[Lunatique]

Quote:

Well I tried it out again, this time TB Isone rather then Isone pro, but the result is pretty much the same.
Listening to the file you sent, I see what you mean, but I don't need Isone to get the illusion of speakers, Isone basically just places the "virtual speakers" closer together.
It messes up my headphone frequency response and clarity as well, I get less bass, the bass sounds muddy, the mids get recessed and I get blurry fuzzy highs.
I tried the settings you recommend and I tried to see if I could improve it a bit, but in the end, it just sounds monophonic and dull.

I think you might have to unlearn some of the biases and misinformation you've picked up in your life so far, and learn a bit more about the science of acoustics in order to understand and appreciate what Isone does. For example, there's no way in hell that any headphone is capable of a natural sounding stereo imaging unless some kind of crossfeed is used. It doesn't matter how the headphone is designed and how it tries to angle towards your ears or use housing that sounds more open and natural--the left and right channels are totally separated, period. It's simple science, and it's the reason why audio professionals have always advocated against doing critical mixes and masters on headphones. That is why some headphone amps have crossfeed features, or plugins like Redline Monitor and Isone exist. Crossfeeds allow both channels to feed a bit of itself into the other channel, thus mimicking how we hear speakers in real life, and Isone is a much more sophisticated algorithm that models the HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) as well as models speaker cabinets and rooms. The result is far more realistic than a simple crossfeed. 
 
Also, I already explained the frequency thing in a previous post, but you probably didn't read it, so I'll explain it again. You need to understand how acoustics work in real life. Any time sound is produces in a room, it will interact with the room and then interact with your head and your ears. Just by having a head and ears physically, you are already altering the frequency response of any sound that is reproduced in a room and what you hear with your ear drums is the altered version, not the version that is actually played by the speakers. What Isone does is to model that HRTF alteration realistically, as if your headphones are speakers playing in a room. The frequency response change Isone introduces is NECESSARY in order to make your headphones sound like speakers in a room and you are listening with a physical head and ears. If it didn't alter the frequency response, then there would be no emulation of HRTF, and your headphone will sound if your ear drums are just floating in a room without a head or ears. That would be far less natural sounding--I think you'd agree. 
 
So essentially, what you hear through Isone is how your headphones will actually sound like if they were played as speakers in a room, and you listening with a physical head and a pair of ears. You can't possibly expect your headphone's sound to not change when you use them as speakers in a room--it's scientifically impossible.
 
You might also want to double-check your VST host isn't causing strange distortions. I've had that happen before. Use a rock-solid VST host--preferably one that audio professionals are likely to use.
 
If you want to Isone without the HRTF and room simulation features, you can simply turn them off, set the speaker cabinet preset to flat, and use it as a standard crossfeed. 
 
Quote:

I eventually settled with Redline monitor a few months back and I'm very happy with it.
 

 
For people who don't want the realism of HRTF or speaker cabinet and room simulations, Redline Monitor is a great choice, since it's just strictly a crossfeed. But considering  Isone can do the same thing as Redline Monitor if you simply turned off the HRTF and room simulation and use it as just a crossfeed, while paying far less money (Redline Monitor costs 5 times more than Isone, but only has 1/3 of its features), I think Isone is the no-brainer choice. I got Redline Monitor before I had learned of Isone, and if I had found Isone first, I would never have gotten Redline Monitor.
 

 

[Adda]

Well, as far as I can see, I have not been biased at all, I have just used my ears.
My DF's have not always had such a natural presentation, it came once I got the Aragon 18k.
 
If the plugin changes the frequency response on purpose that is enough for me to run far away, the DF's a almost perfectly balanced as it is, changing them would only do them harm.
I do not want to trade accuracy, detail and clarity for a narrower stereo field.
I do understand what crossfeed is all about, and it might have been good if it where not so invasive, a poorly voiced headphone with a split op, one side or the other ultra wide, way of imaging might benefit, but for the DF's it's a disaster.
 
I use FL Studio is my VST handler, I have used FL Studio for 10 years so I definitely know what I'm doing AND what I'm hearing.
 
