# Head-Fit: Software Crossfeed and EQ



## Speederlander

Sorry if this was posted before and I missed it.

 Found a nice software crossfeed with EQ, all specifically head-phone oriented.

blogohl: Head-fit
 You can use in foobar if you install this: foobar2000 3rd party components

 Play around with it, it seems really nice.

 more info:
blogohl: Crossfeed and EQ for headphones
blogohl: Tips and FAQs

  Quote:


 Use this tool to adapt and optimize your headphone to your own ears. Even a perfect headphone will have some frequency response problems when used on your head : ie the distance between the diaphragm and your tympany produces some peaks and notches at high frequencies. Headphone manufacturers cannot avoid this because everyone has different ear characteristics and dimensions.

 I propose a setup in two steps.

 First use a crossfeed compensation : crossfeed is a process to mimic what happens in real life. Any sound arrives at the two ears but with a small time delay and at a different level between ears, depending on the direction and on the signal frequency.

 Second step, use equalisation to compensate for irregular frequency response due to the headphone itself or/and the adaptation between the headphone and you own head and pinna.

 I prefer to setup crossfeed before equalisation because crossfeed changes a little bit the frequency response. You can hear this on a correlated pink noise, the effect is subtle. It is the same as the difference between a true sound source in front of you and the same source reproduced with stereo speakers (phantom source instead of real physical source) : there is a small dip just under 2kHz with speakers compared to real source. With well implemented crossfeed, it is nearly the same as with speakers. So you get something nearer of what has been recorded and mastered.

 The final and optimal result should be better sound but what does this mean ? I think that for headphones, a great improvement would be to avoid the "in-head" sensation : have less the impression that the sound is coming from inside the head. This can never be optimal because our auditory system is also using small head movements to correctly check sound source position. Without a kind of head tracking system, heaphones cannot be perfect in that sense.


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## donunus

paging Leeperry


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## leeperry

I'll look into it, thanks for the tip! besides it's about time you break your 7000th message


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## ROBSCIX

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *Speederlander* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Sorry if this was posted before and I missed it.

 Found a nice software crossfeed with EQ, all specifically head-phone oriented.

blogohl: Head-fit
 You can use in foobar if you install this: foobar2000 3rd party components

 Play around with it, it seems really nice.

 more info:_

 

Thanks for the link. I will have to try it out when I get a chance.


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## leeperry

hey dononus, you might like this one too: 112dB Redline Monitor






 but to reach 112dB, you might need an STX indeed


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## Br777

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *donunus* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_paging Leeperry 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

FTW!


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## donunus

Leeperry, I like the way the redline monitor is controlled by less technical/more relative to life terms like distance, angle etc... 

 You should try the headfit too. I just tried it this morning and I actually like its crossfeed. Its very uncolored. It is almost like our agreed setting on Vellocet Vnophones plus the effect is even more pronounced on the crossfeed and less on the coloration. Its a very nice "leave and forget" kind of crossfeed. And it has eq too if ever I want to mess with that its also available. Very Nice plugin indeed. Now my current favorite. I have to confirm with more headphones though to get a handle on its disadvantages because the dt150 is not transparent enough to tell what it does wrong


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## leeperry

I didn't like the redline too much tbh...what are your exact settings on the headfit? 3%/0.25ms actually seems pretty nice in VNP! I like it because it's very subtle


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## donunus

3% .25 ms on vnp? Isnt that just adding too small of an effect to even bother calling it crossfeed?

 As for the headfit settings, I am using the default setting for crossfeed but bumped the level up to 0db. I havent experimented yet but default really already does the job. More transparent than VNP at the amount of crossfeed it gives. With vnp we would have to go higher on the settings to get this effect but at the same time too much coloration would already be added. I notice a gross smearing of transients/ a hall echoey sound with the vnp when going up the settings. I am not sure the degree of "mononess" though that offends you so I am not sure if youll like the headfit. Its definitely nowhere near as speakerlike/monoish as the redline which sims speakers better but ruins the headphone experience more. Headfit is a good everyday listening/leave it on compromise IMO.


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## leeperry

ok sold! I'll try it 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 anyway, VNP w/ this tiny settings gives a slight xfeed feeling(the front channel doesn't feel "empty"), it's REALLY impressive.


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## donunus

Us Audiophiles are such a hard to please bunch arent we 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 First the CD is invented to get rid of the problems with analog then we spend decades on finding digital that sounds analog. Go Figure hehehe


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## donunus

I am actually almost sure that youll like the headfit because even if you want less xfeed, you can still customize. What I love about it is that its tweaked perfect already even at default 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 Headfit just does enough of a job that it gets rid of that cardboard box imaging with 3 blobs.


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## leeperry

indeed, very very impressive! my tiny VNP settings sound thin and lifeless in comparison.

 it worked the first time I tried it(I had to check "external source" though, as it was outputting white noise?!), but after I closed and reopened uLilith, all it did was freezing the system 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 I've sent an email to its author, maybe he could look into it...but clearly I need to brush up the xfeed side now.

*PS:* I definitely don't like the 112dB xfeed.


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## leeperry

.


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## donunus

I'm gonna double check the headfit crossfeed right now using the hd580s to get a good contrast to the dt150s to see if this is really a winner of a plugin... It will take me only a few minutes so stay tuned


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## donunus

Oooohhh wow. Now I can say that this headfit plugin has crossfeed from the gods. No ill effects/colorations of the other xfeeds i've ever tried and is effective too. Even just starting to listen to the first part of lenny Kravitz - Fly away to check the guitar tonality on the hard left pan and already very impressed. The other plugins either thin the guitar or thicken it too much when the crossfeed amount is set right. With Headfit, the crossfeed amount is already just correct right off the bat at default settings and the tonality is intact! Overall when playing random music there is an ever so slightly added richness to the overall sound but this is to about the same degree as the subtle sounding vellocet vnophones plugin(using my setting of 9.629/.30). The headfit is not muddy like the bauer bs2b plugin, not thin like the naive software foobar crossfeed and gives an even better xfeed effect to my ears than both of them. The Redline Monitor crossfeed above mentioned by leeperry is nice in its own way but it dries out the mids too much like the bauer xfeed effect since it tries to simulate 2 channel monitors which puts everything to the front too much for a person wanting the most out of the headphone experience. As Leeperry would say... The thing sounds mono 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 In my opinion, headphone crossfeed should fix headphones problem with imaging but should not mess with its tonality characteristics. I believe headphone designers spent too much time to get their reference cans sound the way they do just to be screwed up by some crossfeed circuitry that muddies the sound. Trying to get headphones to sound too frontal gets rid of a lot of ambient information which makes the sound dry and uninvolving in the long run. The redline crossfeed plugin for example sounds to me like the bs2b in its attempt to create that frontal effect minus the muddiness and more flexibility in speaker angle. Thats all good if you are trying to copy a sound you are used to like some studio monitors so that you can mix to something that seems more familiar. Trying to mimic 2 channel speakers though is not the right way to go about it IMO because you are taking the faults of that medium and adding it to a medium(headphones) with its own weaknesses. In my opinion, one of the headphone mediums strengths compared to 2 channel speakers is the ability of giving ambient detail/recording venue cues etc... better than speakers in its price level. Messing with that strength by adding some dsp that kills it will make headphones lose its edge over speakers. With the headfit, all the musical information is intact. No ambient information is killed. 

 Like my earlier favorite the Vellocet Vnophones plugin, the Headfit plugin doesn't go for that frontal effect. Instead, all it does is make any hard panned information sound as natural as possible by eliminating that "Deaf Ear" effect on the opposite ear. It results in a more coherent frontal soundstage without any gaps/holes but not at the expense of killing the ambience. I would call this effect "Proper Headphone Surround Sound". The result of the effect is a more natural sound experience. 

 Thumbs Up for this plugin!!! Highly Recommended!


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## leeperry

yes, that's also what I heard...crossing my fingers for a compatibility fix w/ uLilith, I've notified both coders


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## ROBSCIX

@Speederlander:
 Yes, Head-fit has some possibillities. Need more time to get it tuned perfectly for my cans but not bad so far.


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## leeperry

good news is: head-fit would work fine in the latest beta of uLilith...still testing


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## ROBSCIX

..it should work fine with any player that supports VST plugins. Alternatly you could use a VST to DX wrapper if your player only supports DX plugins.


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## leeperry

yay, all the bugs I reported in the VST plugins section of uLilith have been fixed 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 OTOH, on "_Donovan - Get Thy Bearings.flac_" I tend to prefer VNP w/ the settings from the previous page than head-fit....w/ VNP the right counterbass/sax sound so amazing, but w/ head-fit(default settings) the left guitar sounds much more natural...I could possibly stack both 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 I'll play around w/ the settings 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




*PS:* head-fit would appear to be quite a CPU hog...and I definitely prefer VNP w/ the settings from the previous page on that Donovan song.


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## minktoast

Thanks for this info - I've got it working nicely in Foobar2000. A lot less extreme than Dolby Headphone which I was enjoying up until now... onwards and upwards!


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## donunus

hey its been a while since Ive seen you post minktoast. Do you still have those cans I sold you years ago


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## leeperry

so what settings did you settle on then donunus?


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## donunus

I never messed with it. its very satisfying at stock. I will set it up and see if I can improve on the stock settings one day but for now I'm just enjoying the music.


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## leeperry

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *donunus* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_I'm just enjoying the music._

 

wazzat


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## donunus

hahaha... I hope to one day control my habits and only check headfi once a week. I hope one day to stop tweaking audio equipment.... I hope upgradeitus will be a thing of the past... ahhhh Im a dreamer arent I


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## minktoast

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *donunus* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_hey its been a while since Ive seen you post minktoast. Do you still have those cans I sold you years ago 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


_

 

hd-650's these days. no plans on changing. couldn't be much more different than those 990's! now i'm just enjoying the music... 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 ...or at least i was until I got myself a Xonar STX and started messing with DSP in pursuit of binaural heaven... Dolby Headphone gave me a wow factor for a while. But it quickly gets too boomy and tiresome.

 I'm liking the subtlety of this crossfeed much better. Seems stable and not cpu intensive for me...


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## minktoast

@donunus and @leeperry: did either of you try out IsonePro?

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f46/is...mputer-473885/

 I haven't and annoyingly it's €20 for a full version. Free demo version though. People seem to prefer it to Redline.


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## ROBSCIX

That is a room modeler as opposed to a crossfeed plugin. Looks very interesting though, might have to have a listen. 

 Thanks for the link


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## zephyr90

I have tried various crossfeed plugins and VSTs now and Head-Fit so far has been the best I've heard. The others I've tried (foobar standard, b2b, VNOphones, Naive) either sounded artificial or made the upper mids suffer which made voices sound a lot worse, even if they did give me an impression of roomyness.
 Head-Fit is simply great, it is a little difficult to adjust but I just leave it on stock setting and it sounds fine to my ears. In fact, as opposed to the other plugins this one is beneficial to those mids and makes voices sound so much more natural! When I turn it off now, everything simply sounds "flat" to me...
 After some getting used to the different sound this plugin for the first time made me enjoy crossfeed and now has me nodding my head along to Santigold and Aesop Rock. Alessandro MS-1, selfmade circumaural pads, straight into the soundcard & foobar, no DAC, no amp. Now listening to Tango (Astor Piazzolla): All the instruments simply sound like they have more "body", it's great!
 Thanks a ton for this thread! It should be pinned...

 PS: Is there a way to embed this VST into my system so that I can use it for all applications? (e.g. games)
 PS2: Haven't tried isone because the full version costs money. Is it worth getting?


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## ROBSCIX

It may sound better if you tune it using the setup procedure. Dial it right into your phone!

 Yes, you can just run the application from the folder, IIRC. It has a standalone version also and should run fine with other applications such as games.


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## zephyr90

It does have a standalone application which uses Savihost, the problem with it is that whenever I check "external source" to use other sources, it doesn't alter the sound output of the PC. It only works when I load it with Foobar.
 PS: I imagine I would have to make a full duplex of some sort, so that Savihost processes the sound signals from the operating system before I hear it. Is that even possible? Would it require to have two soundcards?


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## ROBSCIX

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *zephyr90* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_It does have a standalone application which uses Savihost, the problem with it is that whenever I check "external source" to use other sources, it doesn't alter the sound output of the PC. It only works when I load it with Foobar.
 PS: I imagine I would have to make a full duplex of some sort, so that Savihost processes the sound signals from the operating system before I hear it. Is that even possible? Would it require to have two soundcards?_

 

Sorry I am not really sure of the settings as I have never used it in this mode. I was just relaying that it has a standalone application. I am not sure of the exact settings when used in this mode. Not really sure why it would have this mode if it was not for using it with other applications.


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## leeperry

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *zephyr90* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Is there a way to embed this VST into my system so that I can use it for all applications?_

 

install VAC, set it as the main windows soundcard, then route into a VST host et voila 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 latency would suck in games, though.


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## zephyr90

Thanks for your advice. You were right though, latency does suck, even with normal Windows audio, so I didn't even bother to try gaming with it.
 I also tried using the built-in stereomix which I was assuming should do the same thing as VAC but apparently it doesn't, it's simply not working, not getting any signal from playback.
 Is there a way to have this VST applied on all Windows applications or will I have to get a hardware crossfeed for that?


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## ROBSCIX

..you will get similar latencies when using Viirtual AC for any audio when using a VST host.


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## zephyr90

Sooo is there a way to install a crossfeed driver that applies crossfeed to all applications and doesn't use a VST?


