Foobar2000 Dolby Headphone config - Comment & discuss!

[RPGWiZaRD]

Yea that's a much nicer solution, I hated the other VST host. xD I also now found that Electri-Q works nicely in conjunction with advanced limiter, no audible distortion (limits it perfectly at 0-level checking with peak meter) despite boosting bass or whatever range by a huge amount which actually gets that much stronger but won't distort and won't like "mute" the rest of the range at all in doing so either, how does that even work software-wise? I wonder why I didn't use advanced limiter for starters instead of fiddling around with the gain setting for the 31-band EQ.

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Yea that's a much nicer solution, I hated the other VST host. xD I also now found that Electri-Q works nicely in conjunction with advanced limiter, no audible distortion (limits it perfectly at 0-level checking with peak meter) despite boosting bass or whatever range by a huge amount which actually gets that much stronger but won't distort and won't like "mute" the rest of the range at all in doing so either, how does that even work software-wise? I wonder why I didn't use advanced limiter for starters instead of fiddling around with the gain setting for the 31-band EQ.

It's the magic of tweaking. Some might not believe it, but it does exist

 
About VST hosts, the older one had the advantage of switching VSTs at will due to working out of process, but it got unstable enough and incompatible with quite some VSTs, which was the main reason I stopped using it. The new VST host is really made to be setup properly at first usage, since ever VST change requires a player restart, which isn't really a concern if you already have your usual set added.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well I've already managed to get a bit better sounding EQ result with this config. So I will probably use this config, Yegor Petrov's vst host + electri-q + advanced limiter from now on... too bad I will have to adjust the EQ presets again. Electri-Q has it's own presets and I can ofc save my settings there too, should I perhaps just rely on that instead of using dsp chain presets?
 
EDIT: Well it doesn't allow any special characters so would have to use another formatting then at least. But using chain presets isn't such a bad thing either if you also would want to adjust say some channel mixer settings for different EQ settings... which makes quite a lot of sense... 
 
EDIT2: this config/EQ I can get that more "forward" upper-mid lower-highs range I was looking for, finally! Now there's far less difference in frequency response balance with vs without Dolby headphone.
 
This setting sounds nice as a "default" setting to use with Dolby Headphone:

 

[Roller]

Also, do take into consideration that if you already have existing DSP chain presets, you should save them on a .fbcp file before importing an external .fbcp file, as it will overwrite the older presets.
 
Using Electri-Q presets externally is a nice idea, but it would only incorporate the EQ settings, while DSP Chain presets would have all settings from all components (including VSTs) in a single file, it's more streamlined, IMO.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Damn it crashed after I loaded the dsp chain setting maybe 4th or 5th time using this later config so lost those settings but yea I only did that one setting anyway so it doesn't matter. Just have to make sure I close foobar2000 after every EQ preset I add.

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Damn it crashed after I loaded the dsp chain setting maybe 4th or 5th time using this later config so lost those settings but yea I only did that one setting anyway so it doesn't matter. Just have to make sure I close foobar2000 after every EQ preset I add.

That's odd. I've never had it crash on me for many months now, my components list finally reached a perfectly stable point.
 
Remember that it's mandatory to restart foobar2000 with each VST added/removed.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well it does crash for me if loading the config with the VST EQ too many times. After about 5 times. But it's not an issue really, just a slight annoyance.
 
I'm shocked how much better it sounds with this config and it's sounding as great as it possibly could. It's like having got a new much higher quality DAC kind of difference and I just keep going through my favorite tracks and enjoying them more than ever. Will update the configs tomorrow, getting late here so.
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pg26bsg4nXc&hd=1 *auto-headbang-mode engaged* when listening to this track on this new config. ^^

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

OK, please try this one out and see what you think (try out the different EQ presets if you can). It really crashes a lot for me so see if it does for you if loading DSP chain preset settings / when loading up electri-Q window & clicking once there to bring up the curve after a few times etc. But it sounds really nice though in my ears.
 
EDIT: Can you also try compare channel mixer setting Rear volume 1.30 vs 1.28. I've got a hard time deciding which to use. 1.30 definitely gives slightly more wide/deeper more out-of-head sound but possibly too much for a default setting but I think I personally prefer it on my setup at least so may update it to that soon (just a PITA changing it now that I get these crashes when loading DSP chain presets having to close foobar2000 every time I change it for one of the presets).
 
