Unidisk SW settings that affect sound quality/tune!?

sommerfee · Post by **sommerfee** » 2008-01-16 22:42

I finally found some time and spirit to finally go through the software settings on an Unidisk 1.1 with L3/H8S218/ESS227. (Sorry for the long delay, I had other problems with my stereo, especially my LP12, so I had no free mind to do so earlier.)

I started with the default values and changed settings, and tried to check if there is a difference and if yes, had it become worse or not. My setup is a pure stereo setup, and I was testing with an ordinary CD (Debussy/Chausson: Mélodies, Schäfer/Gage, DGG) only.

For me it was surprising that I had difficulties to detect "no difference". If I change something with a difference (changing speaker position, check power phase, adjusting tracking weight on a LP12, etc.) I usually have no problems evaluating if the change was good or bad.

Anyway, here comes the 1st part of the list:

Audio Setup:
SPDIF Out: RAW => Off: gets worse [1]
LPCM Output: 96k => 48k: no change
Channel Setup: 5.1 => 2: gets worse
Downmix: Pure Stereo => LtRt: can't say for sure yet
Dual Mono: Stereo => something else: no change
Midnight Movie: Off => On: no change

Preferences:
Disc Nav: On => Off: no change
(Haven't tested the other Preferences since I don't believe they will change the sound.)

I will check the General and Progressive Scan settings tomorrow and will (of course) report.

Axel

[1] Note that this is not opposite to my evaluation about one year ago, since this is a different Unidisk, and furthermore it had different H8S/ESS software. I have triple-checked this result, and I have checked it even more times on the older Unidisk one year ago.

Post by **lejonklou** » 2008-01-16 22:49

Thank you Axel!

I find it interesting that Channel Setup: 5.1 => 2 gets worse. I have to try that myself to hear what happens.

sommerfee · Post by **sommerfee** » 2008-02-26 09:10

On the week-end I was in the right mood to continue with my tests (still using stereo audio CDs only), here is the result so far:

General Setup: "16:9" is better than "4:3"
General Setup: "PAL" is better than "Native/NTSC"
Audio Setup: "Raw" is different than "Off" (depends on hardware layout)
Audio Setup: "5.1 channel" is better than "2 channel"
User Options/Display brightness: "100%" and ... are different than "Auto"

All the other settings seems to have no effect on the sound quality/tune. And as we have seen in the past: Different hardware layouts may cause different results, so better try out for yourself.