[bigshot]

Headphones sound nothing like speakers. Even with cross feed they sound nothing like speakers.

I agree that you’re wasting your time... ours too.

 

[castleofargh]

When I say similar to speaker I mean some aspects, not all aspects. Speakers don't give excessive ILD, same with crossfeed => SIMILAR

I am done now. I don't care what you or other peope think. Wasting my life here is pointless.

that's rich coming from you on this topic. when you don't try to force your delusion of objectivity onto us, this thread is a friendly one where people who enjoy crossfeed share their personal experiences and discuss the VSTs or analog solutions they've tried.

you want to discuss ILD and ITD for sound localization? it's clearly a tiny part of what we listen to in music, if you asked around why people don't stick to using crossfeed you'd know that most of them just don't like how it sound. maybe it's the bass, maybe it's the singer(comb effect on mono or whatever), maybe they prefer the sense of clarity they get from default headphone sound, maybe they actually find that they're losing too much "width" to gain too little "depth", etc. all subjective reasons, and not everybody has the same. you specifically find it important to feel sound localization a certain way, this is your preference. and really nothing else.
but let's pretend that ILD and ITD are the important stuff because it's the crossfeed topic and you want to discuss that(given how you usually mention ILD like you're trying to summon something). the real model for psychoacoustic would involve one physical sound source reaching both ears, not 2 speakers with the same signal a little louder on one side to make us feel like the instrument is on that side somewhere. speaker playback is obviously unnatural spatiality. panning, which has been used massively in almost all stereo albums does not give a frack about ITD, and provides some fake ILD-ish cues(doesn't bother at all about changing the FR because with 2 sound sources it would create more of a mess than anything else. same with ITD). yet your entire argument is that making headphone's sound partially and very approximately like a pair of speakers for direct sound only, is the way to experience the more natural spatiality. that's your entire "objective" argument. do you start to sense the giant holes in that picture?

ILD and ITD are the right stuff for real life everyday sound localization(one sound source at one place in space), that much has been supported by a great many experiments and can IMO be considered a fact. but your deduction of that mechanism is that we need to badly copy a part of speaker playback that didn't rely on proper ILD or ITD in the first place, while arguing that you do it for the ILD and ITD. that's strange. just like it's strange how easily you make localization the obvious priority for everybody when headphone playback never really cared much about that and has consistently grown to be the giant market it is today.
anytime we get you to admit that one part of your argument is wrong or cruelly missing something, the next time or sometimes even in the same post, you're back writing that crossfeed gives more "natural spatiality" and is a clear improvement over default headphone playback. which again, is fine as your personal impression, but bollocks as an objective statement. if you never plan to drop that delusion of objectivity, the best option is indeed to stop posting about it, because acoustic and psychoacoustic aren't going to change and make you right anytime soon.

Nobody would use crossfeed if it didn't improve things.

you can turn this around and argue pretty much anything. like, if audiophile power cables weren't an improvement, nobody would use them. in practice, very few people do use crossfeed on a regular basis. even among those who tried, I'm pretty sure the majority doesn't continue using it all the time. you have the same tunnel vision about the situation as a vinyl or tube lover can have sometimes, being so very sure they they are using the objectively superior stuff because it feels better to them, and no amount of fact will change their mind. you usually dislike those people who can't accept the facts, but when it comes to crossfeed, you become one of them. maybe it's one of those things where a psy or a cop mustn't get involved with a personal case because it's assumed that he can't be partial. IDK.

 

[bigshot]

If crossfeed was an improvement, everyone would use it. Headphones would come with it built in.

 

[gregorio]

[1] When I say similar to speaker I mean some aspects, not all aspects. Speakers don't give excessive ILD, same with crossfeed => SIMILAR
[2] I am done now.
[2a] I don't care what you or other peope think.
[2b] Wasting my life here is pointless.

1. Ah, in that case: A washing machine is similar to a Formula 1 race car. A washing machine has an electric motor, same with a Formula 1 race car => SIMILAR. By the same token, a sitting room is similar to a helicopter, an elephant is similar to a pencil, etc. If you take just one aspect and ignore all the others, then you end up with nonsense!

