[bluemonkeyflyer]

Quote:

 
Isone Pro doesn't screw up imaging at all:
 
Here's a fully binaural song (and a damn good one)
 

 
Turning it on and off results in no loss of imaging with my settings for my head. The only difference is soundstage width but that's fine as you do realise, that most music is mixed with nearfield speakers at 30 degrees right? Also Isone Pro gives you good instructions on how to configure the HRTF settings correctly. You did read the instruction manual right?
 
Hearing the music correctly for most recordings, recorded the way the sound engineers hear it. Nearfield speakers angled at over 30 degrees affects the sound naturally in the treble.
Isone Pro was designed for use in the recording industry. Think about that for a second. Not to mention Jeroen was part of the team that designed the mp4 container standard, so I think he know a little bit more about psychoacoustics and it's application than the average person.
 
You must configure the HRTF settings. Also headphones, due to driver size, do not shift as much air as speakers thus bass impact is affected and thus you must compensate for that.
Most headphone audiophiles impression of 'neutral' is actually bass light (particularly sub bass) tbh. My room settings are in a super ideal (see unrealistic but it's the ideal) room tbh. No early reflections (and thus no need for dampening via diffusion).

 
I'm a long time lurker waiting for the Mac version of JRiver. I hope it will function as a VST Host so I can start to use Isone. I know there are other work-arounds but they seem too complicated and expensive.
 
I'm always on the lookout for binaural recordings. Thanks posting this one. Links to any others much appreciated.  Here's a link to several interesting ones --->  HERE.

 

[silversurfer616]

Whatever setting I try with my LCD2,it always sounds good as in WOW....thats different,but in the end it is too coloured !
 

 

[Sweden]

Quote:

Whatever setting I try with my LCD2,it always sounds good as in WOW....thats different,but in the end it is too coloured !
 

 
The LCD-2 haven't been a good headphone to use with Isone for me either.
HD600 works much better.

 

[PunkJr]

I've been testing Isone for a month now. I am the opposite to some here, in that I really didn't want this programme to work. For some reason I wanted to send a bit perfect signal to my Audeophilleo, because People say that it is important. I've switched it on and off for days at a time,my conclusion is that I can't live without it. It makes listening to my LCD-2.2's a joy, with no fatigue whatever. 
 
I've found that zeroing (no yellow showing) the speaker "Spk.Lev" was the biggest improvement, it turned a compressed muffled sound clear and crisp. If this DSP cost ten times the price, I'd have still bought it. I may not get bit perfect going through anymore, but now I'm enjoying my music more.  I've also turned the internal volume down 10db, and Volume Levelling - no clip. 

 

[Sweden]

SpkLev only changes the amount of dB and have no change on the effect or sound what I can tell, non. Of course higher volumes makes music sound better but that's another story.
You get the biggest change sonically with changing Distance and Speaker angle.

 

[Chodi]

Quote:

I've switched it on and off for days at a time,my conclusion is that I can't live without it. It makes listening to my LCD-2.2's a joy, with no fatigue whatever. 
 

I use use Isone with my Beyer T1's and my Stax 407's. I totally agree with your statement, I could not live without it whatever the price. I listen mostly to classical music and Isone puts me into the performance. I have heard people say they don't like it, but I think they haven't really given it a chance. In my opinion this takes headphone listening to a completely different level of enjoyment.

 

[StudioSound]

I recently purchased JRiver Media Center, partly because of the headphone options, and have spent some time with this and the built-in crossfeed function.

Firstly, I think the built-in crossfeed options are garbage. There is a very noticeable shift in frequency response, and while the soundstage gets a bit wider, it sounds more like you have speakers on either side of your head and there is no middle to the audio. Everything feels... stretched out. And audio quality in general seems to take a nosedive. A lot of my music just sounds really low fidelity with it enabled.

I've spent some time with Isone over the last couple of days now. Initially i was hoping to make use of Isone Surround for film playback, but it's only being sent a downmixed stereo track.
But that's not the Isone product we're discussing here anyway.

After spending some time going through every built-in preset, while listening to a number of tracks, and reading over the manual, I think I've begun to get the hang of it.

For me, I was not looking to recreate the sound of sitting in a room with speakers. What I was looking for, was a more coherent soundfield without that gap in the middle that headphones often have. Properly configured, Isone does a great job with this. With my current settings, it's moving the soundfield forward, and eliminating the gap in the middle. It still sounds like I am listening to headphones, but offers a more natural/comfortable listening experience. It's very much one of those things you notice more when it's missing, rather than when you first turn it on. The "headphone sound" was never a complaint of mine in the past, until I started to use 3D audio in games recently.

It's particularly impressive if you mute one of the channels before feeding it into Isone. Normally only having one channel playing is very uncomfortable to listen to with headphones (especially if you mute it during playback) but it's fine with Isone running.


