• exact
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  • Registered: 2020-01-22
  • Posts: 64

Topic: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

I've tried using crossfeed with various values and A/B-ing it for a long time now, we're talking months, with my SDR-modded HD800.

Only now that I just turned it to max and kinda just left it on and really let my ears get used to it and wow that sounds natural. Damn crossfeed is awesome. I used to use it with my old LCD-2C aswell and loved it there (fixed the blobby stage on them), but just sounded weird on the HD800, that is, until now.

Fellow HD800(S)-owners, I highly recommend giving it a try for a day.

2 Reply by MstrC-117 (edited by MstrC-117 2022-02-21 20:11:22)

  • Registered: 2022-01-22
  • Posts: 83

Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

Nice to see you found the right setting, congratulations. smile

Major reason people disappoint to crossfeed is they don´t have the courage to screw it in enough to begin with, and make hasty conclusions. No simulation can work with wrong parameters... and in hurry, things rarely work optimally anyway.   


If we think how much <700 Hz sound (ADI-2 Pro manual, pages 15-16) naturally can attenuate from taking just a little extra roundtrip to other side of the head, to opposite ear, it seems clear that ADI-2´s lesser crossfeed settings 1-4 are too conservative with their attenuation values of -13,5 to -4,5 dB. Sure sound such a long wavelenghts doesn´t attenuate that much in such a short extra distance, in that additional flight distance of only couple of ten centimeters. ADI-2´s crossfeed setting 5´s -3 dB -value hence makes most sense in light of numbers also, to give most realistic i.e. lifelike simulation. Natural "channel separation" of human being really is not much.

  • Registered: 2022-01-25
  • Posts: 25

Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

I have the LCD-2 Closed Back and have been using crossfeed (5). Do you EQ your HD800 along with using crossfeed?

exact wrote:

I've tried using crossfeed with various values and A/B-ing it for a long time now, we're talking months, with my SDR-modded HD800.

Only now that I just turned it to max and kinda just left it on and really let my ears get used to it and wow that sounds natural. Damn crossfeed is awesome. I used to use it with my old LCD-2C aswell and loved it there (fixed the blobby stage on them), but just sounded weird on the HD800, that is, until now.

Fellow HD800(S)-owners, I highly recommend giving it a try for a day.

  • exact
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  • Registered: 2020-01-22
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Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

metal4ever wrote:

I have the LCD-2 Closed Back and have been using crossfeed (5). Do you EQ your HD800 along with using crossfeed?

I use Oratory1990's EQ on and off depending on the day/week, yes. Changes the presentation quite a bit, from large, diffused sound to a more natural, precise sound.

  • exact
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Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

I actually just possibly figured why some people might find crossfeed weird; if using any sort of bass-shelf or bass-heavy headphone, the crossfeed making the bass mono makes it a lot harder-hitting, more focused. It muddies up the image in the center of your head.

I turned my SDR-modded HD800's bass.-shelf completely off and now there's no excess bass anymore.

  • Argon
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  • Registered: 2019-06-21
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Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

Sounds interesting. Do you know guys, if is it possible to store Crofeed value together with EQ preset to quickly load it, or just map to a button on the remote?

  • KaiS
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  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2020-02-05
  • Posts: 3,112

Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

Argon wrote:

Sounds interesting. Do you know guys, if is it possible to store Crofeed value together with EQ preset to quickly load it, or just map to a button on the remote?

Yes, store a “Setup”.

KaiS's Website

  • Registered: 2022-11-24
  • Posts: 2

Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

I am using Crossfeed 5 on the HD8XX and it really is awesome.

  • From: Southern Sweden
  • Registered: 2022-03-28
  • Posts: 29

Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

Thanks, exact! I hadn't tried the crossfeed before and now I enjoy it all the time. Both HD800s and ZMF Verité Closed sound fabulous with crossfeed 5! Jazz and small groups maybe best - but also Bach's Adventskantaten by Collegium Vocale Gent which I listen to right now.

  • exact
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  • Registered: 2020-01-22
  • Posts: 64

Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

zyberguran wrote:

Thanks, exact! I hadn't tried the crossfeed before and now I enjoy it all the time. Both HD800s and ZMF Verité Closed sound fabulous with crossfeed 5! Jazz and small groups maybe best - but also Bach's Adventskantaten by Collegium Vocale Gent which I listen to right now.

Yeah it's a great option to have. Might take some time getting used to if you're used to the typical headphone-presentation but it really makes the stage more natural, always felt off with headphones' panning when it's completely on the left- or right side.

  • Registered: 2022-01-22
  • Posts: 83

Re: HD800 & Crossfeed 5 = Yum

This great headphone "virtual earplugs" -removal tool, buried deep in ADI´s menus, is maybe the most undervalued feature of this RME´s little swiss army knife of audio. It is the essential setting in headphone listening, and can well determine whether critical user can continue as headphone listener or not.

To make it to affect enough, one must really just suppress their encoder 2 -hand shaking and courage themself to screw it all the way up to maximum setting 5. Milder settings doesn´t get that channel separation of <700 Hz small enough, "virtual earplugs" of headphone reproduction just won´t yet get off with those.



Of course warning of disappointment is in place with this too: crap-recordings still sound like crap, even with crossfeed 5.

Although its unquestionable properties as the naturaliser of the headphone reproduction, even proper crossfeed can´t polish real compressor-OD-loudness-war -pile of shit -recordings to parade condition. It makes them to just sound spatially more correct compressor-OD-loudness-war -pile of shit.

This should be kept in mind before skipping to next track. And at least suppress oneself to NOT go re-cycling ADI´s crossfeed setting.