Foobar2000 Dolby Headphone config - Comment & discuss!

RPGWiZaRD's Dolby Headphone foobar2000 info & tweaks

I'm looking for volunteers to try out this dolby headphone config which is a bit further tweaked than what you'll find in the big thread about dolby headphone, basicly I'm the kind of guy that can't keep my fingers off when it comes to settings and tweaking for the best possible result using my own ears (or eyes when it comes to calibrating TVs etc) and can spend literally months tweaking all sliders one by one, making one or a few step change and listen if I find it better/worse until I'm certain about it etc until I eventually get a really nice (in my opinion obviously) result. I'm pretty much there where I simply can't get it to sound any better on my equipment at least after maybe a half year or so since I started using dolby headphone plugin, I realize different headphones or especially DACs/sources may skew the results or the same setting may not be ideal for every DAC/source but trying it with my different headphones it all sounded pretty much optimal or near it so headphones themselves shouldn't have a large impact, DACs might have though

Soundcard users can try experiment with 5.1 speakermode (Actually for WASAPI it doesn't matter but for DS output it seems to produce a little different results with 5.1 from my testing). Also please note it seems like Dolby Headphone plugin only supports max 48kHz sample rate. 

Here's some examples of my custom Dolby Headphone config recorded video

Preconfigured install 

You can download a preconfigured foobar2000 archieve from here if you don't feel like manually setting it up and you only need to extract it somewhere but if you already have foobar2000 installed I'd recommend you try it out first if you like it or not by extracting it somewhere else and then open the foobar2000 exe from that path you extracted the preconfigured foobar2000 config to and then drag the songs to the playlist (or importing your playlists) to be sure you hear this effect as it's supposed to sound like. If you were to double click your songs it'll most likely open your own foobar2000 and it'd need to be replaced to work, in order to do that you'll first need to uninstall your old foobar2000 from Windows control panel and then put the portable install into the same location as your previous foobar2000 install. Please note the preconfigured configs are portable installs so won't mess with your own foobar2000 settings unless you overwrite them.

I strongly recommend you read through the "Manual install" part even if you decide to try the preconfigured configs because it explains the settings so you will have a better understanding of which setting will result in what kind of change.

UPDATE: As of 11.1.2012 I introduce both a "forward" and "laid-back" config as different people have different preferred sound signatures and this should at least better cover them as these two are a bit of the opposite to each other in soundstage especially.

The "forward" config is suitable for: People who prefer a more forward/"in-your-face" sounding soundstage (but improved/larger stage with better imaging/positioning and separation over stock foobar2000), more engaging listening experience. Suitable for people who like the Grado sound or listen to lots of rock, EDM, dance, pop and acoustic etc music. If unsure I'd first try this one as it's more closer to stock foobar2000 sound.

The "laid-back" config is suitable for: People who prefer a more laid-back sounding soundstage with better transparency and more spacious/wider soundstage, more relaxed listening. Suitable for people who prefer sound signatures by for example AKG K70x or Sennheiser HD800 or listen to a lot of classical/orchestra, blues etc. music. Try this if you think the "forward" config is fatiguing or the vocals too "in-your-face". NOTE: The laid-back config may cause slight metallic highs here and there, try the "forward" config if it bothers you.

Portable foobar2000 v1.1.6 "Forward" configuration: foobar2000.v1.1.6.Dolby.Headphone.(Forward)-RPGWiZaRD.zip (Updated on 27.5.2012)

Manual install 

Prerequisites

foobar2000 player (obviously):  http://www.foobar2000.org/

Channel Mixer DSP plugin:         http://skipyrich.com/wiki/Foobar2000:Channel_Mixer

Dolby headphone Wrapper:       http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dsp_dolbyhp

VST adapter (beta):                http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=84947

Electri-Q Posihfopit edition:       http://www.aixcoustic.com/index.php/Electri-Q-posihfopit/30/0/

Matrix Mixer:                          http://skipyrich.com/store/foo_dsp_mm.7z

Freesurround (beta):               http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=6246

DSP chain serialization helper:   http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=86873

Graphic Equalizer (optional):     http://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dsp_xgeq

Dolby Headphone dll I won't directly link to as such but it's found in my preconfigured package as well as for example in the trials for the most media players such as PowerDVD and WinDVD etc. Latest version I'm aware of would be v1.20.0.276 (Thanks Roller), usually named DolbyHph.dll.