What I don't like at all, is the "room designer" feature - that's for people that want to make it sound like they are listening to speakers in a room, rather than just wanting a more relaxed headphone experience. To me, it just sounds like it's adding a ton of reverb and I am in a perfectly square, totally empty room.

That's fine if it's what you want, and if you're really looking for that "outside your head" sound, but it's not for me.

Another thing is that, at least with the settings I'm using, it does seem to boost the low end a bit, even with the "Flat" preset, and CSC enabled. If I decide to purchase it, I will probably look at adjusting the frequency curve to help reduce that a bit.


I have also found that with some tracks that do have good imaging on headphones, Isone can make the center sound a bit "shouty". While this is HRTF and not Crossfeed, it would be nice to have a "center" control to reduce it a little. Maybe I just need to spend more time adjusting it.


I will say this though, my experience with crossfeed in JRiver Media Center and from using Isone has certainly reduced my interest in buying a Phonitor. At least in JRiver where it's using 64-bits of internal precision for processing, there doesn't seem to be any real degradation of the sound quality, and HRTF sounds a lot better than Crossfeed. (I've tried other software implementations of Crossfeed in the past too) I'm quite sure the Phonitor's crossfeed is better than JRiver's, but it's still only crossfeed.

 

[Chodi]

I keep the "Room" settings turned off also. I played with those settings extensively and finally came to the conclusion that they just muck with the sound. Once I kept the room setting off I was able to keep the tonal character of my headphones intact and still get the benefit of the HRTF features which move the performance in front of me and fill the center image. 

 

[beatfreak]

Quick question where are you guys purchasing Isone Pro from?  Thanks.

 

[cdd3068]

Quote:

Quick question where are you guys purchasing Isone Pro from?  Thanks.

Not sure with everyone else, but I'm using the older version by Jeroen Breebaart on his website...there is a free VST bundle that has some goodies. I'm sure the newer version is better, but at least you can see what is out there. 
 
http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/audio_vst_jb.htm

 

[PunkJr]

http://www.toneboosters.com/tb-isone/

 

[Lunatique]

Quote:

Quick question where are you guys purchasing Isone Pro from?  Thanks.

TB Isone is the newer version, and AFAIK, Isone Pro (the older version) isn't being sold anymore, but you can always just ask Jeroen to sell you the older version if he's willing. 
 
You can match TB Isone to Isone Pro's settings and sound, so it really doesn't matter which one you pick. Before I figured out how to match them, I preferred Isone Pro, but now either one is fine.

 

[beatfreak]

Quote:

Not sure with everyone else, but I'm using the older version by Jeroen Breebaart on his website...there is a free VST bundle that has some goodies. I'm sure the newer version is better, but at least you can see what is out there. 
 
http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/audio_vst_jb.htm

Ok, thanks I will look into it.

 

[KiruDub]

I've been out of the loop for a while, and after my Denon d2000's croaked, I came to this forum to get back up to speed.
 
I found this thread while lurking, and gave it a shot, using it with Logic Pro for my music production.
 
I presently have some basic KRK Rockit 5 near field monitors, and for various reasons I actually don't use them that much, so lately I'd been doing mixing and composition in Logic using headphones (presently HE400s).
 
I still haven't totally calibrated Isone for my room, speakers, etc., but there's a drastic change to the soundstage and levels so far on the mixes I added it to. This is a good thing, and what the plugin was designed for. Again, this is a tool, made for a specific reason.
 
I've notice no sound quality degradation from any of the live instruments (drums, guitars, vocals) or virtual instruments (Omnisphere, Trillian, BFD) in my tracks.
The room setting can introduce some coloration, but, again, that's the point of this plug-in.
 
As far as using it it with my music collection, I noticed a pleasant (and obvious) difference to the music soundstage. IMO, it really showcases how odd music can sound through headphones.
 
Yeah, I'd rather use great monitors to do my work, but until my office/studio is remodeled, this is gonna be fine!
 
Lunatique, thanks for the heads up, and the help you've given us here and at Gearslutz.

 

[Chodi]

Quote:

TB Isone is the newer version, and AFAIK, Isone Pro (the older version) isn't being sold anymore, but you can always just ask Jeroen to sell you the older version if he's willing. 
 
You can match TB Isone to Isone Pro's settings and sound, so it really doesn't matter which one you pick. Before I figured out how to match them, I preferred Isone Pro, but now either one is fine.

I know this is an old thread but I finally got round to trying the new TB Isone and I much prefer the original Isone Pro. I played with TB Isone for days and no matter how I set it I could not get the uncolored sound I get with Isone Pro. To me the two programs sound very different. I am sticking with the original Isone Pro. It became obvious to me that even if I could get TB Isone to sound as neutral and uncolored as Isone Pro (I never could) it would not bring any improvement so it wasn't worth the effort. Isone Pro is still the most neutral crossfeed plugin I've used. There is some slight low frequency loss in Isone Pro that is not present in TB Isone but that is the only improvement and too many negatives.