BACCH-SP: The future of high-end audio? Yes.

Phelonious Ponk · May 9, 2015

Kal Rubinson said:
IIRC, the BACCH-SP system includes HRTF processing with which it can encode signals to appear as if coming from above or below. I cannot comment on how or how well it is done.

Interesting. I can't comment on the general quality of the illusion, either, but unless there is information embedded in the recordings to tell the system when the trumpet player stands up, how tall the singer is, how high he wears his acoustic guitar...it can't be real; it can only be an illusion, a processing trick. Typically none of this matters much, as we typically sit far enough away from a performance that this information is completely obscured anyway. Perhaps this processing just aims to create the ambience of a performance space? Then, of course, the question would be what performance space? How high is the ceiling? How far back is the listening position? What part of the signal goes high? And how can the system address any of these issues if specific data is not in the recording? It can't. Personally, I don't mind processing effects, as long as I can turn them off (and I usually tire of them pretty quickly), but most audiophiles seem to be pretty seriously opposed to them.

Tim

soundArgument · May 9, 2015

Phelonious Ponk said:
Sorry, but that does not stand to reason. When one hears vertical cues from two laterally mounted ears, what you hear is the source of the sound, actually placed in space vertically, filtered through the flesh and hair of you ears and head. When you listen to two speakers, you hear two channels, in a horizontal plane, with all the cues emanating from the same two points. It's not the same thing. It's not even close. We've had this conversation here before, and people imagine that they hear vertical placement of instruments in a conventional stereo mix, but there is no logical/technical explanation for what they hear at all. There is no science behind the illusion. They are simply hearing what the imagine they should hear. The mind is a very powerful thing.

Tim

Height cues can be heard through two speakers and are sometimes (slightly) audible even on my conventional system. Even Siegfried Linkwitz, who rejects many of the more exotic beliefs that have become widespread in the high-end audio community, discusses the perception of height cues through his non-BACCH-SP system (e.g., here).

I nevertheless used to be skeptical that height cues could be clearly heard through two loudspeakers. The BACCH-SP disabused me of my skepticism.

One demo of the BACCH-SP in the MASIS Audio listening room involved Mr. Lam's assistant walking around the listening chair and playing a song through the speaker on his phone, which was perhaps 18 inches above my ears, while I wore the intraaural microphones used to calibrate the BACCH-SP. The intraaural microphones recorded the assistant's walk around the room. Played back through two speakers and the BACCH-SP, the spatial position of the phone was utterly palpable--including its height.

I imagine recordings with intraaural microphones placed in a person's ears--not a dummy head--work best because of the extent to which height cues depend on reflections from the pinna. Height cues were nevertheless audible on some non-binaural recordings played through the BACCH-SP to a degree that exceeds any such cues I've heard through conventional systems.

I know I've said this several times already in this thread (and I think Adyc said something similar), but hearing the BACCH-SP permanently altered my beliefs about what's possible from stereo recordings and two speakers.

Phelonious Ponk · May 9, 2015

esldude said:
I think there is some possibility of accidental, artificial height in some recordings. Your ears hear height by the comb filtering your ear lobe does. Since the lobe can reflect higher frequencies and the opening is offset from the center you get the lobe reflections and direct sound comb filtering what gets to your eardrum. You begin to hear something above horizontal with a notch in the sound spectrum around 6 khz. The higher it goes the higher the comb filtered notch moves. The effect stops somewhere around 12 or 14 khz.

Now if you have coincident microphones on a two mic recording, those are offset vertically quite often to better align the center of the microphone diaphragms. And the offset would just happen to be near the range to cause some comb filtering that can be heard as a vague height difference in some signals near the center of the reproduced soundfield. If something is directly ahead of the mics no sound path difference. If a sound source moves overhead, one mic is closer than the other and some comb filtering will result in roughly the right range to give some sense of height.

A better method is the way binaural is recorded, with a stereo pair on someone's actual head (or a false one) and the microphones in the ears, where the head and ears' actual filtering occurs before the signal hits the diaphragm. But either way, we're back to the availability of software issue. I'm not arguing that there are not ways to create these illusions, just that they are not the "future of high end." We're having enough trouble stopping the recording industry from devastating back catalog with horrendous remastering. I don't think we're going to get them to revise their entire methodology for a tiny niche market with a $55k magic box.

