A article on BACCH4Mac that answers a lot of questions.

[jimbill]

Theoretica Applied Physics BACCH4Mac Stereo Purifier Review

Some of you have asked for a faster unfolding of the point of these reviews. While I don’t think you can genuinely comprehend what I’m about to say

www.theabsolutesound.com

It's a bit long, but it does address the concerns about BACCH affecting the sonics of the recordings. It also does a nice job of explaining the spatial differences between BACCH and without BACCH.

 

[Ropeburn]

Something tells me this is little more than a good old Soundgoodizer™ in a fancy box for 6000 moneys. Works by frequency dependent phase shifting and distortion. Look, it even got the "stereo expander", I guess which you could also call "3D".

SPL Vitalizer MK2-T, with ~800 moneys at the upper end of these thingies. Even uses a tube for the distortion part.

 

[Curvature]

Something tells me this is little more than a good old Soundgoodizer™ in a fancy box for 6000 moneys. Works by frequency dependent phase shifting and distortion. Look, it even got the "stereo expander", I guess which you could also call "3D".

View attachment 469843
SPL Vitalizer MK2-T, with ~800 moneys at the upper end of these thingies. Even uses a tube for the distortion part.

It's not. BACCH allows mathematically rigorous crosstalk cancellation tuned to a specific person, their speakers and room.

 

[jimbill]

Something tells me this is little more than a good old Soundgoodizer™ in a fancy box for 6000 moneys. Works by frequency dependent phase shifting and distortion. Look, it even got the "stereo expander", I guess which you could also call "3D".

View attachment 469843
SPL Vitalizer MK2-T, with ~800 moneys at the upper end of these thingies. Even uses a tube for the distortion part.

You should read the article before passing judgement and coming to incorrect conclusions.

 

[Dialectic]

Something tells me this is little more than a good old Soundgoodizer™ in a fancy box for 6000 moneys. Works by frequency dependent phase shifting and distortion. Look, it even got the "stereo expander", I guess which you could also call "3D".

View attachment 469843
SPL Vitalizer MK2-T, with ~800 moneys at the upper end of these thingies. Even uses a tube for the distortion part.

If I had a dollar for every time I've seen this reaction on ASR.

I've not seen anything in audio documented as rigorously as BACCH is.

 

[mieswall]

Something tells me this is little more than a good old Soundgoodizer™ in a fancy box for 6000 moneys. Works by frequency dependent phase shifting and distortion. Look, it even got the "stereo expander", I guess which you could also call "3D".

View attachment 469843
SPL Vitalizer MK2-T, with ~800 moneys at the upper end of these thingies. Even uses a tube for the distortion part

The horror, the horror! Your steady musical world has been shaken, Colonel Kutz…

 

[Gwreck]

Something tells me this is little more than a good old Soundgoodizer™ in a fancy box for 6000 moneys. Works by frequency dependent phase shifting and distortion. Look, it even got the "stereo expander", I guess which you could also call "3D".

View attachment 469843
SPL Vitalizer MK2-T, with ~800 moneys at the upper end of these thingies. Even uses a tube for the distortion part.

BACCH also has a “room correction”
Called ORC which is head track and measured in the ear. It arguably makes as much or more of an improvement to the sound than the XTC.

 

[iGude]

The horror, the horror! Your steady musical world has been shaken, Colonel Kutz…

My name is Kurtz!

 

[mieswall]

BACCH also has a “room correction”
Called ORC which is head track and measured in the ear. It arguably makes as much or more of an improvement to the sound than the XTC.

I’ve had mixed results with ORC. Most of the time it has not been really successful, sucking bass and making all the presentation thinner.
But in my last calibration with the sweetspot closer to the maggies (even with the smaller .7’s in this case) in a perfect equilateral triangle, both XTC and ORC had a huge improvement. Now I’m using ORC at all times in this setup.
Even so, XTC is much a bigger improvement than ORC, imho.

Btw, the better the recording, the better the XTC improvement. A good example is any of the excellent 2L recordings. The sampler “nordic sound” has some really shocking tracks: the gregorian chant of track 5, for example, really immerse you in a stone church of the middle ages for the whole 5 minutes of the track. Turn off XTC and the magic is gone… even in the maggies, known for its spatial soundstage.
Even with these small speakers, with some well recorded music this may be the most realistic sound reproduction i have heard, other than live, not amplified music.

 

[mieswall]

Which ORC eq do you use? I’ve tried flat, Chesky, and Katz. Not sure, but I may prefer the last one.

 

[Gwreck]

Which ORC eq do you use? I’ve tried flat, Chesky, and Katz. Not sure, but I may prefer the last one.

