The Battle for Windom!, Smowmass Squadron Group Photo. Holdouts still flying Spitfires while the rest converted to F-35 Lightning II.
mI am glad I do not hear what they do.
Ghostrider. Windom 4.01 Download, Check. 360 Degree Panoramic Sound Stage with Automatic Noise Reduction, Double Check.
Requesting permission to displace some air and shake the tower with 40,000 lbs of Max AB bass thrust?
Roger that all systems go!
Not all that young here, but due credit to Erik Satie, LaMonte Young and Terry Riley, among others regarding the basis for ambient music. And then then there is Conrad Plank and Tangerine Dream.
High regards for Brian Eno here, but there is more to the storyâŚ
IIRC Satie referred to it as âFurniture Musicâ.
Just Sayinâ
I had the same impression here. I still do, but like you say, Iâm probably realizing the middle range is more fully fleshed out.
But here is something interesting. Iâve owned a recording that I loved to hateâthis is the Stravinsky Firebird/Nightingale/Rite of Spring disc, Minnesota Orch., Eiji Oue conducting, on the allegedly audiophile label Reference Recordings. On my previous digital rig, it always sounded like the extreme highs and lows were greatly exaggeratedâthe bass boomed throughout the house, and the highs were excruciating.
Having Snowmass only slightly tamed the highsâI still heard that âbuzz sawâ distortion I found common in all digital playback. (Itâs one of those qualities I heard many years ago that I havenât been able to unhear.) But with Windom, I can actually listen to this recording without wincing now. The bass is still out of control, but that buzz saw distortion is mostly gone, and the recording no longer sounds bright like it used to. With the other recordings Iâve owned, I also noticed that the highs (especially in percussion or brass) seem to be clearer and cleaner now.
I did let the DSJ run for days, 24/7, with a variety of recordings and sampling rates while I wasnât listening to it. So maybe that has helped settle things downâŚ? At any rate, I really have no complaints, and I donât get that âdisjointedâ feeling a few others are getting in the imaging and/or soundstage.
And no, it doesnât sound like a whole new, different DACâI agree with a few here that itâs a subtle change. But itâs a change I like, and Iâm plenty happy with how it sounds. If I didnât like it? Well, how many others can we download and install to find one to our liking? Thatâs the cool part about these DS DACs.
Another Eno release worthy of a spin.
Iâm astonished that some of you think the changes are slight. I think theyâre major. I posted about four times in the old thread. I keep trying to get to like Windom. My system has a digital crossover (with built in EQ capability) into three DSDs that go directly to the power amps. My room is 30â*20â*8â and is heavily damped with absorbers (including big RPG bass traps - the reverb times across all frequencies are nice and low). I listen with curtains closed (reduces reflections). I need a lot of power and EQ to overcome the absorption.
The words Iâve used for Windom include classy/sophisticated boring/sterile. I tend to like singers and Snowmass fills the room. Windom is dull/lacklustre. I bought Leonard Cohen Ten New Songs and Alexandra Leaving sounds superb with Windom with nicely focused reverb - Snowmass still sounds good but not as focused.
If I open the curtains with Windom most tracks sound less focused and less dull.
I think Iâll have to stay with Snowmass because with the curtains closed I get lots of detail and room filling sound (Windom is too laid back for my liking. I wonder what the square wave performance of Windom v Snowmass is like across various frequencies over, say, a 100ms period).
Dan.
My friend was unhappy with his system running Windom and preferred Snowmass. He complained about bad distortion on Van Morrisonâs - Astral Weeks CD, which he said wasnât evident with Snowmass. He was dissatisfied with the sound of Windom. It lacked feeling, too clinical, boring, etc⌠Anyway, I took my copy of Astral Weeks for comparison purposes.
On listening to his system â yes, it was âtoo brightly litâ â âin your faceâ - it wasnât evenly balanced throughout, not enough weight down below and it wasnât musically engaging at all. The distortion that was annoying Bob with Astral Weeks CD is present on the recording - but really evident with Windom because itâs much more revealingâŚ
I rebooted his DS and it redressed the uneven balance top to bottom â but overall still crap!
After some more listening I disconnected and removed the âvery expensiveâ full silver mains cables from all of the equipment and replaced them with sensible priced copper mains cables, the same type as I use. This made a slight improvement but not earth shaking.
I moved his speakers slightly further back and further apart. But again not much of a difference. As I was poking around at the back of his DMP and DS I discovered what resembled fancy phono plugs and XLRs plugged into all the unused sockets! I was informed theyâre âRFI absorbersâ. I removed all said phonoâs & XLRâs â âRFI absorbersâ. Now we were getting somewhere, this made an instant improvement. We played SCADs and CDs through his DMP for 2 hours and his system was getting better and better. Bob agreed it was âmuch improvedâ, it was now musical, engaging, and no longer just an irritation to the senses.
