[phoenixdogfan]

Great reply ,Darin.
 
I've used this program for well over a year now, and I've found it to be excellent, and worth every penny.
 
  I also believe  that ultimately it's unnecessary to have a separate box (even it's using Field Programmable  Gate Arrays) to do this job.  Consider, for example, that a separate blue ray player isn't needed to play blue ray files--something like JRiver works just fine.  Also consider that room and speaker correction can be done from any number of software solutions.  Back when I had a big rig I used a Tact RCS to correct my Ariel 10t's.  Today I use Dirac Live running on my HP to correct my KEF LS50's.
 
  Is speaker emulation any more processor intensive than replaying a blue ray file with 7.1 channel sound? Or doing room and speaker correction,  while replaying a 7.1 channel blue ray file?  Somehow,  I don't think so.
 
As for a specific set of headphone being needed, that's just ignorant.  This is what Smyh says:
 
"We judge headphones in a number of ways. How comfortable are they to wear for an extended period of time, can they faithfully reproduce virtualised loudspeakers and how cost effective they are. For example the entire range of Stax headphones are comfortable and can reproduce virtual loudspeakers with stunning accuracy. Hence we continue to use the Stax 2170 for our own internal use due to its cost effectiveness. Sennheiser HD800s on the other hand have the same performance, are almost as comfortable, but are physically more robust, don’t require an external amplifier and they go louder. Hence we have moved over to using these headphones for demonstrations. These are two headphones we use every day and can vouch for their performance and comfort."
 
It seems that more than one headphone can perform with the equalizer.  Myself, with OOYH I'm using Hd800's and Audeze LCD X;s. A number of users get excellent results with less expensive phones, if the feedback on this forum can be believed.
 
As for whether OOYH files can come close to Realizer results, consider DF offers personalized measurements (no doubt made using his  Realizer). Perhaps someone who has made use of this service would like to review that service.
 
As for the default speaker selections that come with OOYH, just listen to each individual one on the trial version.  Myself, I found several that I thought dramatically improved the performance of my LCD X's and HD 800's.  YMMV.   
 
BTW, even Smyth sees the value of using non personalized measurement on their product.  Consider the following quote from their PRIR exchange site:
 
"For clarity, the term PRIR means a measurement file made using the member’s own head. A BRIR means a measurement file made using some other head...A BRIR of a high fidelity sound room can be personalised using information from a member’s PRIR. The algorithm comprises a three step process and has the capability to dramatically improve the localisation of the loudspeakers and suppress unnatural room colouration. It does not alter the nature of the room acoustics nor the reverberation. While personalising a BRIR is unlikely to ever sound superior to a PRIR made by the member in the same room, the improvement can be very useful where this is not an option and will often result in a better sounding room than a PRIR made in a regular room. As a result, this option should give members access to a much wider selection of decent sounding files"
 
In other words, if a BRIR is well done, it can sound very, very good.  Even Smyth Research agrees.
 
Ultimately, I believe Smyth makes a  quality product, and OOYH while not perfect (but vastly improved from where it was even a year ago) provides many of its functions at a much lower price. 
 
I also believe that the only two features on Smyth that demand hardware are the head tracker and the measurement microphones.  There's no reason everything else the Realizer does can not be accomplished more cost effectively with software.
 
​.

 

[hekeli]

  In other words, if a BRIR is well done, it can sound very, very good.  Even Smyth Research agrees.​.

 
"Well done" means using a personalized measurement to begin with to calibrate the "BRIR". There's no free lunch.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Perhaps, but maybe it just means finding an OOYH speaker setting BRIR which closely approximates your personal HRTF.
 
As I wrote previously,  listen to the trial version and decide if the improvement is substantial.  YMMV.

 

[edwardsean]

   
"Well done" means using a personalized measurement to begin with to calibrate the "BRIR". There's no free lunch.

Personaly, I found OOYH literally the night before I was going to buy a Realiser. i wasn't immediately convinced, but I heard enough to cancel the Realiser. It took time from there. I had to experiment with OOYH and reorient my brain and my system to, ahem "realize" the potential of OOYH. In the end I felt like I had found a "free lunch." Here was the core technology of the Realiser at a fraction of the cost, and decoupled from the desktop-size hardware. 
 
