[fidgeraldo]

That said, I don't doubt your experience.

Hmm, I don't know if we understood each other. I have nothing against Crossfeed.

I mentioned a few CDs that I love to listen to on speakers...but it's unbearable to listen to on headphones (for me)...
I am talking about a few albums, not the whole production of these artists.

When you listen to these CDs, it's like one driver is dead. And, in that case, I believe that Matrix could help (I hope so).

I still haven't tried Matrix with these albums, but I will. If it makes them listenable for me, then it's a big plus.
In general, I don't use Matrix.
I tried that option with music that is just finely recorded for the headphones, and what it does is that it takes energy from the song.

SPL Phonitor XE is such a good-sounding amp that I really don't even think about using Matrix...I don't need it.

Unfortunately, my left VU meter is not working all the time. And that has been the case since I got it, bummer.

And no headphones with amps that have or don't have crossfeed can replace the amount of the stage you have while listening to speakers.

I love headphones because the sound is more intimate and so much different than listening to speakers.

Cheers!

 

[BadgerRivFan]

For portable/transportable use, the AK PA10 amplifier also has a crossfeed feature which works quite well.

 

[jamesjames]

Hmm, I don't know if we understood each other. I have nothing against Crossfeed.

I mentioned a few CDs that I love to listen to on speakers...but it's unbearable to listen to on headphones (for me)...
I am talking about a few albums, not the whole production of these artists.

When you listen to these CDs, it's like one driver is dead. And, in that case, I believe that Matrix could help (I hope so).

I still haven't tried Matrix with these albums, but I will. If it makes them listenable for me, then it's a big plus.
In general, I don't use Matrix.
I tried that option with music that is just finely recorded for the headphones, and what it does is that it takes energy from the song.

SPL Phonitor XE is such a good-sounding amp that I really don't even think about using Matrix...I don't need it.

Unfortunately, my left VU meter is not working all the time. And that has been the case since I got it, bummer.

And no headphones with amps that have or don't have crossfeed can replace the amount of the stage you have while listening to speakers.

I love headphones because the sound is more intimate and so much different than listening to speakers.

Cheers!

My posts aren't directed to anyone in particular. They just set out my positive experience with crossfeed, so that anyone who is interested may follow up if they wish.

 

[fidgeraldo]

My posts aren't directed to anyone in particular.

I thought the quote meant just the opposite.
Hmm...no problemos, so did I with my experience.

Have fun!

Cheers!

 

[jamesjames]

I thought the quote meant just the opposite.
Hmm...no problemos, so did I with my experience.

Have fun!

Cheers!

Apologies, you're quite right. I'd forgotten my response about the music you mentioned. Like you, I prefer headphones - not so much for a sense of intimacy I think, as for a sense that the presentation is more natural. Sometimes small-scale music, sometimes larger. The general point I mentioned earlier is that it does, indeed, reduce the immediacy and hyper-realism of conventional headphone presentation (as I hear it). I think that can be a good thing. But it's true I think that crossfeed might not be terribly relevant to certain kinds of music (eg, non-acoustic music and multi-track studio recordings). Crossfeed might be particularly unhelpful with this music if it also involves a more low-key presentation. So, I'm not suggesting crossfeed should be seen as an improvement always - or that it can rehabilitate poor recordings. My point is simply that I've found it can be a great improvement with the music I listen to.

 

[gregorio]

The basic idea is to allow the listener to hear a recording through headphones as it was intended to be heard through speakers.

Not really. The basic idea of crossfeed was just to approximate some of the acoustic crossfeed which occurs when listening to speakers. However, there’s a great deal more occuring when listening to speakers than just acoustic crossfeed, there’s obviously a far greater distance between the listener and the speakers which causes numerous other acoustic effects besides just acoustic crossfeed, room reflections and interactions with those reflections for example, that crossfeed does not even attempt to replicate/approximate.

I find crossfeed generally improves the three-dimensionality of music - creating a better sense of being located in the audience at a performance that is occurring forward of the listening position. I find this improves imaging and timbre of acoustic instruments quite significantly.

I find the exact opposite, worse imaging and sometimes phase effects that negatively affects the timbre of instruments quite significantly.

Having tried many versions I've come to prefer the 'analogue' approach; that is, implementing a crossfeed circuit in the amplifier.

There is no difference of analogue vs digital, there’s just different implementations of crossfeed regardless of analogue or digital.