I put Snowmass back in the DS whereupon his hi-fi shrunk and it was less involving. Clarity, air, space, rhythmic flow of the music all diminished: quite simply not as good as it was with Windom. Bob said, âthatâs not nearly as good, the sound-stage has collapsed and itâs kinda dirtierâ.
After playing a few tracks to get back in the swing with Snowmass we reconnected all the silver AG mains cables and it was overall very smooth, evenly balanced and crystal clear - but lacked balls. I reintroduced the âRFI absorbersâ and once again they absorbed the music - Big Time. It was back to sounding bright, edgier and just plain crap. When I pulled all of them out it was like an instant upgrade. I donât know if they just naturally shaft the music or whether one or more of them was faulty.? I think theyâre just wrong devices to plug into the DS and DMPâŚ!?
Windom reload and reboot. Put everything back together again with copper mains cables, etc. and the music returned flowing throughout the room - the brittle, fatiguing sound I heard when I arrived was no-more. Windom is so clean, clear and extremely revealing to all that is good and bad with recordings, setup, room, etc.
Now that my big system has fully settled - it is a revelation! My only problem is I want to play it louder and louder which proves to me thereâs less distortion with Windom. Windom defo needs a settling-in time of that I have no doubt!
Iâve brought the fancy silver AG mains cables and the other voodoo junk home with me so Bob canât swap them back over. He said he would give it a week or two to fully settle-in after all the fettling and then he will try the Silver AG mains cables again.
If we hadnât gone through his system he would have reverted back to Snowmass and stayed there.
Iâm not advocating that all silver mains cables are a sonic disaster, just that the ones in the system seemed to screw with the sound of Bobâs Setup. The RFI absorber devices were the real issue.
Like Ted said it is worth examining the system / setup / room if Windom doesnât float your boat and not just dismiss Windom without first looking elsewhere!
Windom is excellent.
Itâs unfortunate what you are experiencing, because Windom is stunning in my system. Like you I have a big system and the power shakes the house to the foundations⌠Windom has really improved my system. The fault must lie in your setup.
Excellent, Dirk. A great (if extreme) example of how system synergies very definitely come into play with FW updates. Iâve never gone that far, but over the many FW updates in the DS and PWD Iâve had occasion to switch to another IC to optimize the match with a new FW build, or tweak the speaker position. Itâs can sometimes be a complex beast.
Your Shahinian brother. 
Thanks Dirk, youâve encouraged me to keep trying. My system is strictly PCM at no more than 24/96 because of the digital crossover. I have to say that Leonard Cohen Alexandra Leaving sounds amazing via Windom (the 16/44.1 is upscaled to 24/88.2 by a Chord M-Scaler and then goes through a Wyred4Sound Remedy femtoclocked reclocker to 24/96 into the crossover) - other tracks donât - theyâre just unexciting - I probably like a bit of distortion - Windom and Snowmass are polls apart. Moving speakers is something Iâve avoided for years (I can just about move them by small amounts).
Iâve asked Ted whether he thinks it worth getting the Australian crosssover manufacturer to recalibrate the impulse response of the system (not something I can do myself) but he doesnât seem to think it worthwhile. All I can do is play with EQ and play it atleast 1db louder.
D.
Is that a DCX2496? Got one here as well if so - I like the âmix and Matchâ aspect of that approach - choose a SRC, use a DEQ if active CX not needed, can then hang a different DAC after the DEQ, and add a DCX for a different pair of speakers, just gotta make up 6 (or 8 in my case) way volume control for it.
Hi Bro Shahinian,
Do you still have the big Diapers 
I use two pairs. I bought the MK2 models. Getting pricey over-here. Do you know what they sell for in the US ? The UK distributor deals direct with me which helps me by avoiding dealer markup⌠But I had to wait 9 months on them - built to order. Thatâs over 25 years with Shahinian speakers. I also have 4 pairs of Obelisks.
Cheers Tony,
D.
I do hope you crack it. It is âdifferentâ setup you have there and I could see how there could be problems!
Well, I am getting older, but not wearing them yet! 
Actually, for quite some time Iâve been running a rather special pair of Hawk tops on my Double Eagles. Thereâs only two pair of these in existence. Itâs the cost-no-object prototype for what became the production Hawk tops. Dick had to make some tough decisions to get the Hawks to hit the desired price point. The production tops are good, but these are IMO significantly better. I love them.
Not sure what a new pair of Diapason Mk2s would be nowadays. Pricey, no doubt. I could drop Vasken a note to ask, if youâd like.
Sorry for going OT, folks.
If you donât mind. I would like to know.
