I went to their website, and the product line is horrifyingly complicated. I saw the interface picture for the software, it looks horrifying. The whole package of product looks like incredible challenge. And definitely would require a substantial investment to tweak your system. It would be nice if they put some pricing on their website for people like me who aren't very smart |
I’m sorry, but this is just absurd. First, very few users here are complaining about the interface, and those who’ve had questions have cited excellent customer support, and setup only has to be done once so after that the software is a total nonissue. Second, why do you lump this in with other DSP devices? You’re not testing a room — you put earplugs in and the system does everything else. What exactly is so horrifying about that? You’re making up your own misconceived narrative that has no basis in fact whatsoever as it pertains to this product. Stop. Just stop pushing this inaccurate and misinformed garbage of yours. Please. |
I am very favorably disposed to the work of Choueiri but I'm trying to wrap my head around some practicalities. He is almost certainly the real deal; not vendor marketing hype. Quite the opposite, actually. He needs some help to make his ideas and products more widely marketable. The Bacch plugin we were alerted to by pinthrift looks like a great way to start. Forgive my simplistic question, but it appears that the plugin is only for Windows or Mac environments. Does that mean that those of us using third-party streamers are out of luck for now? Or can the plugin be used on a miniDSP Flex, or Roon? I'm a little confused on these basics. Thanks. |
Where is the plug-in referred to above on their website? Are many of the products autonomous without a need for the other products? Do you always need a desktop or will an iPad work? Are there any practical guiding tools on how it integrates into a system? How do you plug it in and what does it plug into? Will Princeton be offering fall courses to understand what’s going on here? If I have a streamer/dac, and Roon and nucleus can I use this? And what pieces of from all their offerings would be best to use? Is this a theoretical academic exercise that may never go mainstream? How many users are there at this point? |
I represent the Bacch and have tons of videos about the product in my YouTube channel... Including 3rd party reviews, walkthroughs, interviews with Edgar and more.
I’ve sold dozens of them in just a few months with everyone ecstatic about the results. I would encourage you to visit Edgar’s room at CAF or come to my house in Houston for a demo. I’ve had people come as far as Thailand who have ordered after hearing it.
It’s far from a gimmick and actually what we’ve been listening to for years as "stereo" has actually been the gimmick. No matter how great your gear, you are listening to different degrees of crosstalk that corrupts stereo imaging.
The Bacch doesn’t add any spatial cues not already in the recording, but it eliminates the crosstalk that corrupts you hearing all of it. There are additional benefits in terms of time alignment and fixing comb filtering, but those are secondary to the crosstalk cancellation.
The in-ear measurements and head tracking are two reasons why this exceeds many efforts in the past to correct for crosstalk... Plus it ignores mono material which previous efforts had difficulty addressing.
The bottom line is it’s a product you must hear and likely will buy after an audition. Edgar is the only designer I know who WANTS you to do an A/B demo and facilitates you being able to turn it on and off on the fly to hear for yourself.
My membership section of YouTube has tons of users and we regularly exchange tips in recordings that have spatial cues that the Bacch reveals like no other.
If you can’t audition the Bacch live, I would encourage you to join my YouTube channel membership section where you can talk to existing owners.
Plus, if you are in my group, you can send me a music file and some basic measurements about your speaker distances... Then I can create a Bacch filter for the song and send it back to you to give you a taste of what it sounds like. Obviously, it will only be a taste and you should pick a recording with good spatial cues in the recording, but that’s been as convincing as a live demo for many people. |
Most people dont know what crosstalk is... Here i will suggest an experiment if you own like me 2 small speakers on a desk in nearfield listening ... Take a 2 feet and few inches wood panels, place each one on the internal side of the right and left speakers , in my case the are located in some angle beside my computer screen, and now listen... This is a mechanical way to decrease the crosstalk effect ... Your imaging and depth will increase so much , myself i had kept these panels in place for music... Now imagine a complete and perfect suppression of crosstalk... I will buy BACCH filters one day and i know why .... For now my listening is so incredible i wait a bit and my wallet is empty ... 😊 Choueiri is a genius but not in marketing but in acoustic.... Anybody though listening him speaking about his invention understand why immediately so much clear and informed in acoustic he is... |
Yeah maybe crosstalk needs to be better clarified. To lift it out of the gimmick zone. OK so I now research what the heck crosstalk means. It's always about the learning curve and the guys selling it and who are most familiar with it lose sight of what new users are seeing when they first see a product. I had to change settings on my security system the other day and had to experience a challenginglearning curve to deal with a screwed up interface that could've been designed so much better. All these lovely products out there butchered with an interface overlay that truly sucks. Look at freaking windows 11 Vs 10. What a nightmare that is. In this world things tend to be so much more complicated than they need to be. People need to produce products that don't make it so difficult for others to spend their money.
