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crossfeed

adamdea

You are not a sound quality evaluation device
I have just recently dug deep and splashed out £25 on a cirrus (formerly Wolfson) audio card for my rpi 2. The headphone jack on the pi2 was simply unlistenably awful. With the Wolfson card it sounds really good to me.

I am using the very marvellous Max2play interface on the pi which allows for use of a crossfeed plugin http://bs2b.sourceforge.net

This set me off wondering whether experienced headphone users on PFM use crossfeed or something similar on their phones. If so what settings do you use?
 
I made a hardware crossfeed many years ago, but it didn't make much of a difference to me. Can't remember from where I got the circuit diagram (Head-fi.org perhaps?). I think it's somewhere in the loft.
 
I have wondered from time to time about experimenting with crossfeed, but it just seems like "messing" with the sound.

Thing is, I am perfectly happy with the sound of headphones, ie the sound stage being "in my head".
 
I have crossfeed in hardware on my SPL Phonitor and (to my ears) it is a worthwhile improvement to the sound, pulling in ping-pong stereo and giving a more realistic sound. It is at its best with earlier stereo recordings, although I just leave it on for all. I'd be reluctant to give it up if I ever changed headphone amp to be honest, though the decision would depend on the overall improvement.
 
I made a hardware crossfeed many years ago, but it didn't make much of a difference to me. Can't remember from where I got the circuit diagram (Head-fi.org perhaps?). I think it's somewhere in the loft.

Effect depends on recording. Early stereo recordings with instruments panned hard left and right benefit most.
You could have altered the values in your circuit to increase the crossfeed.
 
I have wondered from time to time about experimenting with crossfeed, but it just seems like "messing" with the sound.

Thing is, I am perfectly happy with the sound of headphones, ie the sound stage being "in my head".
A lot of people apparently find headphones fatiguing to listen to because of the extreme separation caused by having the left "speaker" hidden from the right ear.

I guess it's a matter of personal choice, but the effect on headphones doesn't seem particularly natural especially on old studio recordings. I have read that most albums are (or at least were) mixed to sound right on speakers not headphones, so the way they happen to sound on headphones is really an artifact of the way headphones work.

There was a poll on head-fi a few years ago in which the majority of respondents used it
http://www.head-fi.org/t/518925/to-crossfeed-or-not-to-crossfeed-that-is-the-question

It has occurred to me that perhaps on relatively recent recordings the argument for using it is weaker because they may have been mixed with headphones in mind given the importance of the mobile phone/headphone market these days. It would be interesting to know whether tracks are mixed to sound good on headphones (with crossfeed?) these days
 
I usually use the foobar2000 meier crossfeed. It works reasonably well.

I have just recently dug deep and splashed out £25 on a cirrus (formerly Wolfson) audio card for my rpi 2. The headphone jack on the pi2 was simply unlistenably awful. With the Wolfson card it sounds really good to me.

I am using the very marvellous Max2play interface on the pi which allows for use of a crossfeed plugin http://bs2b.sourceforge.net

This set me off wondering whether experienced headphone users on PFM use crossfeed or something similar on their phones. If so what settings do you use?
 
I have had a SPL Phonitor and then Meier Corda Classic, both with crossfeed filters, when I had HD800s. Also added copies of the Meier filters to a couple of DIY amps. I have now switched to a balanced amp and Audeze LCD2 and use DSP in JRiver instead. Tried the BS2B plugin and JRiver's own headphone DSP but prefer the Redline Monitor VST plugin.
 
To my ears adding cross feed does sound "better". I tried a Phonitor Mini and was impressed with the amp - and this feature. If I ever put a headphone amp in the system I'd expirement with the software options (that I think are) available in JRiver.
 


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