CHORD ELECTRONICS DAVE

[JaZZ]

  I  never use crossfeed with my Hugo. I have tried it but I too find that it messes up soundstage with simply mic'd recordings.
If basses are either on the right side or the left of the stage in the hall, I simply can't understand why one would want to remix them into the center or all over the place as crossfeed seems to do.
My take on crossfeed is that it is artificial, less transparent and a clear step away from how the engineer/producer intended, and not at all accurate to how things sounded live in the hall.
Probably fine for pop and rock where you have no reference to live anyway. But for classical a clear no from  me.

 
There are a few points you seem to misunderstand:
 
«If basses are either on the right side or the left of the stage in the hall, I simply can't understand why one would want to remix them into the center or all over the place as crossfeed seems to do.»
 
Crossfeed doesn't shift «the bass» to the center, just the low-frequency content of it.
 
«My take on crossfeed is that it is artificial, less transparent and a clear step away from how the engineer/producer intended, and not at all accurate to how things sounded live in the hall.»
 
The most importing thing to consider is that you listen to music recorded for the reproduction through speakers. The recording engineer had no intention to make it sound natural/realistic when heard through headphones. That's why it sounds artificial through headphones: low-frequency tones are unnaturally (up to irritatingly) spread on the two channels. In the everyday world our two ears never get to hear one-sided bass tones, because the shading effect of the head doesn't work with such large wavelengths.
 
The problem is that «we» are so used to this characteristic (for lack of alternative references) that we tend to miss the fake soundstage content and rate its absence as a loss of spatial information. In my book a good crossfeed almost perfectly recreates a natural tonal balance among the channel separation.
 
As posted earlier:
 

  Roughly spoken, crossfeed monophonizes low frequencies – the lower, the more crosstalk between the channels, up to 100%. Stage 1 has the lowest low-pass frequency for the crosstalk, stage 3 the highest – it's meant for the most critical recordings (see below).
 
As you may have noticed, crossfeed only works with headphones. The reason is that 99.9% of the recordings people listen to through DAVE are made for a reproduction through speakers. They're not completely compatible with headphones, although most may be used to the flaws introduced by the mismatch. In the real world it's impossible to hear low frequencies just in one ear. Now almost all recordings contain such one-sided low-frequency signals. They lead to an irritation of the brain or more precisely the auditory cortex. Crossfeed can almost perfectly compensate for that. That doesn't mean the recording is now perfectly compatible to headphone listening, since recordings made for speakers are supposed to be listened in a somewhat reverberative listening room, so they will sound drier than intended when heard through headphones. But the intimacy created that way is a trademark of headphones and not necessarily a bad thing if you like it.
 
Recordings specifically for headphones do exist – they're called binaural recordings. Among the few I've heard I haven't found one that was really convincing to my ears, though. A general weakness is the lack of perceived frontal sound impact. That may be my ears, since others have reported different experiences.

 

I had the same struggle with the Hugo, and most of the times had it set to off , or to the green setting.

What cross-feed filter setting are you using mostly Jazz?

 
You seem to have missed my previous answer:

 

Great info!

Are you using cross-feed 1 or 3 most of the time?

 
I don't use DAVE's crossfeed, but my own. All newly acquired recordings get crossfeeded before listening to them. As mentioned, my ears can't bear listening without crossfeed anymore. I use 5 intensities, number 3 (standard nowadays) sounds similar to DAVE's crossfeed 3.
 
Since Hugo and now with DAVE I could renounce the effort if it were just for listening at home. But I listen to music also on the go and during jogging, therefore it still makes sense – with my FiiO players (of which the X5 II is the center of my home system around DAVE). The Hugo is too bulky for that purpose (and the Mojo doesn't sound better than X5 II or X3 II alone for my taste; moreover it doesn't do crossfeed).

