Home Audio Fidelity (HAF) DSP filters

Yes you can trial Roon for 14 days I think. However I’d wait until next week to trial Roon. The new version 1.8 is phenomenal IMHO.

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So I’m nearing the end of a successful journey with Thierry’s Home Audio Fidelity filters.

I’ve spent the past week listening with my “new normal”. This is crosstalk filter 1 activated. For about 1/4 of my listening I prefer the crosstalk 2 filter - the smoother one. Then perhaps there are the 5% of albums where the crosstalk reduction effect is too extreme and I use the standard filter, which still sounds mighty good. I’ve just received 2 new filters with reduced crosstalk to see if these work with the above 5% of music so that I can still enjoy the benefits of the crosstalk reduction with the extremes tamed. If it doesn’t work it’s no great issue, if it does all the better!

I never thought I’d be able to manage measuring my room and having convolution filters specifically to sort out the sonic issues with the room. However Thierry’s measurement program really is foolproof, certainly if you can set up Roon you can do it. Then you get sent a set of filters that are an even simpler task to put into Roon. And Thierry is so responsive to email and never uses jargon or spiel.

Including the UMIK-1 mic this is the best value for money upgrade I have ever done. It really is one of those giant killers. I’m embarrassed to think I’ve spent 4 times the amount on an interconnect. I may have been lucky, as Thierry said and I posted above, my room had few resonances and the correction is quite light. So paradoxically the graph of my room may have looked okay if I had managed to get my PhD in REW.

A clear top contender for Sloop’s Product of the Decade!

.sjb

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I’m using a Dayton audio mic, but I can’t seem to get it working (MacBook and MacMini) despite selecting it in the system preferences sounds tab.
Has anyone got any suggestions before I return it?
Thanks in anticipation.

I used a Microsoft Surface Pro so cannot give any specific advice except that initially it didn’t work (but I knew the mic worked as I use it on zoom) and seemingly doing the exact same thing to the settings seemed to get it to work.
It might have been that I needed to change the OS settings after I had the HAF program running.

Also consider reaching out to Thierry for help. There is a long running thread on the Roon forum and I know of a least one guy who Thierry talked through it with REW as the HAF program couldn’t be got to work. (I cannot remember if it was Mac or pc though).

.sjb

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Thanks that’s helpful to know … my tinkering will have to wait now until Monday.
I did note this morning that I need to plug it directly into the MacMini rather than with an extension. I using a free frequency analyser but it still was not very sensitive. But enough for now.

Thank you for suggesting I try Roon, I started the trial on Friday and am really liking it, still finding my way round it but reckon I’ll be keeping it going already!
Especially since I did a quick experiment with generating convolution filters with REW today (already had the mic). Even though it was my first attempt the results have been great, made a huge difference, I can turn the volume up much further without things breaking up and it feels much clearer.

I will send a file to Thierry next weekend!

The other thing I like about Roon is that I can do this:

This is a quick test with my laptop but it means that I could repurpose an old machine and control Roon on my TV with a Bluetooth mouse. Something I’ve wished for since getting my kit :smiley:

Cheers,
Mark

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@Mark63 : If you have an appleTV, you can try an App called tv:remote

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Awesome! Glad you are enjoying the new version of Roon. I do something similar for Roon and it’s Karaoke feature on my Television, it’s pretty damn fun when I’m just a little tipsy on a Friday night. I went through REW and thought I did a decent job until I used HAF then I realized I’m an amateur compared to what Thierry can do. He’s got some secret sauce that’s for sure.

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Thanks, I don’t have an Apple TV, but what does the app do? A search on the App Store didn’t find anything by that name. Thanks.

Yes he must have! I’m still trying to think of a track to send him :thinking:

I didn’t know Roon had a karaoke mode … that would be extremely painful with my attempts at singing :grinning:

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I don’t know if it’s called Karaoke mode but it’s really fun to have song lyrics scroll on my TV. With enough beer I’m compelled to dance and sing along.

Well Chris,

Any updates?

.sjb

Well I must admit I got a bit sidetracked by the 1.8 release last week, and also, during this latest lockdown, am finding it very difficult to get some solo listening time in when I can crank up the volume and compare…I’m not complaining, it’s lovely, but not conducive to getting back to Thierry!

Anyway, back on topic.
The easier filter to describe is the Crosstalk one. It felt to me on a good number of tracks as if the right hand channel went wide, but moved towards me, whereas the left hand channel went wide but stayed back. It felt very right hand biased, so I’ve asked for an adjustment to try and balance it.

The straight filter I found much more difficult to evaluate.
Overall I prefer it applied than not though I find it difficult to explain why! The treble is tamed and bass/mids slightly more prominent, but it is a very mild change. Not that I need it to sound different as such, I think I just need to hear it pushed a bit further to hear when it’s gone too far. So I have asked for two adjustments, keeping the treble tamed but accentuating bass and mids at 2 different levels.

Thierry is ‘en vacances’ this week, so maybe I’ll receive an update next week. Thoroughly enjoyed the process so far, just got some tweaking to get right now.
Hope you are still enjoying your filters and sounds.

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Thanks, that does look good, however I’m after the full control app on the tv so I don’t have to put my reading glasses on and stare at the iPad while exploring for music :slightly_smiling_face:

I dug out an old Magic Mouse that has a trackpad built in which is perfect, great experience and makes use of the otherwise black box between the speakers!
Cheers

Hi Mark,
What @Wolfgang linked you to is exactly what you are looking for.
It is an app that enables people to use the Apple TV remote control rather than the iPad/iPhone.
Of course you need an Apple TV box connected up to your TV for it to work, but you can search, select, play, queue, scrub through a track all on the TV using your Apple TV remote.
It is not an official Roon app, but developed by someone using all the APIs that Roon makes available, and authorised by Roon.

I too get absolutely fed up of using my phone and iPad after being at work all day on a laptop. This App enables me to have a break from them, I find especially useful when playing Roon radio when I might not know the tracks.
Hope this explains and sorry to detract from the original thread!

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Rather than wade through the 300+ posts on that thread on the Apple TV, is it just a case of downloading an app from the App Store onto my phone

What’s the app called?

Thanks

.sjb

After a frustrating few days I’ve returned the mic (UMM-6). I tried changing cables to no avail. The light was on but no signal came thru’ … this was best demonstrated on Audacity but also on Apple Garage.
I now have to decide whether to try another UMM-6 (out of stock) or try another type of mic.

I used the UMIK 1.

They seem to be available currently. There is a version 2 out but I believe it’s not as good for the purpose of these measurements.

.sjb

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The app is called tv:remote, but it is apptv only, so you can’t install it on your iphone/ipad

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