41 minutes ago, davewantsmoore said:

I miss JRMC sometimes...

Since version 16 it's been the cornerstone of my system and I would change everything else before it. Other than it's normal excellent audio and video playback, with Windows I have any music streaming program (WASAPI Loopback), any video streaming program (WDM Driver), a USB Turtable (WASAPI Loopback), and a Foxtel box via Optical (ASIO In) all going through it. Plus Dirac Live and uBACCH VST3 plugins.

22 hours ago, Keith_W said:

@aris and @sir sanders zingmore came around last night and I learnt a thing or two about my ISO226 volume control. We had an interesting discussion. 

 

ISO226 is an international standard for equal loudness. Fletcher and Munson noted that as volumes get lower, levels of bass (especially) and treble needs to be boosted for the signal to be perceived to have the same tonality. It looks like this: 

 

 

I have two programs in the signal chain that can implement an ISO226 volume control via DSP - JRiver and Acourate Convolver. However, I set Acourate Convolver's volume to maximum (so the equal loudness curve is not applied), and use JRiver's volume control for convenience, because it can be controlled via a remote which is integrated in my playback app. 

 

When they came over and started playing their music, it sounded awful - much too bass heavy. I didn't notice because I was making tea and was not in the main listening position, and when I sat down in the other sofa I thought "hmm, there is wayyy too much bass, maybe the seat to seat variation in my bass is not as good as I thought". Then Aris complained there was too much bass and asked me for a filter which had less. I was surprised, because this was not a problem I had noticed before - but as soon as I sat in the main listening position, I realized he was right. 

 

After some agonizing as to whether I had gotten something wrong with my tuning (after all, the system measures as I had designed it - i.e. to follow the target curve which is supposed to sound balanced), I remembered that I was using the ISO226 volume control. As soon as we turned it off, everything sounded balanced. 

 

What is interesting is that when I am listening to my music (which is 100% classical), I strongly prefer the effect of the ISO226 volume control. I can turn the volume down to my usual low listening volumes and the system maintains its clarity and tonality. But with other types of music, it sounded awful. 

 

My theory is: the zero point of the ISO226 volume control determines when JRiver will start applying the curve. However, recordings are mastered at different volumes, especially pop music where (thanks to the loudness wars), the overall volume is much higher. Nearly all classical music is mastered at a much lower volume. This means, for a given volume setting, classical music will have much less ISO226 correction applied to it than pop music. If you look at the graph posted above, you can see that it applies a stupendous amount of bass boost if you turn the volume very low - this was causing pop music to sound incredibly bass heavy and thick. 

 

After they left, I made a more concerted effort to tune the zero point of my volume control and I still prefer it the way I had left it. However, it easily became too much if I started playing anything which was not classical. 

 

So, two lessons were learnt last night: 

 

1. If you use an ISO226 volume control, make sure you tune the zero point or it will make your system sound unbalanced, and 

2. GTG's are important because different types of music will make you realize deficiencies in your system that you were previously unaware of. I did not realize this with my earlier GTG this week (with @andyr and @Steff) because we were playing classical music during that GTG. 

Hi Keith

IMO they are awful band aid solutions, caused by not dealing with available output of your source components properly. My two initial suggestions are 1. Remove contacts involved with signal paths that can be removed, 2.  make the source impedance have no adverse loading .and make the extent of no adverse loading adjustable   The latter needs an entirely different approach to hardware, involving knowing characteristics of circuitry isolating the signal path

10 hours ago, Satanica said:

and a Foxtel box via Optical (ASIO In) all going through it. Plus Dirac Live

 

Hi

 

Do you pipe your Foxtel audio through JRiver + Dirac Live?

 

No lip sync with Foxtel video?

 

 

1 hour ago, rand129678 said:

Do you pipe your Foxtel audio through JRiver + Dirac Live?

 

Hi, yes I do.

 

1 hour ago, rand129678 said:

No lip sync with Foxtel video?

 

There's no lip sync function with Foxtel video and optical out.

As long as you don't apply audio resampling in JRiver then its pretty low latency.

The Dirac Live plugin introduces about 2-3 milliseconds of latency according to their support.

 

One of the most important features of JRMC is zones so that you can configure each type of playback individually.

I have a normal 2ch Audio zone, a muti-channel Audio zone, a normal Video zone, a Music Streaming & Turntable zone, a Video Streaming zone, and a ASIO In zone is used for the Foxtel box.

2 minutes ago, Satanica said:

There's no lip sync function with Foxtel video and optical out.

