BACCH4MAC Short Review / first impressions

[JRS]

BACCH does the crosstalk cancellation but is can do it for any speaker and does it without any coloration of the sound. With the head tracking it frees you from the “head in a vice” to get the sweet spot. Also BACCH does not require perfectly symmetrical speaker arrangements to get good effect.

I hope you don’t get ridiculed for asking questions as definitely BACCH is not cheap or easy to audition. With the head tracking it frees up the sweet spot to be wider. Perfect symmetry for speaker placement is not needed either for it to work well. The headphone module will allow you to silently listen to your system through your headphones with head tracking. It has no sonic coloration and much better crosstalk cancellation than other types I have tried( sonic holography, ambiophonics, q sound, phased array systems ). With certain recordings BACCH can put sound all around you and even behind your head( if meant to be there). It’s about my favorite audio product ever. There are all sorts of possibilities it has for manipulating sound using HRTF when using the pro version the good news now is that the new m2 Mac mini can be had for $550 new and it will run BACCH as the memory requirements have gone down from 16gb to 8gb. My M1 Max book pro runs it without a hitch.

That's interesting about the memory--I just asked and they made it sound as if 16GB is a requirement. It's a 200 upgrade on a new mac-mini. I just bought a new Yogi 9i laptop that I love, and so finding close to another grand for a mac mini + one more for the software is a leap in faith. Anyone know if you have a 30 day return window on a Mac-mini at Amazon? That would be zero risk for those of us without Mac gear.

 

[JRS]

I can get a headphone impulse response measurement from my sanders without head tracking and will share that for people who want to try headphones.

Oh please do. Sanders are my dream to die 4 speakers. Not sure when I'll find 20K now that I'm retired. So here's a question--if I had the SP version up and running, would it be then possible for me to listen to my music thru your Sanders? I suspect that you use the binaural mics to make a recording from music played back through your system in which case I would need nothing besides basic playback? I seem to recall that the Smythe can do this but never really understood its capabilities as it was basically unobtanium when I heard first.

But talk about a parlor trick--Oh tonight I'll do some acoustic jazz with the Sanders 10 filter. Tomorrow I plan to rock out--do I go with the JBL M2, or the Perlisten S7? That would be most marvelous indeed.

 

[Keith_W]

That's interesting about the memory--I just asked and they made it sound as if 16GB is a requirement. It's a 200 upgrade on a new mac-mini. I just bought a new Yogi 9i laptop that I love, and so finding close to another grand for a mac mini + one more for the software is a leap in faith. Anyone know if you have a 30 day return window on a Mac-mini at Amazon? That would be zero risk for those of us without Mac gear.

BACCH can run on a minimum of a 2012 Intel Mac Mini. Those are quite affordable on the secondhand market.

As for the 16GB RAM requirement, I had a chat to my friend who is a software developer and also runs BACCH. He said you need 16GB because of memory leaks. He noticed it when he was running it for over 12 hours. But if you reboot your computer after a few hours, 8GB should be OK.

 

[Gwreck]

Oh please do. Sanders are my dream to die 4 speakers. Not sure when I'll find 20K now that I'm retired. So here's a question--if I had the SP version up and running, would it be then possible for me to listen to my music thru your Sanders? I suspect that you use the binaural mics to make a recording from music played back through your system in which case I would need nothing besides basic playback? I seem to recall that the Smythe can do this but never really understood its capabilities as it was basically unobtanium when I heard first.

But talk about a parlor trick--Oh tonight I'll do some acoustic jazz with the Sanders 10 filter. Tomorrow I plan to rock out--do I go with the JBL M2, or the Perlisten S7? That would be most marvelous indeed.

I think the Sanders are the best sound for the money and I’m completely happy with mine. I had Martin Logan’s but got the sanders just for BACCH. The lower Martin Logan’s even the em-ESL’s are good for much cheaper.

If you let me know a few tracks tomorrow evening I can do the headphone BACCH filter. I added on Jethro Tull file to the drive. The headphone file would need to be listened to on headphones.

 

[Gwreck]

BACCH can run on a minimum of a 2012 Intel Mac Mini. Those are quite affordable on the secondhand market.

As for the 16GB RAM requirement, I had a chat to my friend who is a software developer and also runs BACCH. He said you need 16GB because of memory leaks. He noticed it when he was running it for over 12 hours. But if you reboot your computer after a few hours, 8GB should be OK.

I see the mini specs have changed to 8gb which was different than the 16gb I had been. I think the m1 and m2 processors may have made a difference.

