performance. But in this year, I visited Austria to attend classical concert in Golden Hall which is one of the best hall for classical performance.
Before the concert started, I can hear background noise from people’s conversation sounding more relaxed showing good room acoustics. They started the performance with Beethoven pieces and it gave me chills.
I didn’t know classical music could be this powerful. It was completely different from any classical concert I’ve attended before. Sound is full, vivid and alive. Every movement has deeper layers and I need to close my eyes to focus on music with full attention.
After having my eyes closed, music became much more alive. I can feel the river flow, the gushing wind of change, I can see soldiers marching to war, hearing cannon firing in battlefield. Complexed movements were far more intense like a whirlwind blowing my mind.
I believe this experience I received from attending classical concert in Golden Hall will be a good reference for future Fidelizer updates. It’s the most valuable 2 hours I have for music in my entire life.
Roon 1.5 test results with NimitraS featuring DSD and MQA with DSP
Few days ago Roon released version 1.5 which is a major upgrade improving Linn, Tidal, and MQA support. There were sound signature changes in 1.4 making the sound too bright so I immediately checked on version 1.5 and here’s my findings.
I tested Roon 1.5 with NimitraS I’m going to bring to Munich show and use eXD audio interface for native DSD playback and converting MQA tracks to DSD format. It looks like they resolved brightness issue and Roon sounds musical again with improved transparency.
I checked audio output options and found new MQA options which freely allow user to use software (Decoder) and hardware (Renderer) to decode MQA files. Using Decoder will work with any output and Renderer will only work with MQA-capable device.
I also tested MQA with DSP such as Crossfeed to for my Rudistor RP030 + Beyerdynamic T1 and DSD upsampling for eXD interface with Emm Labs DSD playback. It worked fine and sounds very good.
So far I’m very happy with Roon 1.5 upgrade. It didn’t cause a huge mess with database like 1.3 upgrade and sounds better to my liking. I can search through Tidal better with official MQA support.
Oh, I will also bring NimitraS with Roon 1.5 and other goodies in Munich AV Show tomorrow so feel free to check our booth in Hall 3 J15. There’s also 3,000th license purchase offer for Fidelizer Upgrade Program including Fidelizer Purist ROMs so feel free to check out and take up offers. 🙂
Flashing Fidelizer Purist ROM firmware on Mac / Linux guide
I’ve received a few requests about flashing Fidelizer Purist ROM on Mac so here’s detailed instructions to flash Fidelizer Purist ROM on Mac and Linux too.
We’ll use rkflashtool which is available on Windows/Mac/Linux. Windows users can also use this method to flash Fidelizer Purist ROM too though original Windows method should be easier with graphical user interface. For Mac/Linux, we’ll use Homebrew to install rkflashtool.
To install Homebrew and rkflashtool, open Terminal utility and type this command line below.
bash -c “$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)”
brew install rkflashtool android-platform-tools
Now that rkflashtool is installed, you can flash Fidelizer Purist ROM by following the instructions below:
For iBasso DX150/160/200/220, you need to disable verity feature because Oreo ROM needs verity disabled before flashing Purist ROM so you won’t get bootloop.
1. You need to enable USB debugging and authorize USB debugging on Mac machine. You can read instructions in official ROM release post.
2. Run the follow commands below to disable verity. You should see notification about verity being disabled on system and vendor partition after running
adb root
adb disable-verity
adb reboot
Now that you finish disabling verity on device with Oreo ROM if required, you may process with ROM flashing part by following the instructions below.
1. Run the following commands to setup device running with loader mode.
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot reboot bootloader
2. Then enter these commands to make sure device is recognized.
rkflashtool v
rkflashtool n
3. Extract update.img file and run the following command to extract partition image files.
cd “/Users/username/Downloads” <— replace “username” with your user account name
rkunpack update.img
4. If you may see Boot folder and embbeded-update.img being extracted, please also run
rkunpack embedded-update.img
5. You should see some new image files inside Image folder. We’ll flash boot.img and system.img to for Fidelizer Purist ROM with these commands below.
cd Image
rkflashtool w boot < boot.img
rkflashtool w system < system.img
6. “premature end-of-file reached” message may appear when new image is smaller. You can reboot with Fidelizer Purist ROM using this command.
rkflashtool b
If you find flashing Fidelizer Purist ROM in Mac/Linux being tricky, you may use SD card firmware installation method with GUI tool. If you have any question about firmware flashing, please contact me and happy listening. 🙂