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Just to be clear, you’re the only one on this thread who thinks this is a gimmick. But glad to hear you’re finally going to actually do some research into this rather than just throwing out nonsensical and completely uninformed barbs. Jeez. |
Very few people have even used this product. Just the promoters noted above. Yeah I’m trying to do research but it’s very difficult for this very challenging product. What the heck is crosstalk? This is the only product I’ve ever heard about that. And quite frankly no one else seems to be terribly excited about it. And then I read about a headset you've got to wear so the System can find you in the room. That's some crazy stuff |
«What is crosstalk in speakers?
This occurs when the signals from different channels (such as left and right channels in stereo audio) bleed into each other. For example, if you’re listening to a stereo audio source and the left channel’s signal is heard in the right channel, or vice versa, you’re experiencing inter-channel crosstalk.» from internet
I just proposed in my last post above a very simple experiment with only MECHANICAL tools, wood panels in fact, to experiment the effect of crosstalk by decreasing it in a near listening situation... The best way to understand is simple experiment...
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emergingsoul You make a good point. However, "where there is a WILL there is a WAY" ...a lifelong motto! I found and nurtured a skilled, trusted Tech 3000 miles from me who remotes into my PC, setting up the necessary ingredients. Over the years, Mike has become an intimate friend and we collaborate well, including tiny adjustments of DSP to 1/100ths of a decibel. For Purists, any harm done with expertly applied DSP is miniscule in light of the improvements. A Member reached out who had difficulty finding the BACCH Plug-In. It appears that the 15% discount is still current: u-BACCH Audio Plug-In – BACCH Labs More Peace (bold print for old eyes) Pin |
@emergingsoul you don't have to wear a headset and the interface is actually quite easy... Especially considering Edgar himself walks you through everything the first day and gives unlimited customer support.
Most people never have to touch it after the first calibration other than if you use it for volume control.
If you don't understand what crosstalk is, then that's another matter. It's been understood well back into the 1960s and others have tried to address is, but the technology, resources, and research Edgar/Princeton brings to the equation is unprecedented.... Hence the superior results.
In short, crosstalk is what your right ear hears from your left speaker and vice versa. It's not complicated in the least. I understand it may be foreign to you, and thus the tendency is to think it's a gimmick, but you will only be kicking yourself later when you realize how easy it is to understand and implement with products available at different budget ranges. |
Cross talk cross talk cross talk, Marsha Marsha Marsha. Maybe this is a big deal, especially with integrated amplifiers with the cesspool of electronic activity that goes on. That's a very crowded room inside there. But what about when you keep things separate, like monos, line stage pre and biamping, etc. Doesnt the quality of your system impact cross talk? Doesn't the quality of the recording impact cross talk. There is a lot of inherent Crosstalking during recording going on that you can't get rid of. And then there is are acoustical treatments where the pressure amplitudes scatter things to improve spaciousness and clarity, as well as eliminating reverberations. And I'm still trying to figure why so many die hard audio enthusiasts don't extend bass traps all the way up to the ceiling in the corners.
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Thanks for the excellent review. If crosstalk reduction were more common, more recordings might be made in a more "hands off" way. As I stated earlier, I’ve not heard BACCH myself, but I’ve used a physical divider, and as you experienced I too heard that less processed recordings tend to do the best, except in the case of purely processed electronic recordings, which can also produce glorious spacious presentations. I think it's interesting that you mentioned "Homeless" in your review. That's been an important track for me as I set up different systems because it should sound amazing with it's rich and dramatic vocal dynamics and harmonizing. I think that track does a good job of revealing problems with listening rooms and speaker placement because it requires clear solid energy in most room's transition zone, where rooms have a way of ruining things. I think you bring up a good point about most high end stereo equipment manufacturers ignoring the crosstalk issue. Why aren’t more people talking about it? I think a big part of it is that for the longest time there wasn’t any really practical way to address it in many listening scenarios. Recordings were made in two channel format, expected to be played back with a stereo pair of speakers, and the shortcomings were self evident and accepted because, as we all know, it can be very pleasant to listen to, and better than mono. A similar accepted limitation with most video/film presentation is that we don’t expect it to be in 3D. 3D can add a lot to the visual experience, but it’s a lot of extra effort, and unlike with audio, the crosstalk is visually unbearable so some kind of glasses usually have to be worn if a large audience is to enjoy the effect from various viewing angles. With audio the crosstalk also profoundly reduces the quality, but our mind is more forgiving with audio crosstalk than with visual. Early 3D glasses were of the red/blue lens type, and this obviously had a seriously negative effect on the visual experience despite making it 3D. Similar weirdness can happen when attempting to correct audio crosstalk with crude methods. Now with polarized glasses and other methods it’s possible to get a clear, high quality 3D image with accurate color and very minimal visual artifacts. Similarly DSP can be used with audio now to practically remove the crosstalk artifacts we’re already living with while adding hardly any new audible issues. It’s a huge win. But you are right - it’s more complicated to set up. More players coming on-board with this type of technology could, in time, make it much easier to implement. About the quality of your components impacting crosstalk - they don’t. It’s a physical setup problem inherent to using two speakers. It takes some specific processing or a special speaker arrangement such as Polk uses to address it successfully. That said, there are different kinds of crosstalk. What BACCH is addressing is inter-aural crosstalk across your head coming directly from the speakers. This is by far the most severe crosstalk that reduces the overall sound quality, degrading the stereophonic effect, and also introducing severe comb filtering for center panned sounds at each ear, and at frequencies we’re very sensitive to. There’s also room reflection crosstalk, where the sound from the right speaker bounces across the room to the far wall and then enters your left ear. I think BACCH may be able to address these early reflections as well to some degree. There is also crosstalk between channels that can occur in electronic devices. This is generally not much of an audible problem in modern electronics.