The problem, of course, is that without hardware of its own, OOYH is dependent on the quality of the hardware you bring. With a Smyth demo they control the consistency of the hardware: DAC, amp, to headphone. OOYH does work with entry level gear, but it scales up beautifully with everything you throw at it. 
 
I think that part of the problem that SetrioN had was he may have needed more time. It could very well be that his particular HRTF and ear morphology weren't a good match for any of the presets, or it just didn't suit his taste. That's fine. However, at a Smyth exhibition you also have professionals who have prepared that demo, hardware and software, and are taking you through it. I think a more level assessment could be made if SetrioN could have walked from Smyth's demo to Darin's demo. 
 
OOYH does require some exploration. For me–totally worth it. 

 

[SetiroN]

Quote:

   
Corrected that for you.
 
Personally - I love it.  Hardly any glitches, and when it occasionally clips, it's usually just a small tweak.  There is a low latency gaming solution which is just brilliant.  I've got rid of the sound card I have now and rely only on OOYH for gaming. Also enjoying the speaker presets for listening.
 
Its a reasonably low cost and very effective solution for my needs - and especially since the Realiser is out of my budget.
 
My only issue with it is that there isn't a Linux solution (I switched back from Windows about 3 months go).  If it worked in Linux I'd be extremely happy.
 
Great programme IMO - and worth the money I paid.

The correction should be opposite: I'm telling it like it is. You, who have evidently only tried this solution out of the many that exist that do an arguably better job, usually for actual free, not $150 free. If you pay for VST plugins, you usually spend less anyway (redline monitor pro is £69 if I remember correctly and the various toneboosters isone/ircam hear were probably even cheaper and Beyerdynamic even has a free one that is quite good).
Along with the many capable VST plugins I mentioned that you can use in a pro stack, there are free Foobar plugins, or viper4windows and various minor projects, also for linux. All of them require tinkering and generate hassle, but so does this software. On the flipside they usually let you alter the parameters that matter, which aren't the speakers used, but the HRTF paramenters and reverb.
 
An actual, hassle-free solution is dolby virtual speakers that is included with various sound cards, most notably xonars: even with a $40 xonar dx (which is probably already an upgrade for many) you get a proper virtual speaker simulation that is hassle-free and has 3 presets. It doesn't claim to emulate use big names, but it works better. And the effect can be included in the optical digital output if you want to use an external dac.
Or the focusrite vrm box that I haven't tried but is highly regarded.
 

  Thanks for your honest comments,@SetiroN. I really appreciate it. I believe all feedback is helpful. It will push us to improve.
And thanks for your kind responses, @arnaud and @Brooko.
 
I know I've said this before in this thread, but everyone is entitled to their opinion. I respect that. 
I also know that Out Of Your Head is far from perfect and I never expected everyone to like it. It's not for everyone, just like most audio gear. In fact, I completely understand that people would prefer straight headphone listening and not like Out Of Your Head. That's fine.
 
I did just want to mention one thing. The Out Of Your Head drivers are signed for both Windows and Mac OS X. When the driver is installed, you should see that the driver is signed. You can also check the driver properties:
 
 
Maybe you are talking about something else that is not signed?
 
Anyway, no worries.
 
The great thing about Out Of Your Head is that people can try it for themselves any time. No need to find a retailer or go to a meet, or rely on other people's impressions, etc.
 
Just download the trial or listen to our online demo with no need to install any software.
 
Then if you don't like it, no problem. If you do like it, great.
 
Since Out Of Your Head will work better for some and worse for others, all I ask is that anyone listen for themselves with their gear and decide for themselves.
 
-Darin

I'm not sure why you and people after you are condescendingly claiming that "this is not for me". Have you bothered to actually read my post? I DO use convolution software, but I'm not rich enough to afford a realiser (which I consider to be the pinnacle of headphone listening, something that I have come to hate after years of speaker listening).
 
I'm not complaining about what this software is, I'm complaining about how it's made. The unresponsive control panel lacking any configuration simply isn't worth $150, not to mention the multiple installation issues you might run into.
Amateur software offered at a premium price.
 
When I am forced to use headphones, I exclusively use speaker virtualisation of some kind, even on my phone. And while I would love to have a software solution that does it effortlessly, buying xonar sound cards for all the PCs is ultimately easier and better. Not to mention cheaper, as you can spend much less, or more (I have an essence stx in my main pc), but also get the value of having an actual piece of hardware.
 