Tim

soundArgument · May 9, 2015

Phelonious Ponk said:
A better method is the way binaural is recorded, with a stereo pair on someone's actual head (or a false one) and the microphones in the ears, where the head and ears' actual filtering occurs before the signal hits the diaphragm. But either way, we're back to the availability of software issue. I'm not arguing that there are not ways to create these illusions, just that they are not the "future of high end." We're having enough trouble stopping the recording industry from devastating back catalog with horrendous remastering. I don't think we're going to get them to revise their entire methodology for a tiny niche market with a $55k magic box.

Tim

Today only pop recordings sound bad. Recordings of classical music (and, I suspect, jazz) sound better than ever.

The BACCH-SP, of course, will never be widely adopted at its current price. Its technology is bleeding edge, but in contrast to many devices using bleeding edge technologies, the BACCH-SP is both very polished and simpler to set up and use than I could have imagined. The BACCH-SP draws blood only from one's bank account.

Despite the $55,000 price tag, the BACCH-SP appears to have caught on with a number of audiophiles in Hong Kong, and reportedly, a respected figure in the high-end audio/recording business (I will not disclose his name) in the United States is using one. I wish he'd post here to discuss his thoughts about it.

From my own listening experiences and my discussions with other audiophiles who have heard the BACCH-SP (one of whom tried a number of pre-BACCH-SP "3D" sound devices, detesting all of them, before buying the BACCH-SP), I do not think that the BACCH-SP will disappear into obscurity. Its basic processing technology, used with head tracking, has a number of potential applications in non-audiophile domains. For instance, I suspect that properly encoded audio, played back using a simplified version of the BACCH-SP's processing and head-tracking technology, would appeal to video game users. (For the record, I don't play video games and don't even own a television.)

More germane to our interests, however, is that the audiophile version of this technology will become more accessible. While prices in the rest of the high-end market seem only to climb, I think that the price of the BACCH-SP (or the devices that follow in its wake) almost certainly will come down.

Phelonious Ponk · May 9, 2015

soundArgument said:
Today only pop recordings sound bad. Recordings of classical music (and, I suspect, jazz) sound better than ever.

The BACCH-SP, of course, will never be widely adopted at its current price. Its technology is bleeding edge, but in contrast to many devices using bleeding edge technologies, the BACCH-SP is both very polished and simpler to set up and use than I could have imagined. The BACCH-SP draws blood only from one's bank account.

Despite the $55,000 price tag, the BACCH-SP appears to have caught on with a number of audiophiles in Hong Kong, and reportedly, a respected figure in the high-end audio/recording business (I will not disclose his name) in the United States is using one. I wish he'd post here to discuss his thoughts about it.

From my own listening experiences and my discussions with other audiophiles who have heard the BACCH-SP (one of whom tried a number of pre-BACCH-SP "3D" sound devices, detesting all of them, before buying the BACCH-SP), I do not think that the BACCH-SP will disappear into obscurity. Its basic processing technology, used with head tracking, has a number of potential applications in non-audiophile domains. For instance, I suspect that properly encoded audio, played back using a simplified version of the BACCH-SP's processing and head-tracking technology, would appeal to video game users. (For the record, I don't play video games and don't even own a television.)

More germane to our interests, however, is that the audiophile version of this technology will become more accessible. While prices in the rest of the high-end market seem only to climb, I think that the price of the BACCH-SP (or the devices that follow in its wake) almost certainly will come down.

You have a much broader definition of pop music than I, but that's another discussion. In this one, I'm not questioning whether or not this system is effective, properly calibrated, in the right room (or even the wrong room, though I do doubt the quality of the effect there), playing the right recordings. But I think you are spot-on about what the right recordings are -- binaural, followed by simple stereo recorded with a simple pair of microphones, with no close mic-ing involved. Few of those recordings have been made since the late 50s, and far fewer in any genre but classical and "audiophile." Most serious music lovers have a few thousand of the wrong recordings, only a handful of the "right" ones.

Everyone here knows I'm a skeptic, but I don't see growth for this one. If you do, you should get in on the ground floor and invest in bringing it to market.