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## leeperry

Quote:


  Originally Posted by *zephyr90* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_latency does suck [..]
 Is there a way to have this VST applied on all Windows applications or will I have to get a hardware crossfeed for that?_

 

you could get lower latency w/ a standalone VST host and output to ASIO, but it'd still be very noticeable and unbearable in games or movies anyway.

 the only hardware xfeed I tried was on the Corda Arietta, and it was worthless...mono, duh! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  Quote:


  Originally Posted by *zephyr90* /img/forum/go_quote.gif 
_Sooo is there a way to install a crossfeed driver that applies crossfeed to all applications and doesn't use a VST?_

 

Vista/W7 support DSP audio plugins I think? maybe someday some coder has been/will be motivated to offer a system wide xfeed plugin.


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## jlo

Hello,
 glad to see that there is some interest to head-fit. A new version is available here that should have improved compatibility to some VST hosts (ie Cubase,..) : head-fit
 In the development of Head-fit, the most important goal for me, was to get the finest adjustable crossfeed while keeping the lowest signal colouration.
 Have a nice listening.


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## leeperry

thanks for the headsup Jean-Luc! but what happened to the lighter version I was testing?


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## jlo

Quote:


 what happened to the lighter version ? 
 

here it is : head-fit-lite
 It does not have internal generator and FFT display of Head-fit but the same process quality. Recommended to be used as a VST for a player.


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## donunus

Some things Ive noticed with headfit...

 I just noticed when tuning headfit that the LF and HF ms needs pairing for the tonality of the crossfed signal to be right. I came up with 3 setting pairs with good tonality where the hf doesn't noticeably bleed too much to the opposite ears separate from the lows... theres .23,.18 .25,.20 and .32,.27 at the stock ILD levels. Changing the ILD levels may need different ms adjustments but I am still content with the stock levels at the moment. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 The difference between .25,.20 and .32,.27 for example are that the former is more subtle sounding and more natural to my ears for example while the latter sounds slightly more processed and The doors recordings for example sound more dare I say REMASTERED with the latter setting. For now the former setting is what I prefer. There is a better sense of coherence from left to right with that one.


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## zephyr90

I really like the display, what I noticed is that in the newest version the delay between the sound and the FFT display seems to have shortened. The display now is only like a milisecond or so ahead.
 also, this hasn't been stressed enough:
*Merci beaucoup, Jean-Luc!*
 Head-fit is the best software crossfeed I have tried. All of the others color the sound in a very bad way. I can not imagine listening to headphones without it anymore. When I first heard about crossfeed I was eager to try it but didn't feel like spending tons of money on a hardware solution that I didn't know whether I would like it. So far, head-fit totally does the trick for me, I can't describe exactly what it changes but the overall presentation becomes so much more lively. By the way I have always used the standard settings and they're fine with me, I really don't understand all the crossfeed options or what they're for.


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## donunus

try something like "Fly Away" by Lenny Kravitz. Listen to the tonality of the hard panned electric guitar in the beginning of the track. When you change the ms settings you will notice that the lower and higher frequencies go to the left side together when the settings are balanced between the 2 ms settings for example. The default setting bleeds the high frequencies of the guitar audibly around the center which doesn't sound quite right when at the default setting of .32, .20. You might not notice it right away if you are not keen on what it exactly does but you will see what happens once you play with the sliders. Try my 3 settings for example and compare the guitar with the default settings and you'll see what I mean. One thing I'm not sure of though is whether the headfit version affects the right balance between ms settings though. I have the older version of headfit lite here. I like it better because there is no annoying master volume slider and it is always at full


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## donunus

after a while... my favorite ms pairing is still .25ms for bass and .20ms for treble. Has anyone tweaked their headfit settings yet? please post your best settings. i would like to try them myself too.


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## polaris2k3

Sorry for hijacking this to a different (but very related topic), but does anyone know a plugin that specifically employs the a Blumlein shuffler algorithm for either foobar or winamp?


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## donunus

The headfit is the most effective and adjustable crossfeed I've ever used that also doesn't color the sound much.
   
  After that being said, with my dt150s using velour pads I've discovered that the bs2b foobar plugin is better for them because what bs2b does to the tonality of the beyers are a perfect match. WOW I'm blown away!!!


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## cooperpwc

Guys, sorry to be such an ignoramus but I cannot get this to work with Fooobar. I have installed George Yong's  VST Wrapper in Foobar and I have tried selecting both  SPAN and VOXENGOSPAN. I am not succeeding in running Foobar's output through Head-fit. Only the internal pink noise works...
   
  Any advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.


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## cooperpwc

Okay, I was scanning the wrong folder. Now head-fit is a selection option. Time to start playing with this!


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## robochrist

Wow! This is a different sound I'm used to. I'm still fiddling around with the settings, but my 530's now feel like little speakers inside my head. And it can only get better when move to a better soundcard (Essence ST is hard to get) than my Revo 5.1
   
  Thanks!


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## cooperpwc

Quote:


donunus said:


> Some things Ive noticed with headfit...
> 
> I just noticed when tuning headfit that the LF and HF ms needs pairing for the tonality of the crossfed signal to be right. I came up with 3 setting pairs with good tonality where the hf doesn't noticeably bleed too much to the opposite ears separate from the lows... theres .23,.18 .25,.20 and .32,.27 at the stock ILD levels. Changing the ILD levels may need different ms adjustments but I am still content with the stock levels at the moment.
> 
> ...


 
  Usefull settings. Thanks.
   
  I switched to the lite version. It still starts at -10db but with presets it switches in fast. Very nice.


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## leeperry

polaris2k3 said:


> does anyone know a plugin that specifically employs the a Blumlein shuffler algorithm for either foobar or winamp?


 
http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=275
   
http://www.headphonedeals.com/joomla/blog/47-catblog/145-the-ultimate-portable-player-setup
   


> Stereo imaging can be done with Waves Stereoimager+ or similar plugin. Look for a parameter called "shuffle" or "crossfeed". There're several free imaging VST plugins and free VST hosts - KVR Audio has a listing. "Shuffle" is a reference to Blumlein Shuffle - a technique that simulates natural crossfeed at higher frequencies and bass boost at low frequencies that occur in the real world. Shuffle is more natural than many headphone crossfeed processors.


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## donunus

doing some more critical listening and I ditched the bs2b again and I'm back with headfit. This time I'm using my .32, .27 preset.... This plugin really is great!


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## donunus

Now i like the last setting better just because it is crisper in focus yet gives me good enough crossfeed not to annoy me even with hard panned beatles songs.


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## cooperpwc

Indeed I am listening to 32-27 as I read your post  (with F central at the new 1870 default). I still think that this level is quite subtle but it works well.


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## donunus

Thats my exact setting now the new default F1870 and those delays. Sounds Great! It just takes away just a touch of upper mids glare and adds some focus and punch to the bass while doing its crossfeed


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## cooperpwc

An interesting modern tune to test your crossfeed settngs is Daughter by Pearl Jam. Eddie Vedder's lead vocals are fully panned left - actually quite rare for an otherwise well produced 1993 song.


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## donunus

There are more from peal jam like nothingman and immortality for example that have hard panned effects in the beggining of the songs. Lenny Kravitz Fly Away was my reference for testing the pairing of the bass and highs crossfeed delays though since the guitars there cross from bass to high frequencies and can really test the xfeed


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## fufula

I couldn't get the new version of head-fit to work with foobar2k 0.9.6/w George Yohng's VST Wrapper or uLilith (running WinXP SP3 x86). All the sliders from the EQ and Crossfeed setup windows were visible at the same time and bunched up together in the same screen/tab. Clicking the buttons or moving the sliders around didn't do anything. Same problem with head-fit lite. Fortunately, I still have the older version, which works flawlessly and sounds great.
   
  http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/124/headfitissue.jpg


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## donunus

The new version is buggy like that with mine also. I noticed that when you double click the executable before using the dll, it fixes it. Also with any version or many of them, the sliders don't show the number/value change unless you have music playing on foobar while setting it.


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## robochrist

I uninstalled mine, because of the sliders messing up all the time. Anyone know an xfeed that does work with foobar?


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## donunus

There are so many. just not quite as good as this one.


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## cooperpwc

It's too bad that the newer versions have the display bug that shows all the sliders from crossfeed and EQ overlapping with Foobar. Hopefully this will be fixed.


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## donunus

I wish the maker of headfit will publicly release the lite version without the volume control


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## cooperpwc

x2


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## donunus

I went back to 1996 by the way from 1870. Very slightly better with my limited testing 
   
  Tried Vnophones again and its really no contest against headfit since the high frequencies bleed more than the lows and can't be synced.


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## fufula

Quote: 





robochrist said:


> I uninstalled mine, because of the sliders messing up all the time. Anyone know an xfeed that does work with foobar?


 

 You might want to give the older version a try. I've been using it for a while now and, like I said, works great with foobar2k.
  Checked for viruses and uploaded it here.


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## donunus

The maker of this plugin should work for apple and implement this plugin for the apple firmware for the 5gs and classics  I heard this plugin has similarities to the crossfeed in rockbox but when I used rockbox, the settings were different. Also rockbox is too inefficient and not as clean as the apple interface so I don't really care for it.


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## cooperpwc

I used to use Roickbox on a H140. The crossfeed was very powerful but lacked the subtlety of Head-Fit. I eventually stopped using it because the frequency shifts were too great.


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## donunus

Thats what I thought too. I thought the rockbox xfeed was too crude. Maybe headfit is a more refined version of that rockbox crossfeed circuit because the guy that makes this is supposedly the guy that worked on the one for rockbox.


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## donunus

And now I'm back again to using bs2b... now with the J. Meier Setting. It just works better for my cans I guess


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## cooperpwc

Admit it, Don. You just like playing around. 
   
  (I have been madly rolling tubes on my EMP this week so this is the pot calling the kettle black.)


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## donunus

hehehe just tuning the cans


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## ironmine

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> http://www.waves.com/content.aspx?id=275
> 
> http://www.headphonedeals.com/joomla/blog/47-catblog/145-the-ultimate-portable-player-setup


 

 Hello Leeperry!
  Are you saying that Waves S1 Stereo Imager can be used as a crossfeed for headphones? Which slider should I use - WIDTH?


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## ironmine

If the author of HeadFit still reads this thread, I would like to show to him this picture I get when I use HeadFit in my Foobar through George Yohng's VST wrapper and Console:
   

   
  The crossfeed controls and EQ controls are both visible at the same time. Is it possible to fix this bug?


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## leeperry

ironmine said:


> Are you saying that Waves S1 Stereo Imager can be used as a crossfeed for headphones? Which slider should I use - WIDTH?


 
   
  I dunno, didn't try it myself.
   
  If you want head-fit's coder personal email, you can drop me a PM


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## jlo

Hi all,
  thanks for your interest in head-fit.
  I haven't been on this forum for quite a long time, sorry.
  For the display bug on some machines, I'll fix it, just give me a few days. I also wrote that you want the level control (volume) to disappear, so please confirm.
  And if you have other wishes,  let me know.
   
  Bye
  Jean-Luc


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## cooperpwc

Hi Jena Luc,
   
  Absolutely right. I am using an old version without the display bug and without the volume control and it is great.
   
  One further request: default display when the console appears should be Crossfeed not EQ.
   
  Thanks!


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## ironmine

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> I dunno, didn't try it myself.


 

 I tried Waves Shuffler VST plugin and did not like how it sounded through headphones.


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## ironmine

Quote: 





jlo said:


> Hi all,
> thanks for your interest in head-fit.
> I haven't been on this forum for quite a long time, sorry.
> For the display bug on some machines, I'll fix it, just give me a few days. I also wrote that you want the level control (volume) to disappear, so please confirm.
> ...


 

 Why remove the volume control ?!  The crossfeed effect results in an increased volume level (clipping). EQ also results in clipping (even when adjusting the peaks negatively). I cannot understand why people demand to remove the volume control. Do they prefer to listen to the clipped sound instead? If you don't need it, just leave it at zero. What's the problem?


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## fufula

Quote: 





ironmine said:


> Why remove the volume control ?!  The crossfeed effect results in an increased volume level (clipping). EQ also results in clipping (even when adjusting the peaks negatively). I cannot understand why people demand to remove the volume control. Do they prefer to listen to the clipped sound instead? If you don't need it, just leave it at zero. What's the problem?


 

 Agreed. If I don't lower the volume with crossfeed on there's some very noticeable clipping in some songs. Even if I didn't use the volume control myself, I wouldn't see the harm in leaving it as an option for those who do.


----------



## leeperry

you guys may wanna use EffectChainer in your VST host and put this plugin after head-fit so you can fine-tune the required attenuation to avoid clipping: http://www.sonalksis.com/freeg.htm


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> you guys may wanna use EffectChainer in your VST host and put this plugin after head-fit so you can fine-tune the required attenuation to avoid clipping: http://www.sonalksis.com/freeg.htm


 
   
  Trying to lower the volume after the clipping occurred may be too late. Unless Head-Fit has some internal protection against clipping. I think it's better to lower the volume before Head-Fit.
  
  Leeperry, try the Japanese vst-chaining program "Console". It's more visual and convenient.


----------



## leeperry

Oh sure, I meant using a meter to check the required attenuation within head-fit. I think it'd be wiser to keep the volume control in head-fit at the very beginning of its audio pipe-line.
   
  Yes, I read a lot about console.jp but I've never got any use for it...It's supposedly useful on Reclock's output to do pre-filtering(bass management/delay for multiple speakers).


----------



## leeperry

I've been listening to head-lite in uLilith for several hours, after some quick try and uninstallation of Isone Pro(way too colored and limited to my taste)...quite honestly, my brain loves the clarity of uber-low jitter gear in movies(I use a 5.1>stereo downmix matrix that does xfeed of the rear channels), but music is way too fatiguing...a low jitter transport in dual-mono is very hard to process for my brain, it simply doesn't understand why the sound seems so realistic, and yet isn't in stereo 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



   
  anyways, head-lite is a major relief, it's more colored than VNoPhones but also easier to listen to somehow? it feels like a good pair of loudspeakers, which is the ultimate goal I presume.
   