 

  At the price-point asked for DAVE or any other HI FI product above a few thousand dollars I EXPECT full compatibility and ENOUGH POWER to drive any and I mean ANY dynamic or planar headphone on the market!
Anything else is a design fault IMO!
I can understand if products like Hugo or Mojo will not deliver all the power needed for large scale symphonic music  at fff .They are after all intended for the portable market. But there is no excuse for having to add a headphone amp to a product like DAVE with any other headphones than electrostats.
IMO absolutely no excuse!
Sorry to be blunt. 
I was surprised and disappointed  that Rob had not even tested his Dacs with  popular planar headphones like HE1000.
I am not a fanboy of any designer or company, neither in the recording industry nor the consumer market.
IMO Rob had all the time he needed to test his supposed   STATE OF THE ART product DAVE with any high end  headphone on the market instead of the obviously very limited choices he used during the development and fine tuning of DAVE. 
With classical music sufficient power is absolutely essential!
Ok Tchaikovsky's  1812 is exceptional even in the genre of classical music and cannons are not generally to be  found in any orchestra.
But the dynamic range of large scale symphonic and Operatic music is FAR GREATER than with popular music which in most cases is severally  lacking in dynamic range. The dynamic range in basically any of Shostakovich's symphonies  for example, ranges from barely audible, to almost painfully loud!! 
That said,I was very  impressed by DAVE during the few hours I auditioned it.Two good recordings of the 10th and 15th are the live 10th from BSO that I already recommended ,and the 24/192 pcm one of the 15th from  the German label Acousense. But if it turns out that I would need to buy an extra  amp to drive any dynamic headphone of MY CHOICE, with DAVE I would  feel cheated, not happy that they are adding a headphone amp to their product line, as some here seem to be.

 
Wow, you're an extremely demanding consumer!

Would you also add the AKG K 1000 to the list – a headphone explicitly designed to be used with speaker amps? I think the same applies to the HE-6 and maybe even the Abyss if you must listen that loud.
 
I can report that DAVE's headphone output works great (even more than that) with the HE1000, with the HD 800 anyway. I don't own any more demanding headphones for testing. But the power/gain reserve I get from DAVE tells me that except for some exotic designs it will drive all dynamic headphones on the planet.
 
Your claim also implies that DAVE should do all this with its puristic concept of a DAC output stage driving headphones directly instead of switching additional amplifying electronics to the signal path. Or maybe you just underestimate this approach, which for me is a key feature, like it is with the Hugo, and a reason for the extraordinary transparency and accuracy.
 

  ICE, with DAVE I would  feel cheated, not happy that they are adding a headphone amp to their product line, as some here seem to be.

It is impossible to find another combined DAC/ Amp that can drive and control the Abyss / HE-1000 / He-6 like the Dave does what ever price range you look at.
Then the DAVE does not have an amp, so it is just the internal signal if i simplify it you are listening to, and that is remarkable how good it is, if you see it from that perspective.

Then i find it remarkable how close it is to my external amp with 17 Watts and much more on tap at 46 Ohm, it is not a huge difference, just better current drive from the amp, but there is a remarkably big size difference, the amp is like 7 times bigger in volume wise than DAVE.

Then i find it as a hobby to build best possible hifi rigs that got great synergy , so if it was just one product you needed ( Dave ) to buy, then i find it pretty boring as a hobby , when it is also immune to noise , digital cables and sources.

 
The last bit is a good one! – I bet Christer will add a headphone amp – after extensive, laborious and fascinating search for optimal synergy and the matching interconnects – no matter if necessary or not.

