[bowlofjokes]

I did a search and came up with more pages to view than the rest of the summer will provide. I see headroom has this crossfeed. Do other companies have their own version? Do people like it? I'm trying to figure out if it is an amp gimmick or if people are really using it for more stereo like imaging. I'm just trying to find out what my first amp will be.

 

[Thaddy]

I use crossfeed when listening to my computer setup, but my amp doesn't have a module for use with my CD player. I know Jan Meier (^ Head-Fi sponsor ^) has a crossfeed device in his amps, and there is the Linkwitz version on the Tangent page, which can be found here. It's really personal preference, but I think that a good bit of people here use crossfeed. If I had it on my amp, I'd certainly use it.

[size=xx-small]FYI, I have my setup listed in my profile.[/size]

 

[silmaauki]

I use it but not always. Some older recordings usually need it due to too much gap between the right and left channel.

 

[bowlofjokes]

It sounds like something I would want. It seems like more amps should have it. When i saw not many do that led me to believe no one used it or it was a gimmick

 

[warpdriver]

It's not a gimmick, but the some people just like to hear the signal without alteration. I think the headphone image is wrong so I use it wheneer possible. I do turn it off if I am evaluating the quality of the equipment, but for general listening I set it and forget it.

 

[machead]

You don't have to let the inclusion of crossfeed limit your choice of amplifiers. Meier Audio (one of Head-Fi's sponsors) sells a stand-alone crossfeed filter that can be inserted between your source and amplifier. You can find out more about it here -- click on the "amplifier" link at the left and scroll down to the second-last item on the page. You can also purchase this unit from Todd The Vinyl Junkie.

If you buy any amplifer from Meier Audio or HeadRoom (another of our worthy sponsors), you get a built-in switchable crossfeed filter. Grace Design has also licenced the Meier filter and added it to their m902 model.

Opinion is fairly evenly divided regarding the relative virtues of these two competing crossfeed implementations. One way to satisfy your curiosity, before committing to either, would be to purchase from HeadRoom or Todd The Vinyl Junkie, both of whom offer a 30-day return privilege.

 

[ken36]

I had it with the MKIII-USB and I miss it with the rs-71.

 

[White Fox]

Well-designed crossfeed is definitely not a gimmick. Listening to normal stereo recordings with crossfeed is not only closer to listening to speakers, but how we hear all day (unless you listen to headphones without it 24/7). I use the Meier crossfeed all the time, except with mono recordings.

Part of why crossfeed is not that popular in the high end, IMO, is that it goes against a certain 'purist' mentality - adding another component/circuit in the signal path. That, and the intial reaction that there is a lose of detail. With the Meier, in particular, there is also a perceived loss of bass, even though, to me, Meier crossfeed makes the bass seem less muddy. But if you're highly critical of sound, I can't see how you could claim that the sound with recordings made for speakers is more natural without a well-designed crossover.

An example I made recently was listening to a solo piano recording that uses 2 mics - one for the left side of the piano, and one for the right. There is a lose of continuation from the low to the high notes without crossfeed. It sounds more like two instruments, slightly out of sinc with one another. If all I had to listen was the stereo signal of this recording, I could live with it, but listening with even the lowest setting on my HA-2 is much more like the real thing.
Another example is with multi-tracked drums - especially recordings that don't spread the kit to the extreme widths of the soundstage, but that spread the different parts of the drum more in the center of the stage. When the drummer is hitting each part of the kit, each part of the kit seems to be further isolated without crossfeed - like each part of the drum kit is coming more from its own space and not naturally interacting as much with one another. It just sounds awkward to me after using crossfeed.
I use single instruments as obvious examples, because they are one entity and should not be sliced and diced too much. But this applies to the interaction of all the acoustic tracks in a recording. I can't speak much to electronic music, because I don't really listen that much to that type of music.

I think the whole listener fatigue argument is not convincing, though - if you're going to drop anything for a commecial headphone amp, I doubt the stress from crossfeed-less listening is an issue.

 

[Hirsch]

You've already got a crossfeed processor that's far more sophisticated than any currently on the market: your brain. That's where sensory signals are integrated to form the sonic "image". Headphones are an unusual way to receive stereo sound, and the brain is not used to integrating the signal. This can lead to the "blob" effect, where there is a concentration of sound at the center and earpieces, with gaps in the image. Crossfeed fills these gaps, and can present a stronger initial image by replicating the type of sound that you're more used to hearing and processing (both channels audible to both ears). However, there's a downside. You can learn to integrate the channels in headphone audio. If you listen to headphones a lot, you become more sophisticated at processing the signal, and the auditory image become smooth across the "stage". Add crossfeed then, and you get a big blob in the center of the head. Ugh. I tend to regard crossfeed as an impediment to learning how to process sound from headphones. It's a shortcut to getting a good sonic image from headphones, but in its presence, you never undergoe the perceptual learning needed to create a good image from headphones without it. It does work, but IMO it's a crutch, and should only be used sparingly, or you become dependent on it for headphone listening.

