Nevermind, internet is back:
I haven’t messed with the treble all that much, it may need a bit of fine-grained adjustment.
Here are the frequency response graphs before and after EQ:
I should note, this sounds truly spectacular. Gives me chills.
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Thanks mate. I’ll give it a whirl over the weekend and report back. Excited by this! D8KP are amazing as it is, but you do feel a little tweak here and there could make them unbeatable.
Also I have had the cable reterminated for 4pin XLR balanced. The wire inside is like 30 awg thin litz surrounded by heapppps of insulation and a strong polymer type core. If it works it works! The set up of the stock SE cable means it’s an easy convert, they combined the ground at the jack and keep it all separate until then. But the thin litz was a suprise.
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Loaded up your settings. I find the 7db bump at 2630 makes some female vocals a bit holographic sounding, bit of an echo effect. I’ve turned that down to 4db. And wiped the tweaks above that filter. And liking it.
Will play a bit with the higher ones you have, nothing really bothers me up in that range off the current chain, but the low end and the 3k tweak is nice. Thanks!
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3D stereo audio
Hi as a newbie apologies if posting incorrrectly here. I have been listening on headphones rather than speakers (which I prefer) to avoid disturbing the household during the current situation. I find all headphones a bit “flat” compared to speakers and wanted a stereo spacial simulator DSP for mine. I had a look for easily used plugins with good HRTF implementation and ambient acoustic simulation and noticed that quite a few music producers use the Waves Nx plugin so I downloaded the Windows virtual driver version of this and have been listening on Amazon Music HD with Hifiman HE400 and Equaliser APO via Cambridge Audio DACMagic and Objective 2 amp.
I find the experience to be a real step up from conventional listening for most music.Spacial separation and source distance projection is quite good. The head tracking works well although your webcam has to be close if you dont have the Bluetooth headphone tracker (which I have now ordered along with the VST plugin). Listening is less fatiguing which is commented on by producers as well.
It is perhaps unnatural but so is conventional stereo through headphones and now I am used to it I dont want to go back to conventional stereo - I am using the cinema ambience setting on the Windows app which works best for me although the VST plugin looks to allow full ambience control and I will try that next.
Very little seems to be said about this and I think it should be more mainstream - Atmos and Apple and Windows spatial audio does not seem as good to me at the moment and they are targeted at surround encoded media rather than the back catalogue of stereo.
Am I missing something - why doesnt everyone try this (subject to getting a good personal HRTF model fit of course)?
And why not sell consumer real ear transfer function measurement kits so it can be made perfect - That would allow moving to IIR filters + better headphone correction as kits are cheap to make although they dont exist? I may try that but honestly what I have now is good enough and I can spend my time on other things.
Your thoughts would be appreciated - try it with Yoshimi battles the Pink Robots, Flaming Lips and enjoy, its free for 30 days.
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I picked up the waves NX head tracker and I’ll be playing with it and some of the software soon… maybe today! I really liked it on the Audeze Möbius, but wanted to try it with my higher end headphones.
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Thanks, have been listening some more and it seems that once you have adapted to the new acoustic environment there is a considerable improvement in overall sound quality. It appears that the extra time/intensity/filter source localisation effect is adding in additional binaural masking level differences which improve discrimination. Head tracking adds to this at a higher cortical processing level. This also effectively spatially separates upper frequencies from some of the bass and I think it may even reduce upward spread of masking to a small extent.
To me it sounds different but much better, if I was upgrading I would spend a few dollars on this rather than a few thousand on hardware. You need to give it time to get used to the new spatial cues and optimise the settings - the Movie Theatre mode seems best for me.
Just one thing - I am running it on orthodynamic headphones which have fairly constant group delay so I don’t know if it would work as well with dynamic headphones.
I would encourage everyone to try it.
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thanks for sharing your experience. I have been curious about waves nx type of stuff but always got scared away from this eventually. Perhaps it is time to finally give it a try. Please update us as you explore.
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After further listening I think that this is like taking the red pill of headphone audio except it is all good in this case. If you can get it working properly you may find that you can’t drag yourself away from it. I prefer it to listening on speakers now and it beats standard headphone stereo hands down - no room resonance, much clearer no significant artefacts, just miss the vibrotactile bit but you can’t have everything. Has anyone else tried it yet?
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I’ve tried Waves NX a few times but so far I’m not as impressed as you - sorry. The only way I can get it to sound like speakers to me is when I turn my head about 45 degs to the side (but who wants to listen to music that way?). I can imagine that with movies where you have a visual source for the sound it might be more convincing but I’m not really interested in that feature so I haven’t tried it.
Narrowing the speaker separation does seem to help a bit. Head tracking is accurate and fast but I don’t find it adds much to the illusion of listening to a fixed source in front of me. I suspect the HRTF algorithm needs improvement as it isn’t noticeably better than standard crossfeed to me.
Maybe part of the issue is using it in front of my computer instead of my usual music listening chair so my brain has certain expectations about where the speakers would be that don’t work well with the NX algorithm. I should also note that NX does not officially support my DAW, SoundSource. Not sure how that would make a difference since everything seems to be functioning properly.
For rock music, vocals and guitar go from pin point in the middle of my head to a more diffuse location maybe at the end of my nose. Drums and bass just get more diffuse while still remaining in my head. All sound sources are pulled in from 90 degs directly left and right, but I would expect that effect with any crossfeed. Classical is better but still far short of the illusion that a symphony is playing somewhere out in front of me such as a good pair of speakers has.
