Out Of Your Head - new virtual surround simulator

[phoenixdogfan]

Darin, I just got a paid of LCD X from FedEx yesterday, and I finally have had an opportunity to give your software a fair "Hearing".  It ought to tell you something that I joined the Massdrop for this software today about an hour ago.
 
The software makes a big difference in the listenability of my LCD X's.  As an old speaker guy who's owned everything from Rogers LS3/5a's to Aerial Accoustic 10t's to Martin Logan CLS's, I place a premium on having sound that is not In my head and I think your software is a huge step in the right direction.
 
That said, I find that this software is the most problematic software on my machine.  Sometimes it will run In Direct mode, other times not, some times it will run in WASAPI, other times not.  I am running JRiver 20, and a Dell Inspiron 3531 with a Celeron processor Dual Core N2830.  My principal music source is Tidal, which feeds into JRiver which in turn runs into OOYH. 
 
Btw, I have followed you instruction to the letter, bitdepth is 32 bit floating point, everything is converted to 48k Sampling rate, it's set for 7.1 channels, and playback choice is either OOYH Direct or OOYH Wasapi, and it works and fails intermittently.  I am using a GO1000 as my DAC/amp. 
 
I think two things about this problem.  (1)  The software really needs its own Asio driver to insure proper operation, and (2) It would be extremely helpful if you could supply some sort of information on what processor is need to run the software without hiccups. (Is an Intel Core i7 needed, for example, and what about memory?)
 
I also notice that the display in the control panel seems to flicker, is this normal, or is it a sign I'm underpowered? 
 
I am less bothered about the software running a 48 sampling, though 96 or 192 would be nice.  (Don't know if it would be audible, but it couldn;'t hurt).
 
Also, it would be helpful if any updates/improvements were posted on a forum such as head-fi.
 
At some point, I may want to visit if some of these issues are ironed out to get a few personal presets.  I am finding that the four that work the best for me are Sasha, Genelec. Magical, and Accoustic Zen Crescendo.  There are also a few high end speakers I would kill to have a preset for, Linkwitz LX521's foremost among them.
 
I hope I'm not sounding too harsh in my criticism here, I think it's a teriffic product, and I like it enough to have already bought it, I just think it needs some work to make it less tempermental.
 
Best regards
 

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Darin, one other question, having read the thread on how you make PRIR for the Smyth SVS Realizer, it seems you are deriving the surround and center channel on the 5.1 and 7.1 setups on a variety of these presets.  Is there any preset where the center and surround and subwoofer channels are captured from actual dedicated center and surround channels? 
 
Also, I notice some of the presets are 5.1 channel.  What happens when actual 7.1 channel material is played over say JRiver and such a preset is engaged?  Doesn't this result in two channels not being played at all?

 

[darinf]

 
Darin, I just got a paid of LCD X from FedEx yesterday, and I finally have had an opportunity to give your software a fair "Hearing".  It ought to tell you something that I joined the Massdrop for this software today about an hour ago.
 
The software makes a big difference in the listenability of my LCD X's.  As an old speaker guy who's owned everything from Rogers LS3/5a's to Aerial Accoustic 10t's to Martin Logan CLS's, I place a premium on having sound that is not In my head and I think your software is a huge step in the right direction.
 
That said, I find that this software is the most problematic software on my machine.  Sometimes it will run In Direct mode, other times not, some times it will run in WASAPI, other times not.  I am running JRiver 20, and a Dell Inspiron 3531 with a Celeron processor Dual Core N2830.  My principal music source is Tidal, which feeds into JRiver which in turn runs into OOYH. 
 
Btw, I have followed you instruction to the letter, bitdepth is 32 bit floating point, everything is converted to 48k Sampling rate, it's set for 7.1 channels, and playback choice is either OOYH Direct or OOYH Wasapi, and it works and fails intermittently.  I am using a GO1000 as my DAC/amp. 
 
I think two things about this problem.  (1)  The software really needs its own Asio driver to insure proper operation, and (2) It would be extremely helpful if you could supply some sort of information on what processor is need to run the software without hiccups. (Is an Intel Core i7 needed, for example, and what about memory?)
 
I also notice that the display in the control panel seems to flicker, is this normal, or is it a sign I'm underpowered? 
 
