uBACCH now available for Windows

[phoenixdogfan]

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

Foobar however is, and should work as a host for UBacch.

 

[Nvk]

@BACCH Labs when can we expect the fix in Audirvana Studio regarding to turn off ‘Real-Time control’ to enable the VST plugin to work when their is a UPnP output device selected?

Because we are now limited to USB dac output. Sadly enough my dac does not have a USB input, meaning I can’t get the VST plugin to work correctly for weeks now.

 

[Galliardist]

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.

When I tried that recording with headphones as advised, things did indeed spin behind my head... but never in front, which somewhat kills the effect.

 

[Gwreck]

When I tried that recording with headphones as advised, things did indeed spin behind my head... but never in front, which somewhat kills the effect.

Front and rear images seem to be tough to replicate with headphones and binaural recordings.

 

[GXAlan]

Reading the subjective opinions makes me feel like the Bose 901 generates some of the same special effect. Thinking about the real world stereo spatialization, it might be that the crazy reflections results in cancellation of the crosstalk like this from the out of phase signals reaching the other ear:

The Waterloo Effect - interaural crosstalk

In a recent thread, Steve announced if you played the stereo mix of the Kinks' song Waterloo Sunset, you could hear the backing vocals come from well...

forums.stevehoffman.tv

The weakness of the 901’s being that the full range driver is limited in performance and BACCH allows you to use SOTA speakers and have the effect turned on and off. Likewise, the 901’s crosstalk cancellation is highly room dependent and potentially randomly effective.

 

[GXAlan]

So in summary:

- Buy uBACCH for Mac from BACCH Labs: no option to upgrade to BACCH4Mac from Theoretica since they are separate companies.
- Buy uBACCH VST plugin for Windows from BACCH Labs: future development is uncertain. We have to wait for a representative of BACCH Labs to join ASR and reply. They still haven't replied the email I sent them with my questions, and I think they probably never will.
- Buy BACCH4Mac Intro from Theoretica for twice the price of the uBACCH plugin from BACCH Labs - you will get uBACCH, other advanced DSP capabilities, and potential to upgrade to other BACCH4Mac packages which includes cBACCH which allows individualized filters and head tracking.

At this moment, as a Windows user, I have to decide if I (1) wait and see until BACCH Labs announce future plans for uBACCH. I won't buy uBACCH without knowing what plans they have for it, or (2) buy a Mac and get BACCH4Mac from Theoretica. This introduces more problems because Windows is needed to run Acourate, so I have to send audio from the PC to the Mac which introduces more complexity, more points of failure, and probably more latency. These options are not attractive.

I am coming to this months later, but I didn’t see this explicitly explained so here goes.

Dr. Choueiri founded Theoretica and he founded BACCH Labs. Since Dr. Choueri invented BACCH using Princeton resources, Princeton University owns the IP. Any company commercializing stuff owned by Princeton pays royalties to Princeton.

They are separate companies with separate bank accounts and policies, and may be similar to Twitter/X versus Tesla, with the exception that it’s unclear if there is identical management or not.

Theoretica is focused on high-end audio. To do this they make hardware. They also provide software that makes sense for audiophiles to buy.

BacchLabs is the company that has access to all future IP coming out of Dr. Choueri’s lab in Princeton (with appropriate licensing fees paid to Princeton). This is where they are getting into production applications as opposed to just 2 channel playback.

Since the companies have different bank accounts and are different companies and uBACCH’s source code is owned by BACCH Labs, Theoretica has to license from BACCHLabs that portion of the software…. Maybe a good example is the BMW Z4 and Toyota Supra. Different companies but some collaboration.

In one scenario, Theoretica could have found investors and started BACCHLabs as their software division. In another scenario, one audiophile billionaire could buy both companies to merge them into a single entity. In the present scenario, we have two companies with different set of investors, potentially a different set of royalty terms with Princeton, different bank accounts, but both legally having permission to use Dr. Choueri’s invention that is owned by Princeton, and both having direct connection to Dr. Choueri, the scientist.

 

[srrxr71]

I am coming to this months later, but I didn’t see this explicitly explained so here goes.

Dr. Choueiri founded Theoretica and he founded BACCH Labs. Since Dr. Choueri invented BACCH using Princeton resources, Princeton University owns the IP. Any company commercializing stuff owned by Princeton pays royalties to Princeton.

They are separate companies with separate bank accounts and policies, and may be similar to Twitter/X versus Tesla, with the exception that it’s unclear if there is identical management or not.

Theoretica is focused on high-end audio. To do this they make hardware. They also provide software that makes sense for audiophiles to buy.