 

[Rob Watts]

  At the price-point asked for DAVE or any other HI FI product above a few thousand dollars I EXPECT full compatibility and ENOUGH POWER to drive any and I mean ANY dynamic or planar headphone on the market!
Anything else is a design fault IMO!
I can understand if products like Hugo or Mojo will not deliver all the power needed for large scale symphonic music  at fff .They are after all intended for the portable market. But there is no excuse for having to add a headphone amp to a product like DAVE with any other headphones than electrostats.
IMO absolutely no excuse!
Sorry to be blunt. 
I was surprised and disappointed  that Rob had not even tested his Dacs with  popular planar headphones like HE1000.
I am not a fanboy of any designer or company, neither in the recording industry nor the consumer market.
IMO Rob had all the time he needed to test his supposed   STATE OF THE ART product DAVE with any high end  headphone on the market instead of the obviously very limited choices he used during the development and fine tuning of DAVE. 
With classical music sufficient power is absolutely essential!
Ok Tchaikovsky's  1812 is exceptional even in the genre of classical music and cannons are not generally to be  found in any orchestra.
But the dynamic range of large scale symphonic and Operatic music is FAR GREATER than with popular music which in most cases is severally  lacking in dynamic range. The dynamic range in basically any of Shostakovich's symphonies  for example, ranges from barely audible, to almost painfully loud!! 
That said,I was very  impressed by DAVE during the few hours I auditioned it.Two good recordings of the 10th and 15th are the live 10th from BSO that I already recommended ,and the 24/192 pcm one of the 15th from  the German label Acousense. But if it turns out that I would need to buy an extra  amp to drive any dynamic headphone of MY CHOICE, with DAVE I would  feel cheated, not happy that they are adding a headphone amp to their product line, as some here seem to be.

 
I merely stated that the headphones I used were " Headphones - Noble K10, Audeze, and Nighthawks." Now these are the headphones I keep in my lab, and use on a day to day development basis. This categorically is not the full testing that we do, and the pre-production unit was indeed listened to with the HE1000, along with all popular models of headphones. Chord are now perceived within the industry to be the market leaders in DAC technology, so we have access to all the major headphone brands. Frankly, our testing revealed only one headphone that needed more power to drive correctly (more power is indicated by volume exceeding +4dB as this is the point it may clip). That said, this was using volume levels that were reasonable - but I have seen some head-fiers using volume levels that are frankly deafening.
 
As to your request to make a product that will suit 100% of all headphones then this is complete nonsense. It is impossible to make a truly transparent DAC/amp that will work effectively with the most sensitive devices to the most inefficient headphones. Additionally, I categorically will not attempt to make poor sounding headphones sound great; my job is to make the most transparent DAC/amp possible, on the assumption that it will be paired with appropriately linear and transparent headphones. I do not and will not make a soft sounding device to balance a distorting and hard sounding set of headphones for example. My drive for musicality and transparency will mean that some headphones are not appropriate choices for use with Dave; no product can be the optimum solution for absolutely all devices out there - added to this is the question of the biggest variable, that being the taste of the listener.
 
I am starting to get somewhat annoyed about your postings - you seem to want to twist absolutely everything I say and put considerable negative spin on things. Sadly I will not in future be responding to your posts.
 
Rob

 

[Christer]

   
There are a few points you seem to misunderstand:
 
«If basses are either on the right side or the left of the stage in the hall, I simply can't understand why one would want to remix them into the center or all over the place as crossfeed seems to do.»
 
Crossfeed doesn't shift «the bass» to the center, just the low-frequency content of it.
 
«My take on crossfeed is that it is artificial, less transparent and a clear step away from how the engineer/producer intended, and not at all accurate to how things sounded live in the hall.»
 
The most importing thing to consider is that you listen to music recorded for the reproduction through speakers. The recording engineer had no intention to make it sound natural/realistic when heard through headphones. That's why it sounds artificial through headphones: low-frequency tones are unnaturally (up to irritatingly) spread on the two channels. In the everyday world our two ears never get to hear one-sided bass tones, because the shading effect of the head doesn't work with such large wavelengths.
 
The problem is that «we» are so used to this characteristic (for lack of alternative references) that we tend to miss the fake soundstage content and rate its absence as a loss of spatial information. In my book a good crossfeed almost perfectly recreates a natural tonal balance among the channel separation.
 