As long as you don't apply audio resampling in JRiver then its pretty low latency.

 

I don't mean a specific function on the Foxtel unit

 

I mean when you are watching video with your Foxtel audio coming through JRiver and Dirac, do you notice any lip sync issues?

 

I recently tried Jriver convolver with min phase target + min phase crossovers (0.3ms latency in the correction filters).

 

And there is still lip sync issues watching YouTube video. Small but noticeable. So I use a different convolver that is (in the practical sense) zero latency

 

No other DSP being done by JRiver when I tested

41 minutes ago, rand129678 said:

 

I don't mean a specific function on the Foxtel unit

 

I mean when you are watching video with your Foxtel audio coming through JRiver and Dirac, do you notice any lip sync issues?

 

I recently tried Jriver convolver with min phase target + min phase crossovers (0.3ms latency in the correction filters).

 

And there is still lip sync issues watching YouTube video. Small but noticeable. So I use a different convolver that is (in the practical sense) zero latency

 

No other DSP being done by JRiver when I tested

 

I don't notice any issue when using a projector but I think there might be a slight issue when using a TV.

The TV seemingly processes video quicker than the projector.

But I could probably dial this out: https://www.lg.com/us/support/help-library/lg-tv-av-sync-adjustment-CT10000018-1387832191561

So, it can come down to the processing time of the display as to whether there is an issue or not.

 

If the audio is ahead of the video, then one could easily apply delay in JRMC to compensate.

7 minutes ago, Satanica said:

 

I don't notice any issue when using a projector but I think there might be a slight issue when using a TV.

The TV seemingly processes video quicker than the projector.

But I could probably dial this out: https://www.lg.com/us/support/help-library/lg-tv-av-sync-adjustment-CT10000018-1387832191561

So, it can come down to the processing time of the display as to whether there is an issue or not.

 

If the audio is ahead of the video, then one could easily apply delay in JRMC to compensate.

 

Yeh LG TVs are the only ones (of the big names) that can actually delay video. 

 

Everyone else can only delay audio which is easier (memory required to delay video vs audio ).

 

For audio convolution though, video delay is what we want, if the convolver adds latency

 

Fortunately there's lots of options for "zero" latency convolvers. JRiver isn't one of those (in my testing) -  but I am using it for non-video purposes and it's good

 

 

Edited August 17, 20232 yr by rand129678

@Satanica last night I repeated the volume calibration with JRiver and an SPL meter. It remains correctly calibrated. 

 

I found that the volume levelling feature is only useful for files you have stored in your local library. It does not analyse streamed files. So I won't be able to use this feature if some guest decided to play Taylor Swift again. 

 

However, after a few hours of listening I decided to ignore JRiver's calibrated volume control and use my own setting. I chose 50, which means no bass boost until the set volume is below 50 (on a scale of 100). It seems more balanced with the selection of music I played for myself last night, but whether it will hold up to other types of music ... well, I guess I will find out at the next GTG. Regardless, now that I am aware of the problem, I will remember to turn it off if some tracks sound too bass heavy. 

1 hour ago, Keith_W said:

I found that the volume levelling feature is only useful for files you have stored in your local library. It does not analyse streamed files. So I won't be able to use this feature if some guest decided to play Taylor Swift again.

Yes it does not apply to streams. But every streaming service I know of and have tried can have volume leveling which is usually on by default. So yes, one can use JRMC Loudness with streams and I do. To get it accurate as possible one should know the volume level of the streaming service which is usually around -14LUFS (-14dB). As mentioned before, to get the best flexibility create a separate zone for streaming.

Edited August 17, 20232 yr by Satanica

u-BACCH is in the house. Since I heard a demo at @sir sanders zingmore and @aris and then subsequently in my own system, I know that BACCH makes a substantial improvement in imaging and soundstage width. 

 

u-BACCH works by crosstalk cancellation - i.e. sound from your left speaker reaches your right ear, and vice-versa. BACCH substantially reduces that, and the effect is pretty amazing. In my system, soundstage width, depth, and precision of imaging are already pretty good but BACCH elevates it to another level. It is quite spooky hearing instruments coming from 90 degrees to your side and soloists seemingly way beyond the front wall as if they are outside the house! In fact, the effect is so strong that I was able to hear increased spacialization even with my laptop speakers! 

 

This is less than what can be achieved by the "full Monty" version of BACCH if online reviews are to be believed. Some say that it can create an effect of someone whispering into your ear, sound going behind you, and so on. 

