BACCH-SP: The future of high-end audio? Yes.
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For experienced Beach users - what is a good setting for the time window reflections? The default is 3ms and higher ms settings give better crosstalk cancellation XTC level measurements but I'm not able to hear much difference when set to 6 or 9.
Thanks for trying to help. I don't hear much of a difference between 3 or 6ms settings so I guess I will need to improve the room acoustics. From the 5ms reflection indicated, can the distance from speaker to the surface that needs work be calculated?
Also another question, if my Baach4Mac is installed in a Macbook alongside a Roon core, is it possible to play from Roon into Baach4Mac and output to the DAC, bypassing the need for the Babyface? Assuming the filters have all be generated and there is no need for mics anymore.
Thanks Al, but how do you set 5? There is only 2,3,6 etc. Maybe your Bacch-SP version has finer tuning options than the Bacch4Mac?
Tried a carful listen again to these time windows of 2ms, 3 and 6. Seem there is a subtle but audible difference. I think for me 3ms seems to sound best focused with the extreme left and right music still clear. Slowly but surely I’m getting it!
Tried a carful listen again to these time windows of 2ms, 3 and 6. Seem there is a subtle but audible difference. I think for me 3ms seems to sound best focused with the extreme left and right music still clear. Slowly but surely I’m getting it!
Oops, you are correct. 2, 3, 6 etc. My results look almost exactly like yours. I have my adio set to 6. I used to use 3 which Edgar told me is wrong with the results I get. (Like yours). I set it at 6 and it seems modestly better.
The first time I looked at the interface for the adio I feared I would have to be a scientist to make sense of it. Thankfully, the scientist who designed it did a nice job. It starting making sense early. The ORC happened, LOL.
Here are a couple of playlists from Qobuz for Bacch owners:
Listen to the playlist Best Played with Theoretica BACCH II by Steve08226 on Qobuz https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/18476652
Listen to the playlist Audiophile Junkie - Bacch SP by Theoretica Applied Physics by drsavetz on Qobuz https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/19863447
Listen to the playlist Best Played with Theoretica BACCH II by Steve08226 on Qobuz https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/18476652
Listen to the playlist Audiophile Junkie - Bacch SP by Theoretica Applied Physics by drsavetz on Qobuz https://open.qobuz.com/playlist/19863447
With the use of the Bacch4Mac in my Macbook, I am unable to play USB from my streamer to the Macbook as the Babyface Pro only have one USB port needed to connect to the Macbook.
Prof. Edgar suggested to use the MiniDSP MCHStreamer box to convert USB into optical and pass that to the Babyface Pro. Unfortunately, the device doesn't work properly. After playing high res PCM files and returning to 44.1/16, tracks have noise until the device is rebooted. Furthermore, there is a cracking noise when switching DSD tracks. Their support insists nothing is wrong with their device and cannot help.
I bought the Douk Audio U2 Mini XMOS HIFI DSD as a replacement and this device converts USB to Optical properly with no issues for high res PCM files up to 192. However it has trouble playing DSD over DOP.
Can anyone recommend a device that can convert USB to Optical Toslink smoothly for both PCM and DSD tracks?
Prof. Edgar suggested to use the MiniDSP MCHStreamer box to convert USB into optical and pass that to the Babyface Pro. Unfortunately, the device doesn't work properly. After playing high res PCM files and returning to 44.1/16, tracks have noise until the device is rebooted. Furthermore, there is a cracking noise when switching DSD tracks. Their support insists nothing is wrong with their device and cannot help.
I bought the Douk Audio U2 Mini XMOS HIFI DSD as a replacement and this device converts USB to Optical properly with no issues for high res PCM files up to 192. However it has trouble playing DSD over DOP.
Can anyone recommend a device that can convert USB to Optical Toslink smoothly for both PCM and DSD tracks?
I had the same issue with my Bacch4Mac setup. Edgar recommended a $20 device on Amazon. I bought it and several other similar devices. All worked well, no noise. But I use a Mac Mini not my Macbook Pro. I doubt that is the issue. My solution was to trust Edgar and use the Roon Endpoint function of the Bacch4Mac and forget about streaming via USB. I have found this to be true. Little converter device gone.