Tim

soundArgument · May 9, 2015

Phelonious Ponk said:
You have a much broader definition of pop music than I, but that's another discussion. In this one, I'm not questioning whether or not this system is effective, properly calibrated, in the right room (or even the wrong room, though I do doubt the quality of the effect there), playing the right recordings. But I think you are spot-on about what the right recordings are -- binaural, followed by simple stereo recorded with a simple pair of microphones, with no close mic-ing involved. Few of those recordings have been made since the late 50s, and far fewer in any genre but classical and "audiophile." Most serious music lovers have a few thousand of the wrong recordings, only a handful of the "right" ones.

Everyone here knows I'm a skeptic, but I don't see growth for this one. If you do, you should get in on the ground floor and invest in bringing it to market.

Tim

I should have said popular music. Apologies.

I have 5,000+ classical music recordings amd maybe 1,000-2,000 recordings of other music. There are a lot of audiophiles with similar proportions of classical to non-classical music in their collections.

I'd invest, but I think the equity is spoken for.

Phelonious Ponk · May 9, 2015

soundArgument said:
I should have said popular music. Apologies.

I have 5,000+ classical music recordings amd maybe 1,000-2,000 recordings of other music. There are a lot of audiophiles with similar proportions of classical to non-classical music in their collections.

I'd invest, but I think the equity is spoken for.

You've missed the point. Even the overwhelming majority of classical recordings use close and multi-mic techniques, then mix in post production. There is very little out there recorded with a stereo pair, in any genre. But enjoy it when you can.

Tim

soundArgument · May 9, 2015

Phelonious Ponk said:
You've missed the point. Even the overwhelming majority of classical recordings use close and multi-mic techniques, then mix in post production. There is very little out there recorded with a stereo pair, in any genre. But enjoy it when you can.

Tim

I missed the point because your understanding of recording techniques used in the classical space today is incorrect.

The majority of classical recordings released recently have been made with a main pair of spaced omnis (usually DPA or Schoeps) that, for orchestral recordings, are usually suspended above the conductor's head. The additional microphones that you might see in the concert hall or in photographs of recording sessions are close-in spot microphones used by "tonmeisters" to tweak the balance of recordings. These additional microphones do not help the stereo image and can introduce unrealistic artifacts, such as the unnaturally dry sound of woodwinds on most mainstream orchestral recordings. With modern DAW software, however, a competent engineer can make effective use of delay, usually on the order of a few milliseconds, to ensure that the sound from the spot mikes does not reach the stereo mix earlier than the sound from the more distant stereo pair. This technique produces a mix with temporal coherence but also with what one might call acoustic incoherence (with some instruments sounding more wet or more dry than they'd sound in the hall).

From the perspective of listening, the result of the contemporary stereo pair/spot mike technique is something in between the ideal of the two-microphone stereo recording and mixes that are cobbled together without the use of a main stereo pair. In my experience, the result tends to be closer to the former.

There was a period in the '70s during which mainstream classical labels attempted to cobble together recordings on the mixing board without the use of main stereo microphones. The results were, by most accounts, not good. Many Hollywood movie soundtracks continue to be made this way.

Phelonious Ponk · May 9, 2015

soundArgument said:
I missed the point because your understanding of recording techniques used in the classical space today is incorrect.

The majority of classical recordings released recently have been made with a main pair of spaced omnis (usually DPA or Schoeps) that, for orchestral recordings, are usually suspended above the conductor's head. The additional microphones that you might see in the concert hall or in photographs of recording sessions are close-in spot microphones used by "tonmeisters" to tweak the balance of recordings. These additional microphones do not help the stereo image and can introduce unrealistic artifacts, such as the unnaturally dry sound of woodwinds on most mainstream orchestral recordings. With modern DAW software, however, a competent engineer can make effective use of delay, usually on the order of a few milliseconds, to ensure that the sound from the spot mikes does not reach the stereo mix earlier than the sound from the more distant stereo pair. This technique produces a mix with temporal coherence but also with what one might call acoustic incoherence (with some instruments sounding more wet or more dry than they'd sound in the hall).

From the perspective of listening, the result of the contemporary stereo pair/spot mike technique is something in between the ideal of the two-microphone stereo recording and mixes that are cobbled together without the use of a main stereo pair. In my experience, the result tends to be closer to the former.

