Dr. Edgar Choueiri explains BACCH

[Tim Link]

I would liken inter-aural crosstalk reduction to an improved stereoscopic image viewer. Most stereoscopic imaging suffer some ghosting, where the each eye sees a little of what it's not supposed to, like when you're using polarized glasses, or a grating put in front of a screen that allows you to see 3D effects without having to wear glasses. ( I loved the Nintendo 3DS!) The images are "mastered" to be as good as they can be, and the unintended ghosting is just an accepted artifact. If you can create a viewing experience that gets rid of it more completely, it's highly unlikely you're going to ruin the intent of the person who mastered the image, or movie. It'll just look better. Some eccentric artists may intentionally include the ghosting as a desirable trait, but I'd expect that to be a tiny portion of the total content.

What do we do when an image is intended to be seen by only one eye? Or a sound heard by one ear? Neither are hardly ever the case. If a sound is hard panned to just one channel, it's pretty clear that it was intended to be heard by both ears. If an image is hard panned to just one eye, with another entirely different image in the other eye, we're probably looking at an image pair that was not meant to be looked at for stereoscopic effects. Go ahead and turn off the stereoscopic function and let both eyes see both images as a pair next to each other. And feel free to turn off the audio crosstalk reduction.

Speaking of the Nintendo 3DS, I noticed that the ghosting was particularly noticeable on bright objects against dark backgrounds. So by avoiding strong 3D effects in those settings the apparent ghosting could be minimized. In that sense, the material may be mastered in such a way to compromise the 3D effect in some situations in order to minimize ghosting. Still, it's not going to hurt your experience if you find a way to remove the ghosting.

 

[Davide]

No worries. I am used to it on this forum ;-)

You can turn it as you want, but a since there is no universally definable target for compensation of environmental/system effect during reproduction (because you don't know how they influenced audio production), any alteration is an effect to best suit our perception.
At least that's how I see it. It doesn't mean it's something useless or wrong, indeed.
However you seem to me one of the few to describe the effect of crosstalk reduction as a night day thing, regardless.
Not even switching from stereo to multichannel in my experience is as drastic as emotional change.
Also when I go from speakers to headphones it is not so night day the difference, yet there is really cancellation of crosstalk, not reduction.
The relativity of human perception can be endlessly argued, but using big statements such as pseudo-audiophile reviewers is not good to me.
It is not a criticism or a personal attack, just an observation on the reality of things.
I am the first to be curious to hear crosstalk reduction effect on the speakers.
But surely it won't change my practical point of view. The problem of the reference for me remains.
Improving spatiality (wanted or not by the creator) on a possibly restricted listening area, spending such an amount, makes no sense to me, because you have not always data to get true to source spatiality, and, normal stereo systems have been enjoyable and emotional so far where they are well made.
But it does not mean that it cannot be improved, clearly, and that at a more democratic price I am not inclined to buy an XTC...
It is simply a question of the relationship between sound result and price.
But subjectivity is of little use here, some numbers are desired.
And here it seems to me a bit that you want to size the effect based on the price at which it is offered.
Like when reviewers say the $ 100,000 amplifier works wonders.

EDIT: My epilogue

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

If a sound is hard panned to just one channel, it's pretty clear that it was intended to be heard by both ears.

I don’t think it’s clear at all. It doesn’t connect one bit. Take a classic example like Pink Floyd DSOTM. You think they were mixing those crazy back and forth pans and were thinking “yeah that’s exactly where we wanted these pans to land, right on our speakers! Thank god we can’t make these crazy stereo effects go beyond the speakers! We wouldn’t want that. Love these happy coincidences where the limits of the technology exactly meet our goals.”

 

[mieswall]

I am the first to be curious to hear crosstalk reduction effect on the speakers. But surely it won't change my practical point of view.

I hope you do it (a serious audition, of course), then tell us if you could resist NOT having this in your system.

There are a lot of assumptions in your in previous posts, which I think may be wrong. The main one: that the crosstalk listened by the mixing engineer in the studio somehow resembles the one you get at home. Be assured, it is very, very different. Try to seat at a DAW feed by Genelecs or KH monitors at less than a meter, in a control room with proper acoustics, then tell us if there is any similarity to the sound you get at your home.

Another one is that the spatial clues cannot be captured by the mic arrangement. Although this of course depends on the setup, it is obvious that this can be done, and that’s what bacch unveils. As I said in a previous post: hear a good recording of a string quartet, and listen how Bacch makes tangible each instrument on its own, almost exactly as how you hear it in the first rows in a live venue, and you woud simply find absurd any doubt if this approaches reality in a more faithful fashion.

