Yes I got that with my old speakers they had a v shaped Signature. I also went for neutral. You will notice quite a big difference to what your used to. So listen to it for several days to get accustomed to it before trying without. But you need to try and volume match when doing it as the filters will reduce overall volume.
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Looking forward to trying a tweaked set of filters tonight from Thierry. I have asked for “a sweeter tonal balance. There is a slight edginess to some music and vocals, that I’d like smoothed slightly.
Having said that I don’t want a mellow mush with all attack lost”.
From a thread on the roon forum I came across the tip to save each filter as a pre-set and to use headroom to equalize the volumes (the standard filter is louder than the crosstalk filter).
This makes a quick A vs B very easy to implement.
.sjb
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A lot of music under my belt in the past few hours and I think I’m at or nearing the stage where I can say this is one of the most cost effective “upgrades” I’ve ever taken.
Listening this evening, every now again I went back to no filters and almost universally the difference is apparent and in favour of Thierry’s filters.
The ability to tweak the filters is great. I’ll probably ask Thierry to do a lesser crosstalk option as the odd time I nearly jump as the sound comes so far from outside the speakers. But the crosstalk option is probably my favourite but there are some times it’s a little bit OTT.
The option of using convolution in Roon is a fantastic addition which I’m just beginning to take advantage. This mixed with Thierry’s Home Audio Fidelity filters, which makes the whole process so simple really opens up so many options for us.
This really has the potential to be a truly disruptive feature.
Honestly if you’re thinking of cables or other “upgrades” costing over £250, try this first.
.sjb
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Very happy it’s working out for you, Thierry is so pleasant to work with as well. I swear I need to get around to updating my filters again soon. Roon really does make it easy to switch between filters or no filters.
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I have been using HAF filters since August.
My initial motivation was to do some low frequencies correction for room modes. Thierry has a dedicated s/w VTS plugin for bass management which cannot run in Roon DSP and prefers to have a “mild” correction for reflections in his basic (non x/talk) filters.
I find the x/talk filters quite impressive in terms of clarity and soundstage but I have some reservations:
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Standard room correction tries to eliminate the effect of the room and make the end result as close as possible to the original recording. Cross talk though seems to attempt to improve on the original recording and make it -here I am oversimplifying- more “binaural”. Some might object to the “fidelity” of this approach
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the x/talk effect reminds me a bit of a phase inversion effect (music more spread horizontally towards the edges); with some tracks which seem to employ phase tricks by design (like Elliott Smith on Either/Or) this may lead to strange results
Overall, I don’t use HAF for small ensembles (chamber music, jazz) but do so quite a lot on rock “muddied” tracks
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I received my HAF filters last Saturday (HAF + Crosstalk) within a few hours of my order, really speedy service and excellent communication.
So have started my listening tests to see if I may need the filters tweaking.
I really thought it would be more difficult than it actually has been so far, adding them into the DSP engine and loading them in as Presets, absolutely seamless and very intuitive.
Im a couple of weeks behind @Sloop_John_B in this process so first impressions are that Crosstalk has quite an impact, think mine needs tuning a little as its more right sided in its effect.
But time spent so far mostly on the standard filter, think I need a few more days on this before switching back to without filters to see how I feel.
The one thing that I was slightly apprehensive about was whether my Innuos Zenith used as Roon Core would be able to run the Convolution filters, especially as it is widely written that if a lot of DSP will be done, probably better not choosing an Innuos as it wont have enough power in the CPU.
Pleased to say it manages perfectly well - see this screen shot showing processing speed on a standard CD.
The speed drops the higher res files are played, but even at 192/24, no problem, still comfortably over the 1.0 recommended in the Roon KB and no stuttering or playback issues.
Anyway, Ill carry on listening, and now we have 1.8 to look forward to next week also!
Ill post back once Ive come to a conclusion whether any tweakery is required.
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Yes I really need to motivate myself. Something I dont have a lot of this lock down. The Tabs are waiting to be fully unlocked.
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Has any one tried this on entry level kit - something like an Unitiqute?
My office system gets the most hours of use, but I’m keen to try it out with my NDS.
I originally was using this with a XS2 and microRendu setup a couple of years ago if this helps you.
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Is there a way of doing this kind of EQ if you’re not using Roon? An external box maybe?
I’m interested in this as it’s something I’m used to on the AV side with Audyssey which is very effective.
I have an ND5 XS 2 and have been considering a Qutest as a possible upgrade too if it would require an external Dac. Thanks
Thierry gives good rates for filters on second sets of measurements. I can see no reason why it would be any less effective on an office system.
As I’ve said above if you’d spend between £100 -150 on a cable for your office system then in my experience (of cables and these filters) you’ll get much better bang for your buck with the filters.
.sjb
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This is what the home audio fidelity website says
“Here is a list of players compatible with our technology: Roon, HQplayer, JRiver, Foobar (together with the VSTconvolver plugin) and any other player with VST plug-in format compatibility or using Brutefir convolution engine (like Volumio).