 

[White Fox]

Yes, what a horrible thing. Using the sound of the real-world as a reference.

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hirsch I tend to regard crossfeed as an impediment to learning how to process sound from headphones. It's a shortcut to getting a good sonic image from headphones, but in its presence, you never undergoe the perceptual learning needed to create a good image from headphones without it. It does work, but IMO it's a crutch, and should only be used sparingly, or you become dependent on it for headphone listening.

I have some reservations against this approach. I will never «learn» to feel comfortable with a one-sided bass through headphones (whereas with speakers this causes much less problems). It's a completely unnatural sensation, and I see no sense in training oneself to accept it instead of circumventing it, as little as any other audio flaws holding off from a natural sonic impression and musical enjoyment. I'm speaking of the Meier crossfeed, which is the only one I know and is nothing else than a monophonization of low frequencies -- a natural function of the human hearing with normal free-field listening. Nothing wrong with reproducing the effect electronically. It's a very simple circuit, and AFAIK it doesn't even add electronic components in series to the signal path. After all -- in my experience -- it doesn't affect the purity of sound the least, just makes the bass sound a bit leaner at times.

That said, I use the crossfeed switch on my Corda very rarely myself -- because I edit the corresponding critical recordings by applying my own implementation of «software» crossfeed, primarily meant for my portable players, which then also serves my main system.

 

[drarthurwells]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hirsch You've already got a crossfeed processor that's far more sophisticated than any currently on the market: your brain. That's where sensory signals are integrated to form the sonic "image". Headphones are an unusual way to receive stereo sound, and the brain is not used to integrating the signal. This can lead to the "blob" effect, where there is a concentration of sound at the center and earpieces, with gaps in the image. Crossfeed fills these gaps, and can present a stronger initial image by replicating the type of sound that you're more used to hearing and processing (both channels audible to both ears). However, there's a downside. You can learn to integrate the channels in headphone audio. If you listen to headphones a lot, you become more sophisticated at processing the signal, and the auditory image become smooth across the "stage". Add crossfeed then, and you get a big blob in the center of the head. Ugh. I tend to regard crossfeed as an impediment to learning how to process sound from headphones. It's a shortcut to getting a good sonic image from headphones, but in its presence, you never undergoe the perceptual learning needed to create a good image from headphones without it. It does work, but IMO it's a crutch, and should only be used sparingly, or you become dependent on it for headphone listening.

The brain does not crossfeed.

Crossfeeding induces interaural distortion on purpose. This distortion is when the left ear hears sounds out of the right speaker and vice versa. It is a phase distortion that blurs images and muddies the music into a blob. One advantage of canal earphones is that it eliminates this distortion heard in speakers - the clarity and detail resolution, and focused imagery, is then revealed as it was in recording.

People are used to interaural distortion in speakers. Crossfeeding in amps gives them the coloration they are accustomed and most don't notice the blurred images -they like it because of speakers that induce phase distortion.

I hate it.

I can live with the "hole in the middle" effects and sound localized strictly in one ear or the other, found on recordings at times (that is the way they were recorded, reproduced faithfully) of certain passages. I prefer focused images with empty space around the tones, and inner detail without congested massing of sounds.

 

[rreynol]

Built Tangents XFeed board as a standalone box (i.e. not coupled to any of my amps).

I like it.

 

[arnesto]

I have a crossfeed on my Headroom Max.

As far as i'm concerned, it dulls the sound quality. I prefer to leave the crossfeed off.

One thing I feel is nessesary with a headphone amp. is a gain adjustment.
Especially if you one more than one pair of headphones with different impedence.

 

[drarthurwells]

Listen to a single tone on crossfeed and the repeat without crossfeed.

Notice with crossfeed the tone is slightly larger in space - expanded. Howver its edges are blurred. It also has slightly more volume.

Without crossfeed the image is more focused with more clearly defined boundaries within empty space.

The effect of crossfeed on multiple tones playing simultaneously is an expanded soundstage but with more congestion and merging of instruments into one mass.

Some people like the soundstage expanded.