Then the comparison of B4M and xtc with… loudness controls! C’mon…

Anyway, the proof is in the hearing. The degree of spatial definition bacch achieves with proper recordings (80-90% of my library) (the audiophile version, it is dangerous to draw conclusions from the limited uBacch), which in turn makes the listening experience so much closer to the real thing, is something i have not experienced before, no matter the cost of the gear i’ve tried. Among the good stuff i’ve heard in my life, like speakers of Focal, Audiophysic, TAD, Genesis, several approaching six figures in price; or extremely expensive power amps from Pass, Benchmark, Rogue, Esoteric, Gryphon, Halcro… each of them impressive on their own… don’t achieve a fraction of the realism B4M is able to.

It’s a constant: every time a technology question long held certainties of people, detractors appear under every stone. The sad thing is that most of them haven’t even heard what they criticize. And most of the time, this is done building “scientific” arguments on their limited knowledge on the subject. Even when the product is conceived by a math genius (Choueri here, Gerzon in MQA), so many people feel entitled to question what those mathematicians have created … based on a tiny fraction of the theory needed and, worst of all, without even listening what they disregard.

Just listen it. Please. Please.

 

[Tim Link]

I don’t think it’s clear at all. It doesn’t connect one bit. Take a classic example like Pink Floyd DSOTM. You think they were mixing those crazy back and forth pans and were thinking “yeah that’s exactly where we wanted these pans to land, right on our speakers! Thank god we can’t make these crazy stereo effects go beyond the speakers! We wouldn’t want that. Love these happy coincidences where the limits of the technology exactly meet our goals.”

I don't think you'll ever get anything that doesn't land on the speaker if it's merely hard panned. There usually has to be some phase effect info on the other speaker to trick us in to perceiving it coming from somewhere else. I've tried playing a sound out of just one speaker and it pretty much always lands on that speaker. The only time I've gotten it to do otherwise was with a highly directional speaker, listening far off axis and bouncing the sound off another wall. This does bring up an interesting potential experiment though, playing with just one speaker, how far away from that speaker can you get the sound source to perceptually come from without using the speaker's directional effects? Maybe by encoding HRTF into the recording you could get something amazing to happen.

 

[goat76]

Even Professor Edgar Choueiri acknowledges that Bacch and crosstalk cancellation will not always work as intended for all types of recordings and certain elements in many modern music productions, that's why he practically "grades" different kinds of recordings from best suited to the least suited. The best-suited recordings for listening with crosstalk cancellation are the ones made for binaural reproduction, the second-best ones are the recordings where the main sound comes from some stereo micing technique. The least suitable type of recordings which are the most common ones, are made with panned multi-mono microphones and all these will be a hit or a miss when it comes to crosstalk cancellation.

The hard-panned sounds in the least suitable type of recordings are the most problematic ones, they will often sound way too isolated in a similar way as if the listener was blocking the opposite ear from hearing the sound coming from the opposite speaker, but such a hard-panned sound is meant to be heard with both ears in the same natural way as if a sound object in real life were positioned to the side where one of the loudspeakers are positioned.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

I don't think you'll ever get anything that doesn't land on the speaker if it's merely hard panned. There usually has to be some phase effect info on the other speaker to trick us in to perceiving it coming from somewhere else. I've tried playing a sound out of just one speaker and it pretty much always lands on that speaker. The only time I've gotten it to do otherwise was with a highly directional speaker, listening far off axis and bouncing the sound off another wall. This does bring up an interesting potential experiment though, playing with just one speaker, how far away from that speaker can you get the sound source to perceptually come from without using the speaker's directional effects? Maybe by encoding HRTF into the recording you could get something amazing to happen.

Yes. Very true. But my point was that this is the limitation of conventional stereo not necessarily the goal of the artist/producers or engineers. So its a huge assumption that hard pans landing on the speaker was the ideal they wished for

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

Even Professor Edgar Choueiri acknowledges that Bacch and crosstalk cancellation will not always work as intended for all types of recordings and certain elements in many modern music productions,

The BACCH always works as intended. It always reduces crosstalk. What “works” for modern studio productions is subjective.

that's why he practically "grades" different kinds of recordings from best suited to the least suited.

But if you ask people who have lived with the BACCH the vast majority will give you context for these “grades” best suited = uncanny heretofore thought impossible levels of virtual teleportation to an actual concert hall to least suited = a substantial increase in image size and dimension with an unprecedented sense of proximity. But is no more or less natural or unnatural than conventional stereo.