There was a period in the '70s during which mainstream classical labels attempted to cobble together recordings on the mixing board without the use of main stereo microphones. The results were, by most accounts, not good. Many Hollywood movie soundtracks continue to be made this way.

Ok. If you say that those close-in, "spot microphones" don't count...ok.

Tim

Kal Rubinson · May 9, 2015

Phelonious Ponk said:
Interesting. I can't comment on the general quality of the illusion, either, but unless there is information embedded in the recordings to tell the system when the trumpet player stands up, how tall the singer is, how high he wears his acoustic guitar...it can't be real; it can only be an illusion, a processing trick. Typically none of this matters much, as we typically sit far enough away from a performance that this information is completely obscured anyway. Perhaps this processing just aims to create the ambience of a performance space? Then, of course, the question would be what performance space? How high is the ceiling? How far back is the listening position? What part of the signal goes high? And how can the system address any of these issues if specific data is not in the recording? It can't. Personally, I don't mind processing effects, as long as I can turn them off (and I usually tire of them pretty quickly), but most audiophiles seem to be pretty seriously opposed to them.
Tim

Hey, Tim, I'm with you. I didn't say that those effects were accurate recreations.

Ackcheng · May 10, 2015

Hi! I would like to contribute to the thread and add my 2 cents! I am actually one of the owners of BACCH-SP but I shall refrain myself from talking about sound quality as it is not possible to explain what I hear to someone who has not heard the system before.

The crosstalk being discussed here is not referring to the signal leakage among channels during play back. BACCH does nothing to this kind of crosstalk. We are talking about the crosstalk created during play back by speakers. For those who are interested, you can find our more here

https://thesounddesignprocess.wordp...l-reproduction-of-sound-pure-stereo-3d-audio/

You can also see this video for better explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=147&v=fMYQTjJLq4w

The best and the most ideal way to record an event is to put the recording mic inside your head and during playback, the signal recored with the R microphone goes to the R ear only and L goes to L. If you hear the violin 10 feet away slightly off centre to your left and 1 m above your seat, you should also get the exact same experience during play back. In this situation, the HRTF used during recording is the same as play back because your head and is being used during recording.

The second best is to use binaural head. Still good, but the HRFT used for recording is different from the one during play back.

The third best is conventional recordings with mulitimic and mixing/panning etc. Surprising, while binaural technique was not used to do the recording, there are still a lot of "binaural" information already captured which can be extracted during play back. This is what makes BACCH so valuable and I am using BACCH for over 99% of my play back.

But then again, don't just accept or refuse the technology based of what me or other say, trust your ear and have an audition yourself. Music is for enjoyment and it calms my heart. Enjoy!

soundArgument · May 10, 2015

Ackcheng said:
Hi! I would like to contribute to the thread and add my 2 cents! I am actually one of the owners of BACCH-SP but I shall refrain myself from talking about sound quality as it is not possible to explain what I hear to someone who has not heard the system before.

The crosstalk being discussed here is not referring to the signal leakage among channels during play back. BACCH does nothing to this kind of crosstalk. We are talking about the crosstalk created during play back by speakers. For those who are interested, you can find our more here

https://thesounddesignprocess.wordp...l-reproduction-of-sound-pure-stereo-3d-audio/

You can also see this video for better explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=147&v=fMYQTjJLq4w

The best and the most ideal way to record an event is to put the recording mic inside your head and during playback, the signal recored with the R microphone goes to the R ear only and L goes to L. If you hear the violin 10 feet away slightly off centre to your left and 1 m above your seat, you should also get the exact same experience during play back. In this situation, the HRTF used during recording is the same as play back because your head and is being used during recording.

The second best is to use binaural head. Still good, but the HRFT used for recording is different from the one during play back.

The third best is conventional recordings with mulitimic and mixing/panning etc. Surprising, while binaural technique was not used to do the recording, there are still a lot of "binaural" information already captured which can be extracted during play back. This is what makes BACCH so valuable and I am using BACCH for over 99% of my play back.

But then again, don't just accept or refuse the technology based of what me or other say, trust your ear and have an audition yourself. Music is for enjoyment and it calms my heart. Enjoy!

Just want to say thanks to Ackcheng for allowing me to hear his extraordinary system and making it possible for me to hear the BACCH-SP!