As posted earlier:
 
 
 
You seem to have missed my previous answer:
 
 
Wow, you're an extremely demanding consumer!

Would you also add the AKG K 1000 to the list – a headphone explicitly designed to be used with speaker amps? I think the same applies to the HE-6 and maybe even the Abyss if you must listen that loud.
 
I can report that DAVE's headphone output works great (even more than that) with the HE1000, with the HD 800 anyway. I don't own any more demanding headphones for testing. But the power/gain reserve I get from DAVE tells me that except for some exotic designs it will drive all dynamic headphones on the planet.
 
Your claim also implies that DAVE should do all this with its puristic concept of a DAC output stage driving headphones directly instead of switching additional amplifying electronics to the signal path. Or maybe you just underestimate this approach, which for me is a key feature, like it is with the Hugo, and a reason for the extraordinary transparency and accuracy.
 
 
The last bit is a good one! – I bet Christer will add a headphone amp – after extensive, laborious and fascinating search for optimal synergy and the matching interconnects – no matter if necessary or not.

I was intentionally  a bit provocative and  it sure triggered responses.
But I still  expect a non compromise approach from such expensive products as DAVE.
The not bigger than Hugo or whatever , amp Rob is working on could  imo ,easily have been included in DAVE not as  an afterthought add on when customers start moaning of lack of power, imo.
Regarding Classical most  probably all,labels monitor and balance via headphones  at sessions.
 
In some cases mixing for speaker listening is not even done at the sessions at all!  But in a different  studio long after the actual  recording was done.  
I have covered sessions with quite a few  classical labels.
I know firsthand.
Regarding bass:what else than mainly low notes ie bass, do you expect  from basses?
I am talking about those  big normally 8 to 10 string instruments of a symphony orchestra which some conductors either put on the right or the left of the stage for certain works.
Some conductors  put them  at the back  in the middle. Ivan Fischer did so for Mahler symphony sessions in Budapest.
So did a young conductor live  in KL recently in Mahler's 9th too.
By the way Jared Sacks  of Channel Classics uses the AKG 1000 as monitoring headphones during sessions .  I have listened both to mic-feed and DSD 64 raw via those.Very open and clear but still not quite  electrostats.
Regarding Beolab's response I have more than a little problem to make  sense of what he writes sometimes. Maybe it would be better for us two to communicate in Swedish?
But although HIFI and the closest approach to live acoustic music  has been a hobby of mine too for many years. I don't find it at all boring when products  especially in this elevated price range, work as close as possible to that reference without any additional /fiddling/ tweaking and super expensive add ons and cabling or whatever the HIFI industry uses to skim  gullible consumers of their money when they know  their wallets are thicker than their logic and  understanding of what HIFI really is.

 

[m0nster]

I can imagine how much patience it takes to read comments like this about the product you have spent years developing and which is frankly a ground breaking new design at the very least. I have read and heard more than once that it might be the most revealing DAC on the market right now. Of course I haven't heard/compared the most expensive systems and I certainly don't have "reference ears" either, but I think was Chord is doing adds great value to the HiFi community.

I admire it (as stated before) that the developer of the product takes the time to participate in the discussion here and takes time to answer questions more than once at times. I would consider it a big loss if he stopped doing so because of posts that are only meant to provoce a reaction.

And frankly I don't think the DAVE is overpriced for what it is, nor is the Hugo or Mojo.

Looking forward to lots more interesting and helpful posts

 

[Christer]

   
I merely stated that the headphones I used were " Headphones - Noble K10, Audeze, and Nighthawks." Now these are the headphones I keep in my lab, and use on a day to day development basis. This categorically is not the full testing that we do, and the pre-production unit was indeed listened to with the HE1000, along with all popular models of headphones. Chord are now perceived within the industry to be the market leaders in DAC technology, so we have access to all the major headphone brands. Frankly, our testing revealed only one headphone that needed more power to drive correctly (more power is indicated by volume exceeding +4dB as this is the point it may clip). That said, this was using volume levels that were reasonable - but I have seen some head-fiers using volume levels that are frankly deafening.
 
