HDPHX - Headphone Listening Enhancement for VST

[cptgone]

more refinedaudiometrics goodies?

[Mutant]

I think that some of you don't understand how to use this plugin.

I think it is meant to help you only during mixing and mastering stages then you have to disable it and render without it.

Am i right or wrong here ?

[Paulie Phonick]

I think it's designed for improvement of the headphone listening experience - so it should be on during mixing/mastering on headphones, off for rendering then on again when listening on headphones. This way you won't get a 'headphone-only' mix, but have a nicer listening experience

I'm only unsure if the low-mid boost wouldn't result in having a bit of a cold/flat mix, as you'd try to compensate...

Wait, am I the only one to hear it? Strange... I've just checked with SPAN and it's definitely there (together with some harmonic distortion).

[Mutant]

I think it's designed for improvement of the headphone listening experience - so it should be on during mixing/mastering on headphones, off for rendering then on again when listening on headphones.

Exactly !

[Paulie Phonick]

BUG(?): When I tried to exaggerate the HDPHX boost by putting one after another in an fx chain the playback started skipping and wouldn't get back to normal until both HDPHX instances were removed from eXT. Anybody else having problems running more than one instance (except from you Wavelab5 guys who can't even get one to run )?

[Sascha Franck]

I'm only unsure if the low-mid boost wouldn't result in having a bit of a cold/flat mix, as you'd try to compensate...

As said, I experienced that sort of boost as well - but wouldn't that just exactly be what usually makes a difference between headphones and speakers? The speakers sounding more "full", yet probably a tad less defined that is.

Also, I'm interested whether there's indeed something going on avoiding hearing fatigue, but of course you can only find out about that when actually doing some work.

Unfortunately, my rather mediocre monitors (old Tannoy Reveals fed by an Alesis RA-100) are too much different from the HD-25s I usually use, so I can't tell whether the plugin is indeed doing the right job in terms of compensation.
Which reminds me that I urgently need to do something about the monitoring situation, ack...

[mastered]

I think it's designed for improvement of the headphone listening experience - so it should be on during mixing/mastering on headphones, off for rendering then on again when listening on headphones.

Exactly !

Yes.



I like it.

Whos with me.

[mastered]

I'm only unsure if the low-mid boost wouldn't result in having a bit of a cold/flat mix, as you'd try to compensate...

As said, I experienced that sort of boost as well - but wouldn't that just exactly be what usually makes a difference between headphones and speakers? The speakers sounding more "full", yet probably a tad less defined that is.

Also, I'm interested whether there's indeed something going on avoiding hearing fatigue, but of course you can only find out about that when actually doing some work.

Unfortunately, my rather mediocre monitors (old Tannoy Reveals fed by an Alesis RA-100) are too much different from the HD-25s I usually use, so I can't tell whether the plugin is indeed doing the right job in terms of compensation.
Which reminds me that I urgently need to do something about the monitoring situation, ack...

Good points in there man.


I would like to know also if this helps ear fatigue as these guys are experts in this field.





There is a boost, but it is quite samll that i dont think its going to mess up a chain of effects.

[martian]

I'm only unsure if the low-mid boost wouldn't result in having a bit of a cold/flat mix, as you'd try to compensate...

Wait, am I the only one to hear it? Strange... I've just checked with SPAN and it's definitely there (together with some harmonic distortion).

when you listen through speakers theres delayed head-shadowed sound from opposing speakers to each ear.

block one ear, listen only through the speaker next to that ear (turn the other off), then switch the other speaker on. i believe this is equivilent to turning this plugin on. you should notice the sound coming from left speaker to right ear is muffled and visa versa. small wavelengths cant make it round/through your head.

as well as no masking from room acoustics and minimal comb filtering at the pinna, this is one reason phones usually sound brighter and clearer, and mixes coming off them the opposite. that and the fact you cant 'feel' bass, which can skew usual cues used for subsonic level and eq judgement.

[deaf dunderkwac]

I know all my mixes done headphones-only have suffered from excessive mud when played on speakers.
Hard to compensate without going over the top.
Hopefully this tool will help!

[producer2k]

You know the effect is VERY subtle at first but after listening through Christian's bridge to various tracks in Winamp, I really like the sense of sound emanating beyond the constraints of my e4p's. This grows on me fast... Definitely want to try a mix or two through it.

[Dunc]

This is a known "effect" in HiFi circles.
Basically the left signal is fed to the right ear with a delay of approx 300 microseconds and vice versa with the right signal. As the signal is crossed over it is attenuated by somewhere in the region of 6db, via a filter circuit. So the upshot of this is, the lower frequencies are less attenuated than the upper. (THe 300 microseconds delay is to compensate for the time difference of sound getting to the other side of most peoples heads. Ear shape and other factors also come into this but, I'll leave it for yourselves to uncover if you are interested.)
The addition of the left delayed attenuated signal to the right headphone signal causes comb effects thus certain frequencies are boosted and attenuated. The same happens for the other headphone earpiece.

I have built this effect within Quantum FX and can vouch that you can listen for more extended periods with less ear fatigue. It's to do with each ear being less isolated because of the signal crossover and the brian being fooled into thinking it's listening to a natural point sound source

I would however also say that, despite all my work on my model of this effect, I would definitely not produce any kind of finished mix on it because of the comb filtering that happens. It's ok to listen to a mix to pick out problems etc and you can do so over an extended period of time with a lot less fatigue but I would not recommend any serious mixing using it.

If you want some more info, search for headphones + crossfeed on Google.
I've only briefly described what's going on here, so have a look for yourself to gain more insight.
At any rate, it's good for Headphone listening for extended periods.

Dunc

P.S. Yes, this can be a very, very subtle effect for some people

[dreamkeeper]

Very nice! Gives a good idea of the low end and makes it a lot easier to judge the stereo imaging. Having said this, I can only emphasize this:

I would however also say that, despite all my work on my model of this effect, I would definitely not produce any kind of finished mix on it because of the comb filtering that happens.

Due to the comb filtering there's a tad of phasing in the upper midrange to high range. Sybillance(sp?) seems a bit exaggerated.

It should be easier to dial in the right amount of reverb etc. I'm positive that this plug-in will improve my patch design, as I'm doing that mostly with headphones - can't always plague my neighbours with those weird noizes, hehe!

Thanks RefinedAudiometrics

[ToneCarver]

Great to see another high quality plugin from RAL. I only had a few minutes to give this a quick listen this morning.

Anybody compared this with Vellocet's VNoPhones plugin,
http://vellocet.com/software/VNoPhones.html ?

[onyxashanti]

so...has anyone actualy tried doing a proper mixdown or mastering session with this because if it is any good, it would be a godsend. i dont really trust my own ears for the task of testing it.

onyx