The video demo isn't indicative of the final experience for the main issue I raised from the beginning: this software is amateurish and while some might not have problems, on all 3 of my secondary PCs, all newer windows 10 machines, I got one issue or another: be it awful clipping, necessity to use 16 bit (not sure if that is what caused the terrible quality), only beeps coming out, driver signature issues raised by windows (probably windows' fault, but still), infinitely excessive reverberation. Not one of my systems was able to recreate the video demo and even if I did, I would have had to live with terrible latency and a terrible configuration panel with literally zero parameters and the inability to control volume directly.
 
Oh and in the software world, anything can be tried before purchase, be it with demos (that are usually 30 or 60 days unlimited, not 2 minutes at a time) or with refund policies on the app store of choice. You're not doing something special.

 

[Brooko]

Quote:

  Quote:
The correction should be opposite: I'm telling it like it is. You, who have evidently only tried this solution out of the many that exist that do an arguably better job, usually for actual free, not $150 free. If you pay for VST plugins, you usually spend less anyway (redline monitor pro is £69 if I remember correctly and the various toneboosters isone/ircam hear were probably even cheaper and Beyerdynamic even has a free one that is quite good).
Along with the many capable VST plugins I mentioned that you can use in a pro stack, there are free Foobar plugins, or viper4windows and various minor projects, also for linux. All of them require tinkering and generate hassle, but so does this software. On the flipside they usually let you alter the parameters that matter, which aren't the speakers used, but the HRTF paramenters and reverb.
 
An actual, hassle-free solution is dolby virtual speakers that is included with various sound cards, most notably xonars: even with a $40 xonar dx (which is probably already an upgrade for many) you get a proper virtual speaker simulation that is hassle-free and has 3 presets. It doesn't claim to emulate use big names, but it works better. And the effect can be included in the optical digital output if you want to use an external dac.
Or the focusrite vrm box that I haven't tried but is highly regarded.

 
And I'll correct you again.  I have tried Foobar with VST plugins - a few years ago we had a pretty good thread going with set-ups utilising Dolby headphone.  And we're not being condescending - we are just pointing out that while you are welcome to state your experience - you do not speak for everyone​. Neither do I - I'm just relating my experiences, same as you are.
 
I have no issues with the control panel, or with the glitches you are experiencing.  And for me - Darin's solution gives far better output than either the software /hardware solution of my Titanium internal card, or the Foobar set-up I had - both for music or for gaming. - but especially for movies.  Very immersive.
 
I bought OOYH when it was promoted on Massdrop for $75.  I love it.  I really miss it in my Linux environment.  I would happily pay the full price $150, and the $25.00 for other pre-sets is worth it to me (I will take advantage of it if there is ever a Linux option).
 
Again - you obviously have a different experience - but are you honestly trying to tell me that my own experience is wrong because it doesn't gel with yours?

 

[hekeli]

  Perhaps, but maybe it just means finding an OOYH speaker setting BRIR which closely approximates your personal HRTF.

 
If you actually read the Smyth stuff carefully, you see that they created to way to calibrate other peoples PRIRs closer to your own ears, but you need microphone to create own measurements first. You are simply referring to other peoples PRIRs (which OOYH also uses) which can be hit and miss, but almost guaranteed to be never perfect. Then there's the new "BRIR" calibration stuff Smyth is only coming out (with BRIR exchange etc fancy stuff) that noone has even got to test yet, since A16 is still unreleased.

 

[edwardsean]

  Quote:
The correction should be opposite: I'm telling it like it is. You, who have evidently only tried this solution out of the many that exist that do an arguably better job, usually for actual free, not $150 free. If you pay for VST plugins, you usually spend less anyway (redline monitor pro is £69 if I remember correctly and the various toneboosters isone/ircam hear were probably even cheaper and Beyerdynamic even has a free one that is quite good).
Along with the many capable VST plugins I mentioned that you can use in a pro stack, there are free Foobar plugins, or viper4windows and various minor projects, also for linux. All of them require tinkering and generate hassle, but so does this software. On the flipside they usually let you alter the parameters that matter, which aren't the speakers used, but the HRTF paramenters and reverb.
 
