[project86]

Just became aware of this software - looks interesting. HERE is the link. The creator is a member here. I have to find some time to give it a try, so I make no claims about how effective it might be. But it seems like an ambitious concept, Sort of an attempt to do what the Smyth Realizer does, through software only, based on measuring various real world speaker systems including some Magico, Wilson, JansZen, Focal, Quad ESL, Maggies, Revels, etc.
 
It's free to try - with a 2 minute time limit on each one (that resets after 30 seconds). Definitely gonna give it a shot when I can, and I'd love to hear other opinions as well. 

 

[blueangel2323]

It's a fascinating concept. Darin consulted with some members here, including myself, regarding features and pricing a while ago. I'll download it and A-B it with TB Isone when I get the chance. So far Isone is the only software-based solution that comes anywhere close to convincingly portraying the sound of a speaker system, but there is still some distortion.

 

[darinf]

Hi everyone,
 
FYI, I will be following this thread, of course, so if you have any questions, let me know here or PM me.
 
For those of you trying the trial, here's some quick tips when you use it for the first time:
 

The first time you hear Out Of Your Head, it may not sound right. It's not the software, it's your brain!

The problem is that your brain doesn't know what it's hearing. Generally if you are sitting at your laptop or desktop computer, the sound will sound like it's coming from behind a wall or out in the middle of the room, etc. Since your eyes don't see anything that the sound could be coming from, your brain gets confused.

So to help "train your brain" to ignore what you're seeing and actually hear what you're hearing, try some of these tips.

1. I know this sounds strange, but if there's any way you can have a pair of speakers out in front of you when you first listen to it, that can really help with your brain figuring out what it's hearing. When your eyes see an actual pair of speakers, your brain says, "Oh OK, the sound is coming from the speakers." Without any speakers, it takes a while for your brain to figure out that the sound is coming from the middle of a room or from behind the wall in front of you, etc.

1. If you don't have any speakers handy, another good way of "calibrating your brain" is to use the "mute" buttons. In the Out Of Your Head control panel interface, there is a speaker icon at the bottom next to each channel. For two channel music, click on the Left or Right channel speaker icon to mute that channel. You brain has a much easier time localizing the sound source of just one speaker rather than two. Then once you hear the location of one speaker, you can turn on the other speaker and you might have an easier time recognizing what you are hearing.

1. The very last effect at the bottom of the list is "bypass". Scroll down and click on the bypass so you can hear the sound fed straight through without any effect. Then when you switch back to a speaker preset, you will hear a dramatic difference in the sound and you should hear the image move from inside your head to out in front of you.
    
2. Finally, if all else fails, just close your eyes. Let your ears interpret the sound without your eyes confusing your ears.

Eventually you will get used to it and be able to hear where all of the speakers are in the room.

-Darin

 

[Warmuth327]

Hi,
 
So I downloaded the trial and installed, but now when I open MediaMonkey it is cycling through my library of songs and won't allow me to play anything.
 
Is it doing some profiling of the tracks in the background in order to use the driver, or is this a glitch?
 
Thanks
Darren

 

[darinf]

  Hi,
 
So I downloaded the trial and installed, but now when I open MediaMonkey it is cycling through my library of songs and won't allow me to play anything.
 
Is it doing some profiling of the tracks in the background in order to use the driver, or is this a glitch?
 
Thanks
Darren

Sounds like a glitch. Out Of Your Head is just a windows sound card driver. When you run Out Of Your Head, it will switch your Windows Default Playback Device to the Out Of Your Head driver. So from that point on, all the sound routed to the default Windows device should play through Out Of Your Head and then onto your actual sound output device.
 
Out Of Your Head does not know where the sound is coming from, so it should not have any effect on any software.
 
In whatever media player you're using, you should have that app configured to output to Windows Direct Sound and use the Primary Sound Driver. Also, Out Of Your Head wants to see 48khz/24bit or 32bit output from the media player. We currently do not support ASIO, WASAPI, Kernel Streaming, etc.
 
I am guessing that MediaMonkey is trying to play a file and for some reason can't play it through Out Of Your Head so it skips to the next song and tries that.
 
I am not familiar with MediaMonkey, but I will try it and see if I can get it to work.
 
In the meantime, just to get some sound playing through Out Of Your Head to test, can you try Windows Media Player or VLC or iTunes?
 
-Darin

 

[Warmuth327]

  Sounds like a glitch. Out Of Your Head is just a windows sound card driver. When you run Out Of Your Head, it will switch your Windows Default Playback Device to the Out Of Your Head driver. So from that point on, all the sound routed to the default Windows device should play through Out Of Your Head and then onto your actual sound output device.
 
Out Of Your Head does not know where the sound is coming from, so it should not have any effect on any software.
 
In whatever media player you're using, you should have that app configured to output to Windows Direct Sound and use the Primary Sound Driver. Also, Out Of Your Head wants to see 48khz/24bit or 32bit output from the media player. We currently do not support ASIO, WASAPI, Kernel Streaming, etc.
 
I am guessing that MediaMonkey is trying to play a file and for some reason can't play it through Out Of Your Head so it skips to the next song and tries that.
 
I am not familiar with MediaMonkey, but I will try it and see if I can get it to work.
 
In the meantime, just to get some sound playing through Out Of Your Head to test, can you try Windows Media Player or VLC or iTunes?
 
-Darin

 
Yep, that sounds like what it is doing.  MM is outputting WASAPI 44.1/16bit out to the DAC which is configured to 24 bit.
 
Will flip over to direct sound and try it out.
 