Setting  the cabinet to different settings just messes up the frequency response in a different ways.
I do have speakers as well, some pretty damn good ones too, the tweeters are better then... well, I haven't heard anything they didn't humiliate, planars, domes you name it.
I grew up with these speakers, and they don't sound like my DF's do with Isone, they have a wider stereo field and sound clear, I don't expect them to have the same frequency response because my speakers are not particularly accurate below 2400Hz.
But why oh why does Isone insist on making the treble sound like it comes out of cheap EIM's, the VLD-12's in my speakers DO NOT sound this way, without Isone my DF's highs sound a lot more like my VLD's.
 
I'll soon be rebuilding my speakers (if all goes well) they will be converted to a two way system with VLD-12 + FF225WK in the existing 50l bass reflex cabinet.
 
I trust the German Institute of Technoligy's approach more then some software crossfeed filter (taken form AKG website):
Quote:

 
With their flat frequency response, these headphones provide an uncolored sound. The diffuse-field equalized K 240 DF meets not only the stringent criteria of the IRT standard but those of professional sound engineers as well.
Created to fulfill the international IRT specification, the K 240 DF establishes a uniform quality standard free from environmental variables. In fixed apposition to the ears, the sound output quality is unchanging and reliable – as opposed to loudspeaker monitors, sound from which is markedly influenced and colored by variations in control room architecture and furnishings.

 
If trusting a different approach means I'm biased, then you are just as biased as I am...

 
Quote:

I think you might have to unlearn some of the biases and misinformation you've picked up in your life so far, and learn a bit more about the science of acoustics in order to understand and appreciate what Isone does. For example, there's no way in hell that any headphone is capable of a natural sounding stereo imaging unless some kind of crossfeed is used. It doesn't matter how the headphone is designed and how it tries to angle towards your ears or use housing that sounds more open and natural--the left and right channels are totally separated, period. It's simple science, and it's the reason why audio professionals have always advocated against doing critical mixes and masters on headphones. That is why some headphone amps have crossfeed features, or plugins like Redline Monitor and Isone exist. Crossfeeds allow both channels to feed a bit of itself into the other channel, thus mimicking how we hear speakers in real life, and Isone is a much more sophisticated algorithm that models the HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) as well as models speaker cabinets and rooms. The result is far more realistic than a simple crossfeed. 

 
Also, I already explained the frequency thing in a previous post, but you probably didn't read it, so I'll explain it again. You need to understand how acoustics work in real life. Any time sound is produces in a room, it will interact with the room and then interact with your head and your ears. Just by having a head and ears physically, you are already altering the frequency response of any sound that is reproduced in a room and what you hear with your ear drums is the altered version, not the version that is actually played by the speakers. What Isone does is to model that HRTF alteration realistically, as if your headphones are speakers playing in a room. The frequency response change Isone introduces is NECESSARY in order to make your headphones sound like speakers in a room and you are listening with a physical head and ears. If it didn't alter the frequency response, then there would be no emulation of HRTF, and your headphone will sound if your ear drums are just floating in a room without a head or ears. That would be far less natural sounding--I think you'd agree. 
 
So essentially, what you hear through Isone is how your headphones will actually sound like if they were played as speakers in a room, and you listening with a physical head and a pair of ears. You can't possibly expect your headphone's sound to not change when you use them as speakers in a room--it's scientifically impossible.
 
You might also want to double-check your VST host isn't causing strange distortions. I've had that happen before. Use a rock-solid VST host--preferably one that audio professionals are likely to use.
 
If you want to Isone without the HRTF and room simulation features, you can simply turn them off, set the speaker cabinet preset to flat, and use it as a standard crossfeed. 
 
 
For people who don't want the realism of HRTF or speaker cabinet and room simulations, Redline Monitor is a great choice, since it's just strictly a crossfeed. But considering  Isone can do the same thing as Redline Monitor if you simply turned off the HRTF and room simulation and use it as just a crossfeed, while paying far less money (Redline Monitor costs 5 times more than Isone, but only has 1/3 of its features), I think Isone is the no-brainer choice. I got Redline Monitor before I had learned of Isone, and if I had found Isone first, I would never have gotten Redline Monitor.
 

 

 

[Lunatique]

Quote:

If the plugin changes the frequency response on purpose that is enough for me to run far away, the DF's a almost perfectly balanced as it is, changing them would only do them harm.
I do not want to trade accuracy, detail and clarity for a narrower stereo field.
 

It appears you still aren't quite understanding what I've explained to you. 
 