I think I mentioned this in the original post, but Ackcheng designed his own speakers, which use digital crossovers to great effect. Ackcheng let me listen to his system for nearly three hours (he would have let me listen longer, but I had to catch my flight back to NYC), and not once could I pinpoint any deficiency in the sound. The speakers sounded stunningly coherent, much more so than many megabuck designs I've heard at shows and elsewhere.

In a conventional home environment, the effect of the BACCH-SP is not quite as pronounced as it is in a treated room, but the spatial effects I heard from Ackcheng's system exceeded anything I've ever heard from a non-BACCH-SP system. Image depth and width were astonishing in their scale and their evocation of the experience of being in a concert hall.

I should also mention two important points. First, Ackcheng's system was never calibrated for my head, but the BACCH-SP still worked. Perhaps most listeners' heads and ears are similar enough in shape that calibration, while beneficial, is not essential to hearing much of what the device can do. Second, during most of the listening session, I was in the center sweet spot, while Ackcheng was seated to my right. I can confirm that the BACCH-SP works when two heads are tracked simultaneously.

In addition to owning both a great music collection and the best system I've ever heard in a home environment, Ackcheng is a delightful host.

Here again is a photo of his system:

soundArgument · May 2, 2017

Do any members know about the differences between the 'Mk 1' BACCH-SP and subsequent iterations of the device?

The reason I ask is that a 'Mk 1' BACCH-SP has appeared on Ebay at an attractively low price.

Depending on my rather unpredictable work schedule, it may be worth a flight to Toulouse to pick it up.

EVOLVIST · May 2, 2017

soundArgument said:
Do any members know about the differences between the 'Mk 1' BACCH-SP and subsequent iterations of the device?

The reason I ask is that a 'Mk 1' BACCH-SP has appeared on Ebay at an attractively low price.

Depending on my rather unpredictable work schedule, it may be worth a flight to Toulouse to pick it up.

I do not, though it's interesting that you mention this because I've been speaking to them about their software solution, which is much cheaper.

It's still a bit pricey, but according to them the exact same engine in the box. *shrug*

RogerD · May 2, 2017

I have had a passive device since the early 1980's that addresses crosstalk. Yes, depending on the recording it can be stunning. If the information is on the recording you will hear it,if not you won't. It does not add or subtract anything and it very natural. Holographic and 3D,is it a Carver....no,it was made especially for me. Does eliminating crosstalk improve conventional stereo...yes.

soundArgument · May 3, 2017

EVOLVIST said:
I do not, though it's interesting that you mention this because I've been speaking to them about their software solution, which is much cheaper.

It's still a bit pricey, but according to them the exact same engine in the box. *shrug*

Is information about the software solution here?

The software discussed on that site appears to use generic, one-size-fits-all filters without head tracking. The head tracking and individualized filters of the BACCH-SP enhance the effect enormously.

Does the software solution that you have inquired about use a USB head tracker and calibration with intraaural microphones? Without those features, I think I would still have to go with a BACCH-SP.

Ackcheng · May 3, 2017

Hi SoundArgument,

I think this is the information you are looking for

https://www.theoretica.us/bacch-dsp/

EVOLVIST · May 3, 2017

soundArgument said:
Is information about the software solution here?

The software discussed on that site appears to use generic, one-size-fits-all filters without head tracking. The head tracking and individualized filters of the BACCH-SP enhance the effect enormously.

Does the software solution that you have inquired about use a USB head tracker and calibration with intraaural microphones? Without those features, I think I would still have to go with a BACCH-SP.

Yes, there is headtracking and some sort of 3D mics.

soundArgument · May 3, 2017

Ackcheng said:
Hi SoundArgument,

I think this is the information you are looking for

https://www.theoretica.us/bacch-dsp/

Many thanks! Very interesting. Not sure how I managed to miss this, except that I've been very busy at work.

bmoura · Jun 28, 2017

There are 15 Binaural DSD releases available for fans of binaural music at NativeDSD Music.
You can play those on any music system with DSD. No expensive pre-processor hardware required to experience the binaural playback.

Binaural DSD Releases - June 28 2017.jpg

https://www.nativedsd.com/homepage/binaural_dsd_music

BACCH-SP: The future of high-end audio? Yes.

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