Ah, now I see where you are coming from.
Word.
Iām the same way Beef, ninety percent of what I listen to are not very good recordings in an absolute sense, and Iāve struggled for years to have a flexible system that I can make suit the music I want to play. And with the DSD Iāve been able to do that through all the different firmwares so far, though Snowmass was a difficult one to adjust to at first. But Windom seems fundamentally different in a not-forward-moving way, in fact it sounds very un PS Audio like to me. I think itās possible that I, and perhaps you, still have a bad load. I am going to let my current load burn in at least til Monday and if it still has that same root character Iāll try another load, this time from Snowmass 3.00 up.
Hi Lonson,
The burn-in wonāt make that much of a difference.
Why not try the following
First install Snowmass-3.0.0, check version, remove the sd card and reboot twice.
Then Install Windom, check version, remove the sd card and reboot twice.
I fully agree with your preferenceā¦The good message beef is ā¦ that good recordings finally sound much better doesnāt mean worse recordings must sound even worse. Thatās Hi-Fi press wisdom imo, but fortunately not a final result of a great revealing setup. Further break in will certainly helpā¦we all know the rough range in which break-inās have their effectā¦you wonāt get 5dB more bass or less treble if thatās the problem 
Itās a somehow frustrating situation we all knowā¦but .you will get out finallyā¦probably it just takes a while trial and testingā¦and patience, which is hard.
Yes Iāll probably do that. . . again. Iāve done it before. But I might as well let the burnin happen as Iām not going to be at the system much before Monday. The weekends belong to my still-working wife, and she has a āhoney doā list and an itinerary that will keep me away from the system.
Lonson - FYI, I let the DSD run with Windom loaded for three days this week. No change.
EDIT: See top of thread
But did you wear white socks when you loaded it?
Absolutely - Windom does get my Whites Whiter when I do a load.
I predict that will be my experience. Weāll see. Iāve run it about 36 hours at a time a few times with little discernible change.
I love how everyone is treating us Wandering Windom Wastrels like sickly relatives ; ). Rest assured, it is just a cold, Iāll get over it! Appreciate all yāalls concern though, truly.
I downloaded and installed windom on receipt of Paulās email. It was late at night in the UK, so just got a couple of tracks on and went to bed looking forward to the next day.
I spent the next few days bemused by the sound; the highs were much sweeter and the lows tight. However, as a whole, the sound was lacking, with a little disconnected bass and a sterile but detailed presentation. I tried reloading etc but no different.
My DSD plays directly into 3 way active crossovers and then power amps into 3 way Linkwitz Lx521 speakers. I had tuned the sound with previous releases and was running a balanced connection that had proved acceptable. Placing a good set of rca interconnects between DSD and crossovers meant that I had to increase the output up to 70 to 90 for my listening volume, so that may bring the dac into its happy zone.
The sound lifted to an entirely different level with the ics; smooth bassy and detailed. A fantastic upgrade and I am now very happy, but it once again shows what a thin line we tread with sound quality and componentry.
If you have DSD connected directly to an active crossover, probably with quite long cables, I recommend a symmetrical buffer with the OPA1632 chip. It cost me no more than 50 Euro and 2 hours of work. I have excellent Van den Hul The Platinum Hybrid cables and even with them the buffer has greatly improved the sound. If you have no experience, ask an electronics professional to assemble it for you. +/- 12 V or 15 V power supply, 2 XLR male and 2 female connectors, 2 OPA1632 circuits, 8 capacitors and 8 resistors. By changing the value of the resistors, you can get any gain, for example, for DSD to play with the attenuator on, my DSD has the attenuator on.
I must confess that I have gone out of my way and spared almost no expense to assemble a collection of high quality masterings. I lost most of my CD collection in a moving snafu so I had to rebuild my collection. This allowed me to seek out the best masterings versus many of the crap masterings I used to have. Now that I can rip SACDs, I have been acquiring SACDs that are the best masterings available in any format as well.
Because of the above, I donāt listen to many āpoorā recordings. However, I still have a bunch of iTunes tracks. Many of these are pretty good. But many are also compressed and overly loud. Even these sound good on my 2 channel setup with Windom and better than they sounded with Snowmass.
I have really a great 6SN7-based tube line stage and a great KT88-based tube ultra linear amp to go along with Tekton Design Double Impact speakers. The speakers are neutral and quite revealing.
Thatās very interesting thanks. I was blaming the lead as I experienced similar effects when I was running an SB+ into a Pass Labs x250 driving Shahinian Obelisks with that particular LAT200 ic.
Building a buffer is beyond me, but I will bear in mind your advice. I do run my vinyl through a pre amp, but have preferred the dsd direct up to now.
In a world where amp designers try to avoid switches and cable connections are laser welded this seems not puristic
Holy Cow folksā¦think I done got a Good Load!!
EDIT: See top of thread
I have found the same experience. I love Snowmass, but found Windomās vocals to be dry, losing 3 dimensionality. The background instruments were extremely focused but overpowered the voice. The sound stage too large, and emotionality was completely lost. I think that just like tube rolling, these updates can really change the sound of your system. I think that we it may be system dependent. My speakers are Wilson Sashas, Accustic arts preamp and Pass 160 amps.
But it works. The signal path is shortened to a minimum.