Context matters

The best-suited recordings for listening with crosstalk cancellation are the ones made for binaural reproduction, the second-best ones are the recordings where the main sound comes from some stereo micing technique. The least suitable type of recordings which are the most common ones, are made with panned multi-mono microphones and all these will be a hit or a miss when it comes to crosstalk cancellation

Hit or miss according to whom? So far I have had hundreds of hits and one, just one mixed bag.

And something that has a very significant and constantly ignored by naysayers is the slider that allows you to vary the amount of cross talk cancellations

There is no downside.

The hard-panned sounds in the least suitable type of recordings are the most problematic ones, they will often sound way too isolated in a similar way as if the listener was blocking the opposite ear from hearing the sound coming from the opposite speaker, but such a hard-panned sound is meant to be heard with both ears in the same natural way as if a sound object in real life were positioned to the side where one of the loudspeakers are positioned.

I’m calling BS on this. “Way too isolated” according to whom? It’s subjective. And subjectively speaking for me there is simply nothing worse when it comes to imaging than a hard pan that lands on the speaker. Nothing says “you are listening to speakers” more clearly than a hard pan that lands on the speaker.

And there is a clear double standard applied to the BACCH here at ASR. When it comes to Dolby Atmos and up mixes of old stereo studio recordings all is well.
Nevermind every single criticism leveled against cross talk cancelation can more so be leveled against surround upmixes. It’s legit because it’s fun and Dolby Stmos enthusiasts enjoy them. Yeah a lot those
Mixes suck but it gets a pass anyway.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

You can turn it as you want, but a since there is no universally definable target for compensation of environmental effect during reproduction, any alteration is an effect (to best suit our ears).

Sorry but this is plainly wrong. There absolutely is a clear objective definable target. Any crosstalk added by the speaker/room/listener interface is an added distortion. The standard is no added audible distortion.

However you seem to me one of the few to describe the effect of crosstalk reduction as a night day thing.

Again plainly not true. Every single user of the BACCH here at ASR describes it as night and day or something to that effect. And I am so confident in this that I can say with confidence you very very likely have not auditioned the BACCH SP with head tracking in a properly configured system. Night and day is an understatement. You would know that if you have had a proper audition.

Not even switching from stereo to multichannel in my experience is as drastic as emotional change.

Me too. In fact most of the multi channel playback I have auditioned was inferior IMO to conventional stereo

Also when I go from speakers to headphones it is not so night day the difference, yet there is really cancellation of crosstalk, not reduction.

Seriously? You don’t think there is a night and day difference between headphones and imaging between your ears and stereo, imaging between two speakers a clear distance in front of you? Maybe we have very different ideas of night and day differences.

The relativity of human perception can be endlessly argued, but using big statements such as pseudo-audiophile reviewers is not good to me.

Sorry but it is a night and day difference. You would be hard pressed to come up with a bigger difference in high end audio

It is not a criticism or a personal attack, just an observation on the reality of things.

No worries. I didn’t take it that way. And the same goes for me.

I am the first to be curious to hear crosstalk reduction effect on the speakers. But surely it won't change my practical point of view.

That comes off as a case of making up your mind before having the experience to pass judgement. But that is yours to wrestle with

Improving spatiality (wanted or not by the creator) on a restricted listening area, spending such an amount, makes no sense,

And yet this is often cited as the last divide between an inherently flawed medium, stereo and the holy grail, live acoustic music in a concert hall. IMO nothing makes more sense than conquering the last remaining divide.

because you have not data to get true to source spatiality,

What do you mean you don’t have the data? You mean inadequate recordings? You can’t blame the medium for the quality of the recording

and, normal stereo systems have been abundantly enjoyable and emotional so far where they were made.

And yet for the past 70 years audiophiles and audio designers have been going to great lengths to improve it and have maintained a common position that we were still nowhere near the objective of accuracy to an original acoustic event. Abundantly enjoyable? Sure. As good as it can get? IMO not until now

But it does not mean that at a more democratic price I am not inclined to buy it...

Value is very personal. In a world where some audiophiles spend orders of
magnitude more money on power cords, cables and other tweaks that literally make no audible difference, in a world where even the bare bones pure objectivist loud speakers that are considered state of the art Range from about 20k-60k such a ground breaking technology is IMO a bargain at 5-6k. Again my opinion

It is simply a question of the relationship between sound result and price.

Agreed100%

And here it seems to me a bit that you want to size the effect based on the price at which it is offered.
Like when reviewers say the $ 100,000 amplifier works wonders.