I’m still going to play with it some more. I hope to be pleasantly surprised. I just wish I could somehow combine the head tracking with other DSP solutions that might work better.
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Thanks for the observations, that’s very interesting actually. I am not using the DAW plugin at the moment (I have ordered that via snail mail as I get a reduced price on the bluetooth clip on headphone tracker that way). I am using the Windows virtual audio driver and my laptop camera for head tracking. I only had any real success with one setting - the “Movie Theater” preset. The other settings did not sound like speakers at all and the image was only just in front of my nose. Maybe you could try that driver rather than the DAW plugin as it is a free download and it does seem to be different?
Initially the sound was strange and there is a definite ambiguity before it becomes a true 3D image (a bit like the candlestick/face illusion) I think this was partly expectation and visual context as that disappeared and then I felt as if I was really in a room with identifiable singers and instruments. Turning your head helps to crystallise the shift into 3D as you say but for me the the effect was then persistent. For me it is now consistent after the first few seconds. It varies with the music - the effect is a bit weaker for certain mixes and perfect for others - better than speakers I would say, I have Monitor Audio RS6s and Cambridge Audio Azur 640A v2 amp.
My hearing is not brilliant I can just hear 12k at -50dBHL still but normal below that.
Maybe it needs some more work - in principle it could be made perfect with optimised HRTF and room ambience and head tracking but it is good enough for me as it is. I would be interested in what people think about the Movie Theatre mode using the WavesNXApp windows virtual audio driver rather than the DAW plugin.
I should say that I listen with my laptop on my lap to track my head position whilst I look out into the 8m deep room and the central sound image is about 5m away although that distance could be partly due to visual fixaion.
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The Waves Bluetooth tracker has arrived and is now fitted to the HifiMans. It was temperamental and required reinstallation, it keeps trying to unsucsessfully update the firmware. Also the VST plugin didnt come so I am still listening on the Waves NX Windows driver.
It doesn’t matter though. Just listening to Itzhak Perlman playing Vivaldi and it is like being at the concert. If you have read “Hitchikers guide to the galaxy” it reminds me of the bit when Arthur Dent was amazed by the quality of the Vogon’s PA system, I almost checked the window for yellow spaceships. It would be a shame if I really am the only one who hears it this way.
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Purchased a couple of VSTs on this Black Friday sale. With at least 3 distinctive EQ flavors shown in the screenshot below, all of them configurable themselves, I guess I should be set with EQs for a while. 
Note EQ itself is another rabbit hole within the rabbit hole. 
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Seconded on all points.
As simple as configuring pulseaudio is to choose sample rates and other low-level audio settings, e.g.
$ cat .config/pulse/daemon.conf
resample-method = ffmpeg
avoid-resampling = true
default-sample-format = float32le
default-sample-rate = 96000
alternate-sample-rate = 48000
PulseEffects provides a nice GUI with lots of information and controls including parametric EQ with as many bands as you want and settings profiles so you can switch to your preferred saved settings for any output, music or mood.
There’s even a Flatpak available on Fluthub to make installation a doddle.
This one is from my primary desktop where I output HDMI to a receiver with 7.2 speakers, however I still use PulseEffects for both control and the amazing Bass Enhancer which my two SVS SB-1000s appreciate.
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For Mac users I’ve found this EqMac browing for plugins for Audirvana. It is an equaliser that will work with all the apps audio related in the OS system. It isn’t perfect but it’s free and in advanced mode gives access to a basic graphic eq which isn’t too bad. Worth a try https://eqmac.app/
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So I’ve watched Resolve’s vid on how to EQ an LCDX to vastly improve it’s frequency response curve towards the Harman Target. Needless to say I’m highly motivated to get started in the world of EQ’ing headphones.
Referenced video:
I do have a few contraints:
- I never use a laptop or USB as a source and only use DAP via lineout and Turntable → phono as my sources.
1b) My DAP (Fiio X7 mk2) has a basic EQ built in but if you use lineout and bypass the interal DAC then it disables the EQ functionality.
- I already have a DAC that I love (Holo Audio Spring KTE) so something like the RME ADI 2 is not an opton.
Based upon those 2 constraints I believe my only option is to go with an analog 30 band EQ like the Klark Teknic DN370:
https://www.klarkteknik.com/product.html?modelCode=P0ACA
With that said a few questions:
-
Does anybody have experience using the DN370? I understand the primary use case for this unit is as a pro gear for mixing/studio work. Not sure if this is even a decent option for hifi listening?
-
Can I use an analog 30 band EQ to mimic the adjustments that resolved completed in his tutorial?
-
Do I run the risk of adding noise/distortion into my chain that would potentially offset the gains I could get from EQ’ing?
A graphic eq will be close to the suggested parametric eq settings but not exact. I don’t think there’s a simple way to derive the graphic settings from the parametric.
Maybe others here can give you more info.
It’s not your only option. You could start with a Schiit Loki, for instance.
The thing with EQ is, you don’t always need to “sculpt” the perfect EQ settings for you cans. I’ll share you my view. Typically my settings are composed of 3 knobs: boost or cut in bass, mids or treble. As simple as that. If you don’t like the sound signature of your cans, why have them in the first place? Food for thought.
Yes. Especially if that product is made of cheap components.
In order to better elaborate a suggestion, I must ask first: does this DAP happen to have a digital output? That would certainly make the next steps easier.
If not, then I’ll short my suggestions to the aforementioned ones.
Good luck.
See also this thread
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Thanks that is what I was worried about!
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