2. We can only hope!
2a. What I and other people here think is that it's vitally important to consider ALL the relevant science/facts and NOT just one of the facts in isolation, because that leads to all kinds of nonsense; false assertions, audiophile myths and snake oil marketing, which is pretty much the OPPOSITE of science and why this subforum exists in the first place. If you "don't care" about this, that's up to you but you're in the wrong subforum! However, rather strangely, you do seem to care about it with pretty much every other area covered by sound science, just not when it comes to headphone crossfeed?!
2b. Then don't waste your life here, the choice is entirely yours! Either waste it somewhere else where ALL the relevant science/facts isn't a requirement, simply stop posting about this subject here or preferably (IMHO), do something useful and gain valid/applicable knowledge by learning and understanding ALL the relevant facts!

G

PS. Please read Castle's last post more than once and try to understand it!

 

[71 dB]

that's rich coming from you on this topic. when you don't try to force your delusion of objectivity onto us, this thread is a friendly one where people who enjoy crossfeed share their personal experiences and discuss the VSTs or analog solutions they've tried.

Well, my personal experience of my analog and digital solutions is that crossfeed improves sound a lot for me. To me science of human spatial hearing explains well why this happens.

Crossfeed does NOT make headphones sound like speakers. If I want speaker sound I listen to speakers. Very easy solution!
Depending on the recording crossfeed often gives me an experience of miniature soundstage that is a few feet in size.
Crossfeed in my opinion makes the stereo image cleaner, it's kind of focusing a unfocused picture so that instruments don't overlap eaxh other or be scattered all over.
Crossfeed in my opinion makes bass sound "real", physical while without it (too much ILD) in my opinion makes bass sound fake, artificial.
Crossfeed in my opinion reduces listening fatique.
Crossfeed in my opinion removes the annoying sensation of the sound "tickling" my ears and moves these sounds a little bit away my ears.
Crossfeed in my opinions takes some "getting used to" to be fully appreciated.
Crossfeed in my opinion makes the sound less "sparkly/energetic" and more relaxed/natural benefitting longer listening.
Crossfeed in my opinion gives more balanced (speaker-like) take on the M/S - balance of the recording so that S doesn't override M.

This is my friedly opinion. A lot of improvements from a $50 device. Best $50 I ever spent!

you want to discuss ILD and ITD for sound localization? it's clearly a tiny part of what we listen to in music, if you asked around why people don't stick to using crossfeed you'd know that most of them just don't like how it sound. maybe it's the bass, maybe it's the singer(comb effect on mono or whatever), maybe they prefer the sense of clarity they get from default headphone sound, maybe they actually find that they're losing too much "width" to gain too little "depth", etc. all subjective reasons, and not everybody has the same. you specifically find it important to feel sound localization a certain way, this is your preference. and really nothing else.
but let's pretend that ILD and ITD are the important stuff because it's the crossfeed topic and you want to discuss that(given how you usually mention ILD like you're trying to summon something). the real model for psychoacoustic would involve one physical sound source reaching both ears, not 2 speakers with the same signal a little louder on one side to make us feel like the instrument is on that side somewhere. speaker playback is obviously unnatural spatiality. panning, which has been used massively in almost all stereo albums does not give a frack about ITD, and provides some fake ILD-ish cues(doesn't bother at all about changing the FR because with 2 sound sources it would create more of a mess than anything else. same with ITD). yet your entire argument is that making headphone's sound partially and very approximately like a pair of speakers for direct sound only, is the way to experience the more natural spatiality. that's your entire "objective" argument. do you start to sense the giant holes in that picture?

People like or dislike things for various reasons. It's complex. As I said I think jumping to the world of crossfeed takes "getting used to". The sound is less sparkly and energetic and even more monolike so if you are into "special effects" you may find it disappointed at first, but for me the "sparkle" comes back in a minute or so when my ears adjust to the lower levels of ILD, only better!