"Forward" configuration 

DSP plugin load order

Should be noted that Channel Mixer plugin should be ABOVE the dolby headphone plugin in the active DSP list to work correctly. As far as Electri-Q VST EQ plugin goes, it's not that much of a difference if putting it first or last.

Channel Mixer settings

The rest of the settings that isn't seen in the pictures are remain unchanged. You can if you prefer a wider soundstage play around with Stereoimage width but I feel in my ears 0.95 brings the most natural sounding width and above that the vocals/mids are starting to sound off-centered, too far to the sides, this value is the last one in my ears which has the mids positioned where they should be in my ears. "Rear in front" and "Front in rear" settings affect laid-back or forwardness characteristics, the higher values the more forward sounding or vice versa while the rear volume setting seems to impact width/depth of the soundstage.

Matrix Mixer settings

Value 0.662 for the multiplier should give you roughly similar volume levels as stock foobar2000 with above Channel Mixer settings but you can adjust the volume levels according to your preferences. If you experience distortion, this would also be a good place to tweak first (additionally you can adjust gain in Electri-Q).

Dolby Headphone settings

The amplification slider works mostly as a volume control but may also add some audible reverb as well as increase the dolby headphone (surround) effect depending on how high it's set. I prefer the DH2 - Live room setting which doesn't add any noticable amount of reverb and therefore reveals fine details a bit easier, if you love to have a bit of reverb you can try DH1 - Reference room mode instead. The Dynamic compression ruins the sound quality more than it helps so stay away from that one too.

Equalizer settings

Before you ask why, I feel this is REQUIRED to neglect the frequency response change dolby headphone plugin adds, especially to the significantly boosted lows as well as recessed treblerange, without fixing this, you'll loose fine details in music and it sounds more "muffled". I've compared the EQ settings with dolby headphone enabled on foobar2000 vs stock foobar2000 but also for example Winamp and iTunes and maybe a bit Windows Media player to get a roughly similar frequency balance or just a "good result" (sounding great has slightly higher priority than sounding EXACTLY the same as other players but yea it's roughly the same anyway).

To load the VST EQ plugin Electri-Q (poihfopit edition) I recommend using the new VST host adapter by Yegor Petrov. After having placed the foo_vst.dll file in the components folder as usual, go to File -> Preferences -> Components -> VST plug-ins and add the Electri-Q plugin. Now press "apply" and it should ask if you want to restart foobar2000 and let it do so. Now go to DSP manager and add the Electri-Q (posihfopit edition) to the active DSPs list and you should be now able to bring up the EQ window.

To add a new dot, double click anywhere on the line. To change type of the filter, right click on dot and navigate to "basic" and then pick the appropriate type. To modify a dot's value, double click on it to bring up a small window where you can enter following values:

1: Filter:  Peak    Freq: 22,676    Gain: -1,386    BW: 1,100 

2: Filter:  Peak    Freq: 40,425    Gain: -1,453    BW: 1,100 

3: Filter:  Peak    Freq: 69,000    Gain: -1,193    BW: 1,110

4: Filter:  Peak    Freq: 118,12    Gain: -0,879    BW: 1,210

5. Filter:  Peak    Freq: 198,27    Gain:  0,387    BW: 1,100

6. Filter:  Peak    Freq: 718,00    Gain: -0,157    BW: 1,119

7. Filter:  Peak (Orfanidis)    Freq: 1197,0    Gain: 0,931    BW: 1,235

8. Filter:  Peak (Orfanidis)    Freq: 1737,3    Gain: 1,197    BW: 1,100

9. Filter:  Peak (Orfanidis)    Freq: 2475,1    Gain: 1,255    BW: 1,100

10. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 3359,9    Gain: 1,028    BW: 1,040

11. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 4581,6    Gain: 0,846    BW: 1,100

12. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 6731,6    Gain: 0,420    BW: 0,740

13. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 9966,7    Gain: 1,173    BW: 0,962

14. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 16444     Gain: 0,532    BW: 1,179

15. Filter: Gain only   Freq: doesn't matter   Gain: -2,604    BW: 1,000

A DSP chain preset with the EQ setting above (as well as rest of the plugin settings) can be downloaded from here: foobar2000.EQ.Balanced.(Forward)-RPGWiZaRD.fbcp - Use DSP chain serialization helper plugin to load the .fbcp file by holding down shift while accessing playback dropdown menu -> DSP chain serializer -> load.