It's surprising to me that there isn't more interest in this …

It’s not really surprising, for 2 reasons:
1. Crossfeed is a relatively old technology, dating from the 1960’s and how well it “works” (or doesn’t) is highly variable, because it doesn’t only depend on the audio/music to which you apply crossfeed but also on individual perception. While a significant percentage of people perceive soundstage/imaging and timbral improvements, the majority don’t. That’s the main reason it never really took off in the first place.
2. The relatively basic/simplistic approach of crossfeed was superseded by a far more sophisticated and comprehensive approach, HRTFs (Head Related Transfer Functions). The processing power of modern devices allows HRTFs to be implemented even in mobile devices, in addition to convolution reverb and head tracking, which really can (under certain conditions) replicate the speaker listening experience. This is where the “interest” is, and where a number of huge companies have been throwing their R&D budgets for a number of years, rather than on an old, superseded technology.

I often encounter the very dismissive view that it simply 'wrecks' music, is a 'scam', a 'waste of time' and 'damaging' to recordings. I've no idea why mention of crossfeed so often elicits this kind of reaction ...

Because of the above! While crossfeed definitely wasn’t a ‘scam’, it does in a sense wreck or damage music but as mentioned, some/many will perceive it as damaged and others will perceive it as the opposite (an improvement), although there are also some who will occasionally perceive crossfeed as an improvement (depending on the recording) but far too rarely to justify it’s use. Such a polarised response/perception will inevitably result in “this kind of reaction”.

Incidentally, just in case my response above is taken by those who do prefer crossfeed as some sort of insult, that is NOT my intent! There is nothing inherently inferior (or superior) in those who perceive an improvement with crossfeed. Not only do we all have different HRTFs but the acceptance/adaptation of our perception varies from person to person.

G

 

[ExTubeGamer]

Does anyone know how to use crossfeed on IEMs? I tried a lot of different software solutions but no solution really improved the sound without killing the bass.

 

[hakunamakaka]

Does anyone know how to use crossfeed on IEMs? I tried a lot of different software solutions but no solution really improved the sound without killing the bass.

Mojo 2 has very good implementation of crossfeed which I periodically use with A8000. I do enjoy it especially with older & not so well recorded music

 

[Longstrong]

Quickly scrolling though the forum, thought this thread read "Anyone else crossfaded??"

LOL cheers.

 

[bogi]

I tried many software crossfeed and HRTF based solution, including for example stereo to binaural ones. I have best experience with CanOpener. It is not for free but also it is not expensive - it's for sure cheaper than if you would buy a hardware solution only because of crossfeed.

CanOpener is the only software solution where I don't experience degradation of sound aspects as tradeoff to get the crossfeed effect. 1 month of trial is available, so you can find out self if how my words fit to your personal experience. It is available in AAX, AU, VST and VST3 formats.

For portable use, you can convert an album with DSP applied in many players like foobar2000, JRiver MC.

CanOpener, although not mentioned in this thread, was already discussed in couple of threads in the past.
https://www.google.com/search?q=canopener+site:head-fi.org

 

[jamesjames]

Since I've tried to describe here the main differences I find with crossfeed, I thought I should mention one more - as I think it goes to the heart of the additional realism it can bring to acoustic music. The difference I have in mind relates to dynamic shading - by which I mean dramatic shifts in the relative presence and tones of instruments. This can be a particularly big issue I think with complex orchestral music. It seems to involve better differentiation between instruments - and modulations of tone - which can mean complex music which seems a complete mess without crossfeed becomes clear and interesting. A great deal of modern music relies on 'colour' and modulation of tone for its interest, rather than simple melodic content and tonal consistency. The point, for example, may be to mix up full-bodied 'traditional' sounds with more ethereal and passing accents - sometimes with harmonic links but nothing more substantial.

A good example I think of music which can benefit in this way is Bartok's first violin concerto. I have a recording of a performance by Isabelle Faust and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Harding. The first movement involves the violin entering very quietly - almost from nothing - with only harmonic tones, blending gradually into fuller tones - but always floating high above a very fine, lightly textured orchestral background. An elusive melodic line comes and goes, and the movement never arrives at any very powerful conclusion. The effect is always light, elusive, mobile - and completely reliant on transparency of tone and structure. The second movement (there are only two) is almost atonal, depending on an interplay between various parts of the orchestra and the violin's constant modulation of timbre - as it weaves in and out of the structure created by the orchestra. Without crossfeed I feel this concerto on headphones often seems slightly chaotic, of limited interest - the sounds wash over each other in no very clear order. With crossfeed I find it revealed for what it is - a fascinating interplay of sounds and structures with elusive melodic elements. My guess is that crossfeed in such cases is helpful to reveal the subtle differentiation and interplay of instruments and tones at the heart of both the music and the stereo recording. The slightly chaotic quality that headphone listening may have without crossfeed is a reason, I think, that some listeners to classical music will say they prefer speakers to headphones.