  I've found instructions to the strange sliders in head-lite, but they seem to require the full version to set the sound to 60 degrees on each ear or sumthing? http://www.ohl.to/about-audio/audio-softwares/head-fit
   
  Can I set those settings in the full version following the instructions, and then input them in head-lite? I'm not of fan of pink noise, though


----------



## leeperry

OK, I've set the sliders pretty randomly...but anyway it sounds great as is: 


   
  I love how bass becomes heart pounding, amazing! and the headstage has become more triangular shaped, like on the LT1028AC opamp...it also seems to project some elements that used to be hidden in the mix, like percussion drums or wah wah guitars(due to inverted phase?).
   
  Manu Dibango's sax sounds holographic, Femi Kuti sounds like his band is playing before my eyes and the bass in that song is just AMAZING:  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=p&tbs=vid%3A1&q=Cymande+Genevieve
   
  I've just tried to disable head-fit on that very song, and it sounds like dual mono...my left ear is jealous and also wants to hear the drums, hah! More importantly, my brain doesn't feel half-deaf anymore when I put it back on


----------



## donunus

I'll try headfit again with these settings


----------



## donunus

This setting is genius Leeperry. Whenever I tried to sync the highs and lows to one site with the default levels, they would sync only at settings that gave a relatively large midrange boost darkening the sound a little. This setting you have is the best compromise ive heard with headfit yet. The highs and lows could still probably be tuned to sync even more but I would have never thought this was possible since I got tired of setting sliders LOL. And they are already pretty synced actually. I might just actually leave it alone because I'm enjoying thios setting of yours too much


----------



## leeperry

hehe thanks, yes those settings are great...I haven't touched them in a week or so. I'm sure there's room for improvement, but I'm not too inclined on doing the calibration w/ white noise and all


----------



## donunus

Your Setting should be a good starting point for default settings. Way better than the current default


----------



## cooperpwc

Internet finally back up (ADSL instead of useless FOB; should be a lot better). I have downloaded the picture and now I will have to fire up the EMP and try these new settings. Thank for sharing, Leeperry. I will report back...


----------



## shoenberg3

I would really like this to work with my foobar. Can someone please reupload the old version?
  The new version still has the wonky sliders that don't work.
  Thanks


----------



## leeperry

I tried the beta of head-lite yesterday in foobar, and indeed the sliders didn't work. But I was able to open the .fxp file from uLilith.


----------



## leeperry

both the first beta of head-lite and the latest version of head-fit also freeze to death in FFX4, so I can't use them in combination with ffdshow/PotPlayer/Reclock 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 All the other plugins I've tried work fine FWIW. Currently trying the Redline Monitor crossfeed plugin but I don't really like it.


----------



## donunus

the redline concept is nice visually but sonically you are robbing headphones of their strengths


----------



## leeperry

yes, it's even got some really neat looking skins...but even if I set the center channel at max volume, it's still way too dim.
  Isone also works fine, but bleh I dunno 


   
  I hate how Murphy's law is always around the corner in the computer world..but one thing's for sure, Reclock sounds darn fine


----------



## leeperry

oh btw, the sliders work fine in foobar in the latest beta. hopefully, it'll be posted on the official website after some more thorough QA.


----------



## donunus

Is the latest beta also without the volume control?


----------



## remedy1419

I must be doing something wrong, I barely hear any change whatsoever no matter how I set it up. VST Wrapper is directed to the proper folder, head-fit lite is selected and not bypassed. I just hear a reduction in volume, and to actually hear crossfeed I had to listen to just pink noise and even then it was insanely subtle. Is it because my HD650's are unamped for now?
   
  Set as follows:
   
  Crossfeed on
  EQ off
   
  ILD LF: -9.9
  ILD HF: -14.4
  F:1375
  ITD LF: 0.29
  ITD HF: 0.19 (couldn't pick 20)


----------



## donunus

Thats the whole point... not to hear a change=no coloration. Only when listening to hard panned sounds will you feel the difference. For kicks, try the beginning of the song "fly away" by Lenny Kravitz. listen to the hard panned guitar switching crossfeed on and off. and yah slide it to .20 with your keyboard arrows to be more precise. .19 will add more coloration. In the end the mission here is to get fatigue free listening out of your headphones without even knowing that there is a change in quality so that you could leave it on for all the music you play. The only sonic difference besides the crossfeeding that I hear with Leeperrys genius setting is an ever so slightly more prominent bass. Were talking 1 db or so here. If your headphones are not detailed enough, you might not even hear a change in the bass but still whenever those hard panned stuff play, your opposite ear will thank you for this setting.


----------



## leeperry

ok the latest beta works like a charm in foobar, I use it in DS and upsample to 96kHz and then let it play in the background of Q3, so KMixer upsamples Q3 to 96kHz and then mixes them: perfect!


----------



## donunus

I fine tuned the setting to cross less of the lower highs so that it is a little more coherent. Try it out and AB test it with various hard panned tracks to compare with other presets. I like this setting best so far. Maybe I can fine tune it more but this is what I found to be approximately the best IMO for Leeperry's .29 .10 F1375 setting....
   

   
  I will try different F central settings too but as of now I find Leeperrys 1375 setting at .29 .20 quite brilliant.


----------



## leeperry

very nice, but it seems to make the the crossfed image SS height lower than my settings somehow?


----------



## donunus

it could be because the difference in the frequency response of the crossfed signal could sound better with the cans you are using? hmmm I don't know. I find the -14.4 a little bright. Are you comparing them side by side by switching between presets?


----------



## donunus

and yah brightness does add height to imaging as Ive noticed with speakers too.


----------



## leeperry

yes, I've A/B'ed a number of times...I think my settings are as good as it gets on my cans


----------



## thread

I wish there was some way to run this under LINUX...
   
  ... various emulation techniques (wine, virtualbox) have failed as expected.


----------



## donunus

I was wondering the same thing too, whether there was an audio player in linux that would support this plugin... Or any VST plugins for that matter.


----------



## donunus

Fine tuned my last setting just a touch... My current LF and HF setting still using leeperry's delays and frequency


----------



## donunus

And then even more fine tuning. My ears are tired now but this to me is still the most transparent among the settings Ive saved.


----------



## leeperry

I didn't like the first one, but the second on is SPOT-ON! I'm trying it on the "_Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels_" OST and some jamaican roots reggae, and indeed the "projected" SS seems to make a lot more sense than my settings. kudos!
   
  killer stuff on this song(in FLAC): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-zO-bxGIBk


----------



## donunus

cool! It even matches with your setup too. Now were getting nearer to a badass universal setting.


----------



## leeperry

yeah, I've tried it on a bunch of records..the SS is truly holographic now, this plugin sound awfully good.
   
  I'll play around again tomorrow w/ fresh ears and report back.


----------



## donunus

I'm afraid to tweak even more now. My tendency towards OCD is strong 
   
  ...Then again I always say that but end up changing things again when something gets in the way of the music LOL


----------



## leeperry

I think a good song to test it is _I wanna be your dog_ from Iggy Pop...the SS is so busy!


----------



## cooperpwc

Guys, I've been so busy between travelling and enjoying my new ES5s, I have not even tried these new settings with my main rig. I will dive in this coming week. Thanks for all the hard work fine-tuning the settings.


----------



## leeperry

ah well, it takes a lot of concentration to work those settings 
  The bass is more heart pounding w/ my settings but the SS makes more sense in yours..need to find an in-between! Tomorrow I will have new cans(cd1700), maybe they'd help getting a second opinion.
   
  A good test track is "_Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels - E-Z Rollers - Walk This Land.flac_" w/ its loud 60Hz sub bass.


----------



## donunus

I didn't want to add much bass from the bypassed setting so I practically just tried to match the overall tonality as much as possible to the unprocessed signal.


----------



## leeperry

yeah, the SS extremes sound artificial w/ my settings and perfectly natural w/ yours...time to increase the bass using other means 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



   
*PS:* EQ doesn't really cut it, I still prefer my setting for bass :/


----------



## donunus

a multiband or good parametric might. As for me, I'm just enjoying the simplicity of no EQ and headfit with that setting. I really love my modest system with a udac and d1001s on this setup.


----------



## leeperry

Yeah, I've tried...but my settings don't increase the bass response per say, it's like the xfeed actually "doubles" it w/ a slight delay. Ah well, I love your SS but I need my heart pounding bass...my phones are kinda bass shy and I listen to a lot of bassy music. Maybe it will all change for the best on the cd1700 tomorrow.


----------



## donunus

Post your impressions on how the different settings affect the new cans too.


----------



## leeperry

sure will! BTW, I was reading some reviews of the cd1700, and my settings on the cd1k give me exactly the same feeling: http://www.audioreview.com/mfr/sony/headphones/mdr-cd1700/PRD_118071_2750crx.aspx#review0
   
_"BASS [..] The only thing missing is the "THUD THUD" you get on your chest when you listen with speakers. It's unnerving!"_
   
  I would definitely say that my settings are "unnerving", the sound feels exactly like speakers but I can't feel the bass pounding my chest...it's most upsetting and feels really strange.
   
  And also the sound got so clear in movies that in cartoons nothing's credible anymore....I see the dubbing actors in the studio, the sound doesn't match the picture hah.
   
*PS:* I think I could even say that your settings sound like a perfect room, I can almost imagine it having velours on the walls...and mine sound like ****, like I dunno speakers outdoor w/o walls...the wall reflections don't work, maybe I need to play w/ the delays.
   
*PPS:* I think this on your preset does the trick...my ears are too tired anyway. It's the EQ of the crossfed signal, not the EQ of the music I think/hope: 


   
  and I agree that it's not your preset that's bass shy Vs unprocessed, I just like a more bassy crossfed signal.
   
*PPPS:* now that bass is at the same levels, I can easily say that it's bloated and out of tune in my preset, duh. It's doubled w/ a slight delay...in yours it's perfectly clear w/o a delayed "ghost".


----------



## leeperry

donunus said:


> Post your impressions on how the different settings affect the new cans too.


 
   
  Not really possible, the cd1700 is not quite to my taste...the sound is too closed in, the cd1k/cd3k are definitely half-closed. Anyway, I'll prolly trade it for a CD900ST, that's the only phone I'd like to own at this point.
   
  Most cd3k owners rave about it and say that it's very similar and "_allows you to hear each tree instead of hearing the forest_"?! narrower SS but much more details apparently.
   
  This review also nails it: http://www.sgheadphones.net/index.php?showtopic=9338
   
  The Ed.9 must kill, but too damn pricey for its cheapo OEM shell anyway.
   
  To get back to your settings, well they're *spot-on*. I'll stop adding bass or whatever. I now have "magic" settings for the 3 VST plugins I use(sonnox>headfit>trident), it's a done deal


----------



## donunus

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> It's the EQ of the crossfed signal, not the EQ of the music I think/hope:


 
  I think the eq is for the music, not the crossfed signal. The only eq of the crossfed  signal are the ILD HF and LF sliders in the crossfeed screen. Thats actually a good thing because now you can get a good transparent xfeed and compensate for your cans tonality without ruining the soundstage. In fact thats what headfit is supposed to do. They want you to set the crossfeed first before setting the eq. It really makes sense because in setting the crossfeed we want it to be as universal as possible not compensating for the frequency response of specific headphones so that we can leave it that way whether we use a senn or a grado or whatever then all we have to change for balancing out the overall sound of the specific headphone in use is either the built in EQ or some other EQ plugin.


----------



## J-a-k-e

Hello everyone, I stumbled across this thread a couple of days ago and I just though I'd share my own findings. I have a set of AD700 cans that I'd tweaked with donuns' most recent crossfeed settings, as far as the eq settings go I was initially stumped at first but then I had a bit of a play around and got the gist of how the controls modify the slope and db gain.
   
  Then I decided to see if I can compensate for the AD700's weak bass below about 70hz and here I googled and managed to find a review that showed an image of the AD700's response curve. It was at this point I though "I wonder what kind of sound I'll get if I were to take that response curve from below 100hz and inverted it." So then I brought up the head-fit configuration page, enabled pink uncorellated on the internal generator and with a bit of tweaking I managed to create a fairly decent inverted mirror of the AD700's bass response curve, the result?
   
  In my opinion with both the eq and crossfeed setting configured and enabled the sound coming from these cans is quite amazing. Not to say that what I was hearing prior to discovering this thread sounded bad by any means, it's just the bass I'm hearing at the moment sounds nothing short of amazing and the sound stage which was brilliant to start with now often enables me to pinpoint the location of sounds particularly when Iistening to music with a piano, I find can hear where each note is audibly positioned within the soundstage.


----------



## donunus

Can you post a screenshot of your ad700 eq setting? I have a pair of those and would be happy to try out your settings. I tweaked them by doing the phatpad mod though to give them the extra bass and never like to use eq for bass since distortion levels tend to increase quite a bit.


----------



## J-a-k-e

Maybe a few things of note.
  -The output format dsp forces all files to play at 44100hz 2 channel.
  -All files in my library have been volume analyzed and The volume levelling dsp has replaygain set to album mode with clip protection
  -Output mode is Windows Audio Session API


----------



## donunus

Ok thanks. I'll just adjust the gain to lose the clipping since I don't like normalizing my files.


----------



## J-a-k-e

yup, just adjust the plugin gain to say -15db. I find with my card (xonar dx) that's about how much replaygain adjusts to on average and I still have plenty of headroom if I want to turn up the volume.