“Computer Requirements: The BACCH-dSP application, which is at the heart of all BACCH4Mac editions, requires a recent (2012 or later) Mac Pro, Mac Mini, iMac, or MacBook Pro with a minimum of 8 GB of RAM. The latest version of BACCH-dSP (9.6) is fully compatible with Mac OS (13.1 Ventura), as well as all previous Mac OS versions down to, and including, 10.14 (Mojave). It is also fully compatible with all Mac computers that can run these operating systems, inlcuding the latest M1 and M2 Macs.”

 

[JRS]

I think the Sanders are the best sound for the money and I’m completely happy with mine. I had Martin Logan’s but got the sanders just for BACCH. The lower Martin Logan’s even the em-ESL’s are good for much cheaper.

If you let me know a few tracks tomorrow evening I can do the headphone BACCH filter. I added on Jethro Tull file to the drive. The headphone file would need to be listened to on headphones.

I'll give that some thought and get back to you tomorrow. I'll find a few faves and pass those on. I have IEMs handy, (my HP's are in San Diego with a friend)-intuitively it would seem that a good IEM would be better than phones, no? as my own ears aren't gumming things up as much. Looking forward to this, I really appreciate your performing a Johnny Appleseed service by spreading the tech around. I agree with you--even though I havent yet experienced the tech directly, this is a BFD and will be groundbreaking in much the same way early IR correction by DEQX and Meridian did.

 

[Gwreck]

I'll give that some thought and get back to you tomorrow. I'll find a few faves and pass those on. I have IEMs handy, (my HP's are in San Diego with a friend)-intuitively it would seem that a good IEM would be better than phones, no? as my own ears aren't gumming things up as much. Looking forward to this, I really appreciate your performing a Johnny Appleseed service by spreading the tech around. I agree with you--even though I havent yet experienced the tech directly, this is a BFD and will be groundbreaking in much the same way early IR correction by DEQX and Meridian did.

Thanks you. I am very enthusiastic about BACCH and think others would probably enjoy it also but it is difficult find a place to audition.

According to Dr Choueri open back headphone are better for the effect due to pressure on the eardrum from closed back headphones. It has not been an issue for me but probably because my closed back headphones have a more natural sound than my open back. (I’m not really a headphone person though).

 

[Keith_W]

If you let me know a few tracks tomorrow evening I can do the headphone BACCH filter. I added on Jethro Tull file to the drive. The headphone file would need to be listened to on headphones.

I just had a listen on the Jethro Tulls on my headphone (closed back). The volume was very soft. Again, I am not familiar with the original, but to me it did not project a convincing "out of the head" experience. It sounded like a normal track

 

[Gwreck]

I just had a listen on the Jethro Tulls on my headphone (closed back). The volume was very soft. Again, I am not familiar with the original, but to me it did not project a convincing "out of the head" experience. It sounded like a normal track

I just had a listen on the Jethro Tulls on my headphone (closed back). The volume was very soft. Again, I am not familiar with the original, but to me it did not project a convincing "out of the head" experience. It sounded like a normal track

I haven’t heard anyone else’s BACCH headphone filter so I’m not really sure what the experience would be. This file was convolved with an impulse response taken from my system with the in ear microphones. The effect is very fickle to to many psychoacoustic factors even when using my own filter. If you can listen to the original song and let compare the two. It’s the 2010 anniversary edition for the album. If there is another song you’d like me to process let me know.

 

[tjcinnamon]

I managed to borrow a Mac. In a week or two I’m going to try it out. The preconvolved tracks didn’t work as well as I think they can.

My L800’s had a much bigger and more consistent effect. The BACCH pre-convolved tracks made Binaural music “stronger” but for non-binaural it didn’t move the needle and actually made the stereo image and sound quality worse.

The BACCH binaural + SDA was pretty intense. Almost comically exaggerated. Very very fun stuff!

I’m convinced it can work better, so I’m gonna give it a try. I just bought a new graphics card, so I’m gonna have to wait a few weeks until I drop some coin on the demo.

I’m hoping during the initial setup we can lock a setting in.

 

[Gwreck]

I managed to borrow a Mac. In a week or two I’m going to try it out. The preconvolved tracks didn’t work as well as I think they can.

My L800’s had a much bigger and more consistent effect. The BACCH pre-convolved tracks made Binaural music “stronger” but for non-binaural it didn’t move the needle and actually made the stereo image and sound quality worse.

The BACCH binaural + SDA was pretty intense. Almost comically exaggerated. Very very fun stuff!

I’m convinced it can work better, so I’m gonna give it a try. I just bought a new graphics card, so I’m gonna have to wait a few weeks until I drop some coin on the demo.

I’m hoping during the initial setup we can lock a setting in.

