uBACCH now available for Windows

[Bjorn]

Jriver can be set as the Windows driver, and uBaach will work with Qobuz and all Windows programs (i.e. YouTube).

 

[doorofnight]

I am much further now. I can stream music from ROON to the JRIVER mediacenter on my laptop. I do not want to use a bluetooth connection between JRIVER and my streamer (NAD M33), but I do not know how to select the NAD M33 in JRiver as audio-player. Ony the Bluetooth connection seems to work. I guess I need a driver for the NAD? And when there is no driver for NAD?

 

[BACCH Labs]

Hi all! Just wanted to let anyone know that's thinking about picking up u-BACCH:

We're ending our intro pricing at $400 on November 15 and raising the price to $880. Discounts will still apply, and this price includes 3 seats on your license for different devices.

Thanks!

 

[Nvk]

Hi all! Just wanted to let anyone know that's thinking about picking up u-BACCH:

We're ending our intro pricing at $400 on November 15 and raising the price to $880. Discounts will still apply, and this price includes 3 seats on your license for different devices.

Thanks!

Will the UI for Windows be upgraded? Including tape measures.. like on the Mac?

 

[STC]

Discounts will still apply, and this price includes 3 seats on your license for different devices.

Does 3 seats means the system can be set for 3 listeners sittings at different location and perceive the same effect at the same time or only one seat can be selected at one time?

 

[benje]

Hi all! Just wanted to let anyone know that's thinking about picking up u-BACCH:

We're ending our intro pricing at $400 on November 15 and raising the price to $880. Discounts will still apply, and this price includes 3 seats on your license for different devices.

Thanks!

Thanks for the head's up.. keen to play around with it, but it's currently a pain to implement in my setup.. any news on a Roon integration?

 

[Keith_W]

Thanks for the head's up.. keen to play around with it, but it's currently a pain to implement in my setup.. any news on a Roon integration?

I don't think it's BACCH's problem. It's Roon's. They are the ones who stubbornly insist on not including VST functionality in Roon. You could easily solve this problem by using a third party convolver that supports VST, like @mitchco Hang Loose Convolver. Or for less cost, you could use JRiver as a convolver (set Roon up to send signal through JRiver). I have also heard that HQPlayer supports VST, but I haven't investigated this myself.

 

[mitchco]

Hang Loose Host application can host the uBACCH plugin, on Windows or Mac, along with any one of the thousands of plugins that are readily available today. Folks are using both HLC and uBACCH plugin for convolution and spatial audio.

If on Mac, use BlackHole virtual driver for loopback. On Windows, use VB-Virtual Audio Cable, or LoopBeAudio virtual driver, or Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) for YouTube, NetFlix, Spotify, etc., or system wide audio. This feeds Hang Loose Host application which can host uBACCH plugin.

Hang Loose Host will soon have a virtual ASIO driver that Roon (or any other app) can feed directly. PS. Roon's client/server software architecture makes it technically impossible to host plugins.

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I just bought this at $399, and I'm not at all sorry. Been listening to it for the past hour, it's currently playing the sountrack for Oppenheimer, and I have to say it really does seem to do something. As nearly as I can tell, more than anything, it seems to create a complete soundspace. It seems like playing this piece, for example, it's far less like my system is throwing images out into my room where I can marvel about how a violin is coming out of the doorknob on the closet, and more like there is this concert hall that's been plopped down into my room and I'm listening into the sonic diorama, if that makes any sense. It just seems like the combination of this, my little LS 50 Metas plus subs, and Dirac DLBC are rendering a very convincing impersonation of an extremely well done professionally designed sytem in a well treated space.

I listen in the near field so YMMV, but I see no reason to ever turn this off whenever I'm listening to my system as two channel stereo. Maybe I'll hear some flaws as I continue, but for now, it seems like it's doing something very positive.

Hope more people can get in on this. I think it merits at least an audition. I know I was extremely skeptical that it was just creating a sound effect, but after listening to it, it seems like anything but. Also it's very easy to adjust. It's just a question of eyeballing your appoximate distance, figuring out what the angle is with the apex of the triangle (your seat), and then doing some fiddling until you can get it to sound optimum. For me, that took around 20 seconds. I guess some people who want to use 24/192 had problems. Me, I just use 24/48 on windows setting, make JRiver my default, put uBacch as a plugin to Jriver, and then send the whole thing to a standalone Dirac processor with a 2+2 DLBC correction program, before sending four discreet channels to my Octo.

It reallly sounds good, IMHO, but what do I know.

 

[Ricwa]

I just bought this at $399, and I'm not at all sorry. Been listening to it for the past hour, it's currently playing the sountrack for Oppenheimer, and I have to say it really does seem to do something. As nearly as I can tell, more than anything, it seems to create a complete soundspace. It seems like playing this piece, for example, it's far less like my system is throwing images out into my room where I can marvel about how a violin is coming out of the doorknob on the closet, and more like there is this concert hall that's been plopped down into my room and I'm listening into the sonic diorama, if that makes any sense. It just seems like the combination of this, my little LS 50 Metas plus subs, and Dirac DLBC are rendering a very convincing impersonation of an extremely well done professionally designed sytem in a well treated space.

I listen in the near field so YMMV, but I see no reason to ever turn this off whenever I'm listening to my system as two channel stereo. Maybe I'll hear some flaws as I continue, but for now, it seems like it's doing something very positive.

Hope more people can get in on this. I think it merits at least an audition. I know I was extremely skeptical that it was just creating a sound effect, but after listening to it, it seems like anything but. Also it's very easy to adjust. It's just a question of eyeballing your appoximate distance, figuring out what the angle is with the apex of the triangle (your seat), and then doing some fiddling until you can get it to sound optimum. For me, that took around 20 seconds. I guess some people who want to use 24/192 had problems. Me, I just use 24/48 on windows setting, make JRiver my default, put uBacch as a plugin to Jriver, and then send the whole thing to a standalone Dirac processor with a 2+2 DLBC correction program, before sending four discreet channels to my Octo.