----------



## leeperry

donunus said:


> I think the eq is for the music, not the crossfed signal. The only eq of the crossfed  signal are the ILD HF and LF sliders in the crossfeed screen. Thats actually a good thing because now you can get a good transparent xfeed and compensate for your cans tonality without ruining the soundstage. In fact thats what headfit is supposed to do. They want you to set the crossfeed first before setting the eq.


 

 Good point! I got spoiled by the double bass character of my preset, and we all know how more bass can impress...but apart from middle ear resonances, I don't want to EQ my music. Too much loudness/bass gives bad habits.
   
  Did you try the pink noise "calibration" at all? anyway, I like your settings, and I hate listening to generated noise.


----------



## donunus

Quote: 





j-a-k-e said:


> yup, just adjust the plugin gain to say -15db. I find with my card (xonar dx) that's about how much replaygain adjusts to on average and I still have plenty of headroom if I want to turn up the volume.






   
  thats what i meant. anyway its just a temporary thing because i hardly use my ad700s anymore


----------



## J-a-k-e

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> Good point! I got spoiled by the double bass character of my preset, and we all know how more bass can impress...but apart from middle ear resonances, I don't want to EQ my music. Too much loudness/bass gives bad habits.
> 
> Did you try the pink noise "calibration" at all? anyway, I like your settings, and I hate listening to generated noise.


 
  I found when I used pink noise calibration I haven't had the experience to be able to adjust it by ear, so I adjusting while using the headphone response curve as a reference while I watched the curve in the plugin.


----------



## donunus

The headphone response curve doesn't really mean for example though that adding 10db to a -10 db curve will add exactly 10db to that frequency. Some cans just cant do much bass period and will only measure 5 db louder for example when boosted 10db. With the phatpad modded ad700 for example, the bass responds better to the eq. It may be due to the fact that the cans leak less sound that way. I can give you another example of this... I was into car audio back in the 90s and trying to eq the front speakers to play bass just didn't give much of a boost as measured by a real time analyzer while adding that same amount of bass in the subwoofer channel gave me an almost exact db boost as what i gave it.


----------



## donunus

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> Good point! I got spoiled by the double bass character of my preset, and we all know how more bass can impress...but apart from middle ear resonances, I don't want to EQ my music. Too much loudness/bass gives bad habits.
> 
> Did you try the pink noise "calibration" at all? anyway, I like your settings, and I hate listening to generated noise.


 

 I didn't use the pink noise at all. I don't use any eq since I feel the response curve of the d1001 already veils that frequency where my ear resonates at. They have a sort of sennlike upper midrange character without the veiled frequencies above that part  I'm still amazed with how much I like these relatively inexpensive cans when I hated the d2000s


----------



## leeperry

hehe, I missed a creative aurvana live selling for $1.5 on ebay one day, but I hate dual ended phones anyway.
   
*@J-a-k-e*: I only use head-lite, care to share some details about your technique using head-fit? I usually don't pay much attention to FR measurements because we all have different middle ear resonances, so in the end they usually don't carry much meaning...if any.
   
  Did you try donunus settings? they're magic on my cd1k!
   
*PS:* ah well, I'm having a hard time getting used to his settings...the sound is far clearer I know that, strange. Mine have sexier harmonics to my ears, hard to explain. I think the sound is too colored, hummm. It brings vocals upfront and the bass behind, but always in the exact same way..
   
  It's about time I try the pink noise torture


----------



## Neo3d

Hey guys, here is my settings for my modified *Grado SR60* connected to my computer through a *x fi titanium fatality pro*. My Grados are modified with custom soft donut cups and a soft headband. I listened to Billy Joel, Boyz II Men, Foreigner, Pink Floyd, Coldplay, Queen, Glee soundtrack, Bob Seger, and Neil Young for testing all CD quality or better.
  Sounds good, Fantastic software!
  EQ 
   
  I used the last crossfeed settings that Donunus posted and they work out fine.
  I created an inverse waveform in relation to this screenshot for the EQ..


----------



## J-a-k-e

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> hehe, I missed a creative aurvana live selling for $1.5 on ebay one day, but I hate dual ended phones anyway.
> 
> *@J-a-k-e*: I only use head-lite, care to share some details about your technique using head-fit? I usually don't pay much attention to FR measurements because we all have different middle ear resonances, so in the end they usually don't carry much meaning...if any.
> 
> ...


 
  When I first setup head- fit I really didnt have a clue what crossfeed settings to use so I skimmed through this thread and figured I'd use donunus' most recent settings which just happen to sound perfect to my ears.
   
  As far as my own technique goes I just fiddled around with the eq sliders which was confusing at first but I managed to get a feel for the fact that the Q sliders adjust the slope between eq points as configured by the eq frequencies up top. In my case once I enabled the internal processing with pink noise and adjusted the eq sliders to create an invert of the AD700 bass response curve I was fortunate that my headphones now sound quite linear in response. I am more than happy with the results I managed to achieve in this regard.


----------



## J-a-k-e

Quote: 





			
				donunus said:
			
		

> The headphone response curve doesn't really mean for example though that adding 10db to a -10 db curve will add exactly 10db to that frequency. Some cans just cant do much bass period and will only measure 5 db louder for example when boosted 10db. With the phatpad modded ad700 for example, the bass responds better to the eq. It may be due to the fact that the cans leak less sound that way. I can give you another example of this... I was into car audio back in the 90s and trying to eq the front speakers to play bass just didn't give much of a boost as measured by a real time analyzer while adding that same amount of bass in the subwoofer channel gave me an almost exact db boost as what i gave it.


 
   
  I haven't had much experience with car audio myself, but I do know there are additional factors to take into account such as the size of the vehicle and the distance from speaker placement to the nearest point of reflection (not quite sure how this works exactly) and in my mind the amount of vehicle & road noise generated is also a factor.
  I'm aware that not all headphones are created equal and manufacturers of cheaper models in psrticular  are know to "tweak" the specs somewhat, that is assuming they release a complete set of specs to begin with. In the ideal scenario tho where the published response curve is a fairly accurate representation of real life response, it should be easy enough to use it as a reference to tweak a response more to your liking. In saying that tho I'm aware of the limitations of eq adjustment, I'd be crazy to assume I can get a relatively linear bass response from a headphone that has a -15db point of 70hz.


----------



## donunus

Well yeah, the size of the vehicle, etc makes up for the acoustics but it can't change the fact that boosting 15db on a speaker with a small driver or an insufficient enclosure just wont be able to get a good response out of that boost compared to a larger speaker with a better designed enclosure.


----------



## J-a-k-e

For sure, at the end of a day if you've got bad response or setup to begin with eq isn't going to make it sound good although it may lessen the problem somewhat. When you have a fairly decent sounding response though, the right amount of eq in the right places can give excellent results.


----------



## donunus

True... Thats the short version of what I meant LOL


----------



## donunus

I did some listening just now with fresh ears and a change from .29ms to .27ms in the bass delay syncs the highs and bass a little better IMO


----------



## donunus

but then again it messed up the mids a little so let me play some more LOL


----------



## donunus

I found a pairing similar to the .29, .20ms settings. .32, .23 sounds almost similar at the same gains with most music but where i detected their differences were at the very first 3 seconds of pearl jam's spin the black circle  Check it out. you have to switch between the settings fast though to see the extra naturalness the new setting gives. Now I have to test with other crossfeed Needy songs because it sounds as if this particular song was already unnatural sounding before the crossfeed was engaged.


----------



## donunus

ahh a trick of the quick switch! the old setting of .29 still wins. I have to think out of the box here and try the high gain settings


----------



## donunus

Heres a new setting that I quite like. Ive been cross referencing this with no crossfeed and my good preset and it is overall a more effective crossfeed while still being uncolored. Nice! 
  My super subtle feed on the first setting is good if you want an almost nonexistent effect but just enough to please the brain to lessen ear fatigue just like leeperry likes it 
   
  This one is actually still as uncolored in the mids while providing a more seamless center image.
   
  ILD LF    -11.0
  ILD HF   -15.5
  F Central  1996
  ITD LF ms  .25
  ITD HF ms .20


----------



## leeperry

thanks for sharing, I'll bite and report back 
   
*PS:* ah well, those figures are strictly related to our HRTF's probably, your settings feel less easy for my brain than those you posted before..but these were too colored to my taste. I think I'll stick to the settings I posted a while back, they sound pretty darn good to my ears.


----------



## donunus

OOhhh check this one out. Very nice effective one! I'm stopping at this now. I Promise I promise LOL. This time I tuned this with ulilith instead of my usual foobar but this time I went for the most effective xfeed I could get without losing transparency. Plus you don't lose the bass here either.
   
   
  -9
  -14   
  1870
  .29   
  .27


----------



## leeperry

still not hitting the spot for me...I've just tried to mess w/ my settings again, I know they can be improved.
   
  touching the top settings doesn't really work, they give a strange sound...either they kill the bass, color the trebles or gives some sort of "phasey" sound. But messing w/ the delays seems to have paid off:
   



   
  the reflections seem more natural, I think that's the best I can get but I'll keep messing around...these seem to be the delays my brain likes the most, dub reggae's smoking


----------



## leeperry

this tune is sheer OMG'ness to test head-fit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZmTKdLO08M
   
  and yes the last settings I posted are the best to my ears so far...that nasty bassline sounds as 3D as can be 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



   
*EDIT:* ah, I dunno...I still prefer my older settings on other tunes.


----------



## ironmine

Donunus,
   
  Everybody's got his own unique pinna and ear structure (not to mention different headphones), so your settings are pretty much useless for anybody expect yourself and your clones, if you have any  Each person must set up Head-Fit individually for his ears and his headphones. Would you be so kind to stop spamming this thread...


----------



## leeperry

nobody forces you to read it, we're sharing experiences.


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> nobody forces you to read it, we're sharing experiences.


 

 The question is what forces *you *to read it if you don't share the same ears? It's like copying a dress from another person disregading the difference in body measurements... HRTF are very person-specific, they cannot be "shared"... This is the main challenge of binauaral technologies...


----------



## leeperry

coz as discussed in this thread, the whole point of head-fi is to find ppl who have more or less the same tastes/hearing as you, and take it from there. dononus and I often agree on many things, and he's released some settings that worked great for me and so did I.
   
  head-fit is by far the best xfeed plugin I've found, Isone Pro sounds hollow and bloated to my ears...like some kind of DH.
   
  another dirty xfeed I like is in ffdshow:


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





> head-fit is by far the best xfeed plugin I've found, Isone Pro sounds hollow and bloated to my ears...like some kind of DH.


 
   
  But Isone Pro gives better out of head experience and sounds closer to speakers, while Head-Fit still gives the "headphone kind of sound", just an improved version of it (in my opinion).  I wonder if there are any techniques to combine the benefits of them both? Maybe adding some room reverberations after Head-Fit?...
   
  It's a pity that big boys companies (like waves, sonalksis etc.) with big budgets for research don't have crossfeed plugins. Refined Audiometrics Laboratory did release their HDPHX (http://refinedaudiometrics.com/products-hdphx.shtml), but it is pitiful.


----------



## leeperry

yeah HDPHX is worthless to my ears, and I spent forever trying to make Isone Pro work for me...to no available. It always sounds like a crappy big reverb that colors the sound to death. I've tried more xfeed plugins that I could remember, 112db, VNP and some more I forgot about. head-fit is prolly a mix of inverted phase + delay of the opposite channel, that's all I need. Actually it's got some EQ on top, but yes you're right it colors the sound a bit but not nearly as much as Isone...It's not meant to be a room simulator, it's only supposed to make listening to headphones less fatiguing in the long run. The lower the jitter, the less my brain can stand dual mono...can't argue w/ him ^^


----------



## donunus

I'm spamming? I thought that was the purpose of this thread. To share settings so that others could try it and mod it or do whatever with it. I didn't know that a forum about crossfeed is not the proper place to talk about its settings.


----------



## donunus

Leeperry,
  I love those new settings of yours by the way


----------



## J-a-k-e

Personally I quite like the different configurations that are being posted in this thread, as I'm not quite sure how to go about my own tweaking without making a mess of the sound. If there was a sort of step-by-step guide I'd be more inclined to follow that and play with different settings but since there's not I quite content to experiment with what's been posted.


----------



## donunus

Exactly thats what I thought which is why I like to share. What else is there to talk about in this thread anyway?
   
  Oh Leeperry I just changed the ILF HF of your setting to -16 to get rid of some leaking highs towards the opposite ear. I think this does the trick. Now for some music listening


----------



## J-a-k-e

Quote: 





donunus said:


> Leeperry,
> I love those new settings of yours by the way


 

 Same here actually & unless you guys have a different view on this I've been finding over the last day that the crowd noise during a live recording is the best test of how far your headphones can go to produce a big and deep soundstage. I'm really noticing during the last minute of "Run Like Hell" off Pink Floyd - Pulse that after the fireworks the sound of the crowd to my ears is a more 3D and extends back a lot further.


----------



## donunus

Have you guys noticed that when you change the difference of the ms of the HF and LF that the phasing seems to be the thing thats changed?(I know leeperry noticed this already since he mentioned this above) Well I just discovered that if you turn up the sliders to a higher level but using the same difference in ms that the phasing remains the same but the crossfeed effect just gets more pronounced. Ex. from Leeperrys .27, .18 I derived .32, .23... a difference of .09 ms between the lows and the highs. The .32, .23 setting gives a little better fill though to my ears. I ended up with this. Sorry ironmine 
   
   
  -9.9
  -16
  1375
  .32
  .23


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





j-a-k-e said:


> If there was a sort of step-by-step guide I'd be more inclined to follow that and play with different settings _*but since there's not*_ I quite content to experiment with what's been posted.