We have to live with the problems of stereo sound and how recordings are mixed. I use adjustable crossfeed level to get the best out of each recording, in some cases no crossfeed at all gives the best result. It's clear that a recording produced for speakers has spatiality that is more or less unsuitable for headphones because the playback scenario is SO different. No acoustic crossfeed. No early reflections from the room. No room reverberation. No change in sound when you turn your head or move. It is just SO different!

Does this diffrence matter? What parts do matter? I think everything matter, but the difference in ILD levels (lack of acoustic crossfeed) is in my opinion the thing that matters the most. The lack of ER and reverberation is less of a problem, because recordings tend to have own spatiality, all kinds of reverberations and delay effects used. My CDs of Bach's organ music contain MASSIVE church acoustics and reverberation so not adding the ER and reverberation of my own listening room on top of that doesn't sound like a big loss. Maybe the most dry recordings could benefit for some room acoustics, but you can always use speakers if you find the sound too dry. The lack of sound not changing when I move isn't an issue for me. I like it how the sound stays the same when I move and in fact it annoys me with speakers! That's what you get when you listen to headphones most of the time!

So, for me the lack of acoustic crossfeed is the BIG issue that really needs fixing, hence crossfeed. I believe you can improve sound by fixing only one thing. You may have both distortion and silly bass boost in your sound and fixing only either the distortion OR the silly bass boost would improve sound even when the other remains. I don't see giant holes in my picture, because I am not talking about "the most natural" spatiality, but "more natural" spatiality.

ILD and ITD are the right stuff for real life everyday sound localization(one sound source at one place in space), that much has been supported by a great many experiments and can IMO be considered a fact. but your deduction of that mechanism is that we need to badly copy a part of speaker playback that didn't rely on proper ILD or ITD in the first place, while arguing that you do it for the ILD and ITD. that's strange. just like it's strange how easily you make localization the obvious priority for everybody when headphone playback never really cared much about that and has consistently grown to be the giant market it is today.
anytime we get you to admit that one part of your argument is wrong or cruelly missing something, the next time or sometimes even in the same post, you're back writing that crossfeed gives more "natural spatiality" and is a clear improvement over default headphone playback. which again, is fine as your personal impression, but bollocks as an objective statement. if you never plan to drop that delusion of objectivity, the best option is indeed to stop posting about it, because acoustic and psychoacoustic aren't going to change and make you right anytime soon.

The rationale here is that the recordings have been mixed so that they work with speakers and take account the set up of two sound sources. The recordings have spatial information that makes sense when acoustic crossfeed (+studio acoustics) happens. You have to make ILD larger than natural levels indicate, because acoustic crossfeed will reduce it massively. That's why things like LCR panning work with speakers. Acoustic crossfeed (and other room acoustics) shapes this otherwise nonsensical spatiality into something that makes sense. When you listen to such recordings with headphones, nothing is being done to shape anything and the spatiality remains nonsensical, unless you use crossfeed to shape some sense into the spatiality.

Yes, headphones haven't cared much about these things, but that doesn't mean I can't improve things myself. I think this whole treat if about people arguing about what should be done to headphone listening after decades of neglect. I believe crossfeed does improve the spatiality of headphone sound even if it really fixes only ONE thing. It's the one that matters. I believe headphone sound without any processing is fundamentally so wrong that even a half-assed "worst in the world" crossfeeder improves things not to mention more careful crossfeeding or even more sophisticatic things like HRTF convolutions. It's not that crossfeed does everything 100 % correctly (of course not). It's that not doing anything is so ****'ed up that almost anything is better. Number 80 is not the same as 100, but it's much closer to 100 than 0. If my target is 100 and my options are 0 and 80, choosing 80 is wise even when skeptics whine about the missing 20. I'm rather missing 20 than 100! The psychological problem of crossfeed is that people think it's something additional to mess up things when it's in reality something that is missing in normal headphone listening. Headphones miss acoustic crossfeed and room acoustics. Adding crossfeed is not something additional, it's missing less. The assumption of some sort of crossfeed happening in payback is baked into recordings, otherwise recordings would have lower level of ILD.

you can turn this around and argue pretty much anything. like, if audiophile power cables weren't an improvement, nobody would use them. in practice, very few people do use crossfeed on a regular basis. even among those who tried, I'm pretty sure the majority doesn't continue using it all the time. you have the same tunnel vision about the situation as a vinyl or tube lover can have sometimes, being so very sure they they are using the objectively superior stuff because it feels better to them, and no amount of fact will change their mind. you usually dislike those people who can't accept the facts, but when it comes to crossfeed, you become one of them. maybe it's one of those things where a psy or a cop mustn't get involved with a personal case because it's assumed that he can't be partial. IDK.