I am less bothered about the software running a 48 sampling, though 96 or 192 would be nice.  (Don't know if it would be audible, but it couldn;'t hurt).
 
Also, it would be helpful if any updates/improvements were posted on a forum such as head-fi.
 
At some point, I may want to visit if some of these issues are ironed out to get a few personal presets.  I am finding that the four that work the best for me are Sasha, Genelec. Magical, and Accoustic Zen Crescendo.  There are also a few high end speakers I would kill to have a preset for, Linkwitz LX521's foremost among them.
 
I hope I'm not sounding too harsh in my criticism here, I think it's a teriffic product, and I like it enough to have already bought it, I just think it needs some work to make it less tempermental.
 
Best regards
 

Hi phoenixdogfan,
Thanks you for posting your impressions and feedback. Not harsh at all. I welcome all constructive criticism, good or bad. (Believe me there is a LOT more really harsh criticism out there about Out Of Your Head.)
 
Generally if you get WASAPI to work in JRiver, it should work fairly consistently. When WASAPI does not work, what happens? Is there just no sound? Does it crash? Do you notice any correlation between sampling rates of the original audio file and WASAPI working or not?
 
With Direct Sound mode, you should disable the JRiver DSP settings altogether. But that's easy to do without losing your WASAPI settings. Just uncheck the DSP box to turn off those settings.
 
I use my GO 1000 and 450 all the time without issue.
 
For CPU requirements, it varies especially if you are listening to two channel music or decoding a 1080p H.264 video and 8 channels of audio. For just music, the slowest computer I have tested is a fairly old Core2Duo T7800 2.8Ghz laptop. But that computer will not play a movie and 5.1 audio perfectly smoothly. I think your computer should be OK. But you might want to make sure your CPU power is set to 100% to see if that makes a difference. (See an earlier post in this thread.)
 
The flickering of the GUI is normal. (I am not a very good GUI programmer.

)
 
I am not allowed to post product announcements here on Head-Fi as a "Member of the Trade" only "Sponsors" can do that. (Someday I hope to be successful enough to become a sponsor.) But you can sign up for our newsletter on our website.
 
Yes, I know the software is not a "plug and play" or stable as it should be. It will over time and has gotten better. It was way worse before! But there's definitely lots of room for improvement. Like most software development there's always the balance between bug fixes and new features, etc.
 
Regardless, Thank you for you support of Out Of Your Head.
-Darin

 

[darinf]

 
Darin, one other question, having read the thread on how you make PRIR for the Smyth SVS Realizer, it seems you are deriving the surround and center channel on the 5.1 and 7.1 setups on a variety of these presets.  Is there any preset where the center and surround and subwoofer channels are captured from actual dedicated center and surround channels? 
 
Also, I notice some of the presets are 5.1 channel.  What happens when actual 7.1 channel material is played over say JRiver and such a preset is engaged?  Doesn't this result in two channels not being played at all?

Generally the recording studios and home theater presets are true 5.1 or 7.1 systems. The uber expensive speakers are almost always only 2 speakers. (It's not likely that an owner would buy 4 pairs of their $200,000 speakers to use for a 7.1 system!)
 
If you play a 7.1 track on a 5.1 preset, the extra two channels are not played at all. The same if you played 5.1 audio into a 2.0 preset, you would only hear the L and R channels. In those cases, I would recommend setting up JRiver to downmix the audio to match the number of channels in the preset. 

 

[MAMBACFA]

I heard the OOYH demo and was blown away! The home theater preset was the most interesting for me. I have a very nice two channel system for listening to music, but the opportunity to watch movies in a surround-sound environment was the clincher for me. I would not invest in a surround system for movies, but to get the equivalent audio experience for such a small price is the deal of a lifetime. A steal at this modest price. 
 
Then I tried some of the other presets for listening to music, and I was blown away a second time! I'm listening through Sennheiser HD800 cans, which are known for having a great soundstage. But after listening with the OutOfYourHead software, my HD800s sounded like the music was "in my head" and compressed. OK, we know that even the best headphones can't match the experience of listening to speakers in a good room. At least, that WAS true BEFORE the OutOfYourHead software was available! These give you the best of both worlds: the sound of world-class speakers without the problems caused by the limitations of ordinary listening rooms. What could be better?

