[elrod-tom]

I'm lucky enough to be able to listen to music pretty much all day at work, and I find crossfeed to be invaluable for longer listening sessions. It's also very important for us Beatles fans.

Not everyone likes it, and I find that the further up the equipment chain one goes, the less it seems to help. That said, I like it and use it pretty much every day. Hope that helps...

 

[MASTERTECH]

Yuk! ,love two channel stereo

 

[TzeYang]

i actually find it unnatural and annoying to some extent. stereo for me! Crossfeeds are just like crosstalk distortion anyway.

 

[jinp6301]

yea I only use crossfeed for the Beatles dual mono stuff. I dont think it really adds to the experience mostly

 

[Uncle Erik]

I didn't like crossfeed at first, but it grew on me. I've got a Corda Cross-I and cannot live without it these days. It drastically reduced fatigue and, in my opinion, gives a much more natural presentation to the music.

Thing is, you won't know if you like it until you try it and use it for a couple of weeks. If you want to try this affordably, I'd recommend building the Chu Moy implementation into a little box. You can get a PCB here for $5:

http://tangentsoft.net/shop/

Build it and give it a listen. If you like it, I'd recommend the Cross-I. Dr. Meier has the most natural sounding implementation I've heard.

 

[909]

Crossfeed isn’t something I've found appealing especially for headphone use whereas it passes a small amount of the R signal to the L and vice versa. I suppose it could also be classified as controlled crosstalk and generally crosstalk isn't considered an equal desirable. IMO, crosstalk diminishes spatial width since when the left and right aren't bleed together it creates the feeling of a wider overall projection in each separate channel. When mixed it’s a more centralized or narrow present with less imaging and separation.

But some people prefer that supposedly “aligned correctly” slight blend of L and R since otherwise such channel isolation and separation may cause headaches or fatigues for those particular listeners.

 

[stryker]

I've got to chime in with my 2 cents. I have been listening to headamps for over 4 years now. I've auditioned or owned several higher end amps but nothing in the holy grail section. However, I've owned some decent sources and played them through some decent amps. I recently purchased a MOHR/SA from insomniac and began using the crossfeed feature. I've got to say that despite my "assumption" that I didn't need crossfeed due to widespread comment about it's usefulness/level of effect on sound, I have to say I absolutely love it.

For years I've read and assumed that "with better recordings" that crossfeed isn't all that necessary. Maybe that's the case for some but, for me, the crossfeed really does produce more of a stereo effect that is worthwhile and provides a touch of spaciousness that one hears with speakers. Perhaps it's because I haven't listened to headphones for a while and have been just using speakers over the past 8 months, but I really *like* what crossfeed does. It does not detract from the sound provided a little boost is given to brighten things up. It increases bottom end just a touch but isn't fat or in any way unpleasing to me. I like it so much that I will not listen without it as it really sounds more natural to me.

I can see how if you're not used to a good speaker setup (good amp & speakers) you would not be that moved by it. But after having listened to speakers and enjoying music how we hear sound naturally in our everyday world, I think it does what it sets out to do. And I keep hearing that the Corda stuff implements it better than the old Headroom flavor of crossfeed.

Either way, I like it and after years of being in the "I don't need crossfeed" camp, I find it adds to my headphone experience so far. It does decrease fatigue for me and I can listen through my 'phones while doing other things longer than I did before. If I don't want it, I can just turn it off. But, for now, it's a great feature to have and can easily be turned off should I change my mind.

 

[MASTERTECH]

Quote:

Originally Posted by stryker /img/forum/go_quote.gif but, for me, the crossfeed really does produce more of a stereo effect that is worthwhile and provides a touch of spaciousness that one hears with speakers. Perhaps it's because I haven't listened to headphones for a while and have been just using speakers over the past 8 months, but I really *like* what crossfeed does.

more of a stereo effect????

 

[stryker]

Have you ever heard of waste of bandwidth?

 

[DSlayerZX]

I found cross feed actually took away some of the back ground music and made bass a bit different. So I decided not to use it

 

[PPkiller]

hmm.... is everyone comparing crossfeed base on hardware or software implementation? think this is important as software crossfeed generally fare worse then hardware...

 

[Skylab]

All else being equal, I prefer crossfeed to no crossfeed. But the crossfeed has to be really well implemented, and only Meier's really works for me.