Can people hear snake oil cables in blind tests? Can people hear crossfeed in blind test? Clearly I am not "selling" snake oil, because the effects of crossfeed are easy for everyone to hear. The only debate is whether the effect is positive or negative. It's interesting how selling snake oil is easier than selling crossfeed. Crossfeed market is small and people tend to make their own crossfeeders including me.

Digital sound was designed to be superior to vinyl. No wonder it is. Is headphone spatiality designed to be perfect? Are records mixed to give the best possible result with headphones? If that's the case then there is reason to think crossfeed is not different from tubes and vinyl.

 

[71 dB]

1. Ah, in that case: A washing machine is similar to a Formula 1 race car. A washing machine has an electric motor, same with a Formula 1 race car => SIMILAR. By the same token, a sitting room is similar to a helicopter, an elephant is similar to a pencil, etc. If you take just one aspect and ignore all the others, then you end up with nonsense!

2. We can only hope!
2a. What I and other people here think is that it's vitally important to consider ALL the relevant science/facts and NOT just one of the facts in isolation, because that leads to all kinds of nonsense; false assertions, audiophile myths and snake oil marketing, which is pretty much the OPPOSITE of science and why this subforum exists in the first place. If you "don't care" about this, that's up to you but you're in the wrong subforum! However, rather strangely, you do seem to care about it with pretty much every other area covered by sound science, just not when it comes to headphone crossfeed?!
2b. Then don't waste your life here, the choice is entirely yours! Either waste it somewhere else where ALL the relevant science/facts isn't a requirement, simply stop posting about this subject here or preferably (IMHO), do something useful and gain valid/applicable knowledge by learning and understanding ALL the relevant facts!

G

PS. Please read Castle's last post more than once and try to understand it!

1. How many aspects of speakers in a room do headphones take in to account? Zero. No wonder the result is nonsencical spatiality. One aspect is better than none. A washing machine really is more closer to F1 than handwashing in a sink.

2. I have lost my hope.

2a. So, does this mean it's useless to improve TIM-distortion in a amplifier if you don't fix all other forms of distortion at the same time? You must renovate your whole house, renovation only the kitchen is not an improvement? I don't keep things in isolation. I talk about what matters, what is relevant as you say. You say I talk about ILD, but not ITD. That's because ILD matters and ITD doesn't matter in THIS context. Why? Because crossfeed to mess up with ITD it must be correct in the first place, but how could it be when recordings are mixed for speakers assuming acoustic crossfeed, ER and room acoustics? My claim is ITD is very messed up with headphones (because there is not acoustic crossfeed, ER or reverberation) and crossfeed makes it less messed up if anything. That's why I don't need to address it as a problem, because it is not. If ITD was perfect for headphones, we would have problems with speakers since acoustic crossfeed, ER and reverberation of the listening room mess up things. My understanding is that especially with older recorfings, things like ILD and ITD are messed up no matter what you do, but spatial hearing can make some sense of nonsensical spatiality if it's given a change for example using crossfeed. If the spatialty is stunning for headphones then maybe that's one of those recordings that I listen to without crossfeed.

2b. It was a BIG mistake on my part to register here. It has been totally different from what I expected. Most things in life are. I take a note of this and never register to forums anymore. Better stay away! Unfortunately it's very difficult to stay away. I have managed to leave one stupid forum. That's something.

 

[bfreedma]

1. How many aspects of speakers in a room do headphones take in to account? Zero. No wonder the result is nonsencical spatiality. One aspect is better than none. A washing machine really is more closer to F1 than handwashing in a sink.

