BACCH4Mac "Absolute Sounds Product of the Year 2024"

[goat76]

Nonsense. Playback systems don’t “fix” recordings. The BACCH fixes crosstalk.

Apparently BACCH not just “fixes the crosstalk” as it obviously overshoots it by about 30 degrees, hard-panned sounds end up appearing to be coming from a position 30 degrees outside the speakers. It's obviously an exaggerated effect which you can minimize by using a slider, but if you push back the slider to a non-exaggerated widening level so that BACCH only take away the crosstalk, you will probably not find the program worth it’s asking price as it will no longer make a significant difference.

And it does work equally well at reducing crosstalk for all recordings.

…Including the exaggerated effect.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

Anyhoo….I like BACCH (a lot)

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Any listening tests with other DSP to prove this claim?

Here is the website with contact info. If you are genuinely interested take a look and decide for yourself. I’m sure you can contact them and ask about their listening tests.

Theoretica Applied Physics

Bringing 3D audio from the laboratory to the real world.

www.theoretica.us

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Apparently BACCH not just “fixes the crosstalk” as it obviously overshoots it by about 30 degrees, hard-panned sounds end up appearing to be coming from a position 30 degrees outside the speakers. It's obviously an exaggerated effect which you can minimize by using a slider, but if you push back the slider to a non-exaggerated widening level so that BACCH only take away the crosstalk, you will probably not find the program worth it’s asking price as it will no longer make a significant difference.



…Including the exaggerated effect.

Look, if you enjoy soundstages forced between your speakers with minimal depth and the perceptual spatial confusion and listener fatigue that comes with the conflict between the spatial cues encoded on the recording and the spatial cues imposed on your playback by speaker crosstalk and room reflections knock yourself out.

Nothing wrong with enjoying the limits of antiquated technology. Why would you want to hear orchestral or other live acoustic music at or near real world scale and dimensionality with a transportive sense of hall ambience when you can enjoy a miniaturized version forced between the plane of your speakers with all glory of the ambience of your listening room?

If that’s what you like enjoy it.

 

[onion]

Anyway - well done Edgar and the Rocket Scientists at Theoretica! A richly deserved award even if TAS hadn't factored in ORC or all the haters on ASR!

 

[MattHooper]

Anyway - well done Edgar and the Rocket Scientists at Theoretica! A richly deserved award even if TAS hadn't factored in ORC or all the haters on ASR!

"Haters?"

I don't see any hate for BAACH. Many are intrigued and have expressed that in this thread. I'd love to hear it. I think you are mixing up being skeptical of some of the arguments put forth by some BAACH users with dislike for BAACH.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

"Haters?"

I don't see any hate for BAACH. Many are intrigued and have expressed that in this thread. I'd love to hear it. I think you are mixing up being skeptical of some of the arguments put forth by some BAACH users with dislike for BAACH.

If you are ever in Las Vegas I’d be happy to give you a demo.

I don’t see any legitimate skepticism here. What I do see are a lot of opinions of the sound quality that have zero basis in science, listening tests or even any actual direct experience.

 

[MattHooper]

Look, if you enjoy soundstages forced between your speakers with minimal depth and the perceptual spatial confusion and listener fatigue that comes with the conflict between the spatial cues encoded on the recording and the spatial cues imposed on your playback by speaker crosstalk and room reflections knock yourself out.

Nothing wrong with enjoying the limits of antiquated technology. Why would you want to hear orchestral or other live acoustic music at or near real world scale and dimensionality with a transportive sense of hall ambience when you can enjoy a miniaturized version forced between the plane of your speakers with all glory of the ambience of your listening room?

If that’s what you like enjoy it.

I would like to hear the BAACH processor. I have a feeling I'd like the result in many instances. I always appreciate good imaging and the ability of playback to seem to scale to the size of a recording.

On the other hand your characterization of regular stereo seems more than a tad exaggerated. I arrange my speakers, and dial in the reflections in my room for maximum immersion and spaciousness while maintaining imaging precision as much as possible. The result is the whole back of my room often seems to just disappear and large sounding recordings sound like large spaces, with tons of image depth when it's in the recording. I often get the sensation of hearing instruments through a great distance to the back of a hall. And far from "spatial confusion" I get very precise spatial relationships in the sound. Even guests, including fellow audiophiles, have been gobsmacked at the focus, density and palpability of the imaging within that huge soundstage.