1) What Isone does is not to make the stereo field narrower than what's natural, it's your headphone that's making the stereo field unnaturally wide. All headphones have this problem--including your DF's. This is an inherent problem with all headphones, regardless of whether they are open, closed, IEM's, whatever. When there's a skull placed between your two ears and sound cannot easily reach from one side to the other ear, you will get unnatural stereo separation. What Isone does is to fix this problem by making it sound natural again. It is NOT to make stereo field "worse" somehow or undesirably narrower. It is to make it BETTER by making it less severe and unnatural. 
 
2) Frequency response change isn't inherently bad. For example every time you use a reverb, you are changing the frequency response of the track you're working on, because reverbs have to introduce damping in order to simulate how sound interacts with a physical space--it is necessary to create the illusion of a physical space. This is the same kind of principle I explained previous of how Isone needs to model how your headphones would sound in a physical space while interacting with your head and ears--it is a scientific necessity. 
 
3) The change that Isone makes to the frequency response of your DF's isn't "harming" anything. It is simply putting your DF's into a simulated physical space where your head and ears are accounted for. You head and ears automatically introduce frequency response changes because it is part of your physiology. The ONLY way you can have your DF's sound exactly the same as a pair of speakers in a room as they do as a pair of headphones on your head, is if you rip out your ear drums and have them floating in space, completely detached from your head. But then you'd be deaf, wouldn't you? You NEED your head and ears to be able to hear. You can't change that scientific fact.
 
I don't know if you are understanding this, but all of this is true even when it comes to ultra-expensive hardware units like the Smyth Research Realiser. This is going to be true even if the audio geniuses around the world got together and designed a unit that costs 10 millions dollars. HRTF is part of laws of physics, period. So if you listened to the 10 million dollar unit designed by geniuses, are you still going to say that it's "harming" your DF's frequency response and stereo field? 
 
Bottomline is this: As soon as you TRY to make your headphones sound like speakers in a realistic physical environment, it WILL change the frequency response of your headphone, no matter if it's a plugin, a hardware unit, or how cheap, expensive, the product is. This is not something Isone is doing "wrong,"--it is simply the laws of physics. 
 
If you don't want that, then don't bother with HRTF algorithms, period. Just don't use them at all and stick to simple crossfeeds, or turn the HRTF feature off, along with any room and cabinet simulation. Just set the cabinet to flat, and Isone becomes a simple crossfeed.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[Adda]

Quote:

It appears you still aren't quite understanding what I've explained to you. 
 
1) What Isone does is not to make the stereo field narrower than what's natural, it's your headphone that's making the stereo field unnaturally wide. All headphones have this problem--including your DF's. This is an inherent problem with all headphones, regardless of whether they are open, closed, IEM's, whatever. When there's a skull placed between your two ears and sound cannot easily reach from one side to the other ear, you will get unnatural stereo separation. What Isone does is to fix this problem by making it sound natural again. It is NOT to make stereo field "worse" somehow or undesirably narrower. It is to make it BETTER by making it less severe and unnatural. 
 
But the problem is that this is not what I hear, my DF's sound more like speakers without Isone, with Isone they sound like speakers placed next to each other in a tiny room inside my skull.
Without Isone, the DF's sound like speakers placed fairly wide apart in front of me.
Changing the settings does little to correct this, I understand that the theory behind crossfeed makes a lot of sense, but if it doesn't do what it's intended to do then that doesn't matter.
 
2) Frequency response change isn't inherently bad. For example every time you use a reverb, you are changing the frequency response of the track you're working on, because reverbs have to introduce damping in order to simulate how sound interacts with a physical space--it is necessary to create the illusion of a physical space. This is the same kind of principle I explained previous of how Isone needs to model how your headphones would sound in a physical space while interacting with your head and ears--it is a scientific necessity. 
 
Your reverb point is not valid as reverbs are part of the content, just like you can use all kind of effects on a guitar.
If the system that plays back this content is drop dead flat, changing that is bad, you can change the content to your hearts desire, but the playback system has to be flat, Isone is part of the playback system.
Isone is not meant to be applied on a final export, as soon as I disable it I'd have to redo a lot of things to make it sound right, because my DF's are flat without it, not with it.
Isone does not give me a convincing sense of space, it packs everything down in to small ball, to understand what I mean lemme explain.
The DF's let me see the Eiffel Tower panoramic view, with Isone I'm holding a snow globe with a model of the Eiffel Tower inside, it looks like the Eiffel Tower, but it's not very convincing, the scale is all wrong and as soon as I look closer there isn't much detail.
 
