As some people requested me for ABX files to test with DBT (double blind test), I recorded again today and made two separated files for testing purpose below.
http://www.mediafire.com/download/9wjjmg7b24m41kk
I recommend Foobar2000 with ABX Comparator component). Personally, I find DBT as a method to measure human’s hearing rather than the equipment as some people who fail Tidal test, MP3/FLAC doesn’t mean MP3 is as good as FLAC.
We have a lot of USB tweaks last year and I expect there’ll be more introduced in this growing market as magical devices that can solve mysterious audiophile riddles. Today I’m going to explain the technologies often used behind USB tweaks.
Passive filter
Passive filter is filtering device consists of passive components that doesn’t require external power source. There’re two kinds of passive filters, series and parallel.
Series passive filter will interact with electricity on signal data directly. The signal data will run through passive filter before it goes to output.
Parallel passive filter will interact with electricity surrounding signal data. The signal data goes to output without interacting with passive filter directly.
Series passive filter is suitable for problems related to signal data itself such as DC filter, current limit filter, heavy polluted signal data filter, etc. Parallel passive filter is suitable for problems surrounding signal data such as power conditioning filter, harmonic filter, ground filter, etc.
Reclocking
Reclocking is a technique of rounding incoming data to match with generated clock signal from a new source. Reclocking will greatly reduce random jitter because data is aligned with new clock source.
There’re asynchronous reclocking and synchronous reclocking technique. Asynchronous is faster,support higher frequencies and synchronous can reduce jitter more effectively.
However, its side effect with rounding jitter is great too. When incoming jitter isn’t match with the designed level, the rounding error will create a different kind of jitter, periodic jitter that isn’t just ordinary digital noise but can cause tone shift to digital domain.
So reclocking is often recommended for budget entry level sources that don’t use high precision clock causing high jitter level.
Regenerator
Regenerator (or actually, Repeater) will receive incoming signal and regenerate the signal again. It’s often used to strengthen the signal or correcting some problems from original source.
The advantage of regeneration is to correct the errors from original signal like poor sine wave shape, unreliable signal strength, etc. However, it comes with a price of lessen bandwidth and increase latency from repeating the signal process.
There’s other good things that you can implement with regenerator such as supplying cleaner power to regulate signal data, improve the implementations with better clock generator, higher quality parts, improving design, etc.
Galvanic isolation
Galvanic isolation is one of popular isolation techniques. It’s cheaper and easier to implement than isolation transformer. The concept of galvanic isolation is to separate the current flow between circuits from direct conduction.
When one’s circuit is heavy polluted, implementing the galvanic isolation will reduce the interference from polluted circuit. It also is often recommended for safety measures so people often mistake this as ground isolator too.
However, its disadvantage of isolation is great too. It reduces electronic conductivity efficiency because there’s no direct conduction. The changes in electronic characteristics and specifications need to be checked and maintained accordingly.
That’s all about technologies behind popular USB tweaks today. These technologies can solve some of your system problems if you know what your system needs if used correctly.
However, they all aren’t solutions to fix problems at roots. It’s more like trying to minimize the effects of incorrect implementations not fixing the implementation itself. Using product on system without suitable problems to solve may only collect its side effects.
If you ever feel like you’re missing out dynamics and punching of music, you may consider taking out installed tweaks and re-evaluate your system again to solve system’s problems correctly. Happy listening. 🙂
After releasing 6.12 for a while, I received reports about breaking some processes that require Task Scheduler like Process Lasso for an example. Process Lasso is one of famous audiophile tweaks so This won’t do. So I reverted the changes related to Task Scheduler for “EnableLUA = 0” customers.
I also received another request to keep JPLAY clock settings other than 15.6ms so it won’t change OS Timer resolution now if JPLAY clock configuration is present. I still recommend 0.5ms though because it’s good for time-sensitive and low latency applications. Let me know if there’s anything you need after this release.
