Windom: Sound Impressions

[weedeewop]

@badbeef- I line-up with the musical versus analytical preference. Glad to hear you are enjoying that Senior-ita. Ultimately mine will be moving to one of two more revealing systems, and then I will experiment with Windom. Until then enjoy the music.

[cbnbmore]

Sounds about right. Taking the engineered for iPhones compressed music that seems to be the new norm in the 2000’s, it’s difficult to make that sound good.
Windom does seem to relax a bit of that hot mastering and make it more listenable. The old adage “you can’t shine a turd” still holds though.

[Jovo3]

“Holy Cow folks…think I done got a Good Load!!”

haha, i was waiting for that to happen !
do you remember the ordering of your last 3 or 4 updates ?

[RonP]

The soundstage on this was very wide and deep with Snowmass.
With Windom (54th install in my case, so I’m calling it Windom 54), the soundstage is out to my neighbors’ houses in all directions.

[entman]

Fabulous upgrade thank you!

[badbeef]

I used to bring a CD of that one to shows. Some nice-sounding tracks on it.

[lonson]

Well, I don’t yet know what to think. Adding another resistor to regulate my ribbon tweeters has lowered the treble output and as a result restored a lower mid-upper bass fullness I was missing, killing my two biggest complaints with the sound of Windom from the loads I’ve been getting. I snuck in a half an hour so far of listening to these changes made Friday and I’m enjoying the sound, it’s very similar to Snowmass 3.06 with a few differences (a sort of “bleached” quality, a tiny sliver of micro detail also perhaps).

Some of the characteristics you list I’m experiencing, some I’m not. I am getting some soundstage occurrences beyond the speakers when it’s there on the material, and my resistor and power cable changes have ameliorated much of the midrange anemia (and I think caused that slight “bleaching” I hear in those frequencies). So I’m still left wondering if I have a good load and just don’t dig unadulterated Windom . . . or not.

If I have enough time after this beautiful Jobim recording is finished I’ll do a load of Snowmass 3.00 then two reboots with he card out, then Windom, then two reboots with the card out–and the HDMI disconnected, the most pain in the arse thing of the process as I can just barely reach it if I hold do my Elongated Man impersonation. If that doesn’t make a profound change, I’ll just keep on with this for a while, it is sounding pretty good, on par with Snowmass 3.06.

[lonson]

Well I did the reload protocol. I definitely got a change. More treble again, clear and crisp. A touch more dynamics. A thinner sound overall even with the changes I made. I’ll twiddle some dials and let this settle in and see if I learn to like it more than I do right now.

[badbeef]

I’d guess that is wrong. There’s nothing thin about a Good Load, and I wish I had never heard the bad one, thinking it was something I’d want to make physical changes to fix. I have a bunch of expensive cables on the way…

Fortunately I likely will want them anyway, as my main system is now much more revealing, etc. But had I gotten a load that sounded like this on day one, I doubt I would’ve ordered anything.

[lonson]

Well, I think that initial impression was just the transformers trying to cope with six on and offs as thirty minutes later there’s an open midrange rather than a thinner overall sound. I think I got a correct load this time.

My listening time is near ending so I’ll set the DMP on repeat and check it out when I next can, probably tomorrow. But I’m hopeful for the first time in ten days or so.

[RonP]

Lon–After all the back and forth, I don’t know really, what did it, but I can now understand why Paul would refer to Windom as 'richer". That’s how I would describe it, with more meat on the bones of the midrange, with no loss on the top end. The last trip back to Snowmass 3.06, it sounded quite scooped out in the midrange.

[lonson]

Interesting. I was not hearing that precisely today. Would not describe anything as “richer.” We’ll see what tomorrow will bring.

[JMK]

I must have eaten some bad beef over the weekend. I decided to load Snowmass back on my DSD Snr after running Windom for a few weeks. I have to say, I’m greatly preferring the overall sound on Snowmass. Having done an initial back flip, I’m doing another one (sigh).
It’s not about imaging width or depth or whatever, it’s about wanting to listen to the music more with Snowmass. Objectively I guess Windom does have lower noise, cleaner treble, deeper and cleaner bass but Snowmass just does it for me at some level which I can’t put my finger on.
I can see why people with different tastes and systems / rooms will favour one or the other. It’s good to have choices

[echoz]

Likewise. Back to snowmass and I am finding the warmth specially midrange vocals and overall musicality of snowmass to be preferable to Windom

[tarnishedears]

I downgraded back to Snowmass Revision 1 weeks ago, and am loving the sound of my system again.

I might still give Windom another shot, but at this point I’m content to stay with Snowmass, and I probably will stay this way until Ted sees fit to share his next experiments in advancing DSD technology with the world. There is just something exceedingly special about the tonal qualities of Snowmass which is somehow lacking in Windom. Or at least this is true on my system.

[danofesherintheuk]

I reverted to Yale and then Windom. The bass heaviness has disappeared (or maybe the mid or treble has increased). I’m using exactly the same EQ settings as I used with Snowmass. Windom is not an easy listen on a lot of my library.

I think it’s time for PS Audio to explain what the hell is going on!

[tarnishedears]

My guess is that the Bass heaviness that some of us perceive in Windom might be some sort of change to the phase response in Windom. Because so far as I know, the frequency response is just as ruler flat in the audio-band as it has always been.

But as to why the order of the load makes a difference seems harder to explain. My best guess here is that this might be symptomatic of the FPGA equivalent of a memory leak.

[danofesherintheuk]

Ted assured me that there’s no difference in phase response.

I have had this trouble with a previous release. Now it’s happened a second time I am far from happy, in fact I’m furious. We can’t go on like this.