Chain Preset file: foobar2000.EQ.Presets.Electri-Q-RPGWiZaRD
 
Foobar2000 preconfig: foobar2000.v1.1.6.Dolby.Headphone-RPGWiZaRD
 

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Active DSPs list:

 
Channel Mixer settings:

(Try especially adjusting Rear volume to your liking, on the Realtek onboard chip 1.39 sounds optimal in my ears while 1.30 gives the optimal result on my Audigy 2 ZS)
 
Dolby Headphone settings:

 
Default EQ setting:

 
Available EQ Presets:

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I'm in a bit of a dilemma here, Electri-Q clearly provides the best sound quality to my ears but keep crashing if loading presets (more than a couple of times without closing foobar in-between) or bringing up the EQ window more than 1 time. Since I would probably use the same EQ setting it's not such an issue for me but I'm still curious if it also crashes for any1 else besides me. So would be great if you can try this latest config.
 
EDIT: Updated the config to use Rear volume setting 1.29 - 1.30 depending on preset (1.35 for classic).
 
I'd like to get some feedback of this latest config before I'll change the opening post to include this setting. I don't think however I will be able to improve it from here, at least on my setup it sounds as good as I could imagine it ever do.

 

[tbritton]

I am enjoying the newest configuration very much on a RealTek card with many kinds of music, using only your default so far. I have not been switching presets very much, so I've not experienced a crash. I'm on an HP Win7 64-bit Professional machine.
 
Thanks - I like this more and more with every track. I've been listening since you released this version (yesterday) to many kinds of music. After a while, returning to normal stereo sounds just wrong! That is a good sign, I think!
 
Terry

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Quote:

I am enjoying the newest configuration very much on a RealTek card with many kinds of music, using only your default so far. I have not been switching presets very much, so I've not experienced a crash. I'm on an HP Win7 64-bit Professional machine.
 
Thanks - I like this more and more with every track. I've been listening since you released this version (yesterday) to many kinds of music. After a while, returning to normal stereo sounds just wrong! That is a good sign, I think!
 
Terry

That's good to hear! Did you try playing around with the settings on your own too? I really find Rear volume in channel mixer a critical setting that's very DAC dependant, 1.39 I think sounded best on the Realtek HD ALC889A chip I got for example. Still it won't get quite near to the results I'm getting with kX Audio drivers + Audigy 2 ZS which has more depth even when set to 1.30 (1.39 sounds too messy on it).
 
Would still be nice if you could try loading different DSP chain presets (EQ settings) a couple of times just to see if it crashes or not. (I'd really like to solve this issue in case it's fixable on my end as I know Roller for example didn't seem to have any issues).
 

 

[tbritton]

I was able to crash it after a number of changes between presets that contained the VST EQ. Went through the headphone (non-VST) presets, then from POP to HipHop to Jazz and it finally crashed at Jazz.
 
Likely pushing things a bit hard to switch so quickly, but I'll see what switching slowly does and get back to you. [EDIT: It does crash after a few preset changes, even when made slowly... IF I always select one of the presets not having the VST EQ (that has Graphic Equalizer instead) in between choosing the ones with the Electri-Q VST one, it never crashes. This is probably the VST driver having trouble with switching gears, I would guess.]
 
It sounds pretty darn nice on my RealTek card even at 130, but I hadn't ventured to try 139, so I'll give that a listen!
 
Terry

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I've also now tried with a standard install instead of portable foobar2000 install and it seems to be more stable but it still crashes. However this time it was like after 5+ tries as compared to my portable install that seems to crash after every 2nd load try. However I didn't get it to crash when entering the EQ window settings now at least despite how many times I tried it (10+).
 
EDIT: Well maybe spoke too soon, as I added all those presets it started behaving in a similar way as the portable install.
 
Quote:

IF I always select one of the presets not having the VST EQ (that has Graphic Equalizer instead) in between choosing the ones with the Electri-Q VST one, it never crashes. This is probably the VST driver having trouble with switching gears, I would guess.]

 
Nice catch there, hadn't noticed that! This will definitely be useful to me if needing to tweak around with the EQ settings. Much thanks!
 
Yes it's most likely related to the VST host adapter plugin which is in very early stages. I'll keep an eye for updates on this plugin and hopefully it won't crash with future updates.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Updated OP with the latest config, phew. Removed the "Realtek" config as I felt it was very overdue now as it's more of a matter of adjusting one setting which was explained in the guide.

 

[tbritton]

I know it is somewhat sacrilege at this point to alter anything, but I have Ultrasone Proline 750's which are capable of very deep bass, and so tried out the subwoofer and "allow low freqs (only for BIG systems)" features. Here is my config chain file if you want to try it. Very deep bass comes through nicely for electronica - haven't taken it through its paces on other music yet.
foobar2000.EQ.Presets-RPGWiZaRDTerryNew.fbcp
 
(See this post to read about/get the Chain Config plugin or the main page for the [size=14pt]DSP chain serialization helper[/size])
 
(this double-posted somehow into the next post...)
 
Terry