 

 Jake, you are wrong! There is a step-by-step guide suggested by the author of Head-Fit:
   
  www.ohl.to/about-audio/audio-softwares/head-fit


----------



## donunus

Quote: 





donunus said:


> Some things Ive noticed with headfit...
> 
> I just noticed when tuning headfit that the LF and HF ms needs pairing for the tonality of the crossfed signal to be right. I came up with 3 setting pairs with good tonality where the hf doesn't noticeably bleed too much to the opposite ears separate from the lows... theres .23,.18 .25,.20 and .32,.27 at the stock ILD levels. Changing the ILD levels may need different ms adjustments but I am still content with the stock levels at the moment.
> 
> ...


 

 Now looking back at an old post of mine and my two settings here that I thought were great had the same difference in phasing of .05. I guess I liked a difference of .05 before and now .09. Maybe it was due to different cans I can't confirm because I don't have my dt150s anymore.


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





donunus said:


> The .32, .23 setting gives a little better fill though to my ears. I ended up with this. Sorry ironmine


 

 I would certainly try your settings, but I have two problems with that;
   
  1) My ears are - anatomically and, therefore, acoustically - different from yours.
   
  2) Tomorrow, as sure as the sun will go up, you will post some other "better and wiser" settings which will override your "inferior and outdated" today's settings. The same would happen the day after tomorrow, etc., etc. So, I'll think I'll wait for a year or two until you... eh... equilibrate yourself completely.
   
  The Audio Evangelist walks to binaural perfection with too frequent and long strides, I cannot keep pace with him...


----------



## ironmine

Lee Perry,
   
  I've found the DDMF Metaplugin (it's a VST-chainer similar to Console, it compensates for latencies automatically) http://www.ddmf.eu/product.php?id=3.
   
  I tried to oversample the DDMF Metaplugin with Christian Budde's oversampler, but it does not work this way. The other VST Oversampler works though - http://sites.google.com/site/chrisrwalton/oversampler
   
  So, it put all my plugins inside the 2x oversampled DDMF Metaplugin (e.g., crossfeed + equalizer, etc.) and it works (even inside the console).
   
  By the way, remember you said that upsampling is not possible in the VST architecture, only resampling? But how comeAlgorithmix says about their equalizers: "To avoid bell filter asymmetry at high frequencies, typical for many digital equalizers, _*we have applied reference-quality upsampling techniques, automatically switchable*_ if the sampling frequency of the input signal is 44.1 or 48 kHz." (http://www.algorithmix.com/en/classic_peq_blue.htm)
   
  It means it is possible to upsample (not just resample) with VST plugins?


----------



## J-a-k-e

Quote: 





ironmine said:


> Jake, you are wrong! There is a step-by-step guide suggested by the author of Head-Fit:
> Â
> www.ohl.to/about-audio/audio-softwares/head-fit


 

 Yea, I did try following that guide by enabling just the left channel and playing with the crossfeed sliders with both pink noise and music but I found it didn't have near enough of an in depth description of what I should be listening for. I need something to the effect of
   
  "adjust this LF slider until you get exactly this kind of sound and placement and use that other LF slider there to focus, now adjust this HF slider  so that the sound blends to the same position as the LF and provides a depth of height and use that other HF slider to focus. Now adjust the f central slider so that a sine wave test tone provides seamless integration between high and low frequencies.
   
  That's what I liked about the Isone-Pro manual, it wasn't over complicated and it provided complete instructions on what each slider does and what to listen for when you go the through the initial adjustment process.


----------



## donunus

Talking about concepts and procedures of how to do things, I was wondering if anyone here knows what exactly happens with the ILD and F Central settings in headfit. All I know is that the ILD LF changes the lows in the crossfed signal and the ILD HF changes the highs but to get into more detail I scanned a basic sketch here...
   

   

  Questions
  Does the F Central behave more like the bottom pic where it is like a crossover point where to start rolling off the mids through the highs? Or Is it like the top pic where it separates where the ILD LF and HF settings affect?
   
  If it behaves like the bottom pic for example, does lowering the ILD HF setting just make the crossover setting less steep like the #2 setting? In case you don't understand what I'm trying to ask with that picture, what I meant was that the dotted line is closer to the 0 setting on the HF because it only has a setting of -1 which takes 1 db away from the original curve and a -3, -3 setting will have the same curve as a 0,0 setting but with a more intense crossfeed volume going to the opposite ear. Do you guys think this is how it works? The website really doesn't explain this like the bs2b site does.


----------



## SP Wild

I intsalled Headfit on my big computer - it sounds so much better than when it was installed on my Netbook - I think this one is CPU instensive and the Netbook screwed it up.  Anyway - this is the most transparent crossfeed - more so than JR MC.  It doesn't expand the soundstage like JR does, but it doesn't shrink it either.  Tonal balance is unaffected.  I started to tire of the JR MC expanding the soundstage and making everything sound distant - Headfit retains that headphone intimate feeling.  Isone pro is good for simulating speakers - but is not as transparent and I don't really want speaker sound.
   
  I have yet  to play around with the sliders - but I think I'm gonna settle down with head-fit for a while - it's superb and free.


----------



## SP Wild

Just playing around with the sliders - this is definitely the best crossfeed implementation I've come across.  I don't know why it was awful when it was on my netbook.


----------



## J-a-k-e

Quote: 





sp wild said:


> I intsalled Headfit on my big computer - it sounds so much better than when it was installed on my Netbook - I think this one is CPU instensive and the Netbook screwed it up.  Anyway - this is the most transparent crossfeed - more so than JR MC.  It doesn't expand the soundstage like JR does, but it doesn't shrink it either.  Tonal balance is unaffected.  I started to tire of the JR MC expanding the soundstage and making everything sound distant - Headfit retains that headphone intimate feeling.  Isone pro is good for simulating speakers - but is not as transparent and I don't really want speaker sound.
> 
> I have yet  to play around with the sliders - but I think I'm gonna settle down with head-fit for a while - it's superb and free.


 
   
  Yea it is fairly cpu intensive. My desktop machine is an Amd Phenom II dual core@3.5ghz and enabling head-fit kicks my cpu usage from 2% up to 14%. I agree the headphone dsp in J. river is not quite right and while definitely better than some I've found I'm not so keen on the boxy out of the head effect.


----------



## gecolin

Thanks!


----------



## donunus

I went back again and am using almost stock LOL
  -8
  -15
  1996
  .32
  .27


----------



## cooperpwc

The fun is in the journey.


----------



## leeperry

*@ironmine:* yeah, Christian Budde's software is always quite buggy..
   
  Algorithmix prolly meant oversampling, as the VST architecture doesn't allow to have a different sample rate on the input and output AFAIK. I tried their EQ, not my thang.
   
*@J-a-k-e*: yeah, the instructions to use the pink noise sound like broken english to me...I can't make any sense out of them. I wish Jean-Luc could explain me in french, and I could try to write a clearer tutorial.
   
*@donunus:* glad you like them! personally, I've gone back to my good ole' settings...they just "work" on all tunes, and don't color/make the sound phasey-sounding.


----------



## donunus

Did you try that very last one? Its the least phasey setting but may be a little smooth for you I predict


----------



## leeperry

donunus said:


> Did you try that very last one? Its the least phasey setting but may be a little smooth for you I predict


 

 I've been using the same settings for about a month now, my brain rings the alarm when I mess w/ them. It feels like it's gotten use to how the sound is projected. These were my favorite settings at the time for a reson I would guess.


----------



## J-a-k-e

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> Â
> 
> I've been using the same settings for about a month now, my brain rings the alarm when I mess w/ them. It feels like it's gotten use to how the sound is projected. These were my favorite settings at the time for a reson I would guess.


 

 Those are the settings you posted on page 7 overlaying quake 3?


----------



## donunus

Thats probably the one I complained was a little bright for me. The one where I derived those settings that leeperry also really liked.
   
  check post#87 Thats probably the setting he is talking about.


----------



## leeperry

yup, post 87


----------



## leeperry

donunus said:


> Post your impressions on how the different settings affect the new cans too.


 

 My settings work even better on the CD900ST than they did on the cd3k drivers, it's a much less colored phone...very impressive! I'm now gonna try either the Shure SRH840 or the Victor HP-M1000, still undecided at this point.


----------



## donunus

I guess I am just a junkie for minimalist software because I could have saved so much time setting up headfit if i had just used the pink noise generator from the full version to begin with. When I tried adjusting with pink noise last night, I found out it was very easy to get all the frequencies coherently to one side and that every setting and slider change was very clearly audible when pink noise was panned to one channel. 

Tip... If you want to be as minimalist as possible while being able to set up headfit as flexibly as the full version, just run the exe of the full version to get a good setting and once you get a setting that you are satisfied with, just use it with the ultra minimal version 






By the way, these are the settings that I got when setting headfit up this way...

-8
-21.5
1375
.32
.27


----------



## leeperry

and what's the goal w/ the pink noise? the instructions on the official site are in broken english and don't make much sense to me.


----------



## donunus

The pink noise just makes you hear all the frequencies at once. Tuning the crossfeed with the pink noise on one channel just makes you hear if any of the frequencies bleed separately towards the opposite ear. I ended up with your genius 1375 setting with this method of tuning since anything around that region plus or minus 15hz give a good sense of naturalness in the crossfed signal. The highs cant totally be eliminated from bleeding ever so slightly separately from the other frequencies though no matter how much I adjusted it because going too far compromises other frequencies.


----------



## leeperry

> Tuning the crossfeed with the pink noise on one channel just makes you hear if any of the frequencies bleed separately towards the opposite ear.


 
    
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	





> anything around that region plus or minus 15hz give a good sense of naturalness in the crossfed signal.


 
   
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	





> The highs cant totally be eliminated from bleeding ever so slightly separately from the other frequencies


 
   
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



  so you never run it in stereo? ...I don't understand


----------



## donunus

I do run it in stereo LOL. Just the tuning part to check for the right amount of natural crossfeed so that the spread is natural is why I test in one channel.


----------



## leeperry

I've tried it, but I've got no idea what to do w/ that pink static...neither your instructions or the official ones make much sense to me...ah well, nevermind! I like my empirical settings


----------



## jlo

Hello,
  I'm sorry, I was quite busy in the last months so I couldn't follow forums nor work hard on head-fit.
   
  I understand that the major problem is to find the parameters adjusted to your own ears.
  For me, music is not the best signal for the setup and I'm still working to find the best test signals.
   
  Explanation of the procedure for head-fit :
  as somebody said, it is best to adjust with head-fit, find the best values and set same values in lite version.
  Parameters ILD, ITD, ... are explained on my website, check http://www.ohl.to/about-audio/audio-softwares/head-fit
   
  The easiest way I found is following :
  - begin with internal generator set to bonger F1 at 600Hz
  - listen to one chanel only
  - adjust the position of the sound source with ILD LF slowly moving up from -40dB (ITD LF should be about 0.30 to 0.32ms)
  - move this slider so that the apparent source position corresponds to a virtual loudspeaker position
  - change signal to pink altern F1/F2, set frequencies to about 800Hz and 2000Hz
  - try to adjust to the position of the high frequencies with ILD HF so it seems coming from same position as lower frequencies
  - you can adjust F central so to have a smooth transition between both noises
  It is not so easy. But up to now, I've not found better signals to adjust. Let me know if you have any ideas.
  Values depend from your head/ears and your headphones but you should not be too too far from the default settings, otherwise go back and check.
   
  Now I'll come to this forum more frequently so let me know your questions (maybe I could also explain better to leeperry in french !)
   
  Cheers
  Jean-Luc


----------



## donunus

Thanks For that! I just skipped the directionality part with the bonger and did it just with pink noise to get good fill from left to right. Anyway, I'll try the procedure above and use my speakers as reference for directionality.


----------



## shaddix

where to download head-lite?!


----------



## jlo

Quote: 





> where to download head-lite?!


 
   
  I'm sorry, I forgot this :
http://www.ohl.to/audio/downloads/head-fit-lite.zip
  I didn't want to release the lite version before I find the simplest way to adjust the parameters
  For this, I'm sure all of you can help me.


----------



## donunus

I just adjusted the parameters again by adding the procedure you mentioned above and got some different values to get a more frontal stage. As for blending the other parameters other than the ILD LF, I feel more comfortable using the constant sounding correlated pink noise to make sure all the frequencies are stable without leaks from one channel to the other. 
   
  As for the version to release, I would just suggest the ultralite version without the volume control to be available for minimalists and the .exe that comes with the standard version zip file to be used for calibration.


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





donunus said:


> As for the version to release, I would just suggest the ultralite version without the volume control to be available for minimalists and the .exe that comes with the standard version zip file to be used for calibration.


 

 Why "without the volume control"? If you like digital clipping, you can always leave it at 100%


----------



## ironmine

Hello Jlo!
   
  1. Does your HeadFit plugin oversample the signal internally? Do you recommend oversampling/upsampling?
  2. Does your plugin have any protection against internal clipping? What does it do with the signal when the processing of it results in levels above 0 dBFS?


----------



## donunus

Quote: 





ironmine said:


> Why "without the volume control"? If you like digital clipping, you can always leave it at 100%
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 ahh because I also don't use the eq. I guess for those that boost frequencies, They would need the volume slider.


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





donunus said:


> ahh because I also don't use the eq. I guess for those that boost frequencies, They would need the volume slider.


 

 You are _*so sure*_ that using the crossfeed function only does not result in clipping?
   
  For your information, even when the EQ is used for _*cutting *_frequencies only, the signal often goes beyond 0 dB...


----------



## donunus

I'm not 100% sure that the xfeed doesn't cause clipping on its own but so far with most the stuff ive been listening to, those that I find clipping have the clipping already in the recording even when I turn off the xfeed.


