5.1 Headphone experience *Foobar configuration for all stereo music files* - Page 34

There's no distortion (I did check with some peakmeter plugin for my soundcard drivers though) and the amplification setting for dolby headphone plugin doesn't seem to affect the volume of the output (well only minimally) but it's more an amplification of the dolby headphone effect itself  and I don't need to measure it to be sure, foobar2000 for starters is very difficult to get to distort the way it's coded and the sound quality is just that good. iTunes and Winamp for example quickly distorts if you either use the EQ or any 3rd party plugins or whatever but foobar2000 doesn't seem to and is one of the reasons I greatly prefer using it.

 

 

Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 4/5/11 at 3:39am

 

thank you graphicism! this topic is awesome

 

It sure is! I'm so glad I managed to see this topic, it has changed my music listening experience by some tremendous amount, in fact I was a winamp user before I started using foobar2000 and dolby headphone and today I can't go back to any other player or listen to music online etc because it sounds so boring/disengaging and flat in the sense that there is no "3D space", everything sounds like it was coming from the same "level" if that makes any sense compared to listening on foobar2000 with appropriate dolby headphone config where it sounds like music is surrounding you and you sort of start picture how the instruments and singers etc are placed in your head like getting a live performance out of a studio recording. I've also tried several VST plugins and separate software that enhance surround sound or play around with width, delay and such and none has worked with as great result as foobar2000 with dolby headphone provides.

Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 4/5/11 at 3:51am

wait a minute... did i notice distortion here? what do i have to do or should i mess with the eq?

foobar2000 never distorts for me, it's the player that is the hardest one to get distorted sound playing, however if you boost the EQ much above zero level it might distort like most software EQ starts to at some point so you better keep the EQ sliders at or near 0-level and lower the frequencies you want to hear less of. Now Dolby headphone adds some bass but it never sounded distorted though but I noticed loss of detail/clarity compared to not using dolby headphone plugin if I didn't take care of it on the EQ. On most people's headphones it may not be such an issue but for a guy that uses a XB500 it's a very big difference due to the bass boost so I compared to other media players and my own ears and found that at least on my machine this gives me the best result with dolby headphone enabled (for EQing my headphones I use my soundcard's EQ, foobar2000's EQ was just adjusted a bit for better clarity and little more balanced bass compared to fellow media players when dolby headphone is enabled). Deep bass is still a bit more pronounced than comparing to for example especially iTunes but I think it's more iTunes that lack the deep bass presence than foobar2000 overdoing it with this setting so it's very welcome with that tiny bit stronger deep bass as it doesn't interfere with the clarity/sound quality in my ears, raising the 77Hz and 110Hz even one step higher will mudden up the midrange a bit for me already though.

 

 

Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 4/7/11 at 10:33am

I found exactly the same thing. I think the issue is that if lots of care has been taken to deliberately master the original two channels with plenty of separation and a decent soundstage then there's not much to be gained. In those cases it sounds to me much like a simple DSP effect like a "Live" preset.

 

On the other hand I did find less well mastered files which in original mode felt like I was in a room with speakers out in front of me. Those files improved significantly.

 

Virtualizing up to 5.1 then using a DSP to go back down to 2 channels doesn't seem all that logical. On the other hand, using Dolby Headphone to squeeze out the extra info you would normally miss from a true 5.1 movie soundtrack does work well.

Edited by patters - 4/10/11 at 6:50am

ok, fixed the problem.

 

BT

Edited by BigTony - 4/11/11 at 10:14am

Foobar 1.1.6 beta 4 DSP Manager settings

Channel Mixer
General tab settings:
6 channels, LFE off
Upmix tab settings:
Copy
Center level: .90
Subwoofer level: whatever
Rear level 1.3
Subwoofer tab settings:
Subwoofer channel
Level 1.0
Bass Redirection
Leave Satellites Intact
Frequency 70

Dolby Headphone wrapper settings:
Volume 100%
DH1, Reference Room

That's it, nothing else. I don't use the Noise Sharpening filter. Way too much coloration for me.

Phones: Superlux HD668B, AKG velour pads
neutral/balanced except they're shy of low bass (see Subwoofer settings above)
DAC/amp: Leckerton UHA4, low gain

Would you set Xfi to headphones ot 5.1 for this setup?

 

Thanks for posting the step by step guide.

Tried this, a definite improvement on vanilla Dolby HP, and probably the best surround sound DSP I have heard. It was really great, right up until the moment I turned it off and realised how much better music sounded with it disabled. It still has that stereotypical "towel-over-ears" sound common to most of these DSPs/DSP combinations.
My ability to place sounds isn't as good as I would like though, so detail wins over soundstage expansion every time here.

I also noticed decrease in quality at first which was due to the quite hefty boosted bass which dolby headphone adds and isn't working optimal (using my soundcard's EQ to boost the bass if desired works better with less affect on mids and highs) so I took care of that with the EQ: 

 

 

With this setting the bass sounds very similar to other players while dolby headphone is enabled and doesn't overhelm the rest of the frequencies which DH does if you don't EQ it like above. That's my recommended EQ config with dolby headphone enabled if you just want that same "flat" sound as with DH disabled.

 

Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 4/14/11 at 2:08pm

@RPGWiZaRD: First thing I did after applying DSPs was EQ-ed away the bass. With the boosted bass, I found it almost unlistenable, but then again I can't ever imagine wanting any more bass than my Grados provide (not exactly a basshead).
Even with EQ applied, I still felt the detail lost wasn't worth it, but each to his own.

Did you combine it with Channel mixer dsp that is placed above dolby headphone in active DSP list right? Without it, the sound gets somewhat muffled and I found it vital to use Channel Mixer with it. If I had noticed lost detail I probably wouldn't like either but with some config here and there it sounds the same as without it but with the awesome soundstaging.

 

Actually I'd say it makes it easier to discern small details as the sound is brought a bit more forward, especially background instruments and such.

 

You could always try this preconfigure package in case you missed some settings http://cid-87ed83e2c9fd453c.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/foobar2000/foobar2000.zip or do you happen to use a Xonar Essence STX perhaps which I suppose lack multichannel configuration and won't work with Channel Mixer I think which is vital for dolby headphone to sound right.

Edited by RPGWiZaRD - 4/15/11 at 4:15am

hey guys, I am new to the forums.

I discovered some hrtf files that fit me well but i cant for the life of me

find the foobar component: foo_dsp_stereoconv.dll

 

it supposed to accept the impulse wav files in a stereo hrtf pair (which i have)

 

I really need this badly lol