Cheers. And Back On TopicâŚ
Hi joma0711, I no longer use Behringer DCX2496s. My history is that 25 years ago I had 4-way active speakers with analogue crossovers. I then ran them with a DCX2496 for each channel (I obviously used them for crossover and applied a bit of EQ). When I built my nice big extension I decided that my speakers (and then my amps) werenât really good enough in the new room. I bought some massive PMC studio speakers (3-way but with two bass drivers) and a DEQX HDP-5 (the DEQX unit has three coax digital outputs which allows me to chose my own dacs - I decided to get three Direcstreams). The DEQX unit is much better than the DCX2496s (which are amazing for the price) because it not only does crossover and EQ but can be calibrated to improve the impulse response of the drivers (something I wouldnât attempt myself, hence Australia need to dial into the uk - I set the microphone under their instruction - approx a metre from the mid and tweeter and then very close to the bass unit).
Once the drivers have been calibrated and crossed over I can set parametric equalisers to alter the response curve - with all the room absorption I add a lot of bass and treble boost - I also add some narrow cut for the lateral room node.
It would be interesting to see what Dirac would do with a microphone placed at the listening position. Another feature is that the 24/96 outputs of the DEQX unit go via W4S Remedy reclockers before input to the three Direcstreams. The whole system is powered via a pair of P10s using AC5 power cables to all units (other than the remotely located fan cooled bass amp).
There was a previous firmware release (Torreys I think, canât remember) that I didnât initially like but I managed to alter EQ to get a good result.
As you can tell, Iâm very happy with Snowmass which sounds totally different to Windom (although Windom is better with the Leonard Cohen track).
Thanks for the detailed replay 
I realised after I typed it canât be the Behringer unit as you have Directstreams after, and whilst Iâve seen many mods for the Behringer DCX I havenât seen multiple digital outs (which is a shame).
The unit you mention does indeed look good
âŚyouâre right though, the Behringer stuff is excellent value for money and perfect for my budget.
I bought a Topping D50 (as an example of a modern DAC) and compared very closely to the output of the DEQ (I drive my old Pavanes full range with it) and found no difference - on a range of music, speakers, headphones, etc. so I sent the Topping back and stuck with the DEQ internal DAC.
I like that I could add a nicer DAC later on (ideally a DSR of course). Good way to build up a system without a mortgage
Hoping to use the DCX parameters to inform some tweaks for the passive crossover I built for my main speakers, I may then go back to riving them from the DEQ (and add a nicer DAC later) and use the DCX for driving multiple pairs of speakers full range (not at the same time of course, but withou cable swapping).
I not only wanted a HiFi again to listen to music, but also to configure and configure some more and keep me entertained.
I can imagine how a âless than optimal loadâ in one or more of your three DSâs would destroy the sound of the complete system.
You have a very complicated system, in the sense that a lot of people with just one DS are having problems with verifying that they have a succesfull load.
I updated my June-yore and played one of my favorite âcheck the soundâ recordings, âEasy Moneyâ on and by Rickie Lee Jones streamed from Tidal (a. I can seldom bother to go find discs anymore, b. it is not MQA, c. DAC had just been powered up).
Upon first listen, much more information, but a bit ragged sounding, as if the mikes or mixer or tape were overdriven during recording. I never found that to be the case before.
I kept listening throughout the weekend, and at one point put on the MQA versions, again from Tidal, of Joni Mitchellâs âBlueâ and âCourt and Sparkâ. Iâve heard these so many times that itâs easy for me to get distracted by other stuff, but with Windom and a fully warmed up June-yore (a nickname that surely will not stick), I was more drawn in than ever before. In particular, I was able to much more easily discern some of the lyrics including ones that had entirely eluded me in the past. The soundstage and presumably âaccurateâ separation of instruments was also noticeably better.
I give Windom **** out of five (only because I presume the Seen-yore is marginally better, and Iâve never heard Esoteric or dCS DACs).
I like it! ; ). Except Iâve decided mine is female, and so it is Seen-yore-ita 
âHello old friend.â Iâm happy for all of you who have a wonderful sounding Windom. Iâm just a few hours away from a full week of loading, listening to, and evaluating Windom and itâs brighter and thinner and fatiguing in my system than Snowmass ever was. I reloaded 3.06 and IMMEDIATELY eased right into the sound, so for the near future Iâm running Snowmass 3.06.
All of my loads using the prescribed methods have consistently loaded the same âsoundingâ firmware. I tried all my tuning to get around the deficiencies with a little âamelioratingâ success, but reading here if the Windom I have sounds this way itâs NOT the right sound. Itâs possible I was sent a card with bad files from PS Audio. Possible. Likely? I donât know. I will try again later on, or try again when thereâs a new revision/upgrade. Right now Snowmass 3.06 is letting me relax into a familiar, appreciated sound and Iâm happy doing so. . . .