But it’s nothing like that.

Definitely not ... remain with our feet on the ground. And there is no need to listen to deduce. It's enough science and common sense.

For sure. Have a proper audition of the BACCH with head tracking and let’s talk again.

 

[Tim Link]

I'll be interested in hearing your thoughts.

I tried the uBAACH plug-in tonight. For some reason I'm getting a lot of distortion. I tried turning down the input volume assuming there might be some clipping but it made no difference. I played with the binaural pink noise feature and could get the pink noise to be completely off to the left or right, but the distortion and breakup are interfering with my ability to compare it on music. From what I can hear the soundstage on music is about the same on the albums I tried. On my system I can get Soundpimp to make the soundstage super wide, with instruments seeming to come from way off to the left and right, but that sounds kind of crazy to me, so the fact that uBACCH is providing a similar soundstage to what my crosstalk reduction does on most recordings is, I think, a good sign.

 

[jimbill]

I tried the uBAACH plug-in tonight. For some reason I'm getting a lot of distortion. I tried turning down the input volume assuming there might be some clipping but it made no difference. I played with the binaural pink noise feature and could get the pink noise to be completely off to the left or right, but the distortion and breakup are interfering with my ability to compare it on music. From what I can hear the soundstage on music is about the same on the albums I tried. On my system I can get Soundpimp to make the soundstage super wide, with instruments seeming to come from way off to the left and right, but that sounds kind of crazy to me, so the fact that uBACCH is providing a similar soundstage to what my crosstalk reduction does on most recordings is, I think, a good sign.

You had no interaction with Edgar?

 

[Davide]

It's not a question of detractors and supporters. I think there are some conceptual elements at stake.
It's an objectively subjective question.

Most tracks are not intended to provide the spatial information that XTC can convey. At least not necessarily.
Therefore what XTC can make one perceive could be see as the result of chance, settings, and no less importantly, could be limited to a single listener.

Is it a more emotional experience for that individual listener?
In some cases yes, in others no viewing user's reports. I'd say it can't be generalized without appropriate preference tests with controls.
It should depends on the songs, settings and on the interaction between your speakers and your room.
It is not an opinion, it is the theory that determines this... as it determines that the perception with less crosstalk can be more holographic, it also determines elements of variability for which the effectiveness of the XTC could vary.
So it is absolutely/technically not possible to generalise to me.
It can be quantified from a personal point of view for each specific case at most.
And so to the concept that the result is a dependent experience and XTC is an like an effect in practice, in most cases (to me).
This does not mean that most of the time a better result is not obtained subjectively. It can also be 100% of the time. But it must be recognized that it is not certain from a technical point of view.
So it makes no sense to say that XTC is a godsend or that it is useless stuff, prior (so firmly as it seems to me that you would like to imply).
But to me it makes sense to consider its price, since it's additional to the one of the audio system.
1k for the generic Bacch version, which rises dramatically towards the highend versions.
There are alternatives like HAF X-Talk that cost €129 and "conceptually" do the same thing (at least from what seem to understand from the website).
Clearly there are theoretical differences in effectiveness (tonal penalty, etc), but there are also common variability elements.
Obviously this does not mean excluding that Bacch can achieve the level of performance that justify its price, subjectively, especially adding head tracking (which should drastically increase effectiveness). It's just a theoric reasoning (since we have no objective elements).
It's clear that everyone looks at their pockets, and how much he wants guarantees when he spends them.
But to me proposing this effect (or call it otherwise if it seems to belittle, I certainly don't say it that way) at such a price is similar to the Wilson Alexia speakers, just to give the first example that comes to mind (nothing offensive I mean).
It may be that they sound beautifully because of the room, the songs and personal hearing and taste. But it may be that speakers that cost 1/10 can provide equally good experiences in other ways (subjectively).
In the end all depends and what each like/perceive.
I think it is not a question of greater fidelity because there is no reference (for the most cases). So no axiom from a technical point of view is at stake.

This is to say that without numbers it is difficult to make intend something as firmly as you do. We here just have a bit of theory apparently, so I think that the reasoning that can be done with it are these.
And so in the end we return there: "effect" and "subjectivity".
In my opinion this is the only points that can be objectively recognized here, for the technical reasons just discussed, and which makes it senseless to speak in absolute terms.