Additional EQ presets customized by me are also available: foobar2000.EQ.Presets-RPGWiZaRD - Replace your current Core.cfg file in the configuration folder, if using a foobar2000 portable install can be found under foobar2000\configuration\ and if using a standard install then it's found under C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\foobar2000\configuration\ (Warning! backup your existing Core.cfg file in the foobar2000 configuration folder) 

NOTE: Due to the Electri-Q plugin being very buggy coded some crashing may occur while loading different DSP chain presets in a row that have Electri-Q in the active DSP list. As a compromise for now to the problem whenever you want to load another DSP preset, always first load the "Default: Stock foobar2000" config and then load the desired EQ preset as this avoids the crashing.

"Laid-back" Configuration

DSP plugin load order

Free Surround (beta) Settings

Matrix Mixer settings

Dolby Headphone settings

Equalizer settings

1: Filter:  Peak    Freq: 22,676    Gain: -1,447    BW: 1,100 

2: Filter:  Peak    Freq: 39,150    Gain: -1,497    BW: 1,109

3: Filter:  Peak    Freq: 63,300    Gain: -1,457    BW: 1,235

4: Filter:  Peak    Freq: 115,40    Gain: -1,017    BW: 1,110

5. Filter:  Peak    Freq: 198,27    Gain:  0,387    BW: 1,100

6. Filter:  Peak    Freq: 725,00    Gain: -0,247    BW: 1,150

7. Filter:  Peak (Orfanidis)    Freq: 1151,8    Gain: 0,807    BW: 1,300

8. Filter:  Peak (Orfanidis)    Freq: 1665,8    Gain: 1,229    BW: 1,100

9. Filter:  Peak (Orfanidis)    Freq: 2391,8    Gain: 1,337    BW: 1,200

10. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 3218,4    Gain: 1,322    BW: 1,100

11. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 4585,2    Gain: 1,322    BW: 1,120

12. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 6393,0    Gain: 0,747    BW: 0,831

13. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 9966,7    Gain: 1,597    BW: 0,952

14. Filter: Peak (Orfanidis)   Freq: 16987     Gain: 1,047    BW: 1,300

15. Filter: Gain         Freq: doesn't matter   Gain: -2,470    BW: 1,000

You can add whatever plugins you want to use, for example WASAPI is heavily recommended to bypass the Windows own built-in mixer/EQ to get a cleaner output! I decided to not enable this output as default as it usually requires the correct bitrate and sampling rate applied and may be a hazzle to newbies which haven't used foobar2000 to figure out how to fix it. Comments are highly appriciated.

FAQ

Q: What's the goal of this foobar2000 Dolby Headphone config?

A: The goal is to enhance the "out-of-box" experience, make recordings sound more "live"-like with as realistic and clear positioning as possible while maintaining sound quality as close to the original signal as possible. Also it makes the sound a bit more "forward" sounding for more engaging experience that makes you wanna tap to the rythm or dance along with the music as well as having vocalist standing almost within reach to you while background instruments may sound like they'd be coming far from the background or to the sides for a more dynamic and wider listening feeling like you would forget you're wearing any headphones!

Q: Why share this config here on Head-Fi?

A: Because I realize everyone doesn't like tweaking but I do and find that if people like grasping the settings just like that and enjoys them then I'm also happy they are enjoying it, it's a win-win situation.

Q: How do you know how to adjust the settings?

A: I only go by ear really. I've been EQing my headphones for many years and tried out different VST plugins or standalone apps that try to modify the sound in different ways so I've gotten used to hear the tiny differences in sound. You can train your ears as well! EQing is one good way to start which can be suprisingly educative. 

Yea that's why I like the sound of this cuz it has minimal impact on the sound signature or quality, mostly plays around with the presentation, makes soundstage deeper sounding and the positioning sounds more natural/accurate (studio recording start sound more "live"-like) and makes it a little bit more forward sounding (I personally tend to prefer a bit more forward sound), which is mainly due to the "rear in front" and "front in rear settings" so you can play around with those if desired, lowering those values will make it a little more laid-back and I suppose "0" is pretty much default for those but I like how it sounds this way though, especially when the singer feels like she/he is often standing almost next to me depending on the recording obviously meanwhile instruments can be heard far into the "background" or to the sides which adds to realism like it would be a binaural recording almost. :p

I've tried several different VST plugins and "enhancements" apps of various kinds but most of them make too drastic change to the sound and some barely any audible difference, this is just perfect for my taste.

