Head-Fit: Software Crossfeed and EQ

[donunus]

a multiband or good parametric might. As for me, I'm just enjoying the simplicity of no EQ and headfit with that setting. I really love my modest system with a udac and d1001s on this setup.

 

[leeperry]

Yeah, I've tried...but my settings don't increase the bass response per say, it's like the xfeed actually "doubles" it w/ a slight delay. Ah well, I love your SS but I need my heart pounding bass...my phones are kinda bass shy and I listen to a lot of bassy music. Maybe it will all change for the best on the cd1700 tomorrow.

 

[donunus]

Post your impressions on how the different settings affect the new cans too.

 

[leeperry]

sure will! BTW, I was reading some reviews of the cd1700, and my settings on the cd1k give me exactly the same feeling: http://www.audioreview.com/mfr/sony/headphones/mdr-cd1700/PRD_118071_2750crx.aspx#review0
 
"BASS [..] The only thing missing is the "THUD THUD" you get on your chest when you listen with speakers. It's unnerving!"
 
I would definitely say that my settings are "unnerving", the sound feels exactly like speakers but I can't feel the bass pounding my chest...it's most upsetting and feels really strange.
 
And also the sound got so clear in movies that in cartoons nothing's credible anymore....I see the dubbing actors in the studio, the sound doesn't match the picture hah.
 
PS: I think I could even say that your settings sound like a perfect room, I can almost imagine it having velours on the walls...and mine sound like ****, like I dunno speakers outdoor w/o walls...the wall reflections don't work, maybe I need to play w/ the delays.
 
PPS: I think this on your preset does the trick...my ears are too tired anyway. It's the EQ of the crossfed signal, not the EQ of the music I think/hope:
 
and I agree that it's not your preset that's bass shy Vs unprocessed, I just like a more bassy crossfed signal.
 
PPPS: now that bass is at the same levels, I can easily say that it's bloated and out of tune in my preset, duh. It's doubled w/ a slight delay...in yours it's perfectly clear w/o a delayed "ghost".

 

[leeperry]

 

Post your impressions on how the different settings affect the new cans too.

 
Not really possible, the cd1700 is not quite to my taste...the sound is too closed in, the cd1k/cd3k are definitely half-closed. Anyway, I'll prolly trade it for a CD900ST, that's the only phone I'd like to own at this point.
 
Most cd3k owners rave about it and say that it's very similar and "allows you to hear each tree instead of hearing the forest"?! narrower SS but much more details apparently.
 
This review also nails it: http://www.sgheadphones.net/index.php?showtopic=9338
 
The Ed.9 must kill, but too damn pricey for its cheapo OEM shell anyway.
 
To get back to your settings, well they're *spot-on*. I'll stop adding bass or whatever. I now have "magic" settings for the 3 VST plugins I use(sonnox>headfit>trident), it's a done deal

 

[donunus]

Quote:

 It's the EQ of the crossfed signal, not the EQ of the music I think/hope:
 

I think the eq is for the music, not the crossfed signal. The only eq of the crossfed  signal are the ILD HF and LF sliders in the crossfeed screen. Thats actually a good thing because now you can get a good transparent xfeed and compensate for your cans tonality without ruining the soundstage. In fact thats what headfit is supposed to do. They want you to set the crossfeed first before setting the eq. It really makes sense because in setting the crossfeed we want it to be as universal as possible not compensating for the frequency response of specific headphones so that we can leave it that way whether we use a senn or a grado or whatever then all we have to change for balancing out the overall sound of the specific headphone in use is either the built in EQ or some other EQ plugin.

 

[J-a-k-e]

Hello everyone, I stumbled across this thread a couple of days ago and I just though I'd share my own findings. I have a set of AD700 cans that I'd tweaked with donuns' most recent crossfeed settings, as far as the eq settings go I was initially stumped at first but then I had a bit of a play around and got the gist of how the controls modify the slope and db gain.
 
Then I decided to see if I can compensate for the AD700's weak bass below about 70hz and here I googled and managed to find a review that showed an image of the AD700's response curve. It was at this point I though "I wonder what kind of sound I'll get if I were to take that response curve from below 100hz and inverted it." So then I brought up the head-fit configuration page, enabled pink uncorellated on the internal generator and with a bit of tweaking I managed to create a fairly decent inverted mirror of the AD700's bass response curve, the result?
 
In my opinion with both the eq and crossfeed setting configured and enabled the sound coming from these cans is quite amazing. Not to say that what I was hearing prior to discovering this thread sounded bad by any means, it's just the bass I'm hearing at the moment sounds nothing short of amazing and the sound stage which was brilliant to start with now often enables me to pinpoint the location of sounds particularly when Iistening to music with a piano, I find can hear where each note is audibly positioned within the soundstage.

 

[donunus]

Can you post a screenshot of your ad700 eq setting? I have a pair of those and would be happy to try out your settings. I tweaked them by doing the phatpad mod though to give them the extra bass and never like to use eq for bass since distortion levels tend to increase quite a bit.

 

[J-a-k-e]

Maybe a few things of note.
-The output format dsp forces all files to play at 44100hz 2 channel.
-All files in my library have been volume analyzed and The volume levelling dsp has replaygain set to album mode with clip protection
-Output mode is Windows Audio Session API

 

[donunus]

Ok thanks. I'll just adjust the gain to lose the clipping since I don't like normalizing my files. 

 

[J-a-k-e]

yup, just adjust the plugin gain to say -15db. I find with my card (xonar dx) that's about how much replaygain adjusts to on average and I still have plenty of headroom if I want to turn up the volume.

 

[leeperry]

 

I think the eq is for the music, not the crossfed signal. The only eq of the crossfed  signal are the ILD HF and LF sliders in the crossfeed screen. Thats actually a good thing because now you can get a good transparent xfeed and compensate for your cans tonality without ruining the soundstage. In fact thats what headfit is supposed to do. They want you to set the crossfeed first before setting the eq.

Good point! I got spoiled by the double bass character of my preset, and we all know how more bass can impress...but apart from middle ear resonances, I don't want to EQ my music. Too much loudness/bass gives bad habits.
 
Did you try the pink noise "calibration" at all? anyway, I like your settings, and I hate listening to generated noise.

 

[donunus]

 
Quote:

yup, just adjust the plugin gain to say -15db. I find with my card (xonar dx) that's about how much replaygain adjusts to on average and I still have plenty of headroom if I want to turn up the volume.

 
thats what i meant. anyway its just a temporary thing because i hardly use my ad700s anymore

 

[J-a-k-e]

Quote:

 

Good point! I got spoiled by the double bass character of my preset, and we all know how more bass can impress...but apart from middle ear resonances, I don't want to EQ my music. Too much loudness/bass gives bad habits.
 
Did you try the pink noise "calibration" at all? anyway, I like your settings, and I hate listening to generated noise.

I found when I used pink noise calibration I haven't had the experience to be able to adjust it by ear, so I adjusting while using the headphone response curve as a reference while I watched the curve in the plugin.
 

 

[donunus]

The headphone response curve doesn't really mean for example though that adding 10db to a -10 db curve will add exactly 10db to that frequency. Some cans just cant do much bass period and will only measure 5 db louder for example when boosted 10db. With the phatpad modded ad700 for example, the bass responds better to the eq. It may be due to the fact that the cans leak less sound that way. I can give you another example of this... I was into car audio back in the 90s and trying to eq the front speakers to play bass just didn't give much of a boost as measured by a real time analyzer while adding that same amount of bass in the subwoofer channel gave me an almost exact db boost as what i gave it.