I think, as soon as my system returns online I will try the Haf X-Talk demo. I am very curious to hear the effect.
But I suspect it won't upset my life. Theory prevent me from believing it considering the variables that may exist.
Surely it will not be representative in general. But I believe that I would be extremely happy to have such a shocking experience to think that higher price, to sit in a specific place, hope to find a valid combination of settings, and let's add suitable songs, could worth it!
Clearly it is an exaggeration to say that if we are based only on theory and subjective practice, without numbers, then everything must be considered that way.
But it does not mean excluding anything in fact.

However, loudness compensation, whether you recognize it or not, does not conceptually do anything less than what XTC does: try to make the perception more enjoyable/realistic without the relevant data referred to the real event, since it is not known at what level it was created (for XTC exception can be made for binaural tracks).
To me this means effect.
DRCs are also effects, because there is no absolute reference to target. There is only one subjectively and statistically preferable target. Whatever it means.
But nothing wrong with this, improving reproduction in realistic way is always well received. The only doubt is the price, at least in the absence of objective data.

To me anything needs to be treated as a black box to evaluate it from a user point or view.
Are there any objectively improvement in reproduction?
As I understand it, only where songs are intended for this type of reproduction otherwise no reference could be used to determine this.
Are there any subjectively improvement in perception?
Yes, seems by users that the results are often preferred to the original system, but seems that extensive data with appropriate controls need to be collected.
Can the price be justified?
The answer is inevitably subjective and linked to one's case.

So no generalizable conclusion to me.
I repeat, this does not mean that Bacch cannot be subjectively fantastic and objectively very effective in practice. It surely is. These are just reasoning in the absence of numbers and in the face of the attitude to flaunt the scientific background. Surely this usually brings good results and high expectations. But since it's priced, either we find numbers or we reason entirely on a theoretical level. This is just my opinion of course.

EDIT: My epilogue

 

[goat76]

I’m calling BS on this. “Way too isolated” according to whom? It’s subjective. And subjectively speaking for me there is simply nothing worse when it comes to imaging than a hard pan that lands on the speaker. Nothing says “you are listening to speakers” more clearly than a hard pan that lands on the speaker.

No, it's not just a subjective thing as the out-of-phase effect that occurs is a very obvious one and quite easily to hear.

And there is a clear double standard applied to the BACCH here at ASR. When it comes to Dolby Atmos and up mixes of old stereo studio recordings all is well.
Nevermind every single criticism leveled against cross talk cancelation can more so be leveled against surround upmixes. It’s legit because it’s fun and Dolby Stmos enthusiasts enjoy them. Yeah a lot those
Mixes suck but it gets a pass anyway.

No, it's not a double standard. A dedicated mix done for Atmos using the original recorded multiple tracks is as much an original mix as the stereo mix done with the same tracks.

The equivalence to that when it comes to crosstalk cancellation is a track done for crosstalk cancellated playback, an example of that are binaural recordings.

 

[Tim Link]

You had no interaction with Edgar?

No. I just downloaded the plug-in, set it to free audition mode.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

It's not a question of detractors and supporters.

My experience here tells me otherwise

It's an objectively subjective question.

Sounds like an oxymoron

Most tracks are not intended to provide the spatial information that XTC can convey.

You don’t know intention. And intention does not matter. The spatial cues on the recording are what they are regardless of anyone’s intentions

I will give you one of the best real world examples of this. Rudy Van Gelder’s stereo recordings for Blue Note back in the 50s and early 60s . RVG recorded in stereo using three tracks. The *intention* of the stereo was to allow him more control and better balance in the mono mix. He did his monitoring in mono with a single Altec Lancing monitor shoved in the ceiling corner of his control room. Those same stereo recordings cut by various audiophile companies like Music Matters when played back on the right system using the BACCH render an experience that is uncannily similar to listening to those musicians live in a real acoustic space.

That is objectively true. How anyone feels about that reality and what value they place on it is personal.

Therefore what XTC can make one perceive is entirely the result of chance, settings, and no less importantly, limited to a single, centered, listener.

It’s the result of the biological realities of how we perceive unfettered spatial cues vs. how we perceive conflicting spatial cues.

yes it is a single listener experience. But so is the optimal performance of any, ANY conventional stereo.

Is it a more emotional experience for that individual listener?
In some cases yes, in others no.

This is a similar appeal made by the anti measurements gang in audio. “Your measurements can’t measure emotional impact.” It’s personal and subjective in all cases. That’s a given with ANYTHING in audio and red herring

It must depends on the songs, settings, and above all, on the interaction between your speakers and your room.
It is not an opinion, it is science that determines this.

No. Science, at least not audio oriented science does not determine that. We can however scientifically determine objective accuracy to the actual content of a source recording.