----------



## cooperpwc

Quote:


ironmine said:


> Why "without the volume control"? If you like digital clipping, you can always leave it at 100%
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 

 I don't find the the Head-fir crossfeed casues clipping (nor does it on Rockbox). I too am a fan of the minimalist version which also has the advantage of being bug free.


----------



## donunus

I think ironmine just hates me for some reason LOL


----------



## ironmine

Let's run a little experiment. We take one audiophile album - Maria Muldaur 2003 - "A Woman Alone With The Blues" and take one song randomly. Let it be "05 - Some Cats Know.flac". We run it through Sonalksis FreeG Stereo which is a professional Peak and RMS meter. We get the following results:

  We can see that the song is mastered well: *R & L peaks are at 0 dBFS* and do not exceed it. RMS levels are both at -11.96.
   
  Now let's insert HeadFit with the default ILD and ITD crossfeed parameters (crossfeed is on, EQ is off) and run the same song through it. The volume is changed from default -10 to 0.  Here's what we see:

   
  Both the right and the left channel *peaks exceed now the zero level*: +0.56 dBFS. The RMS levels have also increased up to -9.50.
   
  As you can see, _*the signal clipping has happened as a result of the sound processing in HeadFit with no volume attenuation*_.
   
  Do you think the author of HeadFit is such a fool that he set the default volume at -10?
   
  It's good to be a minimalist, but it's even better to be an informed person who knows when minimalism is good and when it is bad 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




" class="bbcode_smiley" height="" src="http://files.head-fi.org/images/smilies//smily_headphones1.gif" title="
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




" width="" />
   
  Now, I don't mind not having the volume slider, as long as the default volume attenuation guarantees that no digital clipping will happen. -10 dB seems to be a safe value indeed.
   
  PS: Ideally, dithering should be used after HeadFit. But for the sake of the above experiment, I did not use it. It did not affect its result.


----------



## leeperry

Thanks Jean-Luc for the explanations! I'll try to have a go at it...but I've worked my way the empirical way, and my brain has gotten used to how the SS is being projected now.
   


donunus said:


> LOL


 
   
  hehe, well he's got a point IMHO....the xfeed itself can clip.
   
  I currently use an EQ plugin to kill my middle ear resonances together w/ head-fit, and I had to attenuate the volume quite a bit in head-fit in order for my EQ not to clip. But I've decided to use them the other way around:
  -EQ to kill 2 spikes around 6400 and 9700Hz, w/ attenuation to avoid clipping
  -the very first build of head-fit lite(w/o the volume control), I don't really like the newer versions w/ volume control because the xfeed settings don't show by default...I have to click on EQ settings and then xfeed settings, it's a bit buggy
  -Ozone4 to check that I'm not clipping...but now that I've checked, I don't enable it anymore, it was only to monitor if it wouldn't go >-0.1dB
   
  It think it sounds clearer if head-fit is last in the chain.


----------



## donunus

Thanks Guys. Now I'll check more recordings. I guess I should have just stuck with the "ignorance is bliss" mode but since you educated me more on it, more paranoia sets in


----------



## leeperry

jlo said:


> I'll come to this forum more frequently so let me know your questions


 
   
  One thing I'd like to see is a slider for the volume of the center channel...I'd really like to beef it up a tiny bit. Some other xfeed plugins allow this kind of trick...basically there's no wet/dry slider, and it'd be nice to have one.
   




   
  Some headphones/opamps/transports have a wider center "hole" than others, so this would only make head-fit more versatile.


----------



## donunus

To get more of that center fill feeling try pumping up the ILD LF to something around -6db then work the other settings from there. Of course I also noticed that the soundstage becomes less wide making it more mono and centerish when you make the LF delay a smaller value.


----------



## leeperry

I'm realizing that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to pleasing my brain...the cd1k(same drivers as the cd3k) did wonders w/ head-fit only, but the t50rp has a much wider "hole" in the center, and its headstage is not cavernous whatsoever(unlike the cd1k)....I was forced to pump up the volume way too loud due to this dimmer center channel.
   
  I like my head-fit settings, especially that slightly bloated bass...it gives me the feeling to be physically feeling an heart-pounding bass. I've also tried Isone Pro but I still don't like...too phasey, not natural..right now I'm chaining:
  -EQ to kill middle ear resonances at 6400 and 9700Hz
  -head-fit to get my bloated bass and slight xfeed
  -112dB Monitor to get a very natural -not too wide- xfeed on top
    



   
  I think it works great, but as usual it'll take a while before finding the perfect settings..but my brain doesn't wonder why the center channel is empty anymore. I wish Jean-Luc would allow to increase the center channel in head-lite.


----------



## donunus

Thats some hardcore effect lineup you got there. xfeed on top of another xfeed hmm


----------



## leeperry

ah well, the T50RP center channel is too dim...I'll work my way to other headphones. The mids are eye popping, though!
   
*PS:* I think I'm too used to angled drivers, they provide you w/ a very convincing front channel. Ultrasone and Sony on the CD900ST seem able to project a front channel using flat drivers, but the T50RP fails big time...the SS is very wide but there's no meat in the middle.


----------



## jlo

Quote: 





> 1. Does your HeadFit plugin oversample the signal internally? Do you recommend oversampling/upsampling?
> 2. Does your plugin have any protection against internal clipping? What does it do with the signal when the processing of it results in levels above 0 dBFS?


 
  Head-fit does not upsample internally but as the process is done in 32 bits floating point, so it cannot clip inside but :
  the crossfeed process adds a part from left to right channel and inversely. So when input signal is near 0dBFS, the result can be in worst case, equivalent to about +3dBFS. This may cause problems at the output. This is why I prefer to leave the volume slider (it works before any process) so when the volume is set to -6dB, no overload can never happend.
  I don't think that the process would be improved with upsampling.


----------



## jlo

Quote: 





> I wish Jean-Luc would allow to increase the center channel in head-lite.


 
  You know that I'm really concerned to use a process without any timbre coloration.
  Center channel level can easily be raised but, at this moment, I'm not really satisfied about its coloration.
  But I'm working on it. When I get good results, I'll let you try.


----------



## leeperry

jlo said:


> When I get good results, I'll let you try.


 
   
  sounds like a plan!


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





jlo said:


> You know that I'm really concerned to use a process without any timbre coloration.
> Center channel level can easily be raised but, at this moment, I'm not really satisfied about its coloration.
> But I'm working on it. When I get good results, I'll let you try.


 

 JLO,
  Could you please post the EQ settings which you yourself use and find most natural for your own ears? I ask you about it not because I want to copy them, but because I want to see a trend (as we say in Russian... "to see the forest, not just the trees"...).
  Regards,
  Eugene


----------



## leeperry

jlo said:


> You know that I'm really concerned to use a process without any timbre coloration.


 

 I've been trying all the VST xfeed plugins I could put my greasy hands on today, and I have to admit that yours is the most balanced of them all to my ears 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			





 :
   




   


ironmine said:


> as we say in Russian... "to see the forest, not just the trees"


 

 Ah! There was a japanese review of the CD900ST saying that it'd let you "hear each tree instead of hearing the forest" ^^


----------



## shaddix

head-lite.dll
  send my way!


----------



## leeperry

the link was given here: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/475007/head-fit-software-crossfeed-and-eq/30#post_6556125
   
  and I still like the head-lite+redline monitor combination...it adds an "holographic" dimension to head-fit 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



   
  Together they do what Isone Pro tries to, but fails blatantly...to my ears. My head-fit settings thicken the bass and extract stuff from the center channel to the side channels, and redline works on those in a 360° way...the SQ is just amazing right now, and far less hollow than Isone Pro or DH.


----------



## shaddix

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> the link was given here: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/475007/head-fit-software-crossfeed-and-eq/30#post_6556125
> 
> and I still like the head-lite+redline monitor combination...it adds an "holographic" dimension to head-fit
> 
> ...


 
  not head-fit-lite, it's glitchy! I want head-lite!


----------



## jlo

Quote: 





> not head-fit-lite, it's glitchy! I want head-lite!


 
  in fact, head-lite was just an in-between version and I gave it a "wrong" name ! But if you really want it, I can give it....


----------



## shaddix

Oh ok so this is new version of head-fit-lite then! 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




 ty much.


----------



## Dynobot

Just a question.....why search high and low for the perfect gear when you can just EQ your way to sonic bliss????


----------



## leeperry

jlo said:


> in fact, head-lite was just an in-between version and I gave it a "wrong" name ! But if you really want it, I can give it....


 

 did you try 112dB Monitor? It doesn't create a phantom center channel, but a phantom FRONT channel...it's a god bless on headphones that have a big hole in the middle.
  


dynobot said:


> Just a question.....why search high and low for the perfect gear when you can just EQ your way to sonic bliss????


 

 It's about balancing the xfeed effect.


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> did you try 112dB Monitor? It doesn't create a phantom center channel, but a phantom FRONT channel...it's a god bless on headphones that have a big hole in the middle.


 

 112 dB Redline Monitor is sounds good to me! But only when I turn off distance completely. _*Any *_distance value really degrades the sound (even the smallest 0.1 m), to my ears.


----------



## leeperry

I use the 112dB plugin at 0dB/30%/0.2m
   
  the first setting provides the front channel I need badly, it acts as having angled drivers.
   
  I'm really not looking for broadening the SS, I simply want a center channel so 30% is the minimum allowed...and about the distance, 0.2m makes the mid/side reflections highly realistic to my brain.


----------



## ironmine

Quote:


leeperry said:


> I'm really not looking for broading the SS, I simply want a center channel so 30% is the minimum allowed...and about the distance, 0.2m makes the mid/side reflections highly realistic to my brain.


 

 Reflections? Off what? I thought that Redline Monitor was a pure crossfeed, not a room simulator... If you want reflections, you can try 112 dB Redline Reverb in front of Redline Monitor.


----------



## leeperry

ironmine said:


> Reflections? Off what? I thought that Redline Monitor was a pure crossfeed, not a room simulator


 
   
  It's all explained in the manual...and Monitor is indeed a non-hollow room simulator, it does everything Isone Pro tried but failed big time. 


 

 


   
  chained after the Sonnox EQ(to kill my middle ear resonances), it sounds fantastically realistic.


----------



## donunus

doing a side by side with my cans on the 112db vs isone makes 112db seem flat sounding without the ambience of isone pro. Headfit is not the same thing as what those 2 try to do though IMO. I use Headfit purely just to relax the brain with minimal change to the tonal balance.


----------



## leeperry

as usual we all hear differently and use different gear. I've tortured Isone Pro in every possible way on several headphones, it's always been too hollow and colored to my taste...I guess this thing will never work for me.
   
  head-fit colors the sound quite a bit w/ my beloved settings, but I love that bloated bass and the SS shape it projects...OTOH an A/B comparison against 112dB shows that head-fit has a very colored SS. Stacking them is fun too, but too colored in the end.


----------



## donunus

try these settings on headfit... I really don't find it colored at all. Very minimal coloration 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




   
  -8
  -17.9
  1996
  .29
  .18
   
  Now if youre compensating for your cans tonality using a crossfeed plugin, thats a different story since you want something to color your cans enough that they will sound right to you.


----------



## leeperry

lol ok I'll try


----------



## leeperry

donunus said:


> try these settings on headfit... I really don't find it colored at all. Very minimal coloration
> 
> -8
> -17.9
> ...


 

 very nice! but .18 is the deal breaker for me...I prefer 0.20, but it sounds great indeed as it's got that "double" bass I love so much and yet sounds very clear.
   
  also I've calibrated my front channel in 112dB, the default -1.5dB is too dim but 0dB is too loud...-0.5dB gives a convincing stereo image on fender rhodes and rotating horn hammond organ.


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> It's all explained in the manual...and Monitor is indeed a non-hollow room simulator, it does everything Isone Pro tried but failed big time.


 

 Leeperry, I cannot find any mentioning of reflections in the Redline Monitor manual. Quite to the contrary, the manual says: "The Distance control simulates this effect by applying a complex series of subtle cuts and boosts that trick the brain into perceiving directional clues.  (The control was modeled after precise measurements obtained from recording a ‘dummy’ head model with in-ear microphones in an _*anechoic chamber*_.)"
   
  Do anechoic chambers have _reflections_? I always thought no:
   
  From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anechoic_chamber:
   
_"An *anechoic chamber* is a room designed to *stop reflections* of either sound or electromagnetic waves. They are also insulated from exterior sources of noise. The combination of both aspects means they *simulate a quiet open-space of infinite dimension*, which is useful when exterior influences would otherwise give false results. Anechoic chambers were originally used in the context of acoustics (sound waves) to *minimize the reflections* of a room." _
   
  Maybe Redline Monitor is an _*anechoic room simulator? 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	


*_
   
  By the way, their website says: "Support for samplerates up to 384 kHz", but their manual says "Redline Monitor supports all common samplerates up to 192 kHz"


----------



## donunus

It does seem like the sound goes into the anechoic chamber when I turn on 112db. the life gets sucked out of the sound IMO


----------



## donunus

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> very nice! but .18 is the deal breaker for me...I prefer 0.20, but it sounds great indeed as it's got that "double" bass I love so much and yet sounds very clear.


 
  hmm. maybe it has something to do with our headsize? I don't know. .20 dulls the sound a little more for me.


----------



## leeperry

Yes, I meant reflections of the directional clues against my pinna...that's all I'm interested in, I don't want wall reflections and my right ear is very happy w/ 0.2m
   
  I never use anything above 96kHz, so can't really tell.
   
  I'm gonna try to increase the center channel of head-fit by +1dB using this plugin(that seems to be able to cut down stereo into mid/side): http://www.ddmf.eu/product.php?id=3


----------



## leeperry

ironmine said:


> Maybe Redline Monitor is an anechoic room simulator?