And listener fatigue is pretty much not a thing with my system. It's one of the features that I can listen for hours and hours without fatigue. (It's also been remarked upon by other listeners).

So, again, I'd love to hear the BAACH, I'd probably enjoy it, but I don't think one needs to exaggerate regular stereo as being worse than it actually is. It can be plenty amazing.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I would like to hear the BAACH processor. I have a feeling I'd like the result in many instances. I always appreciate good imaging and the ability of playback to seem to scale to the size of a recording.

On the other hand your characterization of regular stereo seems more than a tad exaggerated. I arrange my speakers, and dial in the reflections in my room for maximum immersion and spaciousness while maintaining imaging precision as much as possible. The result is the whole back of my room often seems to just disappear and large sounding recordings sound like large spaces, with tons of image depth when it's in the recording. I often get the sensation of hearing instruments through a great distance to the back of a hall. And far from "spatial confusion" I get very precise spatial relationships in the sound. Even guests, including fellow audiophiles, have been gobsmacked at the focus, density and palpability of the imaging within that huge soundstage.

And listener fatigue is pretty much not a thing with my system. It's one of the features that I can listen for hours and hours without fatigue. (It's also been remarked upon by other listeners).

So, again, I'd love to hear the BAACH, I'd probably enjoy it, but I don't think one needs to exaggerate regular stereo as being worse than it actually is. It can be plenty amazing.

Like I said, if you find yourself in Las Vegas let me know. After an audition we can talk about whether or not I am exaggerating

 

[MattHooper]

Like I said, if you find yourself in Las Vegas let me know. After an audition we can talk about whether or not I am exaggerating

I appreciate the offer. However I don't need to hear the BAACH to determine that your descriptions exaggerated the negatives about regular stereo, certainly as I experience them.

 

[Thomas_A]

At Disney hall, Segerstrom hall and Davies hall they are lounges. Reserved for donors mostly.

What does any of that have to do with the actual scale of the orchestra?

Doesn’t matter how you record an orchestra. The actual orchestra is always to big to fit between your speakers and with conventional two channel stereo that’s always going to be the confines along with your listening room

A lounge can be your room , same space as the concert hall lounge.

What are the angles you have measured in a middle seating of a concert hall, that includes the orchestra? Or a perfomance of a group of 5-6 musicians?

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

A lounge can be your room , same space as the concert hall lounge.

What are the angles you have measured in a middle seating of a concert hall, that includes the orchestra? Or a perfomance of a group of 5-6 musicians?

No need to break out a tape measure or survey equipment

✅ Walt Disney Concert Hall - Data, Photos & Plans - WikiArquitectura

Introduction The Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by the architect Frank Gehry, opened in 2003 after many years of gestation. The history of the building began in 1987 when Lillian Walt Disney, widow of businessman donates $ 50 million to start building a philharmonic hall. The idea was to...

en.wikiarquitectura.com

Length 195 ft
Width 119 ft
Height 51 ft

https://scontent.flas1-2.fna.fbcdn....V5hclPgEiGLVxvKpIzmcKkzrXNBnudoug&oe=66176C06

 

[goat76]

Look, if you enjoy soundstages forced between your speakers with minimal depth and the perceptual spatial confusion and listener fatigue that comes with the conflict between the spatial cues encoded on the recording and the spatial cues imposed on your playback by speaker crosstalk and room reflections knock yourself out.

Nothing wrong with enjoying the limits of antiquated technology. Why would you want to hear orchestral or other live acoustic music at or near real world scale and dimensionality with a transportive sense of hall ambience when you can enjoy a miniaturized version forced between the plane of your speakers with all glory of the ambience of your listening room?

If that’s what you like enjoy it.