 

Some people in the past have said that this is artificial trickery and the effect is "fake". To me, BACCH is a type of speaker/room correction - rather than adding to the sound, what it is actually doing is restoring the sound to what was intended when it was mixed - before your speaker/room interface mucked everything up. 

 

I had a decision to make - whether to get u-BACCH or BACCH4Mac Intro. This is a breakdown of my decision making process: 

 

1. u-BACCH. This works as a VST plugin for Windows (I use it in JRiver). Installation and setup is simple, and there is only one control - speaker angle. Price was USD$399 (with 15% off currently with EARLYBACCH15 discount code). The advantages: gives me a taste of BACCH, ease of use, and lowish cost. Disadvantages: no potential for upgrades to "higher" versions of BACCH (which include head tracking and measurements-based crosstalk cancellation). I have spoken to BACCH Labs and they have indicated that they do not have the rights to create a version like this, since that IP is owned by Theoretica. Yes, those are two separate companies so it was rather confusing. 

 

2. BACCH4Mac Intro. This costs USD$980 and offers exactly the same sound quality and functionality as u-BACCH VST for Windows. Instead of setting speaker angle, you set distance between speakers, and distance from speaker to listener (i.e. effectively speaker angle). The advantage is that this can be upgraded to higher versions of BACCH. The disadvantages are much higher cost. In addition to the USD$980 license, or more than twice the price of u-BACCH, I would have to buy a Mac. And then there is the cost of all the additional software licenses to replicate functionality that I already have on my Windows PC - a JRiver license, and a new convolver. Then there are additional hardware purchases to make it work - a switch, cabling, additional storage, and so on. And then there is the added complexity of having two computers in the signal chain. And last but not least, I HATE MACS. I have a visceral hatred of anything Apple. And I don't want to support a company that refuses to bring out a Windows version. 

 

After thinking about my options for months, I decided to get u-BACCH. It sounds amazing, and I am happy. 

14 minutes ago, Keith_W said:

u-BACCH is in the house. Since I heard a demo at @sir sanders zingmore and @aris and then subsequently in my own system, I know that BACCH makes a substantial improvement in imaging and soundstage width. 

 

u-BACCH works by crosstalk cancellation - i.e. sound from your left speaker reaches your right ear, and vice-versa. BACCH substantially reduces that, and the effect is pretty amazing. In my system, soundstage width, depth, and precision of imaging are already pretty good but BACCH elevates it to another level. It is quite spooky hearing instruments coming from 90 degrees to your side and soloists seemingly way beyond the front wall as if they are outside the house! In fact, the effect is so strong that I was able to hear increased spacialization even with my laptop speakers! 

 

This is less than what can be achieved by the "full Monty" version of BACCH if online reviews are to be believed. Some say that it can create an effect of someone whispering into your ear, sound going behind you, and so on. 

 

Some people in the past have said that this is artificial trickery and the effect is "fake". To me, BACCH is a type of speaker/room correction - rather than adding to the sound, what it is actually doing is restoring the sound to what was intended when it was mixed - before your speaker/room interface mucked everything up. 

 

I had a decision to make - whether to get u-BACCH or BACCH4Mac Intro. This is a breakdown of my decision making process: 

 

1. u-BACCH. This works as a VST plugin for Windows (I use it in JRiver). Installation and setup is simple, and there is only one control - speaker angle. Price was USD$399 (with 15% off currently with EARLYBACCH15 discount code). The advantages: gives me a taste of BACCH, ease of use, and lowish cost. Disadvantages: no potential for upgrades to "higher" versions of BACCH (which include head tracking and measurements-based crosstalk cancellation). I have spoken to BACCH Labs and they have indicated that they do not have the rights to create a version like this, since that IP is owned by Theoretica. Yes, those are two separate companies so it was rather confusing. 

 

2. BACCH4Mac Intro. This costs USD$980 and offers exactly the same sound quality and functionality as u-BACCH VST for Windows. Instead of setting speaker angle, you set distance between speakers, and distance from speaker to listener (i.e. effectively speaker angle). The advantage is that this can be upgraded to higher versions of BACCH. The disadvantages are much higher cost. In addition to the USD$980 license, or more than twice the price of u-BACCH, I would have to buy a Mac. And then there is the cost of all the additional software licenses to replicate functionality that I already have on my Windows PC - a JRiver license, and a new convolver. Then there are additional hardware purchases to make it work - a switch, cabling, additional storage, and so on. And then there is the added complexity of having two computers in the signal chain. And last but not least, I HATE MACS. I have a visceral hatred of anything Apple. And I don't want to support a company that refuses to bring out a Windows version. 