 
   
  I think it is, yes. And on hardpan, it doesn't create any center channel...it's not a crossfeed filter per se.
   
  The military also seem to rely on anechoic chambers HRTF: http://www.headphone.com/learning-center/using-computers-to-fix-headphones.php
   
_"This “picture” is called a head-related transfer function, or HRTF. Pilots could then load their individual HRTF into their aircraft’s headphone system, which would then synthesize a customized acoustic environment for audio display. The system would also track head movement so that as the pilot moved his/her head the acoustic cues would remain in their absolute positions.

 “Cool! I want one!” you might say. Unfortunately, anechoic chambers are neither cheap nor very common"_


----------



## donunus

The convolvatron. I did a paper on that during my college years. I wonder what ever happened with the smythe system that did individual based hrtfs by the way.


----------



## ironmine

Quote:  





> I'm gonna try to increase the center channel of head-fit by +1dB using this plugin(that seems to be able to cut down stereo into mid/side): http://www.ddmf.eu/product.php?id=3


 

 You can also use this free plugin: VOXENGO MSED www.voxengo.com/product/msed/



  Just insert one instance of this plugin into your chain, turn it to "Inline" mode and you can adjust mid gain and side gain separately now.
   
  There is another one:
  BRAINWORX bx_control V2: http://www.brainworx-music.de/en/plugins/bx_control_v2



  It enables you to play with different mid/side settings, too.
   
  Another interesting effect to try for headphones would be raising not the whole gain of the mid channel, but only certain parts of it (by equalizing in the mid/side mode). Or, rather, equalizing down the side channel.


----------



## jasonb

is there any way to use this without a program like winamp or foobar? i listen to a lot of my music using Rdio. if you are not familiar with Rdio it works like rhapsody where you stream whatever you want when you want to using your web browser. i would like to listen to this music with some crossfeed. is there anyway to use this program or one like it with Rdio?


----------



## leeperry

ironmine said:


> You can also use this free plugin: VOXENGO MSED www.voxengo.com/product/msed/
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
   
  very nice! my only problem atm is that my modded t50rp has a dim center channel, and it's unbearable in games....and no company seem to be selling a standalone xfeed anymore these days, sounds like I'll need to keep a phone dedicated to games :/


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





jasonb said:


> is there any way to use this without a program like winamp or foobar? i listen to a lot of my music using Rdio. if you are not familiar with Rdio it works like rhapsody where you stream whatever you want when you want to using your web browser. i would like to listen to this music with some crossfeed. is there anyway to use this program or one like it with Rdio?


 

 Can you explain in more detail? What plays the music? How do you stream it? How do you listen to it?


----------



## jasonb

Quote: 





ironmine said:


> Can you explain in more detail? What plays the music? How do you stream it? How do you listen to it?


 


  on my computer the music is played directly through the Rdio.com website. i use firefox as my browser. it's using flash i believe. i listen using the headphone out on my laptop.
   
  i have tried some winmap plugins for the music i have stored on my laptops hard drive, but i don't see a way to play Rdio.com through winamp so that i can utilize the plugin.


----------



## leeperry

W7 supports system wide audio plugins...too bad noone bothered making one for xfeed. If that ever happened, I'd seriously consider upgrading from XP.


----------



## jasonb

Quote: 





leeperry said:


> W7 supports system wide audio plugins...too bad noone bothered making one for xfeed. If that ever happened, I'd seriously consider upgrading from XP.


 


  yea i am using windows 7. no plugin for xfeed on 7 huh?


----------



## ironmine

Jason,
  I am not sure, buy may be the combination of "Virtual Audio Cable" + "LiveProfessor" will help you... Try it.


----------



## jasonb

Quote: 





ironmine said:


> Jason,
> I am not sure, buy may be the combination of "Virtual Audio Cable" + "LiveProfessor" will help you... Try it.


 


  i'm gonna try it. thanks
   
  EDIT: i can't figure either one of these programs out.


----------



## J-a-k-e

On a different yet related note, does anyone know if it's at all possible to permanently apply head-fit to mp3 audio files? The simple solution obviously would be to record the wave out, which would work great if I was only looking at a few songs. Although in reality I'm hoping there's a way to apply the effect to a few hundred songs which I would then could transfer to my portable iaudio 7 player  seeing as it is unfortunately lacking in crossfeed support.
   
  I notice JRMC has the option of applying dsp effects when burning audio cds, this would be exactly what I'm looking for if the same option was available through thee format converter.


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





jasonb said:


> i'm gonna try it. thanks
> 
> EDIT: i can't figure either one of these programs out.


 
   
  You should install VAC and set it as your default audio device. Your player plays music and outputs it through VAC. LiveProfessor must be set up to take the input signal from VAT and send it to your audio card. LiveProfessor also acts as a VST host.
   
  I used this combination at home successfully. Try it again. Persist!


----------



## ironmine

Quote: 





j-a-k-e said:


> On a different yet related note, does anyone know if it's at all possible to permanently apply head-fit to mp3 audio files? The simple solution obviously would be to record the wave out, which would work great if I was only looking at a few songs. Although in reality I'm hoping there's a way to apply the effect to a few hundred songs which I would then could transfer to my portable iaudio 7 player  seeing as it is unfortunately lacking in crossfeed support.
> 
> I notice JRMC has the option of applying dsp effects when burning audio cds, this would be exactly what I'm looking for if the same option was available through thee format converter.


 

 It's very simple. This is how I listen to music in my portable player when I go out. Load your music files to Foobar2000 and convert them to any format your like with the processing function (DSP) activated:
   



   
  The existing George Yohng's VST plugin settings will be applied during the conversion process (and other settings of the plugins which George Yohng points to - such as Console, etc). It means you must preconfigure George Yohng's plugin and Console, etc. first before hitting OK (convert) button.


----------



## dzmcm

I use foobar2k to convert everything to flac on my iAudio7. Some plugins will cause clicking if you're converting multiple files. Use the "Don't reset DSP.." setting if it happens.
   
  I'm using Sennheiser HD555's and for the longest time I used foobar's crossfeed plugin since it did the least damage to the sound. I'm all about head-fit now for the past few days (HUGE thanks FWIW). But I would really like a way to project the sound forward. Everything I've used seems to fail miserably with my phones. Any kind of processing that is supposed to give dimension tends to just make things sound closer and like they where recorded in a larger room, farther from the microphone. I've tried the Redline Monitor and am unimpressed. The sound stage can be slightly more forward, but it ruins the pure ambient, reverberant sounds that Sennheiser is so great at reproducing. It's like switching between surround and stereo almost. For any advice on how this can be achieved I'd be grateful.  
   
  Also, I have Dolby Headphones with my Xonar D1 and stick to that with the reference DH-1 setting for gaming. But It's far from suitable for music, and I only use it in games for the smooth, seamless shift between left/right. What I'd really like is a way to apply DSP's to games and some music in 5.1, ideally so that I can use head-fit on front left/right and use separate effects (or none) on the rear/center channels. I'd settle for stereo if it'll work with games. Any ideas?


----------



## ViciousXUSMC

Ahh been messing with head-fit for a while today.
   
  Trying to figure out what the settings do and how to tune it.
   
  Decided to skip the pink noise and all that jazz and just go with music and see what sounds better to me.  Also tried a lot of the recommended settings posted.
   
  Here is the think, I am using Winamp, I have the VST wrapper installed and head-fit starts when I start winamp and its part of my winamp application group.
   
  I can hear a very large difference when using only one side and turning crossfeed on/off and the volume slider is working, so I know the thing is working.  However when I enable both left & right channels I cant seem to hear any difference between the crossfeed being on and off no matter how big of a change i make to the settings.
   
  Whats up with that?  Is it not working or am I just not able to hear the difference for some reason.
   
  Edit: nvm I can hear the difference with some correlated pink noise, guess just I am not used to hearing a small difference like this.
   
  Using my AD700's directly from my X-fi Xtreme Music right now.
   
  Edit2: Testing with my A700's now seeing if that helped and now I am not sure if its working again.  Yes I can here the huge difference with the crossfeed on/off when listening to only one channel but with both L/R channel enabled I can not here any difference.  The only place I heard anything at all was a very very minor change to how the white noise sounded.  I guess its working with external source since I can see the music on the graph and I can hear the difference in the music when I use only one channel.
   
  Edit3: Ok does this confirm its not working?  I downloaded some test .wavs that play only on certian channels.  one for left, one for right, one for both.
   
  I tested the right channel only .wav and when I set the head-fit to right channel only I could hear it on the left speaker when I turned crossfeed on, and when I turned it off I heard static in the left but not the test track.
  When I turned both left & right on again I heard none of the track on the left speaker that is playing on the right side.


----------



## leeperry

dzmcm said:


> I've tried the Redline Monitor and am unimpressed. The sound stage can be slightly more forward, but it ruins the pure ambient, reverberant sounds that Sennheiser is so great at reproducing.


 

 O RLY? Well, all those plugins are colored...just like EQ's, and I'm always growing bored of hearing my audio colored in the exact same way after a few weeks. I know that my good ole' head-fit settings make me happy, I might just leave it at that...pumping the center channel by +1.5dB using MSED(thanks for the tip ironmine!) and it sounds juuuuust fine


----------



## leeperry

After much messing around, the least colored xfeed to my ears remains VNP....head-fit does a bit of phase funkiness and manages to extract small details to the side channels, but that colors the sounds by quite a bit. I'm not sure I can hear anything wrong w/ Redline, but well VNP at 6.2%/3.79ms is the least colored of them all IME. Colored DSP/gear always bore me after a while :/


----------



## donunus

Quote: 





dzmcm said:


> I'm using Sennheiser HD555's and for the longest time I used foobar's crossfeed plugin since it did the least damage to the sound. I'm all about head-fit now for the past few days (HUGE thanks FWIW). But I would really like a way to project the sound forward.


 


  Isone pro can project the sound well but it does come with its ill effects too


----------



## Infoseeker

Hey guys, this sounds like an interesting plugin to use with foobar. But the current head-fit release bugs up. No noise and all the dials show/overlap. Anyone can upload a working older version?


----------



## loserica

I do not use the tone correction. Experience tells me that if you have a quality, well-balanced rig, corrections alter the sound, not improve it!


----------



## spydur

heres a dumb question for you guys... I copied the head-fit.dll to the components folder and i cannot select it in foobar2k... I was able to load George Yohng's VST Wrapper... What am I missing?


----------



## fufula

It might seem a little complicated, when the VST wrapper loads properly you should get an additional icon in your tray. You have to right click it and choose the VST effect/plugin you want to use. In case you don't have any plugins listed in the Use VST Effect submenu, click the VST Setup option and point to the folder where you put the head-fit.dll file, rescan. Now go to Use VST Effect, make it active, and use Show/Hide  Plugin Editor to configure it.
   
  If you want your VST plugins to be visible in the DSP list and feel a little more integrated with foobar, you might want to try this VST wrapper. Still in beta stage, but it's been working fine for me the past couple of weeks.


----------



## spydur

Quote: 





fufula said:


> It might seem a little complicated, when the VST wrapper loads properly you should get an additional icon in your tray. You have to right click it and choose the VST effect/plugin you want to use. In case you don't have any plugins listed in the Use VST Effect submenu, click the VST Setup option and point to the folder where you put the head-fit.dll file, rescan. Now go to Use VST Effect, make it active, and use Show/Hide  Plugin Editor to configure it.
> 
> If you want your VST plugins to be visible in the DSP list and feel a little more integrated with foobar, you might want to try this VST wrapper. Still in beta stage, but it's been working fine for me the past couple of weeks.


 

 Thanks, now that you mentioned it I do see it in the tray...


----------



## Aurvergne

I get a glitchy head-fit when using Foobar v1.1.1 and George Yohng's VST Wrapper v1.2. Same result with VST 2.4 adapter 0.9.0.3. Using Windows XP. Using the version of head-fit lite linked here: http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/475007/head-fit-software-crossfeed-and-eq/30#post_6556125
   
  It looks like
   

   
  When setting it active and playing a track the computer freezes or slows gradually to the point where clicking the stop button or the action of stopping itself via hotkey takes upwards of 30 seconds. Another detail to note is the full version of head-fit (not lite) zip comes up with an "unexpected end of archive" as if there are some missing components or the package is incomplete. It's really a hopeless situation and I'm desperate for help from you master/experienced users of head-fit and the crossfeed regime..


----------



## donunus

after all this time I just want to chime in and say that I still use the barebones Headlite and use all the stock settings. After all the experimentation I really ended up liking the stock settings best


----------



## RPGWiZaRD

Does it exist ANY app with that you can monitor the signal that is going to the headphone jack (ie. after all processing is applied to it from your DAC) while playing music and would show the frequency response while music is playing in a similar way this one does except this head-fit doesn't take any stand as far as external EQing etc is concerned, just the music file itself and the built-in EQ in this plugin. I would love to have that.


----------



## donunus

This sounds very good to me! I wonder how it sounds to different people with different headphones. For some reason, this is the first setting that I have ever come up with that happens to sound best with whatever music I throw at it. I've only tuned it with a px100-II so far though but am waiting for some other cans to arrive so that I can double check if they are universally good.


----------



## J-a-k-e

Just trying these settings now and so far so good, sound stage and imaging I think are just that bit more focused compared to the settings donunus posted on page 16  #228.
   