BacchLabs is the company that has access to all future IP coming out of Dr. Choueri’s lab in Princeton (with appropriate licensing fees paid to Princeton). This is where they are getting into production applications as opposed to just 2 channel playback.

Since the companies have different bank accounts and are different companies and uBACCH’s source code is owned by BACCH Labs, Theoretica has to license from BACCHLabs that portion of the software…. Maybe a good example is the BMW Z4 and Toyota Supra. Different companies but some collaboration.

In one scenario, Theoretica could have found investors and started BACCHLabs as their software division. In another scenario, one audiophile billionaire could buy both companies to merge them into a single entity. In the present scenario, we have two companies with different set of investors, potentially a different set of royalty terms with Princeton, different bank accounts, but both legally having permission to use Dr. Choueri’s invention that is owned by Princeton, and both having direct connection to Dr. Choueri, the scientist.

Didn’t Masimo buy sound United? There’s your billionaire.

 

[GXAlan]

Didn’t Masimo buy sound United? There’s your billionaire.

It’s true. They could implement the high end under the Classé brand and the regular stuff under Denon & Marantz. The Audyssey patents are assigned to Sound United, so Sound United has a track recording of making big investments into software/algorithms.

They probably won’t make any big moves until the Apple Watch issue fully settles. If they have a bag of cash…

 

[BACCH Labs]

@BACCH Labs when can we expect the fix in Audirvana Studio regarding to turn off ‘Real-Time control’ to enable the VST plugin to work when their is a UPnP output device selected?

Because we are now limited to USB dac output. Sadly enough my dac does not have a USB input, meaning I can’t get the VST plugin to work correctly for weeks now.

Hey Nvk:
I’m so sorry to hear that!

We’re working on the playback issues related to turning off Real-Time control in Audirvana, which hopefully will in turn fix any problems with UPnP. But I’ll add a new ticket to double check UPnP as well. Hopefully will have this fixed soon!

- Cole

 

[jimbill]

Any examples? Any demo files?

Try The Temptations "Papa was a Rolling Stone" on their hi-res greatest hits release.

Also, any of the Mercury Living Presence classical recordings.

 

[napfkuchen]

Before I try out uBACCH, I would like to know whether it will work with my equipment or something needs to be changed on the hardware side. This is what the signal path looks like:

System 1: computer -> tos-link -> WiiM pro -> digital-coax-out -> xlr-converter -> Genelec 8331 (aes)

System 2: computer -> HDMI -> Denon X3800H -> Stereo pre -outs -> active speakers

Still gonna need small form factor computer for system 2. I want the plugin for JRiver to run the sound output completely through uBACCH. Which hardware would be sufficient? I was thinking of a slightly older Intel NUC or something similar. Any recommendations are welcome ...

 

[Nvk]

Hey Nvk:
I’m so sorry to hear that!

We’re working on the playback issues related to turning off Real-Time control in Audirvana, which hopefully will in turn fix any problems with UPnP. But I’ll add a new ticket to double check UPnP as well. Hopefully will have this fixed soon!

- Cole

Meanwhile two weeks further, did you find the origin of the problem?

 

[Keith_W]

Before I try out uBACCH, I would like to know whether it will work with my equipment or something needs to be changed on the hardware side. This is what the signal path looks like:

System 1: computer -> tos-link -> WiiM pro -> digital-coax-out -> xlr-converter -> Genelec 8331 (aes)

System 2: computer -> HDMI -> Denon X3800H -> Stereo pre -outs -> active speakers

Still gonna need small form factor computer for system 2. I want the plugin for JRiver to run the sound output completely through uBACCH. Which hardware would be sufficient? I was thinking of a slightly older Intel NUC or something similar. Any recommendations are welcome ...

I did not see this until now, sorry. Yes both those configurations should work. The computing resources required by uBACCH is pretty low, my system sits at 5-6% CPU usage while playing music through JRiver, and turning uBACCH on/off makes zero appreciable difference to CPU usage.

 

[Keith_W]

BTW, I have reconfigured my system and retuned uBACCH so it is even more effective now.

The system was rotated from the short wall to the long wall, so the speakers are now much further away from the side walls. Furthermore, the side walls now have a CD rack on the left, and a giant curtain on the right - meaning that first reflections are now scattered and attenuated. I did read somewhere that BACCH prefers narrow directivity speakers to make crosstalk cancellation more effective, and that early sidewall reflections interfere with crosstalk cancellation.

The second intervention was to retune uBACCH subjectively, instead of relying on speaker geometry. BACCH Labs themselves recommend this. The uBACCH VST plugin has trouble sending out pink noise, so I used REW to generate pink noise and sent it through JRiver. The soundstage noticeably changes when using the slider to adjust. I adjusted the slider until the soundstage didn't widen any further, then I started dialling it back until I could hear the width starting to narrow again. If I had used speaker geometry, I would have it set at 60deg. I ended up with 75deg. I am not sure why there is such a wide discrepancy.

