[JaZZ]

Thanks, and my post was of course not intended to assume that you or anyone else has bad recordings.
No offence intended, and I am aware of the isolation effects of headphones with anything but real binaural recordings.
But recording engineers used to hearing a live orchestra via headphones and mic feed are aware of them and know how to master and balance at sessions or later to minimize and compensate for those effects And of course in a way that is what cross feed tries to do as well.

I think you haven't really captured what I was saying: Even excellent recordings from excellent sound engineers will have some channel separation at low-mid to ultra-low frequencies. And that's perfectly fine – for the reproduction through speakers. Recording engineers don't have any interest to make these recordings meant for speaker reproduction compatible with headphone reproduction. Therefore the issue with unwanted low-frequency channel separation persists in any kind of recordings at any quality levels.

And I prefer not to mess more with it by employing crossfeed on top of compensations already made by the engineer.

Those «compensations» are solely in your head. See above.

Of course if you don't really know how things sounded live it can be a pleasing effect to have things moved further out of your head.

Actually that's not what crossfeed does for me. It just makes the soundstage more compact and less artificially wide in a manner reminding of phase distortion (→ stereo channels out of phase).

But I didn't like the out of focus and artificial bass lift my H1 delivered and the less transparent SQ. And as you say shifted tonal balance it introduced to bass instruments.
I guess there are ways of doing it that are less intrusive?

The bass boost isn't part of crossfeed, just in Rob's implementation. I can reproduce the scenario that has led him to the bass increase, but it is a misconception, since «normalized» headphone frequency responses are based on usual recordings made for speaker systems, so the necessary low-frequency compensation is alread fulfilled. There's no sense in the concept that someone who prefers to leave crossfeed off is satisfied with less bass.

The only experience I have of Crossfeed, is the Chord version and I don't like it much. I prefer real binaural recordings for better more realistic out of the head sound from headphones. But with good headphones like the ones I now have HD800 and HEKV2, or even my old electrostatic Jecklin Floats with forward angled earpieces or the RAAL or the oldish AKG K1000 earspeakers, Jared is using, I have no need to artifically move things further away by adding monophonizing and basslift, really.

It seems as if we're there where we started. I say it's very possible that what you dislike about crossfeed is Rob's bass boost. In my perception it destroys the sound – vocals, instrument timbres, transparency (!) and soundstage.

I know you are recommending equalization and maybe you are correct in doing so even with the headphones we have in common?
I haven't tried it for many many years but I did have an amp in my youth with what was then called a Formant control,which I played around with so much that I accidentically got used to a very exaggerated treble that I later did not hear from live violins at concerts. But In my late teens the real live concerts of symphonic music, I heard more reglarly, made me change my preferences and now I know what a violin or a wind instrument or a piano sounds like live AND in different acoustics.

Just for making sure that we're talking of the same thing: I use the equalizer for equalizing – eliminating the inevitable ripples and imbalances on a headphone's amplitude-response curve –, not coloring. And in the actual context I had the idea that it's possible to equalize the bass boost away to get the pure crossfeed effect – well, if you were into equalizing.

Bass can actually sound more directional than most would expect in theory.

You're talking of bass instruments, not bass/low-frequency tones. The former have a lot of mids and highs added to the fundamental tone, while the latter just consist of the pure tone – which has proven to be barely localizable in numerous tests. It's just the pure low-frequency fundamentals that are monophonized with crossfeed, not the (localizable) overtones.

I have absolutely no difficulty hearing without seeing him or her, at a live concert where that bass drum or Tuba player is. And even the deepest bass notes of say Beethoven's mighty Opus 111 sonata ,although they rumble around quite a bit especially with lots of pedal used, emanate from the very bottom LEFT from a real piano.

Sure... see above. Overtones are the keyword.