An actual, hassle-free solution is dolby virtual speakers that is included with various sound cards, most notably xonars: even with a $40 xonar dx (which is probably already an upgrade for many) you get a proper virtual speaker simulation that is hassle-free and has 3 presets. It doesn't claim to emulate use big names, but it works better. And the effect can be included in the optical digital output if you want to use an external dac.
Or the focusrite vrm box that I haven't tried but is highly regarded.
 
I'm not sure why you and people after you are condescendingly claiming that "this is not for me". Have you bothered to actually read my post? I DO use convolution software, but I'm not rich enough to afford a realiser (which I consider to be the pinnacle of headphone listening, something that I have come to hate after years of speaker listening).

Hey SetrioN, can I just offer this point of clarification?  The headfi community is an intelligent, passionate, and pretty opinionated crowd right? To say the least! You fit right in and you're very welcome. 
 
Everyone here, and their brother, thinks they're telling it "like it is." But, humility and maturity allow us to understand that we all only have one person's experience. So many different perspectives and values are going to diverge wildly. When they do, generosity and civility lead us to say, "that's fine, I really like this, but it may not be for you." Brother, it's not condescension. It's respect. Also, just in case, me saying that it's not condescension is not condescension either. I mean this sincerely.
 
Oddly, for a bunch of people gathered around our own individual listening experiences, we genuinely want to look out for each other. We want you to have the best audio experience your finances allow, because we, above all people, know how much music means to you. Please hear this when someone expresses that OOYH might not be for you. We're saying we wish you well with the convolution software and whatever else does work for you. Please also, respect those of us who are saying that we do find OOYH is for us and we don't find it amateurish, problematic, and overpriced. 
 
All the best to you. 

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Nobody is saying the OOYH presets are perfect or  that they are as good as a well done PRIR on a Smyth Realizer, only that it's possible Darin might have, depending upon your HRTF, something that matches it closely enough, you're going to feel you're getting a close emulation at a rock bottom bargain price.  If you want better, he does do custom measurements that won't be approximations, but exact HRTF's using premium systems.
 
And really I don't see what all the controversy is about.  If you want to give it a try, just download the trial version and see if it improves your sound.  If not, no money out of your pocket.  On the other hand if you like it, as I and a few other people in this thread do, then buy it with the preset(s) that work for you.
 
As for the Smyth, see if you can get a demo, see if it's doing anything that blows OOYH out of the water, and decide if it's worth the extra money, the extra box in your listening room, and the extra hassle of trying to persuade your friendly neighborhood Hi End dealer that you want to take a PRIR of some of his $100k+ systems, so you don't have to buy one from him. 

 

[SetiroN]

Quote:

 Please also, respect those of us who are saying that we do find OOYH is for us and we don't find it amateurish, problematic, and overpriced.

   
And I'll correct you again.  I have tried Foobar with VST plugins - a few years ago we had a pretty good thread going with set-ups utilising Dolby headphone.  And we're not being condescending - we are just pointing out that while you are welcome to state your experience - you do not speak for everyone​. Neither do I - I'm just relating my experiences, same as you are.

It's really not a point of contention. This software is amateurish and is overpriced compared to competing solutions. These are facts: there are less problematic and better working solutions on the market, at a lower price. I'm not sure why you're getting offended by that. I don't speak for everyone, but facts are the same for everyone: if you can't change the HRTF, you just can't. If the control panel is extremely basic, it is.
There's no respect involved. I'm not offending you or anyone else who uses it, I'm stating facts. Because while this certainly is an opinionated community, there's also a lot of snake oil that gets praised, so what I'm doing here is looking out for people who just don't know about them and think this software is actually the only thing that can make headphones sound like speakers aside from the realiser: it isn't. It can create problems and even if it doesn't, it doesn't allow calibration for your head, while having an amateurish control panel and disabling immediate software volume control. Forum readers need to know about that instead of only reading feedback from people who very clearly don't have any means of comparison and come here to praise ooyh because the owner is a cool dude. If he is such a cool dude, hopefully he will take my remarks and improve his software.
 
Xonar audio cards: $40 and up
Focusrite VRM box: $70
Toneboosters Isone VST: $20
Redline monitor VST: $70
Beyerdynamic VST: free
Equalizer APO: free, but you have be able to make it work and also have to to create your own convolution file/find a good one for your head and brain.
 