2. I have lost my hope.

2a. So, does this mean it's useless to improve TIM-distortion in a amplifier if you don't fix all other forms of distortion at the same time? You must renovate your whole house, renovation only the kitchen is not an improvement? I don't keep things in isolation. I talk about what matters, what is relevant as you say. You say I talk about ILD, but not ITD. That's because ILD matters and ITD doesn't matter in THIS context. Why? Because crossfeed to mess up with ITD it must be correct in the first place, but how could it be when recordings are mixed for speakers assuming acoustic crossfeed, ER and room acoustics? My claim is ITD is very messed up with headphones (because there is not acoustic crossfeed, ER or reverberation) and crossfeed makes it less messed up if anything. That's why I don't need to address it as a problem, because it is not. If ITD was perfect for headphones, we would have problems with speakers since acoustic crossfeed, ER and reverberation of the listening room mess up things. My understanding is that especially with older recorfings, things like ILD and ITD are messed up no matter what you do, but spatial hearing can make some sense of nonsensical spatiality if it's given a change for example using crossfeed. If the spatialty is stunning for headphones then maybe that's one of those recordings that I listen to without crossfeed.

2b. It was a BIG mistake on my part to register here. It has been totally different from what I expected. Most things in life are. I take a note of this and never register to forums anymore. Better stay away! Unfortunately it's very difficult to stay away. I have managed to leave one stupid forum. That's something.

If you would simply couch crossfeed as your personal preference, not one would debate it with you. Your ongoing efforts to turn your personal preferences into universal truth is problematic as you continue to cherry pick “facts” then insist that in isolation within a complex system, that cherry picked element constitutes an improvement.

Enjoy crossfeed, but please stop insisting it’s an unquestionable improvement for everyone then insulting those who don’t agree.

Personally, I find crossfeed to be more detrimental than beneficial for headphone listening, but I’m not going to insult those that feel differently.

 

[71 dB]

If you would simply couch crossfeed as your personal preference, not one would debate it with you. Your ongoing efforts to turn your personal preferences into universal truth is problematic as you continue to cherry pick “facts” then insist that in isolation within a complex system, that cherry picked element constitutes an improvement.

Enjoy crossfeed, but please stop insisting it’s an unquestionable improvement for everyone then insulting those who don’t agree.

Personally, I find crossfeed to be more detrimental than beneficial for headphone listening, but I’m not going to insult those that feel differently.

Well, nobody has to like crossfeed. Everybody has their preferences. What I have tried to do is justify the use of crossfeed from scientific point of view, cherry picked or not. It's not like crossfeed was invented "accidentally" without scientific reason. It was reasoned from the facts that ILD is larger with headphones than speakers. Attacking my arguments you kind of attack also those pioneers who invented crossfeed. I thought I had finally discovered the purpose of my life being a messias of universal truth of crossfeed, but looks like that's not the case and my life still has no purpose and I still have nothing to offer to the World except insults. Depressing.

On the bright side I was able to fix my older CD player today! It had problems with the disc loading mechanism. I took the mechanism apart and boiled the rubber belt that drives the disc loading mechanism for 10 minutes and put it all together and now it works like new! The rubber belt had gotten loose and it also had a non-circular shape for staying in the same position as I haven't used the CD player for years. Boiling it fixed that. So, I am not 100 % hopeless human being. I can do something right.

Yes, I will enjoy crossfeed on those recordings that need it in my opinion, thank you.

 

[71 dB]

On the bright side I was able to fix my older CD player today! It had problems with the disc loading mechanism. I took the mechanism apart and boiled the rubber belt that drives the disc loading mechanism for 10 minutes and put it all together and now it works like new! The rubber belt had gotten loose and it also had a non-circular shape for staying in the same position as I haven't used the CD player for years. Boiling it fixed that. So, I am not 100 % hopeless human being. I can do something right.

 

[bigshot]

1. How many aspects of speakers in a room do headphones take in to account? Zero. No wonder the result is nonsencical spatiality. One aspect is better than none. A washing machine really is more closer to F1 than handwashing in a sink.