Nice to see people like you chime in, need more people like you around here. :p

About the EQing in this config, it was only ofc to counter the change dolby headphone applies and doesn't apply any specific settings for some certain headphone, only tries to make it more sounding like other players with EQ disabled or foobar2000 itself without using dolby headphone or any EQ enabled.

I've read an article regarding testing different EQs and yea I remember foobar2000's were quite ugly looking with those unsmooth changes and yes you can hear it's not a very good EQ by the ear pretty much as well but at least lowering the frequencies below the 0-level works a bit better than boosting which is something you should never attempt to do on foobar2000's EQ or most other software EQs. Also should be noted the results gets more inaccurate if you adjust one slider several steps away from the others than letting all sliders be no more than one or possibly two steps higher/lower next to the other slider like I did in that config above. I personally use my soundcard's EQ to tweak the headphones themselves but I wanted to counter the change which dolby headphone in foobar2000 does so I wouldn't end up EQing my soundcard's EQ to sound optimal with foobar as in that case when I'm gaming I would perhaps lack slight amount bass for example so it's best or most practical IMO to at least counter the frequency balance change dolby headphone plugin adds within foobar2000 and then if you need further EQ tweaking for your headphone to sound great then use a some that is applied to all your computer tasks like the soundcard or something else or in worst case use some for foobar2000 for your music listening needs at least.

I'm not the person that puts a lot of focus at the theory like graphs measuring the response but rely on my own ears the most. It's kinda like it doesn't matter how it's done or if it gives a theoretically more "correct" result if I can't hear that with my ears as well, I prefer letting the ears decide all changes I do, I only like to compare for example when EQing my headphones with a frequency graph so I can compare with both my own hearing and the graph to get easier to a better result but most of the time the ears do the job and I've almost always came to similar results as if I'd follow a graph, my ears are pretty trained to hear differences in sound as I've spent lots and lots of time on EQing for many years as well as testing out several VST plugins or apps that do various things. It's gone so far I can quite accurately tell whereabouts the frequencies need to be tweaked for a headphone I listen to without having to start trying it out first.

I didn't know of that free EQ dsp plugin for foobar2000 and it looks indeed doing a quite better job and 31 bands lol and more bands the more accurate results and I'll download this plugin now immediatly and see if it results in any audible better result vs using the internal one and possibly update the config if so. Since there's only a little EQ applied and the changes are made smoothly (max one step or two between 110 and 156Hz, I think it'll be very little audible difference if any but we'll see). EDIT: Looks like I will have to update foobar2000 in that case, won't work with v1.0.3 sadly and last time I tried latest version of foobar2000 it sounded slightly different compared to v1.0.3 which was less appealing to me. 

Also nice info there about headphone.com's hidden raw graphs, I have seen some a couple of times but didn't know they existed for all their headphones that were measured and that you had to subtract 2 from the ID to see it. Good info there!

I tried WASAPI and couldn't get it to work in windows 7 for my soundcard and some other people may not as well why I decided to not include it in the above config and let people manually add it if they want, I rather provide a setting that will work for every1 than certain people as it's less of a hazzle. EDIT: WASAPI worked now, turns out it was the v1.0.3 not working with the wasapi plugin and worked with latest version, had to use resampler to change to 48kHz though. Is there any way to limit the volume of foobar2000, I don't have any external amp/dac to play around with any volume control and the foobar2000 volume control is now very impractical with very loud volume at max and small changes do very noticable differences, normal listening volume on my XB500 is at -25 to -30dB, very much to the left lower end of volume, with max vol I'd blast my eardrums in no time. :p

nvm, need more testing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brooko 

Sorry for double post - but had to comment on this one.  Half way through Diana Krall's album "The Girl In the Other Room".  This set up is very, very enjoyable.  Sounds like she's here in the room.

Yea I tweaked it that way so it would sound more a little more forward, if you want to hear what I'm talking about listen to the parts you enjoy and go into the channel mixer settings and put "rear in front" and "front in rear" settings from 58 and 57 respectively down to 0. It's mostly this setting along with the appropriate stereoimage width which makes it sound like the singer often is very physically close to you like standing in the same room with her/him.