ALL these solutions allow some degree of HRTF configuration. OOYH offers ZERO.
Why is it such a big deal? Because the HRTF part of the equation is the important one. Not the room or the speakers used. If your brain doesn't recognise the impulse response used as sound coming from the right planes, it's not very useful.
 
Here are a few example files from Ircam: http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/salles/listen/sounds.html
some will make no sense to you, some will generate, maybe one or two will actually recreate a properly circular motion along the horizontal plane.
 
I'm not saying ooyh is a total rip off. But it's not cheap. And it's not very well made.
Now if you still want to say that $150 is cheap, feel free to do so. I think you're wrong. But at least other people know about the alternatives.
 

  Perhaps, but maybe it just means finding an OOYH speaker setting BRIR which closely approximates your personal HRTF.

 
The HRTF and speaker simulation are two separate things. With the realiser you can (or will) take a HRIR and personalise it with your own. With OOYH the HRTF is always the same, only the room's impulse response changes, so while different HRIRs will sound better than others, none will be made for your head.
 

  If you actually read the Smyth stuff carefully, you see that they created to way to calibrate other peoples PRIRs closer to your own ears, but you need microphone to create own measurements first. You are simply referring to other peoples PRIRs (which OOYH also uses) which can be hit and miss, but almost guaranteed to be never perfect. Then there's the new "BRIR" calibration stuff Smyth is only coming out (with BRIR exchange etc fancy stuff) that noone has even got to test yet, since A16 is still unreleased.

 
The HRIRs included in the a8 use convolution for your own specific HRTF, which you create with the mini microphones provided. With the a16 you will be able to share impulse responses, but the device will still personalise them for your own head. A HRIR alone is not very useful to anyone but the creator and people with very similar head/torso/ear geometries.

 

[arnaud]

Setiron,
 
What I find bizarre is that you're assuming all of us use OOYH with the builtin presets.
I tried them for myself and none work, I am using my own PRIR/HPEQ set that came from A8 measurements.
 
Next, you're saying there are all these alternative convolution engines but are they that easy to use?
By this I mean 2 things: 1) being able to be easily setup for 16 filters (8.1 to each ear) and 2) work with reasonable lag in conjunction with whatever media player I use on my computer (iTunes, VLC video player and what not).
 
This is a genuine question because, last I checked, that sounded like a lot of trouble (just making VST compatible filter was beyond my skills...).  OOYH was simple enough for me since it's recognised as a sound card on my mac and I just need to copy the filter bundle I got from Darin into the proper folder and am done.
 
cheers,
arnaud

 

[Brooko]

  Quote:
It's really not a point of contention. This software is amateurish and is overpriced compared to competing solutions. These are facts: there are less problematic and better working solutions on the market, at a lower price. I'm not sure why you're getting offended by that. I don't speak for everyone, but facts are the same for everyone: if you can't change the HRTF, you just can't. 

 
Again - its not fact but an opinion.  It may be amateurish or overpriced to you.  It's not to me. And what made you think I was offended.  You and I aren't going to agree - so how about you have your opinion, I'll have mine.  You stated your points.  I'll exercise my right to disagree and ignore 

 

[phoenixdogfan]

That's the beauty of OOYH.  I don't want to personalize the software to my HRTF, I want to find one that fits.  Just like I don't want to walk into a shoe store and stick a broom in the toe of a shoe I fancy and lean on it until I can get something I can walk in without getting blisters.  If there something in the OOYH inventory that is a good fit (and,believe me did I ever find something), then I'm golden.  If not (as seems to be the case with you) , then go to another shoe store, but please don't tell everyone who found good footwear that all the shoes are amateurishly made and overpriced especially when there are people picking up Church's shoes at two cents on the dollar, if that.
 
And as for not having any basis for comparison, consider that I've been an audiophile for 45 years, have owned Bose 901's, EPI Mini Towers, Rodgers LS3/5a's, MartinLogan CLS's, Ariel Accoustic 10t's, Shure 400 series IEM's,  and currently own Sennheiser HD 800's, Sennheiser IE 800's,  Audeze LCD X's, and Kef LS50's.
 
I've also seen every major Rock Group from the 70's and 80's from Linda Ronstadt to the Rolling Stones, to CSNY, go Pink Floyd;  spent many a night in clubs listening to live Jazz, and attended over 100 classical music concert at Severance Hall in Cleveland and the Shermerhorn Hall in Nashville.  In short I know what I'm talking about,  and while I too think Darin is pretty cool, he wouldn't get any of my support if his product didn't effect a huge improvement in three of the world's best headphones--the ones I own.
 