You realize tortured logic like this is why you get pounced upon, don't you? You're not a dumb person. If the purpose of a washing machine is washing clothes, how is a car better than washing the clothes in the sink?

Similarly, you're waffling all over the term "spatiality". One moment you're saying that crossfeed can make headphones sound more like speakers in a room, and then you admit that headphones with crossfeed sound nothing like speakers (which is the truth). I'm curious why you keep twisting and turning like this... do you enjoy the attention? Does it validate how you think you should be treated? Do you just like getting mad at other people? I honestly can't figure out why people keep throwing themselves back into the ring over and over when it's clear they aren't equipped. I see that in several people in this forum and it's like the Black Knight sketch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail... "only a flesh wound".

(that last reference was for Castle)

Bfreedma is right. All you need to do is say, "I like the sound of crossfeed." and leave it at that. You don't need to justify a personal preference and no one will nail you to the wall any more. Trying to scientifically validate a personal preference is like trying to prove religion. It's a waste of time. Just go with it without having to explain it. No one will argue with you over that.

 

[71 dB]

You realize tortured logic like this is why you get pounced upon, don't you? You're not a dumb person. If the purpose of a washing machine is washing clothes, how is a car better than washing the clothes in the sink?

Similarly, you're waffling all over the term "spatiality". One moment you're saying that crossfeed can make headphones sound more like speakers, and then you admit that headphones with crossfeed sound nothing like speakers (which is the truth). I'm curious why you keep twisting and turning like this... do you enjoy the attention? Does it validate how you think you should be treated? Do you just like getting mad at other people? I honestly can't figure out why people keep throwing themselves back into the ring over and over when it's clear they aren't equipped. I see that in several people in this forum and it's like the Black Knight sketch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail... "only a flesh wound".

(that last reference was for Castle)

I have been misunderstood. Crossfeed does not make speaker spatiality! It does something else, apparently too difficult for me to explain in english, but that something else improves headphone sound for me a lot!

That something else is related to ILD which is related to spatiality, but that doesn't mean SPEAKER spatiality, just spatiality. Crossfeed shares with speakers reduced ILD levels, so in THAT sense it's speaker-like, but that DOESNT mean speaker spatiality!!!! Speaker spatiality still has massive differences from crossfeed spatiality.

 

[bigshot]

That is a good start. We'll see if you can leave it at that once gregorio comes back to answer your recent flurry of comments.

 

[Davesrose]

While recent exchanges in this thread don't seem to be productive, there was the topic of reverb and "effective spatiality" that was mentioned. I'm writing while watching Bladerunner in UHD (and its new Atmos mix vs previous 5.1). To me, it's a very effective movie when it comes to "spatiality"...more so than some new remixes of older movies to "3D audio". I've noticed quite a few new remixes do at least try more pans and focus of ambient sounds going to the rear speakers (movies like Apollo 13, having raised levels with typewriter sounds happening during office scenes...and also there appears to be more coherent soundstage of music). Bladerunner was a different beast in which the music was heavily synthesized...and demanded its own reverb. It seems also that different sound effects are heavy in reverb as well (such as watch the opening scene with spinners flying toward the Tyrell corp, and how reverb vacillates with the sound effects of VFX and actual instrument notes). With that and the apparent detail to optimal telecine process, this should be the final edition of the movie.

 

[bigshot]

I don't have the Atmos, but I've always preferred the original theatrical version of Blade Runner. Has that been remixed too?

I think most people who have multichannel systems prefer when the channels are discrete over ones that mesh to create sound fields. I usually like it when the sound reflects an overall space, but I know I'm on my own with that.

 

[71 dB]

Fun Fact: I have never owned a copy of Blade Runner on any format. No VHS, no DVD, no Blu-ray… …the movie simply does less for me than for most sci-fi fans and I have seen it enough times in movie theatre and from tv. Not saying it's a bad movie, on the contrary it is a very good movie, but just doesn't resonate with my personal referencies. It's too gritty for my taste perhaps and has also more eye core than I cared for.

No, ILD doesn't scientifically explain why I don't care about Blade Runner that much.