3) The change that Isone makes to the frequency response of your DF's isn't "harming" anything. It is simply putting your DF's into a simulated physical space where your head and ears are accounted for. You head and ears automatically introduce frequency response changes because it is part of your physiology. The ONLY way you can have your DF's sound exactly the same as a pair of speakers in a room as they do as a pair of headphones on your head, is if you rip out your ear drums and have them floating in space, completely detached from your head. But then you'd be deaf, wouldn't you? You NEED your head and ears to be able to hear. You can't change that scientific fact.
 
I don't expect the DF's to sound exactly the same with crossfeed, but I expect them to sound clear, neutral and natural, because this is what the DF's do.
But Isone ruins those characteristics, so with it, my DF are not suitable for studio work, I might as well be using cheap EIM's.
No I can't change a scientific fact, but if the software doesn't work s intended, that doesn't matter.
 
 
I don't know if you are understanding this, but all of this is true even when it comes to ultra-expensive hardware units like the Smyth Research Realiser. This is going to be true even if the audio geniuses around the world got together and designed a unit that costs 10 millions dollars. HRTF is part of laws of physics, period. So if you listened to the 10 million dollar unit designed by geniuses, are you still going to say that it's "harming" your DF's frequency response and stereo field? 
 
You can't expect a piece of speaker simulating software/hardware to work on all headphone designs no matter how brilliantly it has been designed.
That would be like saying that all bass woofers would behave the same in a certain chassis.
 
Bottomline is this: As soon as you TRY to make your headphones sound like speakers in a realistic physical environment, it WILL change the frequency response of your headphone, no matter if it's a plugin, a hardware unit, or how cheap, expensive, the product is. This is not something Isone is doing "wrong,"--it is simply the laws of physics. 
 
As I have said, then I might as well be using cheap EIM's.
 
If you don't want that, then don't bother with HRTF algorithms, period. Just don't use them at all and stick to simple crossfeeds, or turn the HRTF feature off, along with any room and cabinet simulation. Just set the cabinet to flat, and Isone becomes a simple crossfeed.
 

 

 

[Lunatique]

Can someone else with a pair of K240DF confirm that it is so uniquely different from all the other headphones out there that Isone would cease to do its job properly and really mess up the sound? I find this so highly unlikely that I pretty much categorize it under "impossible," but never say never because anything is possible in this world. 
 
@Adda the differences between the frequency response of your track with and without Isone shouldn't be so drastic. Remember, Isone is merely modeling how your headphones would actually sound if they were transformed into speakers and placed in a physical space. So if we were to look at this concept in reverse, it would be like:
 
If we took a pair of perfectly flat sounding speakers and then reversed the process so they sound like headphones on your head, then the reverse process would also alter the frequency response to make the speakers sound like headphones (which mean subtracting the effects of HRTF in the simulation). This is necessary in the translation process between headphones and speakers and is unavoidable.  
 
So in terms of working with Isone in your monitoring chain, you simply bypass it during export, and you'll be fine. There should be no need to do more tweaking to "compensate" for the effects of Isone. Remember, what you are hearing with Isone is no longer your headphones, but how your headphones would sound if they became a pair of speakers interacting with your head and ears. 
 
BTW, I have contact Jeroen (the DSP expert behind Isone) and asked him to come and take a look and see if he could help clear some things up. He'll be able to provide really high level explanations, and also explain how Isone works internally. 

 

[Adda]

Lets see if someone with DF's can test it out and then take the more theoretic discussion from there, if no one come along we can agree that we have different preferences.
I cannot deny that I might be so tuned in to my DF's that I'm hearing things, but this has not been the case in the past.
Quote:

 
So in terms of working with Isone in your monitoring chain, you simply bypass it during export, and you'll be fine. There should be no need to do more tweaking to "compensate" for the effects of Isone. Remember, what you are hearing with Isone is no longer your headphones, but how your headphones would sound if they became a pair of speakers interacting with your head and ears. 
 