Darren

 

[FullCircle]

  Just became aware of this software - looks interesting. HERE is the link. The creator is a member here. I have to find some time to give it a try, so I make no claims about how effective it might be. But it seems like an ambitious concept, Sort of an attempt to do what the Smyth Realizer does, through software only, based on measuring various real world speaker systems including some Magico, Wilson, JansZen, Focal, Quad ESL, Maggies, Revels, etc.
 
It's free to try - with a 2 minute time limit on each one (that resets after 30 seconds). Definitely gonna give it a shot when I can, and I'd love to hear other opinions as well.

 
 
   I took it for a spin & I really enjoyed the cinema feature....   it gave me the "wow" effect.

 

[Chodi]

I installed your trial on my x64 system with JRiver and I cannot get it to work. I am usually pretty good with these things but I think the instructions may be incomplete. In JRiver it gives me the option to select your driver as the ouput but it does not actually change anything. I tried selecting your driver as default in Windows and then selected my Hiface 2 as default. Neither really activates your driver. I also tried selecting your driver in Jriver and also my Hiface 2 driver. Same results neither activates your software as the output. Perhaps you could provide more detailed instructions for those using JRiver.

 

[darinf]

  I installed your trial on my x64 system with JRiver and I cannot get it to work. I am usually pretty good with these things but I think the instructions may be incomplete. In JRiver it gives me the option to select your driver as the ouput but it does not actually change anything. I tried selecting your driver as default in Windows and then selected my Hiface 2 as default. Neither really activates your driver. I also tried selecting your driver in Jriver and also my Hiface 2 driver. Same results neither activates your software as the output. Perhaps you could provide more detailed instructions for those using JRiver.

Basically, you should never have to switch your Windows Default Playback Device to the Out Of Your Head driver. In fact, Out Of Your Head will not launch if you have it selected as the default playback device.
 
So, just to be safe, before you launch Out Of Your Head, make sure that the Windows Default Playback Device is set to your desired output device. Usually it's your DAC or headphone jack, etc. (Make sure Out Of Your Head is NOT running when you switch default playback devices.)
 
Then launch Out Of Your Head. In the Out Of Your Head control panel interface, verify that your preferred audio output device has a green check by it in the right panel of the Out Of Your Head interface.
 
Then in JRiver, here's the settings you should have:

1. In "Tools/Options/Audio/Output Mode" set to Direct Sound.
2. Then you should have the "Output mode settings/Device" set to Primary Sound Driver.

​
You should also never change the bit rate of the Out Of Your Head driver in the sound control panel.
 
Other notes, make sure you always quit Out Of Your Head before plugging or unplugging USB audio devices. 
And remember, you should never have to select the Out Of Your Head drive as your default playback device in Windows or in your media player app. 
 
I hope this helps. I need to update the manual for sure. Sorry!
 
Let me know if you still can't get it working. There are more things to try.
 
-Darin

 

[darinf]

   
Yep, that sounds like what it is doing.  MM is outputting WASAPI 44.1/16bit out to the DAC which is configured to 24 bit.
 
Will flip over to direct sound and try it out.
 
Darren

I tried MediaMonkey. As expected, the WASAPI driver does not work. But the Direct Sound driver works great with Out Of Your Head.

 

[darinf]

   
 
   I took it for a spin & I really enjoyed the cinema feature....   it gave me the "wow" effect.

I can't wait to watch a movie with my Noble K10's when I get them. Talk about a "killer combo" for portable use! Plane rides will never be the same again.

 

[Warmuth327]

  I tried MediaMonkey. As expected, the WASAPI driver does not work. But the Direct Sound driver works great with Out Of Your Head.

Yep, got it working, but trying to overcome the 'thinness' of everything.  Doesn't seem to matter which preset I try, it seems to be losing most of the bass and the mids.  Yes, the soundstage and projection is larger, but the 'sound' is not there.  Any thoughts?
 
Darren

 

[FullCircle]

  I can't wait to watch a movie with my Noble K10's when I get them. Talk about a "killer combo" for portable use! Plane rides will never be the same again.

Well that was kind of the big surprise as watching a movie clip on my lap top, really had a "cenima" feel....  I gues the "phrase portable cenima" could be used to describe it.

 

[brunk]

  Well that was kind of the big surprise as watching a movie clip on my lap top, really had a "cenima" feel....  I gues the "phrase portable cenima" could be used to describe it.

Something I have done for some time that many don't realize the true power of JRiver, is that you can apply this DSP to tracks and export them to your portable. You can have this sound on the go without a compatible player for the plug-in!

 

[darinf]

  Yep, got it working, but trying to overcome the 'thinness' of everything.  Doesn't seem to matter which preset I try, it seems to be losing most of the bass and the mids.  Yes, the soundstage and projection is larger, but the 'sound' is not there.  Any thoughts?
 
Darren

Hmm... The output level is lower when going through Out Of Your Head. So your volume level setting may have to be higher than you're used to.
 
Other than that, the amount of bass and mids is dependent on the speakers you are listening to. Speakers like the Quads don't have a lot of bass.
 
Try the "Magical" speakers. They have a lot of bass.
 
Also, since you are listening to the sound of speakers in the room which they were measured, I think overall the bass energy may be proportionally less than what you get with direct sound to your headphones. The bass energy that is heard/felt at the listening position in a room maybe less than what you hear directly from headphones.
 
One other thing I have noticed is that the upper frequency range also has more sound level since you are also hearing the room reflections, etc., especially in the brighter listening rooms. More high end level can then make it sound like less bass for a given volume level.
 
You can also double check that something else is not wrong by using the "bypass" preset. Scroll to the bottom of the list of presets and select "bypass". You should hear the same sound that you hear without Out Of Your Head running, but the output level will be lower than it is without Out Of Your Head running. 
 
-Darin