 

After thinking about my options for months, I decided to get u-BACCH. It sounds amazing, and I am happy. 

 

Me too, this sums up my decision to purchase u-BACCH for Windows as well.
Dollar for dollar (about $500 AUD at the moment), probably one of the best or if not the best "upgrades" I've ever done.

Edited September 1, 20232 yr by Satanica

BACCH can sound pretty amazing as can q sound. The difference is that q sound was specifically mixed to sound that way whereas BACCH enhances aspects of a recording which may not have been particularly audible when being mixed/mastered as there was no crosstalk cancellation at that point.  I am still not 100% sure about what I think about this type of enhancement  which is a bit weird for me as usually I follow the "if it sounds better it's all good" philosophy.  I need to loosen up and live a little! 

8 hours ago, frednork said:

when being mixed/mastered as there was no crosstalk cancellation at that point. 

 

Yes agreed. So it is unlikely to be restoring the original mixed/mastered sound, for most music.

 

Having said that I'll give it a trial to hear.

 

10 hours ago, frednork said:

BACCH can sound pretty amazing as can q sound. The difference is that q sound was specifically mixed to sound that way whereas BACCH enhances aspects of a recording which may not have been particularly audible when being mixed/mastered as there was no crosstalk cancellation at that point.  I am still not 100% sure about what I think about this type of enhancement  which is a bit weird for me as usually I follow the "if it sounds better it's all good" philosophy.  I need to loosen up and live a little! 

 

I think it's been mentioned that typical studios have speakers setup wider than typical audiophile setups and thus less crosstalk in studios. Also, I believe that headphones {no crosstalk) are typically used more in the studios these days, even for just verification, because the customer use case is so high. 

11 hours ago, frednork said:

BACCH can sound pretty amazing as can q sound. 

 

Forgive my ignorance, but what is q sound? 

12 minutes ago, Keith_W said:

Forgive my ignorance, but what is q sound? 

 

Phase manipulation.  Exemplified by Roger Waters' "Amused to Death", Keith.

 

1 hour ago, Keith_W said:

Forgive my ignorance, but what is q sound? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSound

Ahh, I see. Thanks guys. I guess I have never heard of it because the music I typically listen to doesn't have it. I think you mentioned it when you came over @frednork and you played an album that had q-sound? 

Anyway, I consider the system almost "finished". It is 95% of the way there. There are some areas to be improved: 

 

1. BACCH. At some point in the future, I might re-visit the idea of going for the full-fat version of BACCH, with head tracking and measurements based crosstalk cancellation. The reason I did not do it this time around is because of the substantial cost (USD$4980 for the BACCH license + another $1500 or so for a Mac Mini, more software licenses, and more hardware). And also because BACCH's convolver only does 6 channels. I hear an 8 channel version is in the works. 

 

2. Improved bass management. I am not sure whether further gains can be had by improving the VBA. I have a couple of versions of the VBA, one was calculated by room geometry, another was reverse engineered through bass measurements. However, all versions of my VBA only deal with a single reflection out of simplicity. In the end, Dr. Uli of Acourate recommended simply using a bass pre-filter which "almost" replicates the correction of the VBA. I might get some miniscule improvement by refining the VBA so that it measures better than Uli's prefilter method, but it doubt if it would be substantially better. 

 

3. Improved user experience. At the moment, I am using an Android tablet to control JRiver on the PC using BubbleUPnP. The interface is rather bare bones and not beautiful. There are also some things I can not do - most notably, stream Idagio. @rand129678 suggested a path for this, which is to integrate a Wiim Pro into the system. The Wiim would connect to my RME interface via optical, and the RME will send audio into the PC via ASIO. In order to play it back, JRiver has to be set to "open live ASIO stream" every time I want to use it. I will investigate whether there is a way to automate it. 

 

4. Integration into home cinema system. I will need to replace my ancient TV and figure out a way to use the PC to play audio and video. At the moment, any video is plagued by horrendous lip sync problems. A new set of filters will have to be developed with ultra low latency, remote control figured out, more software to try, and so on. 

 

There is quite a lot to do. But for the time being, I have gone back to my old hobby of model ship making 🙂  This is the HMS Royal William, launced in 1719: 

 

 

 

It started off life as a Euromodel kit 10 years ago. I have replaced half of the kit parts and scratchbuilt my own replacements. The only parts of the kit that remain on the model are the skeleton and all the metal castings that you can see. The windows and galleries were metal castings - I did not use them. I made my own. Those oval decorations at the rear are silver soldered rings which I made myself with a jeweller's soldering torch and jeweller's solder. 

