Plugins from both classes does not sound the same as Phonitor's crossfeed-not as natural I would say. Linkwitz, Chu Moi, and others), and the other class uses HRTF and room simulation ( ToneBoosters Isone, adv_xfeed) and even add head tracking ( WavesNx). What I discovered, is that there are basically two kinds of crossfeed plugins: one class of them is based on the same ideas as BS2B (the original idea explained by Bauer in 1965, then extended and improved by S. I started looking for other crossfeed plugins besides BS2B (portable headphone amplifiers with crossfeed are still a rarity and add some inconvenience to mobile setups). Also, I didn't want myself to be locked in into using Phonitor headphone amps exclusively. I ended up buying a second Phonitor mini, so I can use it both at home and at the office, but this still didn't solve the problem of listening on the go.
#HEADPHONE AMP WITH CROSSFEED PORTABLE#
The Phonitor (even "mini") is definitely not a portable device. Now I've got a new problem-being used to the natural sound of Phonitor's crossfeed, I started to lack it when I was away. Phonitor's crossfeed pushes the sound out of the head as expected, but at the same time doesn't very much alter the sense of the original sound. And I was right-Phonitor mini sounds amazing, and its crossfeed feature is indeed very nicely tuned. Phonitor mini also has very low output impedance, so I decided that people who were tuning its crossfeed feature definitely wouldn't allow explosive basses to sneak in. One particular amplifier that attracted my attention was SPL Phonitor mini -the little brother of monstrous and expensive Phonitor 2, offering the same (albeit with a more modest set of parameters) crossfeed feature. I changed BS2B's setting to the most conservative "650 Hz, 9.5 dB"-this helped to reduce the devastating effect of the bass amplification, but had almost moved the sound back into my head. Coupled with Beyerdynamic DT770 headphones, this had revealed a huge defect in the BS2B plugin-its overly aggressive bass amplification, as a result of mixing in bass frequencies from the opposite channel (the essence of crossfeed).
One for the defining features of this amplifier is a very low output impedance which helps in reproducing bass frequencies faithfully (see the NwAvGuy's explanation why excessive output impedance rolls off bass frequency response). And I was pretty happy with it until I bought O2 headphone amplifier / DAC. I'm not sure if it really reduces fatigue (I haven't seen any studies on this topic), but it definitely helps in "pushing" the sound out of the head, and helps to perceive spatial cues of good stereophonic recordings the same way as it happens when listening on speakers.įor a long time I was using the BS2B plugin inserted into the output chain of Pulse Audio on Linux. When it comes to using headphones, I'm a big fan of the crossfeed effect.
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