That is not a suitable description of the sound in my listening room. I have a small equilateral listening triangle of about 2 meters which gives me a high ratio of direct sound inside the critical distance. The speakers and the listening place is pretty far away from the walls in an acoustically treated room and the first reflections are 19dB under the direct sound. As I’m listening inside the critical distance and using wide dispersion speakers, the envelopment is pretty amazing when the recordings have such a “spread”. But at the same time it’s a dispersion in width and depth from recording to recording which I think tells me I get a darly truthful reproduction. If every recording sounds wide, I would be highly suspicious that I don't hear a truthful reproduction.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

That is not a suitable description of the sound in my listening room. I have a small equilateral listening triangle of about 2 meters which gives me a high ratio of direct sound inside the critical distance. The speakers and the listening place is pretty far away from the walls in an acoustically treated room and the first reflections are 19dB under the direct sound. As I’m listening inside the critical distance and using wide dispersion speakers, the envelopment is pretty amazing when the recordings have such a “spread”. But at the same time it’s a dispersion in width and depth from recording to recording which I think tells me I get a darly truthful reproduction. If every recording sounds wide, I would be highly suspicious that I don't hear a truthful reproduction.

If you are happy with it I am happy that you are happy with it. Truly

I am curious. How did you isolate and measure the first order reflections?

Are you using absorption on those reflection points?

 

[goat76]

Prove it. Show me the recording engineers that state their goal was specifically to land hard pans on the speakers



That’s just wrong.


Wrong again. Hard pans emanate from the speaker because of the crosstalk. The crosstalk is masking spatial cues that place hard pans in a variety of positions away from the speaker.

It’s not an effect. It’s the elimination of an effect

You obviously don't have a clue what a hard-panned sound is.

 

[Thomas_A]

No need to break out a tape measure or survey equipment

✅ Walt Disney Concert Hall - Data, Photos & Plans - WikiArquitectura

Introduction The Walt Disney Concert Hall, designed by the architect Frank Gehry, opened in 2003 after many years of gestation. The history of the building began in 1987 when Lillian Walt Disney, widow of businessman donates $ 50 million to start building a philharmonic hall. The idea was to...

en.wikiarquitectura.com

Length 195 ft
Width 119 ft
Height 51 ft

https://scontent.flas1-2.fna.fbcdn....V5hclPgEiGLVxvKpIzmcKkzrXNBnudoug&oe=66176C06

So sitting somewhere in the middle will fit the angles of the stereo triangle, no?

 

[AudioJester]

I might try the Windows VST version of UBAACH.
How would I go about measuring/quantifying the effect? (Have REW and Audiolense).

 

[goat76]

If you are happy with it I am happy that you are happy with it. Truly

I am curious. How did you isolate and measure the first order reflections?

Are you using absorption on those reflection points?

Math and measurements. 1 ms has a travel time of about 34 cm so it it's not that hard to figure out where the first reflection points are coming from by looking at the measurements. I do have absorption panels but most of them are not positioned at the first reflection points, that is not necessary as I control them by distance with the mentioned small listening triangle that gives me a high ratio of direct sound, and a fairly long distance to the walls for both the listening position and the speakers.

 

[STC]

Here is the website with contact info. If you are genuinely interested take a look and decide for yourself. I’m sure you can contact them and ask about their listening tests.

Theoretica Applied Physics

Bringing 3D audio from the laboratory to the real world.

www.theoretica.us

I am only concerned with the validity of the claim. Long before BACCH came there were other DSP and no coloration was audible including the $10 AmbiophonicsDSP where I have personally done multiple demo comparing if there was any colouration that can be audible. I am genuinely interested in crosstalk when BACCH was not event conceived. Multiple users have reported that BACCH seemed better than other DSPs but better that doesn’t mean without colouration.

 

[Keith_W]

I might try the Windows VST version of UBAACH.
How would I go about measuring/quantifying the effect? (Have REW and Audiolense).

That's an interesting question! I have done accidental measurements with uBACCH in the signal chain but I have never deliberately gone about trying to quantify the effect. I am guilty of enjoying uBACCH like an old-fashioned subjectivist I think you have two ways to measure it:

- Acoustic measurements with BACCH in the signal chain. Send the output of REW through a VST host with uBACCH installed, then out the speakers with capture through a microphone. With my accidental measurements I can tell you there is no difference in the frequency response. If I were to set out to deliberately quantify the effect, I would also do mono measurements (left and right playing together) since that is how xtalk cancellation works.
- Measurement of the digital output. Send the output from your VST host through Audyssey, with and without uBACCH. Then generate a difference file.

Let us know of your results! If I have time, I might go do this experiment myself.