Changelog for version 6.13
Free
-Improved playback I/O performance on non-networked audio
-OS timer option will be unchecked if JPLAY Clock is not found or set to 0.5ms
-Secured the code in core optimizations to make sure the changes will be applied correctly
Plus
-Improved playback I/O performance on non-networked audio
-OS timer option will be unchecked if JPLAY Clock is not found or set to 0.5ms
-Secured the code in core optimizations to make sure the changes will be applied correctly
Pro
-Improved playback I/O performance on non-networked audio
-OS timer option will be unchecked if JPLAY Clock is not found or set to 0.5ms
-Secured the code in core optimizations to make sure the changes will be applied correctly
-Reverted changes made in previous relese related to Task Scheduler
I’m staying at my parents’ place with poor internet connection form True company in Thailand. It occasionally go down so I couldn’t send over 900 licenses in one go. I hope it went well.
Download: Fidelizer 6.13
Upgrade: Fidelizer Upgrade Program
Fidelizer Plus/Pro users should be received a mail about update and download link by now. If you somehow didn’t receive an update notification as I received some delivery failure message too, please contact me for an update with your customer data to verify.
Lately I received more reports about playback issues with multi-core optimizations so I re-evaluated the core optimizations and realized that I left a critical bug there. In reserved process list, I accidently added one more space making the reserved process list not working properly. As a result, some audio processes got affected by this. I thought they worked before because some processes are secured but not all goes as planned. Now I fixed this critical bug and should improve sound quality with better stability.
Some people requested me to allow manual process execution running normal so I added explorer into reserved process list to run any music player application after optimizations without penalty in Audiophile/Extremist optimization levels. Now I’m running Audiophile optimization level playing games and working without significant system slow down. I also added JPLAY clock detection so OS Timer option will be unchecked if JPLAY clock is set to 15.6ms. I hope you guys will find it handy.
Changelog for version 6.12
Free
-Executing a new process after optimizations will run with all cores instead of isolated core
-Fixed non-audio process optimizations bug where reserved process list doesn’t work properly
-OS timer option will be unchecked if JPLAY Clock is set to 15.6ms
Plus
-Executing a new process after optimizations will run with all cores instead of isolated core
-Fixed non-audio process optimizations bug where reserved process list doesn’t work properly
-OS timer option will be unchecked if JPLAY Clock is set to 15.6ms
Pro
-Executing a new process after optimizations will run with all cores instead of isolated core
-Fixed non-audio process optimizations bug where reserved process list doesn’t work properly
-Task Scheduler service will by disabled and startup will rely on registry if EnableLUA is set to 0
-OS timer option will be unchecked if JPLAY Clock is set to 15.6ms
Since uploading over 800 licenses will take quite a bit of time and space, I’ll have to remove previous 6.9 release so you can find up to last 3 revisions in your repository. Let us know if there’s any change that affect your usability so we can improve in next release.
Download: Fidelizer 6.12
Upgrade: Fidelizer Upgrade Program
Fidelizer Plus/Pro users should be received a mail about update and download link by now. If you somehow didn’t receive an update notification as I received some delivery failure message too, please contact me for an update with your customer data to verify.
It appeared I left some troublesome bugs for new users in 6.10 that doesn’t seem to work like Workstation on default configuration. Now I solved this issue for good. It doesn’t take too much time fixing it but I was occupied with other projects and only have time to finish 6.11 recently.
I also aligned Security Center service to be handled only when UAC is turned off completely. So you won’t see Security Center being disabled notification anymore unless you turn UAC off completely. There’s also other fixes I applied too like fixing typos and make default browser behave properly on Windows 10.
Changelog for version 6.11
Free
-Fixed default browser launch software bug on some platforms
-Fixed selecting all available options when run the software for the first time
-Fixed stopping ‘Security Center’ service when UAC is turned on
-Fixed typos in software
Plus
-Fixed selecting all available options when run the software for the first time
-Fixed stopping ‘Security Center’ service when UAC is turned on
-Fixed typos in software
Pro
-Fixed selecting all available options when run the software for the first time
-Fixed disabling ‘Security Center’ service when UAC is turned on
-Fixed typos in software
It took me a while to upgrade backend system to generate software and send update notification to all customers. I also updated User Guide with matching pictures to each scenario for better understanding. Please let me know if there’s anything else missing to fix. I forgot about fixing security center until one user notified me again yesterday.
Download: Fidelizer 6.11
Upgrade: Fidelizer Upgrade Program
Fidelizer Plus/Pro users should be received a mail about update and download link by now. If you somehow didn’t receive an update notification as I received some delivery failure message too, please contact me for an update with your customer data to verify.