So it is absolutely/technically not possible to generalise.

Sure it is. It is quite possible to generalize that cross talk cancellation will objectively reduce cross talk added by the speaker/room/listener interface and give us sound in our ears that is objectively more accurate to the source

Further more one absolutely can generalize that the perceptual results will objectively increase the sense of spatiality in stereo recordings.

It can be quantified from a personal point of view at most.

Again no unless one suffers from hearing loss in one ear or any other physical issue that prevents hearing spatial cues it absolutely can be quantified from a general point of view as much as any other aspect of audio performance

And so we return to the concept that the result is a subjective experience and XTC is just an effect in practice.

The results are objective. Reduction in added cross talk. The perceptual effect is also objective, increased sense of spatiality. An individual’s emotional response is unique and personal as it is with any other objective change to the sound by other means. And therefore is a red herring

This does not mean that most of the time a better result is not obtained. It can also be 100% of the time. But it must be recognized that it is not a guarantee from a technical point of view.

The objective results are 100% of the time from a technical point of view if the system is up to the task and the DSP is working properly. Whether or not one likes the results better is subjective

SO it makes no sense to say that XTC is a godsend or that it is useless stuff.

Never said it was a godsend. I’m an atheist. That would be absurd. I have ALWAYS held that one’s personal response is always subjective and personal. Which continues to be a red herring because that is true of ANY and ALL aspects of audio playback

But it makes absolute sense to relate it to the price.

Which is also personal when it comes to determining value

1k for the generic Bacch version, which rises dramatically towards the highend versions.

There is no “generic” version. There is an entry level version that has no head tracking. The increase in price to be he BACCH4 Mac version is hardly “dramatic” given what it includes

When there are alternatives like HAF X-Talk that cost €129 and conceptually do the same thing, minus the convolution computation.

There are speakers for a few hundred dollars that “conceptually do the same thing” as the much revered flagship speakers from Revel, JBL and Genelec, minus a few things.

It's clear that everyone looks at their pockets, and how much he wants guarantees when he spends them.

Which is a given for ANY choice on any aspect of any stereo system.

But proposing this effect (or call it otherwise if it seems to belittle) with the wide margin of variability/subjectivity of results and limited listening area, at such a price is similar to the Wilson Alexia speakers, just to give the first example that comes to mind (nothing offensive I mean).

No it’s not. Those speakers are literally an order of magnitude more expensive than a BACCH4Mac system.

And frankly, you, as someone with zero experience with the BACCH simply are in no position to comment on the alleged “variability” of the results

It may be that they sound beautifully because of the room, the songs and personal hearing and taste.
But it may be that speakers that cost 1/10 can provide equally or even more correct, evocative, emotional, realistic experiences.
Or whatever everyone thinks listening to music should be.
It all depends and what each like. It is not a question of greater fidelity because there is no reference. So no axiom from a technical point of view is at stake.

There absolutely is a reference for fidelity and it is a severely beaten dead horse to continue to point out that personal emotional responses and value judgments are individual in nature and vary.

So in the end we always return there: "effect" and "subjectivity".

With everything if you break it down with that intent. Which makes the assertion universally irrelevant. The results are objectively more accurate to the source and perceptually increased sense of spatiality

And in my opinion this is the only point that must be objectively recognized, for the technical reasons discussed, and which makes it senseless to speak in absolute terms.

It makes sense only if you bypass the objective results and only consider people’s emotional responses and personal opinions on value.

For the record, as soon as my system returns online I will try the Haf X-Talk demo. I am very curious to hear the effect. But I bet it won't upset my life. Science and common sense prevent me from believing it.

No, your clearly stated predisposition does that. Don’t blame science for your personal biases

But I would be extremely happy to have such a shocking experience to think thousands of euros, to sit in a specific place and hope to find a universally valid combination of settings, and let's add suitable songs, are worth it!

Let’s be clear about a few things “thousands” is in fact 5-6 thousand. Your level of shock is personal and as YOU have already stated, saddled with your prejudice.

The scientific point of view does not preclude anything.
But the common sense do... right o wrong.

Common sense is remarkably unreliable. It gave us ideas like the earth is flat, the ground is solid and the moon and sun move around the flat earth

However, loudness compensation, whether you want to recognize it or not, does not conceptually do anything less than what XTC does: try to make the perception more enjoyable without the relevant data referred to the real event, or to the master, since it is not known at what level it was created.
To me this means effect.

It does something entirely different. And the intent of loudness compensation is to correct perceptual spectral content deviations that come from changes if the objective playback levels.