I also own TB Isone, btw, and it doesn't come close to doing what OOYH does for my systems.  And yes I do know how to go about setting it up.
 
And Darin is continuously improving the software, and listening to his customers which, of course, is why we think he's cool.
 
BTW, if you're going to set yourself up as an arbiter and expert on what is and is not a worthwhile product for his potential customers and all the rest of us, at least do us the courtesy of explaining what makes you so quintessentially qualified for the job.

 

[SetiroN]

  Setiron,
 
What I find bizarre is that you're assuming all of us use OOYH with the builtin presets.
I tried them for myself and none work, I am using my own PRIR/HPEQ set that came from A8 measurements.
 
Next, you're saying there are all these alternative convolution engines but are they that easy to use?
By this I mean 2 things: 1) being able to be easily setup for 16 filters (8.1 to each ear) and 2) work with reasonable lag in conjunction with whatever media player I use on my computer (iTunes, VLC video player and what not).
 
This is a genuine question because, last I checked, that sounded like a lot of trouble (just making VST compatible filter was beyond my skills...).  OOYH was simple enough for me since it's recognised as a sound card on my mac and I just need to copy the filter bundle I got from Darin into the proper folder and am done.
 
cheers,
arnaud

I'm sorry to have assumed that, I believe you are the only one using your personal impulse response. But you see... you had to send the files to Darin, so that he could provide files to replace the default ones. That's not how things should be done. The software's control panel should have options to load your own IR and change the latencies, but it doesn't. Instead, it focuses on fancy speaker names. It's unfortunate.
 
Other convolution engines are inherently complicated to setup system-wide. Which is why I'm suggesting to buy a xonar card/focusrite vrm box if you want something that is easy to setup and works system wide: it's cheaper, easier and with no drawbacks.
A loopback through a VST host is low latency if you use ASIO drivers and can be done on any OS with nearly limitless options as there are countless VST plugins that you can concatenate; but you need to know how to use them.
Otherwise on windows you can use equalizer apo, on linux jconvolver, and I'm sure there's something for mac too, but they're even harder to setup.
 
Again, I'm not against this software. I wish it worked well. But, for my standards, it doesn't.
 

  That's the beauty of OOYH.  I don't want to personalize the software to my HRTF, I want to find one that fits.

The point is that OOYH uses one HRTF, either from a dummy head or Darin himself. The profiles only change the room and speakers, not the HRTF.
 
Arnaud had him provide a way to change the default files with his personal ones, but aside from that, you can't change it.
 
Some rooms will sound better than others, but the fundamental issue of binaural audio is the shape of your head and ears changing how sound waves reach your eardrum. And on OOYH you can't change ANYTHING except volumes, forcing 16 bits and the speakers used.
 
Here's hoping Darin will listen to me as well. As of now, I don't think it's worth $150 because an entry level xonar card does it better and doesn't have any of the drawbacks. I don't think I have to list which live concerts I've been to (?) to say that.
 
When a future version will solve the compatibility issues and allow you to choose between multiple heads, not just multiple rooms, I will change my opinion and buy it.

 

[edwardsean]

I have to say, I wasn’t sure about continuing this debate started by SetrioN. And, yet… I found myself possessed of some time, and I felt a responsibility to not leave the mistaken impression that SetrioN was right. Okay, just kidding, but–with respect–I did want to offer a counter perspective to some issues he raised.
 
My Background: To Phoenix’s point regarding background, I’ve been involved with headphone audio for decades and I consider my gear top-tier (Tidal Hifi > Sonarworks > OOYH > Synergistic Research USB > Audiophilleo transport > Moon Neo 430HAD > Double Helix Molecule Elite > HD800, etc.) I’ve been involved with audio engineering and have used software plugins since their inception and have rafts of the very best pro-audio plugs. I’ve used convolution software since it was invented for pro-audio, years before Smyth brought it to home audio. 
 
In–my–opinion, OOYH is neither amateurish or overpriced. 
 