Filters can be implemented in Audirvana using our dedicated plugin.
With the filters we deliver an installation instruction for your audio player.
For audio players having only a classic stereo convolution we can generate “downgraded” versions of the correction (no cross talk for instance) Such filters can also be used with hardware solutions like the ones from miniDSP.”
I’m not sure I’m any the wiser reading this in relation to hardware but Thierry is really very approachable so maybe ping him an email.
.sjb
Yes you can either buy a Dirac based hardware box from MiniDSP or their basic one and add some filters created by HAF. Using HAF filter in MiniDSP kit is limited though and some only work internally at lower resolutions or fixed sample rates.
You can use any playback software that supports convolution such as Audivarna and use the VST plugin to apply HAF generated filters.
Thank you, somehow I missed that on the site!
Your comments on the improvements for this track in particular stood out as I have exactly the same issue with it as you had.
Thanks again, certainly worth looking into.
Thanks, I’ll have a look at the MiniDSP products, the Dirac ones sound interesting in particular.
Cheers.
@Sloop_John_B are you noticing any effects that you don’t like? Have they made the sound, sound equalised/digitised in anyway?
I wonder what the cons are vs physical acoustic panels in ones room.
I am very interested by this and keeping an eye on your thread.
Popeye 
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No DSP can do anything about cancellations arising from standing waves in a room, nor stop reflections for all they can seemingly compensate. That doesn’t mean that the DSP approach is bad, just it will never be as good as directly treating the room. Ideally one should treat the room, and then use DSP to improve whatever imperfections remain.
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No but they can reduce the affect quite considerably from standing waves as Thierry did in my case with my old speakers. Most people cant do treatments as I have said many times nor want a recording studio in their front room. All the rooms I see with acoustic treatments I would not like to live in at all. Just wondering if you have heard how good DSP can be when done right and by someone who knows what they are doing. Considering its used in very high end Actives these days I am sure it not in any way too detrimental. I kow I didnt hear anything bad in my system with it.
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The short answer is no.
Caveats being when I asked Thierry about the filter and how it worked he said “The correction is making the frequency response of the loudspeakers more linear and it flattens out the low range (you don’t have really problematic resonances, so the correction is quite light)”
There is nothing that sounds wrong, some that sounds quite similar, much that sounds slightly better, some that sound much better.
I’ve moved on to albums rather than skipping from track to track. Graceland, Mezzanie, Revolver, Protection. So for example today with Revolver I was thinking, gosh George’s vocals in “I want to tell you” are a but harsh or probably forward is the better term… I switched off the filter to find that perhaps they were. I then changed from HAF to crosstalk and they became less harsh or forward and now sounded better than without filter. (the bass is just so more defined / in focus - it’s what I imagine people talk about when they talk about grip and control of an amp. Because the bass is more defined nuances in drumming become evident - kick drums now actually kick.).
Graceland just sounded superb, but it always did. However I remember a comment somewhere about the bass on You can call me Al and never quite hearing what was described, well now I am. I would never have quite said I had one note bass -I didn’t - but some was muddied by whatever dance the room and speakers were doing together.
The Massive Attack albums surprised me in that I was expecting BOOM from the bass. I go back to the word control. Turing off the filter there seemed to be more bass but it was an undefined blob in places where with either filter it was placed it in the mix - the initial effect seemed to be less bass in Massive Attack albums. Both have their appeal actually but the extra precision in the treble wins the day for the filtered versions.
I have rationalised (and I may be totally off the mark here) that my non filtered setup approximates to somewhere along the spectrum from standard HAF filter to the crosstalk one. Sometimes with the crosstalk filter some notes or instruments can make you jump, they are just so much wider than the speakers. I’m thinking for my next request that I will ask Thierry to dial down the 2 crosstalk filters (the regular and the smoother one) to see if this will give the benefits of crosstalk reduction without some of the OTT effects.
The smoother/ sweeter filter worked very well for a synth pop journey I took last night. Sometimes 80s synth pop can be a bit brittle and hard to listen to for long. These still sounded like 80s synth pop but more like I remembered them not the harsh way too bright mess that they can sometimes sound like.
Very difficult to articulate these things especially as I’ve said above for someone who doesn’t really speak the language of transients, noise floors and timing.
Hopefully my descriptions are intelligible, they are trying to describe - “does it sound better” - (yes it does) and give some idea of where.
.sjb
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I do use DSP in my own system, with two different speaker-listening positions, one optimised the other not, so one with more DSP than the other. Having an active crossover with spare DSP capacity made it an obvious thing to do. (I’ve mentioned somewhere recently in more detail, but it appears not this thread) I’m am happy with the result, but I do know there is excessive decay time caused by the room, and I believe I have near reflections from the ceiling, so I do plan room treatment if I remain in this property (currently uncertain). I haven’t tried the HAF system - I did trial DIRAC a few years ago, but wasn’t impressed: I did mine manually, using REW to show me what was going on. If room treatment proves impossible or inadequate it would be tempting to have a trial of HAF.
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