As to your request to make a product that will suit 100% of all headphones then this is complete nonsense. It is impossible to make a truly transparent DAC/amp that will work effectively with the most sensitive devices to the most inefficient headphones. Additionally, I categorically will not attempt to make poor sounding headphones sound great; my job is to make the most transparent DAC/amp possible, on the assumption that it will be paired with appropriately linear and transparent headphones. I do not and will not make a soft sounding device to balance a distorting and hard sounding set of headphones for example. My drive for musicality and transparency will mean that some headphones are not appropriate choices for use with Dave; no product can be the optimum solution for absolutely all devices out there - added to this is the question of the biggest variable, that being the taste of the listener.
 
I am starting to get somewhat annoyed about your postings - you seem to want to twist absolutely everything I say and put considerable negative spin on things. Sadly I will not in future be responding to your posts.
 
Rob

Oops, I accidentally  stepped on some  sensitive toes?  I was intentionally a bit provocative.Not directed at you personally.
It was more my reaction to the sometimes completely "uncritical fanboyism" one  sometimes meets in Forums like this one.
My intention is not and had never been " to twist absolutely everything  and put a considerable negative spin on things".  How could you even say so after all the praise I have heaped on your DACs???
A few posts back I just reported that  DAVE is probably the  best most transparent  DAC I have ever  heard!
Likewise I reported here that I was baffled at how good little Mojo sounded.
But yes I was and still am, surprised that you had not personally used a bigger selection of headphones and  speakers.
And I was not asking for  DAVE to "suit all dynamic headphones". There are a lot of really bad ones that it would be an absolute waste to even plug into DAVE or  Hugo or Mojo!
All of which are exceptionally good DACs that to my ears  put most of the competition far behind  as I have repeatedly posted here and elsewhere.
I was merely reacting to a couple of critical  posts from others and even added in DAVE's defence, that cannons as in Tchaikovsky's 1812 are not normally a part of  a symphony orchestra.
I had no problems with HE1000 and DAVE.
I was absolutely raving about it.
I was  also merely  expecting  to be able to question and discuss  important things in an open and honest, if admittedly as I said" sorry if I am a a bit blunt", way with someone  like you.
But obviously not?
Sorry if I have offended you. I repeat,not at all my intention.But as a consumer  expected to pay big money,I still feel that I have the right to ask even a few a bit inconvenient and blunt questions once in a while in a Forum like this.

 

[rgs9200m]

I have the Hugo TT, and I feel that Rob Watts is up there with up there with Edgar Villchur and Henry Kloss as a pioneer in bringing breakthrough revolutionary innovations to audio. All I can think of when listening to my Hugo TT is that I just never believed that my almost 30-year old CDs copied to my computer could sound so magnificent. Rob is a real hero to me and I can't even imagine being critical of his products.

 

[JaZZ]

  I was intentionally a bit provocative and  it sure triggered responses.
But I still expect a non compromise approach from such expensive products as DAVE.
The not bigger than Hugo or whatever amp Rob is working on could  imo easily have been included in DAVE not as an afterthought add on when customers start moaning of lack of power, imo.

 
So DAVE should have come with the upcoming sophisticated digital amp integrated from the start – for the same price? Are you sure you're being serious? I'm glad I don't have to pay the surcharge for it – since yours is an absurdly unrealistic scenario.
 

 
In some cases mixing for speaker listening is not even done at the sessions at all!  But in a different studio long after the actual recording was done. I have covered sessions with quite a few classical labels. I know firsthand.

 
That may indeed happen. It doesn't change the fact that the recordings are made for speakers, usually without caring for headphone listeners. And it doesn't change the fact that virtually all recordings I've encountered during my long crossfeeding career carry excentric low-frequency signals. To varying degrees.
 