The perceptual differences in spectral content with level changes is a biological effect. Loudness compensation is an adjustment to compensate for that effect.

How to put a mattress between the two speakers to reduce crosstalk involves an effect.

No. It is a unique and awkward room treatment that reduces the “effect” of added distortions from the speaker/room/listener interface

DRCs are also effects, because there is no absolute reference to target.

Sure there is. Flat frequency response. Anything else is an added distortion of the source

There is only one subjectively and statistically preferable target. Whatever it means.

No. Preferences vary

Anything needs to be treated as a black box to evaluate it from a user point or view.
Are there any effects that objectively improve reproduction?
Only where songs are intended for this type of reproduction otherwise no reference could be used to determine this.

Improvement is subjective, intentions are unknown and have no influence once a recording is done

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

No, it's not just a subjective thing as the out-of-phase effect that occurs is a very obvious one and quite easily to hear.

Irrelevant. The OPINION that something in a recording is “too isolated” is entirely subjective

No, it's not a double standard. A dedicated mix done for Atmos using the original recorded multiple tracks is as much an original mix as the stereo mix done with the same tracks.

Wrong. It is quite literally a revisionist mix/ remix that is targeted for a playback system that may or may not have given consideration during the original recording.

It absolutely is a double standard to give remixes a pass on the violation of artists/recording engineers intent but criticize cross talk cancellation for it. Particularly when crops and Ali cancellation uses the original recording

The equivalence to that when it comes to crosstalk cancellation is a track done for crosstalk cancellated playback, an example of that are binaural recordings.

There is no equivalence. Cross talk cancellation does not alter the source

 

[Duke]

At the risk of over-generalizing, it seems to me that a clash of paradigms is in play here:

One paradigm prioritizes recreating what was heard in the recording studio, and the other prioritizes approximating the experience of listening to live music.

On an objectivist-oriented forum, it is much easier to argue for fidelity to what was heard in the recording studio, as we have reliable metrics which can be used in pursuit of that ideal. And it is easy to characterize any departure from what was heard in the studio (deliberate or otherwise) in negative terms, and often rightly so.

I subscribe to the other paradigm, the one which prioritizes approximating the experience of listening to live music: I would like to perceive a convincing (or at least enjoyable) illusion of a live performance; I want it to be spatially convincing, timbrally convincing, and dynamically convincing, all without distracting colorations or aberrations. To the best of my knowledge we have well-developed objective metrics for evaluating timbral and dynamic accuracy, and for evaluating colorations, BUT we do not yet have well-developed objective metrics for evaluating spatial quality.

To my purist objectivist brothers and sisters, the one area where even Floyd Toole apparently sees room for improvement over "what was heard in the recording studio" is spatial quality: He employs "tasteful upmixing" to improve the spatial quality of two-channel recordings.

Crosstalk cancellation is of course not the same thing as "tasteful upmixing", but it is conceptually similar, in that it is a departure from "what was heard in the recording studio" in favor of "more closely approximating the experience of listening to live music".

So in my opinion purist objectivists can legitimately be open-minded toward advancements in the realm of spatial quality (such as crosstalk cancellation) without abandoning their core ideals.

 

[jimbill]

No. I just downloaded the plug-in, set it to free audit

At the risk of over-generalizing, it seems to me that a clash of paradigms is in play here:

One paradigm prioritizes recreating what was heard in the recording studio, and the other prioritizes approximating the experience of listening to live music.

On an objectivist-oriented forum, it is much easier to argue for fidelity to what was heard in the recording studio, as we have reliable metrics which can be used in pursuit of that ideal. And it is easy to characterize any departure from what was heard in the studio (deliberate or otherwise) in negative terms, and often rightly so.

I subscribe to the other paradigm, the one which prioritizes approximating the experience of listening to live music: I would like to perceive a convincing (or at least enjoyable) illusion of a live performance; I want it to be spatially convincing, timbrally convincing, and dynamically convincing, all without distracting colorations or aberrations. To the best of my knowledge we have well-developed metrics for evaluating timbral and dynamic accuracy, and for evaluating colorations, BUT we do not yet have well-developed metrics for evaluating spatial quality.

To my purist objectivist brothers and sisters, the one area where even Floyd Toole apparently sees room for improvement over "what was heard in the recording studio" is spatial quality: He employs "tasteful upmixing" to improve the spatial quality of two-channel recordings.