I'm currently configuring foobar2000 v1.1.6, sounds reasonably same, must have been something fishy last time I tried but yea the "Graphic EQ" is good but it's difficult to discern any very audible improvements vs using the built in but I'll play around with the setting a bit more but I think I may have found roughly the optimal setting in my ears now. Will post soon.

OK, here I've configured foobar2000 v1.1.6 with the "Graphic EQ" plugin that pro_optimizer linked to, I will probably do slight modification especially to the lows still, it could be a tiny bit too strong (punchy, meaning around 80~125Hz might be one-two steps or so too high or the very low frequencies which are definitely a bit stronger stronger compared to iTunes/WMP but it sounds very musical and most headphones have rolled off bass response at those frequencies anyway) still with this setting but it sounds pretty good already like this. I also changed "Front in rear" setting to 0.56 and Dolby headphone amplification to 121% for minor change to soundstage. Versus iTunes it may be tiny bit less sparkly (around 8~12kHz or so may need to be boosted slightly) but I found iTunes less realistic sounding than this and almost distorting the high frequencies at times so I probably won't change that and it's quite subtle differences we're talking about anyway.

http://cid-87ed83e2c9fd453c.office.live.com/self.aspx/Public/foobar2000/foobar2000.v1.1.6.Dolby.Headphone-RPGWiZaRD.zip (it's a portable install so won't overwrite your settings, just extract to a different path to try it out)

(have reuploaded a couple of times due to minor setting changes, so if you grabbed it earlier I'd recommend redownloading)

EQ setting looks like this if you're wondering, since you can't save the profiles with this EQ I recommend you grab the package as it may be a bit difficult to get it exactly right otherwise. Also I didn't have WASAPI enabled in that config but the dll is included so it only has to be enabled in case you're usually using that.

I still have a hard time deciding whether I'm liking the foobar2000 v1.0.3 or v1.1.6 config better though, sounds very similar.

EDIT: I'm starting to doubt this EQ brings any better results than the built in one, I've kept switching back and forth and it's really difficult to say.

I'm currently using 

which may bring a bit better result than the previous setting but against the built-in with the exact setting as posted in my first post it's really hard to say...

EDIT2: I'm fairly positive after slight fineadjustments and came up with the updated setting I posted above that I start slightly preferring this config. Updated the hosted foobar config with this latest EQ setting as well. I'm still liking the v1.0.3 foobar2000 config a lot though.

Now I won't touch the settings anymore. Both the v1.0.3 and v1.1.6 configs sounds very good and almost perfectly similar in my ears so it's up to you to pick. v1.1.6 may sound slightly better now as well but believe me it require every one slider on the 31-band EQ to be set perfectly or else it'll sound worse. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brooko 

Also - what sort of feedback do you need?

Any kind of feedback is welcome, as in how you'd compare it to stock foobar settings or a different player perhaps if you find it better/worse sounding or how you think it sounds different or do you have any hints to improve it or plugins that may work better etc. Whatever you want to comment, I mainly want to share the settings as in my ears it sounds so much better than any other player or settings and enhances greatly my listening experience and therefore I wanna share them but I'm also interested in hearing what other people thinks.

Yea if you are trained to hear the differences it's not suprising, and Dolby headphone really adds a massive bass boost and smoothens out the upper-mids to lower-highs range as you can see from above and the deep bass would actually have to be 1-2 steps lower but it's ok with slightly enhanced deep bass response IMO anyway. :p I also further apply my soundcard's EQ setting for XB500 on top of that which looks like:

This is a hardware EQ though which works soooo much better, a +2.0 boost on this EQ is quite different compared to say iTunes which need like +6 on that EQ to get similar sense of change but obviously iTunes EQ distorts which this one doesn't. I would get best result only tweaking this EQ and leaving foobar alone but like I said I can't be bothered using 2 different EQ settings when listening to music and gaming and it sounds reasonably good anyway if you accurately tweak the foobar2000's EQ to neglect the DH changes and only use smooth adjustments to it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by zowki 

Wow, I am in love with this foobar configuration. The soundstage is amazing for orchestral and jazz music.

You could make soundstage sound even larger but the point with this config it also sounds very natural at the same time and IMO things sound realisticly positioned, if I try to make it larger it starts sounding unrealistic or a mess (to me at least).