 

[jamesjames]

I wanted to add a further thought on this that might seem to run a little counter to my earlier posts. As I've noted, something that's commonly said about crossfeed is that it has only ever been useful for the purpose of correcting some (unspecified) 'extreme' forms of wide-panning found on older (?) recordings in particular. But as I've written above I think that's simply wrong. Crossfeed addresses a basic oddity with headphone listening - with headphones we don't, as we do ordinarily, hear some of the left field in the right ear and some of the right field in the left ear. With headphones we hear the left channel of a stereo recording only in our left ear and the right channel only in our right ear.

Traditionally stereo recordings are made with the understanding that the listener will be hearing the recording projected from some sort of loudspeaker at a distance from the listener. The balance of sounds left to right of a stereo recording reflects this - the understanding is that some of the sound projected by the left speaker will be heard by the right ear (with a slight delay) and vice versa. Traditional recordings sound different on headphones because that doesn't happen.

Binaural recordings have for some time addressed this by recording with headphone listening in mind. The recording 'blends' the recorded information differently - specifically for headphones.

I've described above why I think crossfeed is important. But it's sometimes suggested some newer recordings might be less responsive to crossfeed because headphones are used more regularly in the recording process. It's difficult to be sure about the 'black box' of mastering but some recording notes I've seen suggest that it might be increasingly informed by headphone listening. Some recent interviews with engineers I've seen suggest headphone listening might be a more routine part of the recording process - but whether simply for monitoring or also for mastering isn't clear to me. Where phones image well (eg, HD800S), might there might now be less to be gained with crossfeed? Are the inevitable costs of additional signal processing starting to add up and count against crossfeed? I'll be paying some more attention to this in listening to new recordings. I'd also be very interested in whether others have noticed any differences in recordings of the sort I've described.

EDIT

Having given some more attention to recordings made in the last ten years or so, I haven't discerned any general differences in approaches to classical music recording that might be relevant to crossfeed. My impression is that 'house' sounds - some 'thicker', some more 'refined', some more 'dynamic' - tend to persist in the same way I've perceived them over many years. And crossfeed remains equally important. Just how stereo recordings might be modified to sound equally natural on both loudspeakers and phones is an interesting question - which doesn't seem to have an obvious answer.

 

[DigitalJust]

I use crossfeed with two software components. I'm using 2021 Lcd-x, no eq. I use goodhertz canopener studio 3 and goodhertz midside3.

How and why i use them. I use these in Mastering for specific tasks. Tonally to my ears, my Lcd-x sounds very much like what it feels like in front of some ATC speakers. The problem, the soundstage is left ear, in front of my face, and right ear. I use canopener to deal with crossfeed in a very specific amount to mimic the location of things in the soundstage in the correct ratio. I do this in canopener by putting the angle at 60 degrees ( roughly the firing angle in front of speakers ), then i adjust the amount (which shows an frequency hourglass that can give a visual guide as to what is getting put to center and what frequency). This takes car of putting things in front and adding beef to the center without messing with eq.

Last step, i use a midside to widen the overall picture until the edges feel like where speakers are in front of me. i test this by simply staring straight ahead and soloing left, right, mono center. I put midside before canopener. Just seem to work better this way as canopener has some additional controls where i prefer it last in chain.

For myself this does the trick when i want a to hear the proper soundstage of sitting in front of speakers, but with no room influence.

i'm on mac and i'm sonnox listenhub as a monitor controller. The two plugins in question are run on the output of this, It gives 3 plug in slots, trims, multiple setting for different dacs or headphones, 6 inputs including systemwide, and loopback if you want to record something into a daw. It makes running plugins pretty painless and its got a stepped monitor controller.

My other headphones are Slate Vsx, which in addition to crossfeed, has fir of the speakers and a fir of the room they are in. Its definitely processed as all get out, but is a good reference for translation when a physical studio is not in the cards.

I like crossfeed. Simple setup

 

[gregorio]

It's difficult to be sure about the engineers' intentions of course but recording notes do suggest that both engineering and mastering stages might be increasingly informed by headphone listening - which would account I think for the differences I hear. Some recent interviews with engineers I've read suggest they might see headphone listening now as an equally important consideration - and monitor/master accordingly.

The whole point of the mastering stage is to take the final mix made in the recording/mixing studio and alter it so that it sounds good on the target consumers’ reproduction equipment/environment rather than only in the studio in which it was recorded/mixed. In the early years of consumer stereo, hardly any consumers used headphones and consumer reproduction environments commonly had the left and right speakers placed close together, so engineers often created very wide (hard panned) mixes/masters to compensate. More recently, consumer speaker positioning is typically wider and far more consumers use HPs/IEMs, at least some of the time. So it’s far more likely that the target consumer of a particular recording will be using some form of earphones and therefore far more likely the mastering (and even mixing) engineer will at least check their master on HPs and potentially make alterations/compromises for HP use. This “trend” will continue as long as the trend for earphone use does.

G

 

[jamesjames]

That's very interesting. My reading of this is that you're mastering for speaker playback - rather than headphone listening - is that right?