 

[Gwreck]

uBACCH can work well but is very finicky about the system (from my experience) so I’m not suprised it didn’t work all that well. I hope to hear the ls800’s someday. The older SDA speakers would be interesting also.

 

[tjcinnamon]

uBACCH can work well but is very finicky about the system (from my experience) so I’m not suprised it didn’t work all that well. I hope to hear the ls800’s someday. The older SDA speakers would be interesting also.

I’ll keep you posted and the journey isn’t over yet!

I was able to audition my L800’s in Minnesota. I didn’t even know what the SDA tech was. Just saw a YouTube and I figured I’d give it a try

 

[Tim Link]

I was not suggesting that. All I wanted to say that a recording has been created while listening with acoustic cross-talk. Correcting for it may over compensate.

I think this is a sensible concern. However, my subjective listening impressions have been that crosstalk reduction almost always improves the sound and rarely ever makes recordings sound worse. I don't feel there's anyway to make 2 speaker crosstalk work to a recording's favor. It's a parasitic effect that is generally ignored during mixing because there's nothing to be done about it. I suppose from a purist's perspective we should hear that anomaly. From comments about using the stereo wide setting for some up-mixing methods I get the impression that some people actually really like crosstalk for music. Some headphone listeners even add it intentionally. So, I guess you just have to listen and decide for yourself if it floats your boat.

 

[Gwreck]

Doubling crosstalk cancellation types may not make. Much difference. 20db apparently is the maximum amount of crosstalk cancellation that is noticeable by a human. For instance I bought the Razer leviathan V2 pro which uses phased arrays to minimize crosstalk. Although the general audio quality is that of a decent pc speaker the crosstalk cancellation effect is very strong and on par with BACCH. When I combine the two there is almost no difference with and w/o BACCH.

BACCH-X is phased array plus the BACCH filter.

 

[Tim Link]

Doubling crosstalk cancellation types may not make. Much difference. 20db apparently is the maximum amount of crosstalk cancellation that is noticeable by a human. For instance I bought the Razer leviathan V2 pro which uses phased arrays to minimize crosstalk. Although the general audio quality is that of a decent pc speaker the crosstalk cancellation effect is very strong and on par with BACCH. When I combine the two there is almost no difference with and w/o BACCH.

BACCH-X is phased array plus the BACCH filter.

Interesting! I hadn't heard of that Razer soundbar.

 

[Gwreck]

Interesting! I hadn't heard of that Razer soundbar.

https://www.razer.com/gaming-speakers/razer-leviathan-v2-pro

Bought it as a toy and not my “critical listening “ there is much potential for these phased array systems. I wish Yamaha would use their YSP tech for this.

 

[Tim Link]

https://www.razer.com/gaming-speakers/razer-leviathan-v2-pro

Bought it as a toy and not my “critical listening “ there is much potential for these phased array systems. I wish Yamaha would use their YSP tech for this.

That should be great for video games where directional information is really important and you don't want to set up a full surround system.

 

[tjcinnamon]

View attachment 272379I am pretty proud of myself as I’m now getting 23db of crosstalk cancellation for each ear. What is anyone else getting with their set up?

Do you know how it’s measuring that? Is that amplitude?

 

[Keith_W]

Since I last posted in this thread, I have experimented a bit with Ambio One which is a free Ambiophonics VST plugin in JRiver. My issue is that tuning it is by ear only. I am not aware of any measurements that can be done to show that they are optimally dialled in. The effect of twiddling those knobs is actually night and day but NOT in a good way. It ranges from subtle increase in depth, width, and precision of the soundstage, to dramatic changes in these parameters but with a "phasey" and hollowed out kind of sound that frankly sounds weird. I never did get satisfactory results from Ambio One, so I am looking for a more objective approach.

I understand that Choueri worked with Ralph Glasgal when ambiophonics RACE (Recursive Ambiophonic Crosstalk Elimination) algorithm was developed. Choueri then developed BACCH. There are a number of VST's that use RACE, e.g. Ambio One (developed by Glasgal?), AmbiophonicsDSP (defunct), SoundPimp, and maybe a few others. The advantage of all those VST's are that they run on Windows and they are substantially cheaper. The disadvantage is that none of them can be set up with measurements, none have head tracking, and they all require narrow speaker angles to work properly. The lack of being able to guide your settings with measurements is what is killing the deal for me with all these non-BACCH ambio plugins.

So, I was wondering if you would be keen to do a review on BACCH from an "objectivist" perspective, with measurements and subjective listening impressions of various settings. All current reviews on BACCH are subjective, I have not found a single one that explains what settings are available and what effect it has. Not even a screenshot, apart from what you have provided.