 

Ship modelling is a very slow hobby. Well, so is DSP ... but DSP is a fast hobby if you know what you are doing. I don't (or rather, I didn't). So for me DSP was a years long learning curve so it qualifies as a "slow hobby". Ship modelling is slow by nature, even if I took shortcuts, used the kit parts, it would still be slow. It is also rare to encounter other wooden ship modellers, I suspect I am the only one on SNA. 

On 2/9/2023 at 6:04 AM, rand129678 said:

 

Yes agreed. So it is unlikely to be restoring the original mixed/mastered sound, for most music.

 

Having said that I'll give it a trial to hear.

 

Crosstalk cancellation deals with crosstalk that is the acoustics result of to sound coming from the speakers reaching both ears. It is not the same crosstalk as you find in amplifier or DAC and others which is the leakage of one channel to the other. The crosstalk cancellation of BACCH and other Ambiophonics method is about interaural crosstalk.
 

It is restoring what is supposed to be in the recordings. You hear more details, separation and bigger soundstage with headphones because it has no  ( or less) crosstalk. The signal from the left speaker is delivered to the left ear and the right speaker is deliver to the right ear only. it is base on each individual HRTF although the general settings can work for most but for perfection the setup must be done with the listener’s HRTF. 
 

The disadvantage of headphones listening is change of frequency response ( modern headphones have correction for that) and the role of pinna which purpose is externalization of the sound is not used as the sound is delivered directly to the ear canal so the sound is all inside the head. 
 

It is possible to take measurements of the pinna frequency shaping and externalize the sound. I guess BACCH headphones is doing that and also Apple spatial audio. There are others too but how well they work is still debatable. 
 

Smyth Realizer is the best so far I know which able to reproduce the externalization effect like hearing real multi channel in the room. 

Here is an excellent article written by @STAmbio on crosstalk cancellation: link. 

 

"Crosstalk cancellation is an attempt to deliver stereo sound as it was meant to be played without the interaural crosstalk errors with loudspeakers (see Keele, 1986 for a technical exposition). Many listeners may not realize how much realism their high-end stereo hi-fi system is lacking until they hear a system with crosstalk-cancelled (or XTC for short) playback. It is like comparing a photo of a window with a view to an actual window looking out at the scenery. Or like watching Avatar in 2D versus 3D."

 

I have exchanged emails with @STAmbio. To say he is passionate about the subject is an understatement. 

33 minutes ago, Keith_W said:

Here is an excellent article written by @STAmbio on crosstalk cancellation: link. 

 

"Crosstalk cancellation is an attempt to deliver stereo sound as it was meant to be played without the interaural crosstalk errors with loudspeakers (see Keele, 1986 for a technical exposition). Many listeners may not realize how much realism their high-end stereo hi-fi system is lacking until they hear a system with crosstalk-cancelled (or XTC for short) playback. It is like comparing a photo of a window with a view to an actual window looking out at the scenery. Or like watching Avatar in 2D versus 3D."

 

I have exchanged emails with @STAmbio. To say he is passionate about the subject is an understatement. 

 

Interesting, Keith, have you already implemented this? 

47 minutes ago, Keith_W said:

Here is an excellent article written by @STAmbio on crosstalk cancellation: link.

 

Keith, the article was written by Archimago of MQA controversy. 

3 hours ago, tripitaka said:

 

Interesting, Keith, have you already implemented this? 

 

Yes. 

 

My system is a showcase for all things DSP   I have tried some other weird and wonderful VST's as well. They can do all sorts of things but in most cases it's a downgrade instead of an improvement. uBACCH was one of the few things which was an improvement. Pretty dramatic improvement, actually. 

 

Work on my new "room treatment" continues  . The shrouds have been served and are waiting to be attached to deadeyes. For those who don't know, "serving" a rope means wrapping a small rope around a larger one to prevent chafing. This is incredibly time consuming to do, given that some ropes are served for the entire length. Good thing I have friends who are ship modellers and I managed to borrow a serving machine from one of them. Even then it's still a manual process and it took days to serve all the rope that you see here (56 lengths of rope!), and we are less than halfway through. 

 

Once the sails are on (a good few months away) the model will be at the first reflection point. I am curious as to how it would affect the measurements, so I will do some before and after sweeps when it is done. At the moment I can't measure anything because I loaned my measurement setup to a friend so that he can get his active system up and running. Come to think of it, he doesn't have a system thread on SNA, maybe I should encourage him to start one! 

Edited October 30, 20232 yr by Keith_W