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inter-aural crosstalk, This is interesting have never heard this before. A new term I learned today. You know a lot about this stuff kudos. I guess there may be some benefits and the implementation experience as well as spending a lot of money for quality Version of what they offer leads to all kinds of positive reinforcement issues. Once you spend a lot of time with something it’s hard to fall out of love with it. I think I’ll wait till they do a decent video on software implementation and I’ll take interest in this. Mr. audiofilejunkie should do this since he’s trying to make money off of it. Crosstalk is a complicated issue and now I understand why people stay away from it. |
@emergingsoul Crosstalk is the reason we aren’t fooled into believing that we are not in a live environment. Hearing content coming from the right speaker with your right ear is expected and the time it takes to travel across your face to your left ear locates that sound in space. The same thing is happening with the left ear. This is why super directional speakers like horns can create a magical image due to almost eliminating crosstalk but the place that this magic happens is very small and usually only works for one person and perhaps one more directly behind them. I’ve personally experienced this. BACCH does this digitally in real time with audio queues in the music. As @asctim above notes it isn’t a manufacture equipment issue, the only way to address it on that end is with a hyper directional system as I described or a software based solution like BACCH. You also noted people aren’t interested in this, perhaps you missed my post. I literally built my entire system around Dr. Choueiri’s research and this is the last and most exciting piece I want to add to my system. I don’t believe it is a complicated issue, just a difficult one to address which is why Dr. Choueiri has spent so many years working on a solution. Thanks, Steve |
There won’t be any challenges to implement it in my system because it is entirely active and it will be plug and play. The only challenge is money, like many things. I did feel it was important to get the room corrected and have the highest level of DSP processing possible before implementing BACCH. Thus my recent purchase of the dspNexus, which is now processing 8 channels with 12 biquad filters at 192K in real time, the results are stunning. The largest impact in sound reproduction is the speakers, next is the room, and I would say crosstalk is third in my list so it will be my next purchase when I can afford it. It’s really quite simple to implement from my discussions with their team. It simply is added between your source and the speakers and works its magic by using head tracking technology. The initial set up includes using microphones put in your ears to measure your unique ears and head and then it’s set up and you don’t need to do anything else. I’m not sure why you perceive that to be difficult. Much less difficult than measuring the room and developing biquads for my DSP in my opinion. Thanks, Steve |
I agree that highly directional speakers do certainly help with stereo imaging, but I couldn’t get them to do much in terms of crosstalk elimination. I’m using horn speakers right now in conjunction with crosstalk reduction and I’m getting very good results. I heard some big horns at this summer’s Pacific Audiofest that had the best stereo separation of anything at the show in my opinion. Others mentioned it too. Besides inter-aural crosstalk, early side wall reflections can seriously degrade the stereo presentation too, and it is truly amazing how good a standard 2 speaker system without crosstalk reduction can be at producing a wide, spacious sound field with clear separation between instruments when early reflections are properly addressed, either through directional speakers, room treatments, or a combination of both. With crosstalk reduction it can be even more amazing, but dealing with early reflections remains super important, otherwise the full benefits won’t come through. Horns or other directional speakers can make that easier. I’ve also found that the quality of the speakers and other components remains as important as ever. If the tonality is off or there is too much distortion, the sense of realistic space is severely compromised, although you can almost always still hear some benefit. Even when listening to my laptop speakers I can get some sense of spaciousness with crosstalk reduction that would otherwise not happen at all. |
Bacch uses microphones in your ears to measure the room and your ears to get the best sound. I didn't know about this. I wish there was a video giving a full scale view of what you need to do to install this thing. For some reason they just don't wanna do this. I have a basic dac streamer connected to a pre-amplifier which is connected to the amplifiers which is connected to the speakers. Do I need to get a desktop computer integrated to use this thing? |