Also, keep in mind that many people listen to music with «artificial» instruments and artificial soundstages (myself included) and don't want to be irritated by unnatural and irritating sensual perceptions nonetheless. So we're not just talking of «audiophile» 2-mic recordings à la Jecklin disk which would naturally provide a passable monophonization of low frequencies. (BTW, I've never been a fan of this invention of my fellow coutryman.)

 

[Romi54]

Does the TT2 start to distort when the full 2 x 16W are delivered to speakers?

 

[musickid]

clipping only starts with volume ball showing white otherwise impossible AFAIK.

 

[ZappaMan]

Does the TT2 start to distort when the full 2 x 16W are delivered to speakers?

I could be wrong, but it’s not intended to run at that volume for long and may cause a thermal cut out to kick in.

 

[rickles]

Difficult to dig through 546 pages, but has there been some comparisons of the TT2 as a DAC? I'm currently using it to feed other amps as a DAC, as well as a DAC/amp. I'm curious to know how it compares in the DAC capacity to other well known ones out there. Yggdrasil, being one.

 

[betula]

Difficult to dig through 546 pages, but has there been some comparisons of the TT2 as a DAC? I'm currently using it to feed other amps as a DAC, as well as a DAC/amp. I'm curious to know how it compares in the DAC capacity to other well known ones out there. Yggdrasil, being one.

I don't think Yggie and TT2 are in the same league.

 

[jmills8]

I don't think Yggie and TT2 are in the same league.

In what way , details ?

 

[betula]

In what way , details ?

Details, spaciousness, depth, natural/life-like sound.

 

[jmills8]

Details, spaciousness, depth, natural/life-like sound.

As long as the recording format is top notch. If not it wont sound better ?

 

[betula]

As long as the recording format is top notch. If not it wont sound better ?

I don't know anyone who would run low quality MP3 on high-end DACs I haven't tried either. I use FLAC mainly.

 

[jmills8]

I don't know anyone who would run low quality MP3 on high-end DACs I haven't tried either. I use FLAC mainly.

Understood , but there are old rate music that audiophiles dont listen to. Also there are Metal albums that are not recorded well.

 

[Amberlamps]

I don't know anyone who would run low quality MP3 on high-end DACs I haven't tried either. I use FLAC mainly.

Agreed, I have a few tracks that are in mp3 format, but thats only because I can't find them in any other format. Over the years my library has went from being mainly mp3's ( in the late 1990's to early 2000's) to flac nowadays.

Flac is my preferred filetype when using DBPower Amp.

 

[jmills8]

Agreed, I have a few tracks that are in mp3 format, but thats only because I can't find them in any other format. Over the years my library has went from being mainly mp3's ( in the late 1990's to early 2000's) to flac nowadays.

Flac is my preferred filetype when using DBPower Amp.

Which five albums would you recommend me to play when trying the TT2 out ?

 

[Amberlamps]

Which five albums would you recommend me to play when trying the TT2 out ?

To be honest, I wouldn't recommend any albums to you, everybody has different tastes and what I like you may not.

If you use headphones alot, I would recommend any of the Chesky Brothers Binaural recordings, as they are made specifically for headphone users.

One Album that I love is "Pro's & Con's of Hitchhiking by Roger Water's". It's a concept album. That is one of my favourite albums, but that type of album is not everyone's cup of tea.

Other albums that I would suggest are some of MTV's Unplugged catalogue, there is MTV Unplugged Nirvana, that's one of my Holy Grail albums, also Unplugged Eric Clapton, another excellent album.

Here is a list of MTV's unplugged sessions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artists_featured_on_MTV_Unplugged

Hope this helps.

 

[Ragnar-BY]

I don't think Yggie and TT2 are in the same league.

+1
For me it could compete with Qutest (although I would prefer Qutest), but not with TT2.

@rickles
A very informative set of articles was written by Austinpop. Read his My Quest for a New DAC, Part 5: Chord Electronics Hugo M Scaler & Hugo TT 2 - there are a lot of comparisons there.