[vkvedam]

Hi All

I have been looking around for the exact definition of crossfeed and couldn't find it anywhere. Is it similar to the crossover or is it something different? And also Jan Meier's crossfeed seems to be quite as many others seem to have adopted his crossfeed in their respective amplifiers.

Thanks for any input...

Ven

 

[Uncle Erik]

Crossfeed is a method of injecting a little of the right channel into the left, and vice versa. This mimics the regular listening experience with speakers, since you will hear a little of the left channel in your right ear.

Dr. Meier has one implementation of Crossfeed, but HeadRoom has a different implementation and Chu Moy developed one, too. I have a Cross-I (Dr. Meier's implementation) that I use when I listen. I think his version is slightly more natural sounding and it really cuts back on listening fatigue.

 

[vkvedam]

Cheers Uncle Erik for the answer. But just a quick question, don't you feel doing so can contribute to coloration and you can't pick the instrument placement perfectly.

 

[mape00]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vkvedam /img/forum/go_quote.gif But just a quick question, don't you feel doing so can contribute to coloration and you can't pick the instrument placement perfectly.

You usually can't pick out the instrument placement anyways, unless it's a binaural recording. It's a mystery to me how some people experience a perfect "soundstage" using headphones with regular recordings made for speakers.

 

[WalkGood]

Headphone amplifier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[freakydrew]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mape00 /img/forum/go_quote.gif You usually can't pick out the instrument placement anyways, unless it's a binaural recording. It's a mystery to me how some people experience a perfect "soundstage" using headphones with regular recordings made for speakers.

QSound Binaural Audio Demos

great demos here, binaural, 3d position etc...

 

[JaZZ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vkvedam /img/forum/go_quote.gif ...just a quick question, don't you feel doing so can contribute to coloration and you can't pick the instrument placement perfectly.

I'll answer that from my perspective. No, I don't feel that it makes localization of instrument placement any harder. It can even get easier in that the spatial presentation is more natural.

I can just speak of Jan Meier's «Natural Crossfeed» and my own implementation of it (applied via sound editor to every recording individually). Roughly spoken it consists of a monophonisation of low frequencies – which means mixing the low-frequency content of the left channel to the right channel and vice versa. This goes hand in hand with a phase shift/time delay roughly mimicking the natural time delay of one-sided free-field signals between both ears.

Once you're used to crossfeed, you may even perceive a speaker-based recording without crossfeed as colored in some way – since in reality bass tones and lower mids can't appear (predominantly) just in one ear. Free-field listening is like listening with the ideal crossfeed on, so to speak.

To be honest: the crossfeed I've heard isn't a 100% perfect headphonization of recordings made for speaker systems (à la binaural recordings). But it is at least a good tool for avoiding the worst side effects. Some don't like it, though.
.

 

[BIG POPPA]

It is like you have 2 channels in stereo and all the frequency's under 500Hz are mono. Forgot what the cutoff was? Have a Headroom Static hooked up to my Darkvoice 336se and really don't like listening to music without it.

 

[gregorio]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vkvedam /img/forum/go_quote.gif Cheers Uncle Erik for the answer. But just a quick question, don't you feel doing so can contribute to coloration and you can't pick the instrument placement perfectly.

The answer is:- It depends! It depends on how the recording has been made and mixed and the exact implimentation of the crossfeed. In most popular genre music (rock, electronica, etc.) intruments/sounds are positioned by panning the signal. This means the perception of position is accomplished by having one of the speakers outputting more of the signal than the other speaker. In this case, crossfeeding the signal could blur the positioning. If stereo mic techniques have been employed (more common in classical music and jazz), then timing (phase) information may also be part of the positioning. Crossfeeding in this case may (or may not) provide slightly better results for positioning but could also cause more phase cancellation and therefore colouration.

In other words, there is no way to predict if crossfeeding is going to give an overall better experience or a worse one. It depends on the implimentation of the crossfeed and the production/recording techniques employed.

G

 

[softwight]

Is anyone familiar with the Practical Devices XM4 adjustable crossfeed? I have that amp and I like it on some music but I feel like the mid-range gets cut out a bit no matter how I have it adjusted. If I have it closer to full-mono it also makes it feel like the music is inside my head (using hd-595s so normally pretty wide soundstage) and I don't care for that.

How does the headroom amp style crossfeed compare?

 

[satshanti]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mape00 /img/forum/go_quote.gif You usually can't pick out the instrument placement anyways, unless it's a binaural recording. It's a mystery to me how some people experience a perfect "soundstage" using headphones with regular recordings made for speakers.

So true! Allow me to cross-link to my substantial "first post" on this forum, in which I share my thoughts, hopefully in a meaningful way, on cross-feed, "soundstage" perception through headphones, and other related issues.