But this is not the case, if I tune the sound to fit with Isone, and then disable Isone, everything sounds wrong because the frequency response has changed, not by a bit, but quite a lot.
The other way around it's the same, if I enable Isone on my existing material, I loose bass and gain treble, that would make my mixes too warm if I used Isone and then disabled it.
When using Isone I would have to forget about really tuning my samples, because I wouldn't be hearing what they really sound like, well unless I disabled Isone.
I could of cause enable or disable Isone depending on what I'm doing, but I don't see what I'd gain.
 
 

 

[Lunatique]

Quote:

But this is not the case, if I tune the sound to fit with Isone, and then disable Isone, everything sounds wrong because the frequency response has changed, not by a bit, but quite a lot.
The other way around it's the same, if I enable Isone on my existing material, I loose bass and gain treble, that would make my mixes too warm if I used Isone and then disabled it.
When using Isone I would have to forget about really tuning my samples, because I wouldn't be hearing what they really sound like, well unless I disabled Isone.
I could of cause enable or disable Isone depending on what I'm doing, but I don't see what I'd gain.
 

Let's see what Jeroen says when/if he makes an appearance in this thread. I emailed him like ten minutes ago, and I hope he's not too busy to make his way back into this thread like he had in the past (if you haven't read this thread in its entirety, you've probably missed his posts). He's one of those experts who's forgotten more about acoustics and DSP processing than we have ever learned combined, and Isone being his baby, he'll be able to explain it fully to you and help you figure out what the problem is. All I know is that I have absolutely no problem with Isone using any of the headphones in my collection.

 

[deadlylover]

Lunatique, diffuse field equalized headphones are quite rare, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work well with Isone Pro as the headphones are already tuned to sound like you are listening to speakers..
 
Of course, it isn't perfect as there is no crossfeed effect, but yeah, it's quite peculiar.

 

[firev1]

Quote:

For people who don't want the realism of HRTF or speaker cabinet and room simulations, Redline Monitor is a great choice, since it's just strictly a crossfeed. But considering  Isone can do the same thing as Redline Monitor if you simply turned off the HRTF and room simulation and use it as just a crossfeed, while paying far less money (Redline Monitor costs 5 times more than Isone, but only has 1/3 of its features), I think Isone is the no-brainer choice. I got Redline Monitor before I had learned of Isone, and if I had found Isone first, I would never have gotten Redline Monitor.
 

Going to try this tomorrow night, will post my evaluations later. If what you say were right then, damn.......
 
EDIT: Just tried it again because I did not feel like sleeping.

 

[Lunatique]

Quote:

Lunatique, diffuse field equalized headphones are quite rare, I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't work well with Isone Pro as the headphones are already tuned to sound like you are listening to speakers..
 
Of course, it isn't perfect as there is no crossfeed effect, but yeah, it's quite peculiar.

Even if so, Adda could just turn off the room simulation, set the speaker cabinet to flat, and also turn off the HRTF, which turns Isone into just a crossfeed. From his posts, it seems he did try that and still found Isone very strange (unless I read his posts wrong)? 
 
Adda, can you confirm this? Did you try turning off the HRTF and Room simulation features, and then set the speaker simulation preset to Flat? 
 
 

 

[Adda]

With HRTF disabled it's just bassy rather then bright.
 
Edit: It reminds me of how a K242HD sounds.

 

[Adda]

I get the best results form Flat, nearfield HRTF off, but it still gives med a weird balance and compressed soundstage, also a midbass hump K242HD style.
It doesn't solve the lack of clarity.

 

[RexAeterna]

is this VST free to try? i defiantly give it a try and test it out. i have to agree with adda as well about the Df's be closest you get to speaker like soundstage accuracy. i tried doby,eax,crossfeeding DSP's,ect. with them and tend to make them sound unrealistic. if this vst is anything a like it will probably do the same. i'll give it a test and see how it is.

 

[Adda]

It is free to try yes, you just can't save your own presets.

 

[Lunatique]

Quote:

With HRTF disabled it's just bassy rather then bright.
 
Edit: It reminds me of how a K242HD sounds.

HRTF strength was at 0%? Did you turn off the Room Designer too? Set the speaker preset to Flat? Also, did you check the CSC (Crosstalk Spectrum Compensation), which turns on and off the low-pass filter of the cross-feed signal in the low frequencies?