Crosstalk cancellation is of course not the same thing as "tasteful upmixing", but it is conceptually similar, in that it is a departure from "what was heard in the recording studio" in favor of "more closely approximating the experience of listening to live music".

So in my opinion purist objectivists can legitimately be open-minded toward advancements in the realm of spatial quality (such as crosstalk cancellation) without abandoning their core ideals.

Have you heard BACCH4Mac on Sound Lab speakers? If so, how was it?

 

[Duke]

Have you heard BACCH4Mac on Sound Lab speakers?

I WISH!!!

Although, if I understand correctly, the very-narrow-pattern Sanders electrostats are arguably even better suited for BACCH processing than the deliberately wider-pattern SoundLabs are.

 

[Justdafactsmaam]

At the risk of over-generalizing, it seems to me that a clash of paradigms is in play here:

One paradigm prioritizes recreating what was heard in the recording studio, and the other prioritizes approximating the experience of listening to live music.

I think you are right about the clash of paradigms.

It is interesting and odd to me that there is this focus on multi track studio productions and exclusion of recordings of musical performances. I know musical tastes are diverse and I am not an objective standard but I literally have a few thousand records, CDs and other digital media of the later.

On an objectivist-oriented forum, it is much easier to argue for fidelity to what was heard in the recording studio, as we have reliable metrics which can be used in pursuit of that ideal.

This I disagree with. I think JJ pretty much destroyed this idea in his lecture on accuracy in audio. We don’t know what was heard, we can’t access what was as heard as an objective reference and as such we can not objectively measure the accuracy of any home playback to that reference.

And that doesn’t even take into account artist intentions which may not have been achieved

Artist intentions may have been affected by their understanding of the limitations of the technology that existed in the time and place of the recording.

And let’s not forget that control rooms are supposed to be analytic tools to allow artists and engineers to create content that is knowingly going to be used in a wide variety of playback systems.

Nobody is recreating a system that allows them to accurately recreate every control room used in the vast body of commercial recordings over the history of recorded music. So even if we could know what was heard no one is really trying to recreate that

And who really wants to? Would the folks who argue that the BACCH lacks accuracy to what was originally heard in the control room advocate the use of an antique Altec speaker shoved in the ceiling corner of a small bed room as the highest fidelity way of listening to RVG jazz recordings?

And it is easy to characterize any departure from what was heard in the studio (deliberate or otherwise) in negative terms, and often rightly so.

I subscribe to the other paradigm, the one which prioritizes approximating the experience of listening to live music: I would like to perceive a convincing (or at least enjoyable) illusion of a live performance; I want it to be spatially convincing, timbrally convincing, and dynamically convincing, all without distracting colorations or aberrations. To the best of my knowledge we have well-developed metrics for evaluating timbral and dynamic accuracy, and for evaluating colorations, BUT we do not yet have well-developed metrics for evaluating spatial quality.

In listening to both Edgar and JJ we do have pretty well developed metrics

To my purist objectivist brothers and sisters, the one area where even Floyd Toole apparently sees room for improvement over "what was heard in the recording studio" is spatial quality: He employs "tasteful upmixing" to improve the spatial quality of two-channel recordings.

He does. I think his opinions are as biased as the next guy but I’ll avoid that tangent for now.

Crosstalk cancellation is of course not the same thing as "tasteful upmixing", but it is conceptually similar, in that it is a departure from "what was heard in the recording studio" in favor of "more closely approximating the experience of listening to live music".

Yes. However I will reiterate that home audio is almost always a substantial departure from what was heard in the recording studio and CLEARLY any upmix remix for surround systems is inarguably a departure, massive departure

So in my opinion purist objectivists can legitimately be open-minded toward advancements in the realm of spatial quality (such as crosstalk cancellation) without abandoning their core ideals.

I agree.

But you raise an interesting underlying paradigm. What is in service of what? Are the core ideas about audio in service of the musical experience or does the musical experience have to conform to one’s core ideals about audio.

I am of the mindset that the core ideals are there in service of the musical experience and act as a road map to serve the musical experience. And when new technology comes along that is both a breakthrough in the musical experience and defies the established core ideals in audio it’s the core ideals in audio that should change in service to the subjectively better musical experience.

It reminds me of years ago when I worked on a pilot for a comedy scifi parody of Star Trek. They hired Jonathan Frakes as the director but the producers completely micro managed him and every other creative decision.

After one take the 1st AD asked Jonathan if he liked the take. He smiled, looked over toward the committee and said “ I’m going go find out if I liked it”

I’m not going to be told what I should like based on someone else’s “core ideals” about what audio should it should not be.