Amateurish?
I get what SetrioN is saying here, I do. Along with him, I wish that OOYH was a more refined product in terms of performance, features, configurability, UI, etc. I think Darin would be the first to say there are issues that need to be addressed in the future. If SetrioN’s criticism has pushed Darin in any positive way forward, then I’m glad for it. But, to my thinking, “amateurish” is not exactly the right word in our context.
 
The audio world is a funny place, where you have juggernauts like Sony and Sennheiser in the same market as small shops like MrSpeakers and Tralucent. At the extreme, is Charles Altman’s Tera-Player. It’s not exactly the most um… “professional” DAP, with it’s “super-sophisticated” UI and “dizzying array” of features. Yet it’s so highly regarded, that if you want one, you have to send in an application, along with 10,000€ [sic., and sick]. Does it look like one man made it in his garage? Yeah... Can you call it "amateurish"? I guess. But, similar to OOYH, I think that would mislead people about what it can do. 
 
In terms of software plugins you have a giant like Waves whose plugins always have great feature sets, clever UIs with attractive graphics, and then you have small operations like Paul Frindle’s Pro Audio DSP and Michael Carne’s Exponential Audio. These guys are genius-legends in the field, but I cringed when I had to use their earlier plugins. But, here’s the thing, they were more effective and sounded better than the majority of the field of competition. My point is that the best products are not necessarily made by those with the resources to deliver the most polished results. 
 
To my ears, OOYH sounds better and is more effective for audiophile purposes than its competitors no matter the features others may support. I’ve been through the plugins SetrioN mentioned (except Focusrite VRM, because it involves hardware) and many he didn’t. When a new headphone-speaker virtualization plugin emerges, I check it out. Some are good, some are bad, some allow you to configure HRTF, some don’t, but no matter how professionally executed, none of them yield the caliber of audiophile sound as brought to us by our good ol’ “amateur” plugin designer, professional cool dude, Darin Fong. Which brings me to…
 
Overpriced?
I mentioned Waves because they are the largest, most established software plugin developers around. You’ve heard their stuff on virtually every hit track in the past decade. I’m a big fan of their plugins. So, when, earlier this year, they released their NX Virtual Mix Room, I jumped on it. Over the plugs mentioned so far, it represents the newest tech available, and it’s everything OOYH isn’t. It looks great, the UI is a pleasure to use, it uses your computer cam for real time head tracking, and yes, it allows you to input your own HRTF. So I anxiously dug through my desk for that free tape measure I got at Ikea and carefully measured my head circumference and interaural arc and plugged in the numbers.
 
I explored the plugin over time, adjusting all the things you can’t configure in OOYH, just like I did with Toneboosters Isone, Redline Monitor, Flux Ircam, etc., etc. It’s really well done; the HRTF adjustment is great, and I think it sounds like… not at all what I wanted. I vastly prefer OOYH, which I found really interesting. You have to understand, companies like Waves and Flux are not consumer audio hacks. If anyone knows what they’re doing with psychoacoustics–they’ve proved themselves year over year. These guys define professional and hold the high regard of audio engineers around the world. And as I thought about it, maybe that’s the problem. 
 
It’s not that these aren’t great products, but they, along with most of those mentioned by SetrioN, were designed as a solution for studio engineers to test mixes when they don’t have access to a monitoring room. They help solve a bunch of technical problems involved in translating a mix to speakers when all you’ve got are headphones. These products perform that function with varying effectiveness and varying sound quality. But, even at their most successful, the goal is to replicate a precise, sterile near field monitor. That’s not what I want. I want an emulation of a room-filing euphonic-sounding floor speaker. Whether the result actually matches the sonic signature of the specific speaker in the preset title is not something I care about. 
 
SetrioN, you stated that OOYH “is overpriced,” and that this is a fact because the competing software is cheaper. However, I’m sure you’re aware that just because something is priced over the competition doesn’t mean it’s overpriced. It has to be priced over what people think it’s worth paying. Starbucks is priced over Dunkin' Donuts. Is it overpriced? Maybe. Again, I do understand the concern. But, that’s not something you can determine as a fact all by your lonesome. The community in the market determines that together and casts votes with their wallets. 
 
What I’m trying to say in the end, is that the best of the competing software may have their uses, but no matter how well executed, they don’t sound like, or anywhere near as good as, OOYH for audiophile applications—to me. How good does OOYH sound to me? Don’t tell Darin, but I would’ve paid more than $150.