Flat and chesky are my 2 favorite

 

[Dialectic]

Which ORC eq do you use? I’ve tried flat, Chesky, and Katz. Not sure, but I may prefer the last one.

I strongly prefer the Olive curve. Chesky and Katz sound hot in my room with lots of absorbers.

 

[mieswall]

Help please!
How do you connect your phono preamp to babyface?
I was using the line inputs at the right side, but get a lot of noise (often a pulsating low frecuency noise), probably some kind of ground loop.
So, I got a new phono pre amp (musical fidelity x vynil) with balanced outputs, but the xlr cables I have use the same female plug ports as the B4M mic, and the signal clips instantly… can’t get it to work….

 

[Keith_W]

Open Totalmix and look at the Analog input channels - they should be on the top left and labelled AN1/2 and AN3/4. Make sure:

1. 48V Phantom power is OFF
2. Preamp gain is turned all the way down.

Start playing some music and slowly turn up the preamp gain and watch the indicator bars. Choose a sensible level where it does not clip.

 

[mieswall]

Open Totalmix and look at the Analog input channels - they should be on the top left and labelled AN1/2 and AN3/4. Make sure:

1. 48V Phantom power is OFF
2. Preamp gain is turned all the way down.

Start playing some music and slowly turn up the preamp gain and watch the indicator bars. Choose a sensible level where it does not clip.

Sorry for insisting with this again: I did what you said, but the AN1/2 seem not being routed to the output (both the usb signal from the Mac or digital from the cd transport do work properly). It is receiving signal (in fact it clips very easily, see below). In fact, signal from AN1/2 doesn't arrive the the bins in B4m, too (all others do).
Btw, had to set the gain to 10.0, (instead of 32.0 when you set Edgar's settings), and even then the signal clips often, no matter where the fader is set.
Midi settings are as Edgar set it up:

What I'm doing wrong?

 

[Keith_W]

Post a screen shot of the matrix settings on your RME.

I can't help you with your B4M settings because I don't have B4M. Sorry. @Gwreck ?

Otherwise, you need to have a chat with the BACCH people.

 

[mieswall]

Post a screen shot of the matrix settings on your RME.

I can't help you with your B4M settings because I don't have B4M. Sorry. @Gwreck ?

Otherwise, you need to have a chat with the BACCH people.

Here it is.
I understand babyface acts a a kind of source selector / ADC, passing signals to B4M through USB, that in turn returns them processed to your DAC (also an RME, and ADI2 in my case). To do so, the Mac allows you to build a logical "compound device" in the midi setup with both the Babyface and the DAC, that the computer sees as a lone device..
The problem is before B4M, since it doesn't receive the signals fo AN 1/2 (the volume bars of the bins don't move with signals coming from AN 1/2). Therefore, I assume that inputs AN 1/2 are not redirecting signal to the ADC or the output ports of the same babyface.

 

[mieswall]

I had the slider of AN1/2 down in the previous screen capture.

 

[Keith_W]

Hmm, to be clear, this is how you should diagnose the problem. The signal chain is:

Phono --> AN1/2 input --> B4M --> AN1/2 output

Questions you should ask yourself:

1. Is the AN1/2 input receiving input? Your metering dancing bars clearly says yes. So it is.
2. Is B4M receiving input from AN1/2? I don't know if B4M has input metering or any way to show signs of activity. If there is no sign of activity, your chain is broken at B4M. Check your B4M settings to make sure that the inputs and outputs have been set correctly.
3. Is the AN1/2 output receiving input from B4M? If it is, you should see metering. If there is no sound, the signal chain is broken downstream from your RME. Check amplifiers, volume, cables, etc.

What this tells me is:

AN1/2 hardware output (DAC) is receiving input from AN1/2 hardware input, AN1/2 software input, and CH5/6 software input.
AN3/4 hardware output (DAC) is receiving input from AN3/4 software inputs ONLY.

If you need further help, can you please state:

1. Which inputs have you plugged your phono stage into?
2. What are the input and output settings in B4M?
3. What outputs have you used to connect your Babyface Pro to your amps? AN1/2 or AN3/4?

 

[Gwreck]

Post a screen shot of the matrix settings on your RME.

I can't help you with your B4M settings because I don't have B4M. Sorry. @Gwreck ?

Otherwise, you need to have a chat with the BACCH people.

I bought the BACCH-sp as the b4m is a PITA if you ever try to change system settings. The SP is eye wateringly expensive but is an awesome unit. I can also switch between sanders ESL’s with the sp as the system controller and my main system with just BACCH processor into an optical jack on my avr.