Regarding bass:what else than mainly low notes ie bass, do you expect  from basses?

 
I'm a (ex-)bass player myself and still own a double bass, now more or less just for decorative purposes. They produce a lot of other frequencies except for the ones below say 150-250 Hz. As you'll easily see on corresponding graphs. Turn down the upper frequencies during a part with stringed bass only, and you'll hear it yourself.
 
So even if you hear a bass drum on the left side of your head, the right ear will get almost the same amount of the low-frequency content, increasingly so with decreasing frequency. And if you once have the guts to explore your music collection for the channel balance of the low-frequency content, you'll notice that it's fairly uneven. So if you're really interested in a natural, realistic reproduction, you should take care of this.

 

[Rob Watts]

I can imagine how much patience it takes to read comments like this about the product you have spent years developing and which is frankly a ground breaking new design at the very least. I have read and heard more than once that it might be the most revealing DAC on the market right now. Of course I haven't heard/compared the most expensive systems and I certainly don't have "reference ears" either, but I think was Chord is doing adds great value to the HiFi community.

I admire it (as stated before) that the developer of the product takes the time to participate in the discussion here and takes time to answer questions more than once at times. I would consider it a big loss if he stopped doing so because of posts that are only meant to provoce a reaction.

And frankly I don't think the DAVE is overpriced for what it is, nor is the Hugo or Mojo.

Looking forward to lots more interesting and helpful posts

 
Don't worry, I very much enjoy being engaged in the community and at meets and shows, so the posting won't stop. I like to talk about my work too and I hope that people find it interesting. Indeed, I have agreed with Jude to start a blog, so I can go into more details technically about subjects, and maybe talk about other things, such as a diary about the ADC and the power amp development.
 
Also, I enjoy being challenged as nobody has a perfect understanding; sometimes a challenge can inspire me to work harder in other directions, and that can result in a positive outcome in terms of my understanding and better products. Being questioned means I have to think more to establish where my assumptions are, and this is always a good thing. But there is a fine line between an honest challenge about a difference of opinion and just being plane confrontational.
 
Rob

 

[JaZZ]

  I merely stated that the headphones I used were " Headphones - Noble K10, Audeze, and Nighthawks." Now these are the headphones I keep in my lab, and use on a day to day development basis. This categorically is not the full testing that we do, and the pre-production unit was indeed listened to with the HE1000, along with all popular models of headphones. Chord are now perceived within the industry to be the market leaders in DAC technology, so we have access to all the major headphone brands. Frankly, our testing revealed only one headphone that needed more power to drive correctly (more power is indicated by volume exceeding +4dB as this is the point it may clip). That said, this was using volume levels that were reasonable - but I have seen some head-fiers using volume levels that are frankly deafening.
 
As to your request to make a product that will suit 100% of all headphones then this is complete nonsense. It is impossible to make a truly transparent DAC/amp that will work effectively with the most sensitive devices to the most inefficient headphones. Additionally, I categorically will not attempt to make poor sounding headphones sound great; my job is to make the most transparent DAC/amp possible, on the assumption that it will be paired with appropriately linear and transparent headphones. I do not and will not make a soft sounding device to balance a distorting and hard sounding set of headphones for example. My drive for musicality and transparency will mean that some headphones are not appropriate choices for use with Dave; no product can be the optimum solution for absolutely all devices out there - added to this is the question of the biggest variable, that being the taste of the listener.
 
I am starting to get somewhat annoyed about your postings - you seem to want to twist absolutely everything I say and put considerable negative spin on things. Sadly I will not in future be responding to your posts.
 
Rob

 
Rob, please don't feel too offended by Christer's post and his unrealistic aproach! And don't stop posting here!

We love you! Even Christer – he really isn't the bad person as which he's been displaying himself – is a fan of you.