You’re the only one here who doesn’t seem to get this extremely simple concept. Seriously, have you done any research on this system at all??? Or do you need a YouTube video to spoon feed you and show you how to do everything? At this point in the thread that you don’t know this system is calibrated once by using in-ear microphones is just inexplicable and utterly embarrassing for you. You keep trying to push this agenda that this is hard to set up when several people here who’ve actually bought and use it say it’s not bad at all. Yet you keep pushing this completely false narrative and seem completely incapable of absorbing any of the very pertinent information being shared with you by experienced users. There’s a problem here. |
If you go to this link you can see all the parts and how it interfaces into your system through pull down menus within the system diagram. https://www.theoretica.us/bacch4mac/ @asctim Yes I agree getting the room corrected is key. My current results are fantastic and eerily real but I think it can get even better with BACCH. My decision to use panel speakers is due to Dr. Choueiri’s research, lack of side reflections, highly directional, single wave / line source. I’m sure your set up sounds great! Thanks, Steve |
I'm not certain if it's appearing in the November or December issue of TAS, but Dr. Choueiri has graciously allowed us to publish a book chapter on spatial sound he wrote with the musician/filmmaker/performance artist Laurie Anderson. It provides a lot of extremely useful information about different aspects of spatiality, including crosstalk cancellation. Watch for it.
Andrew Quint Senior writer - The Absolute Sound |
@hifidream thanks for that link. I have a pretty good idea now of the various set up configurations that can be supported. It appears though that the RME interface is a critical piece of the puzzle. Perhaps I am missing something, but it appears I would not be able to use my current preamp in the chain (unless it can be inserted in front of the RME). That is probably a deal breaker for me in my 2-channel system, probably not so much for a headphone set up I am thinking about setting up. |
From the lion's mouth : «Spatial music is music in which the spatial aspect of sound—the • Laurie Anderson and Edgar Choueiri • |
I saw the link to the Bacch site on how you can figure this thing. Basically it's a desktop computer connected to one of their devices connected to speakers that presumably are powered. So I guess you don't need to use a streamer/dac and a pre amplifier. So basically looks like you're replacing most of your existing system to get this thing. And then you have to install a WebCam on top of your computer which I think is weird. They need to show some practical examples and not just pretty pictures still lots of confusion in my opinion. |
This very short article of Choueiri and Anderson appear to me as FUNDAMENTAL for the future of not only audio playback but for future composer or musicians... Astonishing master piece article in my book.. Simple to read and fun and more, way more than just informative, The writers open a closed doors and pointed to a revolution in sound perception and creation ... Amazing...
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The short but amazing and fun article of Choueiri on Spatial sound is here with many others interesting one about music...
https://www.amazon.ca/Ways-Hearing-Reflections-Music-Pieces/dp/0691230684 |
Ive been auditioning with the bacch for about 8 weeks now. For me, it’s been a great addition to the overall listening experience. It been great to rediscover my current playlist, look for new music just to experience it with xtc, and have more appreciation to other music genres just to listen for the spatial aspect(s) - i am not talking about forced techniques in the studio but rather what was at the venue, whether it was purposeful or not - in both cases when the recording is played back with xtc, it is presented back to you with spatial details either subtle or often with such clarity but very much an obvious delta than to what it sounded like in stereo without it. There are ways to replicate this in the analog domain, and achieve similar results… but the elegant and much higher performing solution is demonstrated through computational processing as in the BACCH. But it’s not for everyone still wired listening to two channel stereo with ‘XTNC’ (Cross Talk NOT Cancelled)….and it’s totally okay if thats how you still want to roll. |
Thank you for your reply. The only problem I have with all this is that it's so very difficult and confusing to implement. I've heard horror stories from others when trying to work with their current equipment and this Baach stuff. The website is terribly terribly confusing in terms of trying to figure out how it can be integrated into your system. Maybe it's a good thing but it's just too darn demanding to figure it all out and they need to do a better job describing how it fits into your system. |
No, it’s not!!! Several people here who’ve used it have stated clearly that it’s not hard to implement and that very helpful customer support is there if you happen to need it. You just can’t get it through your thick head what’s clearly being said here by actual users and wanna stick to your mantra that it’s “too hard.” Seriously, what’s wrong with you? |
I spent time on the website and really tried to understand all the various offerings and also how it fits into my existing System. I had trouble figuring it out. Maybe I'm alone and maybe I'm not as smart as everybody else but it just seems real challenging to figure out. I think it's done by someone who went to Princeton and clearly I'm not Princeton material. |