  Before I stumbled across head-fit I'd tried a number of cross-feed plug-ins which either coloured the sound by creating a muddled or boxy effect or just weren't that effective in general. For me head-fit has become that subtle something I use all the time with my headphones for both movies and music (gotta love J river media center). I quite like the fact that I can turn the cross-feed setting on or off and there's no overall change to the sound at least not in the way any casual listener would notice. Although if I'm listening to a well recorded track I can hear and imagine where every instrument is placed and I like to listen for the 'space' that sits between the notes in the mix. Then if I turn the cross-feed setting off it's like the instruments, notes and the music itself looses that final bit of focus and clarity to the stereo image along with that extra dimension of realism and air.


----------



## donunus

I agree ^^^ Headfit is great! As for the settings I put up before, I wen't nuts and just tried to go all over the place but going back to stock ended up being better in the long run all the time except for a slight veil that caused a slight discontinuity from the mids to highs. The setting I put above is just the stock setting of headlite with 2db up the ILD HF section to give it some fill for that coherence to come back. I tried -12db which was closer in tonality to the unprocessed signal but I went down to -14db to get an allround good feel for the xfeed combined with the slight fill to correct the tonality.


----------



## donunus

By the way, all the other settings i leave untouched. Did you know that delay settings have three steps in one value and that if its on the right, the center or the leftmost part where it still reads .32ms for example gives you three different actual values. I know this because the three steps change in sound from one step to the other. My setting above is done by resseting the plugin to stock before changing the ILD HF to make those ITD LF MS and ITD HF MS settings exactly stock.


----------



## donunus

For some different headphones i'm using now I turned down the -14 to -15db so synergy may also play a part in making this plugin sound good. Its a juggle between soundstage and tonality.


----------



## fufula

There's a clear and distinct difference between every value of ITD LF and HF, although I can't say that I've noticed any difference between the three steps at any given value of ITD LF. There are even more steps for every value of ITD HF, still no audible difference, but it might be just me. My current settings: -8.7 ILD LF / -14.4 ILD HF / .32ms ITD LF / .25ms ITD HF / F central at 1771, lowered volume by 7dB. I find that these settings color the sound the least, and -- depending on the recording -- tend to enlarge the soundstage a significant deal.


----------



## donunus

I either had better headphones back then or It could have been placebo but these el cheapo akg k44s I have on my head right now isn't really showing me the difference in those little steps in the ms section within the same value. As for your settings, try changing .32ms to .29 and see what you think. I was also inspired by your settings and decided to ruin my contentment with my setting and play around a little more LOL
   
  try this one... Its pretty uncolored already as far as these cheap cans of mine can tell. I really ended up not liking .25 on the HF ms because I felt it made some gaps from left to right due to its width.


----------



## donunus

fufula,
  As i listen longer, I feel there is really some form of genius in your -8.7, -14.4 setting. Me Likey! Only the width is different on mine. Well the F Central too I guess. I like the 1996 quite a bit. I feel it gets a little dark when going down too much. Here is my quick setting after resting from that tweaking session.


----------



## donunus

and then i'm back to default but with the preferred width this time...
   

   
  I am done for now


----------



## fufula

I used to use v.similar settings to the ones you suggested (defaultish) for quite a long time and they sounded pretty good, just like they did now that I gave them another spin. As with every other aspect of our little hobby, there's no perfect setting for everyone, and what we believe to be the perfect head-fit configuration is very subjective, mostly due to the unique shape of everyone's ears, head etc. I'm sticking with what I posted.


----------



## donunus

Thanks for posting it too. It made me have fun adjusting this again


----------



## donunus

I guess i'm at it again. I'm starting with this as i find the imaging more solid.


----------



## donunus

and heres my tuned setting for the day... I'll be using this for a while since its sounding very transparent
   

   
edited it back to .32 when listening to the beatles for some reason this just worked better


----------



## donunus

Ahh now after a bunch of music, This is my favorite setting so far. I can finally listen to music at low volumes with this setting. It gives more clarity and cleans up the blob effect in the imaging really well.


----------



## donunus

I'm still using the same settings in everything except the high and low level blending.


----------



## J-a-k-e

Has anyone else who uses the EQ built into head-fit figured out how to make the it work properly at sample rates other than 44.1khz? If for example I'm playing a 96khz file in J. River media center the EQ operates outsides the specified frequency bounds unless I force the output to 44.1Khz.


----------



## donunus

I don't use the eq and also only use 16/44 so i'll pass this for someone else to answer. Maybe you can pm leeperry if hes still around. I think he might have experimented with headfit's EQ and I know he sets his system up for higher resolution than 16/44.


----------



## donunus

here is a setting I'm using right now for my fischer fa-003s


----------



## warwulf7

Quote: 





viciousxusmc said:


> Ahh been messing with head-fit for a while today.
> 
> Trying to figure out what the settings do and how to tune it.
> 
> ...


 
   
  It happens the same to me 
	

	
	
		
		

		
			




   
  hey Donunus could you upload the old version that you have ??


----------



## donunus

After all this time using this plugin, I have realized that the delay settings don't seem to need any changing regardless of the headphones I've been using once I got the settings that I already like. The F central needs a little tweaking now and then though to make the vocals sound natural. Although the default F Central setting is pretty close to sounding like the Crossfeed being bypassed so far as the tonality is concerned, I sometimes turn the F Central down to get rid of the glare that some headphones have in the upper mids.
   
  The F Central is a great tone control that sort of simulates having a room with good synergy with specific speakers. An example is if one had some dipole speakers that would be blurred and sound raucous by a reflective walled live sounding room... that would be like some forward sounding headphones with the F Central setting at a high position. In order to get the vocals more focused with less smearing, i use a lower setting. I know its not exactly the same thing because headphones don't cross over in sound from one ear to the other naturally like it happens in a speaker environment but it sort of works the same way tonally. With the hd650 for example, the plugin is already almost perfect at the default setting for me because the upper mids don't have much of a glare(depending on the cables used).


----------



## donunus

To add to that ILD HF also changes sharpness of transient/vocal attack and ILD LF adds richness going up because the sound becomes less blobby and more mono.


----------



## donunus

and my setting on the new hd600 is different again. I have everything at stock setting except the F Central at 1537


----------



## donunus

Stock Setting is really Brilliant! After all this time. Its the only setting I can go back to.


----------



## leeperry

hehe, these days I really enjoy 6.208%/4.666ms in VNP ^^


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## donunus

hahaha you know what, I actually prefer the subtle setting on J Rivers own crossfeed plugin. It just hits the spot for me. The crossfeed works better while the sound is not being robbed of its dynamics.


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## leeperry

donunus said:


> hahaha you know what, I actually prefer the subtle setting on J Rivers own crossfeed plugin. It just hits the spot for me. The crossfeed works better while the sound is not being robbed of its dynamics.


 

 Are you saying that the VNP settings I just posted kill dynamics? You didn't try them


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## donunus

I meant the J River plugin compared to Headfit. VNP hasn't been working for me for a while. Lemme try it again. Is there a link to latest version somewhere? Those old ones just don't work on windows 7.


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## leeperry

it works fine in uLilith, blame your foobar VST plugin wrapper.


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## donunus

alrighty then i'll download it again and try it on J River


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## donunus

It doesn't work with JRiver either. If only ulilith had a better interface LOL.


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## leeperry

bah, thank god it doesn't look like JRiver


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## donunus

whatcha talkin about? JRiver is perfect  Soundwise and looks. I wish I could say the same thing about the slightly thin sound of foobar.


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## donunus

Ive been playing with all the xfeed plugins and went back to headfit LOL
   

 ILD LF     -8.2
 ILD HF    -16.0
 F Central  1996
 ITD LF ms  0.34
 ITD HF ms  0.25

 Gain -1.1


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## grokit

AstoundSound is a pretty decent standalone listening enhancement utility that has music, movie and game settings and comes in Windows and Mac versions.


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## donunus

The demo sounds weird and phasey with music


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## donunus

Its been quite a while and these settings have pretty much stuck as my best setting for this plugin...
   
  ILD LF     -8.5
 ILD HF    -16.0
 F Central  1807
 ITD LF ms  0.34
 ITD HF ms  0.25

 Gain -1.0
   
  These delays have been the longest ones Ive stuck with. I only change the height a bit by changing the ild lf a little and made the sound less congested by turning down the F Central but basically these are around the ballpark of perfection for me


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## OPrwtos

guys....ive been lookin at the settings for this plugin and changing them but i dont think its actually working because when i have it set to LR i cant here a single difference no matter how hard i try. When i have it set to just left channel or right channel i hear a big difference, but together nothing whatsoever. Is there some thing im missing?


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## donunus

Headfit is relatively subtle compared to lots of other crossfeed plugins so if you are just starting to get a hang of it, you might not notice the differences right away. After a while, you will get to like certain ms settings much more than others then will probably realize that the plugin is too colored in the end LOL


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## OPrwtos

Quote: 





donunus said:


> Headfit is relatively subtle compared to lots of other crossfeed plugins so if you are just starting to get a hang of it, you might not notice the differences right away. After a while, you will get to like certain ms settings much more than others then will probably realize that the plugin is too colored in the end LOL


 
  hm lol im still convinced that mine isnt working


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## donunus

make sure that you have the vst wrapper enabled on your foobar dsp panel. If the sliders move and you can change the settings on headfit, it usually means that it is working because if it wasn't enabled, you wouldn't even be able to see any change in the values when you move the sliders in the settings


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## OPrwtos

well i dono  i cant tell anything, i use the EQ from the head fit though


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## donunus

so does the eq work? If you can hear the differences on the eq then theres no chance that the crossfeed isn't working.


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## OPrwtos

Quote: 





donunus said:


> so does the eq work? If you can hear the differences on the eq then theres no chance that the crossfeed isn't working.


 
  lol yh the eq does work. Btw do you know the best alternative crossfeed i can use?


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## donunus

If you want something that you can hear right away and feel the transition from left to right channel affected more drastically, try bs2b. the default settings are pretty nice IMO


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## OPrwtos

ok ill try it tommorw i hope it works with the newest foobar because last time i think it didnt work but ill see.


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## donunus

the version a month or two ago worked with it. I was just using it before I shifted to Linux


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## DeadMan

This + VAC = God mode! Thanks for this great plugin. 
   
  Oh and use ASIO4All for mucho less lag!


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## wilky61

Where do I download the foobar plugin for this? I cannot find it for the life of me... it seems as though the download links have gone offline, and I don't want to mess around with some .exe... I just want to run this thing as a foobar plugin...
  
  EDIT: I downloaded some Foobar VST dll plugin (whatever that means) and installed it... but I still have no clue what to do next... I just want my old blues/jazz recordings to utilize both channels... I need some serious help (i.e., step-by-step directions) here.
   
  I don't have the slightest clue how to get to that screen where I can configure the settings that donunus has been tweaking/mentioning.
   
  I tried running the headfit.exe and it gives me a weird message about attack.dll and I really don't understand what is going on here.


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## donunus

get this first http://www.yohng.com/software/foobarvst.html
   
  then enable it in the dsp plugins on foobar then the configure the box at the bottom at the taskbar to point to wherever the headfit dll is than it should be smooth sailing from there.


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## wilky61

First off, thank you for the reply, donunus.
   
  I think my problem might be with my expectation of what crossfeed is supposed to do.
   
  This is one of the main songs I keep using for a reference track; do you hear how intense that left-channel guitar is?
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZnPrc55Kwk
   
  I *thought* that with Crossfeed that I would be able to blend that guitar into both channels; am I mistaken?
   
  Quote: 





donunus said:


> get this first http://www.yohng.com/software/foobarvst.html
> 
> then enable it in the dsp plugins on foobar then the configure the box at the bottom at the taskbar to point to wherever the headfit dll is than it should be smooth sailing from there.


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## donunus

try bs2b for foobar, it should give you a more natural crossfeed so far as getting a more speakerlike, less intense left to right separation. Headfit is a little more subtle but you can change the settings to give less separation to a certain degree but not that much.


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## wilky61

BS2B has a weird effect on the sound... certainly *less* subtle than Head-Fit... BS2B appears to move the peripheral sounds more "forward" and it also appears to dampen/mute them a little bit... At first instinct, I am inclined to say this is modification is a bad thing, but I think the overall effect is less fatiguing on each individual ear...
   
  I'll keep playing around with it. Thanks again.
   
  Quote: 





donunus said:


> try bs2b for foobar, it should give you a more natural crossfeed so far as getting a more speakerlike, less intense left to right separation. Headfit is a little more subtle but you can change the settings to give less separation to a certain degree but not that much.


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## donunus

Yah bs2b is a little more damaging to the signal than headfit but if crossfeed is what you need, it works just for that. Try volume matching when comparing bs2b vs no dsp too because bs2b does lower the level of the signal to prevent from clipping. Also, don't forget to try the naive software crossfeed for foobar too. http://www.naivesoftware.com/software.html


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## wilky61

Hmmm, adding +2 treble to my FiiO E17's EQ controls seems to address the veiling issue with BS2B...
   
  (I currently have my E17 set to +8 bass and +6 treble.. What how did I arrive here? Hah.)
   
   
  Quote:


donunus said:


> Yah bs2b is a little more damaging to the signal than headfit but if crossfeed is what you need, it works just for that. Try volume matching when comparing bs2b vs no dsp too because bs2b does lower the level of the signal to prevent from clipping. Also, don't forget to try the naive software crossfeed for foobar too. http://www.naivesoftware.com/software.html


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## wilky61

Tested a bunch of songs/albums with and without channel separation... in the end, I decided to go for Head-Fit after all. BS2B's veil was altering too many tracks too radically for my liking.


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## cofra

To you guys that have played around with this Software. How do I set this up with for example Spotify or a video player like VLC if I would like that? Thanks in advance. My computer skills is not that high  Thanks!
   
  /C


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## DooberKnob

What do the ILD ITD and F center sliders do exactly?


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