The General Advice/Questions Thread

I don’t use crossfeed except for sometimes with old stereo recordings that are super hard panned left and right. And for those I’ll use Waves Nx just so my brain isn’t trying to make sense of one instrument being only in the left ear and a different instrument being only in the right ear. I’ll also use Waves Nx when I want to listen to a surround sound mix on headphones. Cause Waves Nx is the best way to listen to surround sound on headphones other than buying a Smyth Realizer.

The good amps and headphones now have gotten much better at presenting a coherent and focused center image than the headphone gear of old. The headphone gear of old would do a blob around each ear with no connection in the center. And you needed crossfeed to fix that. The right style of modern headphone gear is now able to do a focused and coherent center image that can even be out in front of your forehead. And with good gear like that there is no need for crossfeed, except for maybe some of those old stereo recordings that are super hard panned left and right.

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Yellow submarine and lady Madonna by Beatles was recorded on an old 8 track so some monophonic speakers you only heard half the song. Charlie Puth talked about this and in his song Left and Right takes the concept to an extreme. He talks about it with Jimmy Fallon. I found it really interesting.

Bluetooth iPad to Zen Blue Question

Just bought a Questyle QCC Dongle Pro to allow LDAP or adaptive AptX HD to my Zen Blue DAC a few feet away

It connects OK - LDAC isn’t the best but adaptive AptX is fine.

Problem is I can’t get it to recognize the ipad volume controls. It wants to consider line out level.

Mine’s been useless since iOS/iPad OS v26 came out (that, or it mysteriously failed the same day).

It only sees one of the 20 or so eligible Bluetooth devices to connect to, takes minutes to find that, and then it refuses to connect to it anyway.

Try the same thing from my iPhone 17 Pro Max, the N30LE, or any other devices, and they see EVERYTHING and connect without issues.

Does it work from your phone?

If not, it’s possible the target device doesn’t support variable volume.

The target device - a base level iFi Zen Air Blue - works flawlessly in AAC from the iPad directly. Supports variable volume.

Using the dongle, under any protocol, I can’t change volume from my iPad.

I’ve tried clearing the iPad and having it treat the USB as both Headphone and Other device
I’ve tried changing the codec used in the Questyle app.

That’s all the advice I found online. I will write to Questyle and see if they have any thoughts. Have not tried from my phone yet.