It reallly sounds good, IMHO, but what do I know.

I have a similar setup except with a Mac configured as Roon -> uBACCH -> Dirac Live with DLBC -> RME ADI 2/4 Pro and running 4 subs. I’m amazed at how life-like the combination of Dirac with DLBC + uBACCH sounds. Subjectively, to my ears, the front wall of my listening room disappears and the XTC in uBACCH mostly convinces my brain that I’m sitting in a performance hall listening to a live concert. I listen to 98% classical music and have found that anything acoustic and recorded in a performance hall (or church, etc.) is improved by the uBACCH but electronic music created in a studio is, at best, a mixed bag.

 

[srrxr71]

Binaural without headphones. Works best on binaural recordings? Does that sum it up? I’m i wrong?


Edit: also acoustic minimalist recordings?

 

[Gwreck]

Binaural without headphones. Works best on binaural recordings? Does that sum it up? I’m i wrong?

It works on all stereo recordings. Binaural records have a more natural sense of space as that was the intended sound. Other recordings can vary in their spatial presentation. Some of the most dramatic(but maybe not natural sounding) effects from BACCH in my experience has been studio recordings.

 

[srrxr71]

It works on all stereo recordings. Binaural records have a more natural sense of space as that was the intended sound. Other recordings can vary in their spatial presentation. Some of the most dramatic(but maybe not natural sounding) effects from BACCH in my experience has been studio recordings.

Any examples? Any demo files?

 

[Gwreck]

Any examples? Any demo files?

There examples are off the top of my head-
A studio recording with very dramatic panning: Radiohead kid A.

Binaural:
Dr. Chesky's Sensational, Fantastic, and Simply Amazing Binaural Sound Show!

Stereo recording: Dave Brubek Take five - the bass in a few of the songs my room sounds as if it is 10 ft away at 2 o’clock and the drums 6-7 ft away at 10 o’clock.

Weird and unnatural but dramatic:
This is an “8d audio” remix of a Billie Eilish song. The vocals spin around the room and with my system clearly sound as if they are behind my head at times.

 

[Davide]

Hang Loose Host application can host the uBACCH plugin, on Windows or Mac, along with any one of the thousands of plugins that are readily available today. Folks are using both HLC and uBACCH plugin for convolution and spatial audio.

If on Mac, use BlackHole virtual driver for loopback. On Windows, use VB-Virtual Audio Cable, or LoopBeAudio virtual driver, or Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) for YouTube, NetFlix, Spotify, etc., or system wide audio. This feeds Hang Loose Host application which can host uBACCH plugin.

Hang Loose Host will soon have a virtual ASIO driver that Roon (or any other app) can feed directly. PS. Roon's client/server software architecture makes it technically impossible to host plugins.

But is the HLC Host program free or does it necessarily require the activation of the convolver?

 

[Sined]

With BACCH, it is more of a concert hall experience. The soundstage expands towards the walls (my walls are about 1.5m away from the speakers) and it sounds more immersive.

The way you described these effects you had with uBACCH on the soundstage looks somewhat similar to what I get when I use the JRiver DSP Studio effects. Here are the settings I use:

Of course, the quality of the results depends largely on how is made the mixing of the recording: for some, the result is exaggerated, like if you had moved your speakers against the side walls, but for other recordings, especially on well recorded live recordings, it really fills your room with a typical hall ambiance reverberation and adds "air" between each instruments, placing them more precisely in the soundstage.

Have you tried these JRMC "immersive effects" ? I would be curious to read your comments on the comparison between these two tools; it would certainly be great if the JRiver compares well to uBACCH since it is already built in, costs nothing and requires no further installation !!

 

[Keith_W]

The way you described these effects you had with uBACCH on the soundstage looks somewhat similar to what I get when I use the JRiver DSP Studio effects. Here are the settings I use:

View attachment 330125

Of course, the quality of the results depends largely on how is made the mixing of the recording: for some, the result is exaggerated, like if you had moved your speakers against the side walls, but for other recordings, especially on well recorded live recordings, it really fills your room with a typical hall ambiance reverberation and adds "air" between each instruments, placing them more precisely in the soundstage.

Have you tried these JRMC "immersive effects" ? I would be curious to read your comments on the comparison between these two tools; it would certainly be great if the JRiver compares well to uBACCH since it is already built in, costs nothing and requires no further installation !!

Yeah I have tried those effects. The two are not the same. JRMC concert hall effect works by changing the frequency response and adding reverb. uBACCH works by crosstalk cancellation. I don't like those JRMC effects, some of them are too echoey and some of them sound hollow.

 

[Sined]

Yeah I have tried those effects. The two are not the same. JRMC concert hall effect works by changing the frequency response and adding reverb. uBACCH works by crosstalk cancellation. I don't like those JRMC effects, some of them are too echoey and some of them sound hollow.

Thank you for you answer: loud and clear !! I thought that maybe both of them are playing digitally with the phase of some signals to create those effects, but it is certainly more complicated than that!!

 

[jkr]

I was on the fence at the discounted $399 price. $880 is out of the question for me. NOT.
It does work well on some recordings.
I setup 2 zones, one with it enabled and one without so I could use jremote at the listening position to do A/B comparisons.

 

[mitchco]

But is the HLC Host program free or does it necessarily require the activation of the convolver?

Hi Davide, sorry, Hang Loose Host is not free as cross platform virtual audio drivers are being added along with other features.