 

[m0nster]

Don't worry, I very much enjoy being engaged in the community and at meets and shows, so the posting won't stop. I like to talk about my work too and I hope that people find it interesting. Indeed, I have agreed with Jude to start a blog, so I can go into more details technically about subjects, and maybe talk about other things, such as a diary about the ADC and the power amp development.

Also, I enjoy being challenged as nobody has a perfect understanding; sometimes a challenge can inspire me to work harder in other directions, and that can result in a positive outcome in terms of my understanding and better products. Being questioned means I have to think more to establish where my assumptions are, and this is always a good thing. But there is a fine line between an honest challenge about a difference of opinion and just being plane confrontational.

Rob

The blog is a very cool idea, will you post the link in here once you begin writing it?

I don't think you would be where you are today if you wouldn't be open to critical questions and open discussions. I read that you even "lose" most design discussions concerning the Chord products

Anyways, happy to hear that you will keep being involved on here!

Have a great time!

 

[Christer]

   
Don't worry, I very much enjoy being engaged in the community and at meets and shows, so the posting won't stop. I like to talk about my work too and I hope that people find it interesting. Indeed, I have agreed with Jude to start a blog, so I can go into more details technically about subjects, and maybe talk about other things, such as a diary about the ADC and the power amp development.
 
Also, I enjoy being challenged as nobody has a perfect understanding; sometimes a challenge can inspire me to work harder in other directions, and that can result in a positive outcome in terms of my understanding and better products. Being questioned means I have to think more to establish where my assumptions are, and this is always a good thing. But there is a fine line between an honest challenge about a difference of opinion and just being plane confrontational.
 
Rob

And here I am, scratching my head as to where and when and how I crossed that fine line?

 

[Rob Watts]

Ha ha! Yes I often do not win on important issues like colour of LED's or where connectors should go! But audio related decisions are all mine...

 

[edstrelow]

"
So even if you hear a bass drum on the left side of your head, the right ear will get almost the same amount of the low-frequency content, increasingly so with decreasing frequency. "

This is true for real listening situations and possibly speakers too, but not for headphones. The head creates a shadow for higher frequencies, but not as you say "increasingly so with decreasing frequency." Thus it is hard to precisely localize low frequency sounds because much the same low frequency signal makes it to both ears. Of course if you can see an instrument the visual information will tell you where the source is.

Except for binaural recordings, headphones rely on interaural amplitude differences at the two ears, as do speakers. These are the fundamental sources of directional information in commercial stereo. Headphones preserve any differences between the two channels, even low frequencies. Thus you can have better directional perception of low frequencies with headphones, than speakers.

 

[JaZZ]

"
So even if you hear a bass drum on the left side of your head, the right ear will get almost the same amount of the low-frequency content, increasingly so with decreasing frequency. "

This is true for real listening situations and possibly speakers too, but not for headphones. The head creates a shadow for higher frequencies, but not as you say "increasingly so with decreasing frequency." Thus it is hard to precisely localize low frequency sounds because much the same low frequency signal makes it to both ears. Of course if you can see an instrument the visual information will tell you where the source is.

Except for binaural recordings, headphones rely on interaural amplitude differences at the two ears, as do speakers. These are the fundamental sources of directional information in commercial stereo. Headphones preserve any differences between the two channels, even low frequencies. Thus you can have better directional perception of low frequencies with headphones, than speakers.

 
You're in fact confirming my statement, as I was speaking of a real-life scenario, not headphone listening. So while you perceive the localization of low-frequency events through headphones as a bonus, I don't. It sounds just plain unrealistic and irritating. That's where crossfeed comes into play.

 

[m0nster]

Ha ha! Yes I often do not win on important issues like colour of LED's or where connectors should go! But audio related decisions are all mine...

Now please don't make fun about us simple people that care if a LED is blinking red or green

Jokes aside, I really enjoy all the technical details, even though I don't understand half of it. Especially why DSD is not as good as everyone says is a challenge for me to understand. Will definitely have to read that post again.