 

[warth0g]

So is there any word on an iOS version? Seems to have been "coming soon" for a couple of years now.. I'm not sure I want to use this in my music chain, and the only time I listen to movies on headphones is on my iPad. I'm definitely interested in having virtual 5.1 in that scenario - an idea when this is likely to show up?

 

[darinf]

  So is there any word on an iOS version? Seems to have been "coming soon" for a couple of years now.. I'm not sure I want to use this in my music chain, and the only time I listen to movies on headphones is on my iPad. I'm definitely interested in having virtual 5.1 in that scenario - an idea when this is likely to show up?

Thanks for posting. All I can say is "the best laid plans..." Way back when, I thought the iOS version was not far away, but we decided to shift our focus to a low latency version. Hence the iOS version was pushed back. I cannot even speculate on the availability of the iOS version at this point. We are working on it, but I just don't know how long it's going to take to get past a lot of technical hurdles for mobile devices.
 
The other issue with mobile devices is that there is really no multi-channel content available. It will be fine for two channel content, but none of the content providers provide 5.1 or 7.1 content on mobile devices. In theory you could provide your own content by ripping DVD's or Blu-Ray's to your mobile device, but even then, there aren't many, if any media player apps that support multi-channel audio. (Do you know of any? I would love to find some.)
 
We'll keep you posted when the iOS version is coming. Keep an eye on our website or sign up for our newsletter. I won't be able to announce it here.

 

[warth0g]

Thanks very much for the update, that does make sense. I guess I didn't think that through - you're probably right that Netflix, HBO etc don't stream in multichannel so I guess this wouldn't work. One for the future then!

 

[Sarurururu]

Hi Darin & everyone,
 
I am new to JRiver as I just downloaded it couple days ago. Initially, I encountered severe clipping issue like many others. Not until Darin gave me advice on certain settings, I now am able to overcome the issue amongst most of my collections except few Hi-Res recordings. Just now I figure out one thing, there's a volume control on JRiver right under the PLAY button (top left corner) which helps to eliminate clipping as well (other than the internal volume control from OPTION).
ps. forgot to mention, I use WASAPI set up.
 
With the use of this, I can even crank up the output channel on OOYH to 100% without having a single click. I understand my suggestion might sound a bit silly & obvious, but like I mentioned at the beginning, I am just a amateur here 

 
Lastly Darin, may I ask you when will Massdrop send out the code since I just can't wait to buy couple more presets?
 
Cheers,
William

 

[darinf]

  Hi Darin & everyone,
 
I am new to JRiver as I just downloaded it couple days ago. Initially, I encountered severe clipping issue like many others. Not until Darin gave me advice on certain settings, I now am able to overcome the issue amongst most of my collections except few Hi-Res recordings. Just now I figure out one thing, there's a volume control on JRiver right under the PLAY button (top left corner) which helps to eliminate clipping as well (other than the internal volume control from OPTION).
ps. forgot to mention, I use WASAPI set up.
 
With the use of this, I can even crank up the output channel on OOYH to 100% without having a single click. I understand my suggestion might sound a bit silly & obvious, but like I mentioned at the beginning, I am just a amateur here 

 
Lastly Darin, may I ask you when will Massdrop send out the code since I just can't wait to buy couple more presets?
 
Cheers,
William

Hi William,
 
Glad you got everything working and avoiding any clipping.
 
I do not know when Massdrop is sending out the codes. I sent them the codes today, so they should be sending them out soon. But it's up to them now. I cannot send the codes myself.
 
Thank you for your purchase!
-Darin

 

[arnaud]

Hi Darin,
 
What is the latency for the current version for OS X (1.03g)?
 
cheers,
arnaud

 

[darinf]

  Hi Darin,
 
What is the latency for the current version for OS X (1.03g)?
 
cheers,
arnaud

Hi @arnaud ,
Currently on most Macs, the latency is around 250ms.

 

[arnaud]

Thanks Darin

 

[john57]

I brought the software and choose the Technicolor Studios preset because it has the clearest center channel for dialog.

 

[Hansotek]

Just installed OOYH yesterday after picking up the MassDrop deal. I've been loving the AcousticZen setting with the Beyerdynamic T1 and the K701!