Both of these interventions have really made uBACCH come to life. The effect was already obvious before, but now it is really obvious and frankly quite remarkable.

 

[napfkuchen]

I did not see this until now, sorry. Yes both those configurations should work. The computing resources required by uBACCH is pretty low, my system sits at 5-6% CPU usage while playing music through JRiver, and turning uBACCH on/off makes zero appreciable difference to CPU usage.

Thank you, that's very helpful.

The second intervention was to retune uBACCH subjectively, instead of relying on speaker geometry. BACCH Labs themselves recommend this.

For the other readers, I think you are referring to this.

 

[Nvk]

Meanwhile two weeks further, did you find the origin of the problem?

It’s one month ago and still haven’t heard about a fix..? @BACCH Labs

 

[phoenixdogfan]

I did not see this until now, sorry. Yes both those configurations should work. The computing resources required by uBACCH is pretty low, my system sits at 5-6% CPU usage while playing music through JRiver, and turning uBACCH on/off makes zero appreciable difference to CPU usage.

Anyone who want to know, I am using UBacch together with Dirac DLBC, running on JRiver with a Mele Quieter 3Q which is roughly the size of an old Betamax cassette, costs around $200, and has all of 8GB of memory. It runs perfectly. UBacch would undoubtedly also run on Foobar 2000 since it runs so well on JRiver, and Foobar is free.

 

[napfkuchen]

If you want to send ALL your Windows sounds through uBACCH processing, the easiest way to do it is to use JRiver. Set up Windows so that default sound output goes to JRiver, then set up JRiver to output sound to your preferred output. If you are keen to explore this option, I can talk you through it step by step.

Would you be so kind and tell me (us) how to do this?

 

[Keith_W]

Would you be so kind and tell me (us) how to do this?

Sure. Set these options in JRiver:

- Enable the JRiver WDM driver. Tools-Options, navigate to General, then pull down the "Features" tab. Scroll to the bottom and make sure "WDM Driver" is ticked. On some older versions of JRiver, a program restart is required. Here are some instructions in the JRiver Wiki.
- Confirm the WDM driver is available by checking if JRiver is available as a sound output in Windows. Set JRiver as the default sound output.
- Enable the uBACCH VST. Tools-Options, navigate to Audio, choose "DSP and Output Format". Install the uBACCH VST and enable it.

All Windows sounds - including Youtube on your browser, Netflix app, VLC, bleeps from Windows notifications, etc. will now be routed through JRiver and uBACCH, and any further audio processing you desire. Needless to say, you might want to turn off the bleeps. When I first set up my audio PC and enjoying sound through my speakers (playing loud music), a massive BLEEP made me jump out of my chair. Yes, the wife could hear it from the kitchen So don't forget to turn off those bleeps!

Another method is to use VB-Cable and any VST Host capable of hosting uBACCH. Simply install VB-Cable and set that as your Windows default output. Open your VST host and configure it to accept VB-Cable as input, and output to whatever device you like. If Windows does not see JRiver's WDM driver, you can use VB-Cable into JRiver as an alternative.

 

[napfkuchen]

Sure. Set these options in JRiver:

- Enable the JRiver WDM driver. Tools-Options, navigate to General, then pull down the "Features" tab. Scroll to the bottom and make sure "WDM Driver" is ticked. On some older versions of JRiver, a program restart is required. Here are some instructions in the JRiver Wiki.
- Confirm the WDM driver is available by checking if JRiver is available as a sound output in Windows. Set JRiver as the default sound output.
- Enable the uBACCH VST. Tools-Options, navigate to Audio, choose "DSP and Output Format". Install the uBACCH VST and enable it.

EXCELLENT. Thanks for the explanation, worked like a charm. Since I actually only stream music, I have set it so that only the JRiver Media Server (Tools > Options > Startup > Windows Startup) starts on windows startup, so that no open/unused tab/window gets in the way.
So far I've only been able to test uBACCH with my nearfield setup, but I don't think it brings any added value to me. The room is acoustically reasonably optimized (reverberation time between 200 and 300 ms from 60 Hz) and the speakers already create a very precise, "sharp" stereo image with good depth. The speakers are placed relatively wide because I like the illusion of a stage right in front of me (half-angle 32-38° depending on the seating position). Maybe it's also because the seating distance from the speakers is only 1.2m to 1.5m ...

For the living room setup with a slightly longer listening distance, I ordered a MiniPC and will give it a try.