It is odd that you mention DSD over DOP. Edgar does not and will not support DSD, or as he calls it, 1 Bit. His devices will not properly play DSD in any way. On my BACCH-SP adio DSD plays for a second or two, drops to silence, plays for a second or two, drops to silence. Edgar is adamant nothing can or will be done.
I know I know I know I know but I convert DSD to PCM in order to play it on Edgar gear. Yes I know I know I know I know it is wrong. But it sounds nice and it works.
The real horror is Edgar does not believe there is any audible improvement above 24.96. So I limit everything I send to mine to 24.96. I have other gear (a Grimm MU2) that can play DSD256 pure and 32.768 (or whatever the correct number is) and I prefer the DSP sound of 24.96 via Bacch. YMMV. Most people who collect DSD choke loudly when they learn of this. Thankfully, many people are unaware of what DSD is. I have 1500 titles in DSD. 55 in DSD256. I suffer not. You might consider focusing your attention on creating the best tinfoil hat that you can make. That won't help but it can be relaxing.
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Haha, interesting the path taken and challenges faced by Bacch users are similar!
Yes, Prof. did (yup adamantly!) tell/enforce on me that there is no point going higher than 96kHz resolution as we cannot hear it. And that everything he plays to the Bacch is converted to 96 anyway for his filters to work best. I didn't know that the conversion of DSD to 96 isn't supported so that explains why I'm unable to play that. One solution is to upsample/downsample all files to a fixed frequency and that seems to work.
And yes, I am starting to see the benefit of installing the Roon core in the Macbook which converts then plays every format saving the trouble. Even so, the Babyface device is still needed for Bacch to work - apparently to use the "software router". The good news is the music signal doesn't leave the Macbook during the process - so I'm told.
Coming from a purist audiophile background, where one avoids messing with the signals as much as possible, this new direction of computational audio needs a total mind reset where the signal is chopped, diced and baked into a beautiful pie. One has to forget the standard audiophile dos and donts and only consider the final results. I think this might be the hard part for Bacch to get widespread acceptance as the future of stereo. Not everyone can break away from years of habit and the "understanding" of what "matters" in conventional stereo.
That said, what I am hearing is pretty revolutionary compared to my previous setup. It's not the nonsensical gimmicks like ear whispering or extreme sound placements but it's the enhanced engagement with the music from the larger soundstage and placement of the listener in that stage. I am closer to the music and enjoy it more than before, especially for live recordings.
One interesting experiment that I have to do is to record the output of the Baach4Mac into a file with the filters baked in. There is an option to do this in the software. The data is still lossless digital and assuming the recording is just the filtered music bits and not any jitter or other electrical noise from the Mac, I can then play this back from my conventional stereo setup and compare the difference between the two. There won't be head tracking in the stereo version but the DRC and Bacch filters should work fine. Comparing the pre-Bacch and Bacch versions of the same track in an audiophile setup will also be possible this way.
Yes, Prof. did (yup adamantly!) tell/enforce on me that there is no point going higher than 96kHz resolution as we cannot hear it. And that everything he plays to the Bacch is converted to 96 anyway for his filters to work best. I didn't know that the conversion of DSD to 96 isn't supported so that explains why I'm unable to play that. One solution is to upsample/downsample all files to a fixed frequency and that seems to work.
And yes, I am starting to see the benefit of installing the Roon core in the Macbook which converts then plays every format saving the trouble. Even so, the Babyface device is still needed for Bacch to work - apparently to use the "software router". The good news is the music signal doesn't leave the Macbook during the process - so I'm told.
Coming from a purist audiophile background, where one avoids messing with the signals as much as possible, this new direction of computational audio needs a total mind reset where the signal is chopped, diced and baked into a beautiful pie. One has to forget the standard audiophile dos and donts and only consider the final results. I think this might be the hard part for Bacch to get widespread acceptance as the future of stereo. Not everyone can break away from years of habit and the "understanding" of what "matters" in conventional stereo.
That said, what I am hearing is pretty revolutionary compared to my previous setup. It's not the nonsensical gimmicks like ear whispering or extreme sound placements but it's the enhanced engagement with the music from the larger soundstage and placement of the listener in that stage. I am closer to the music and enjoy it more than before, especially for live recordings.
One interesting experiment that I have to do is to record the output of the Baach4Mac into a file with the filters baked in. There is an option to do this in the software. The data is still lossless digital and assuming the recording is just the filtered music bits and not any jitter or other electrical noise from the Mac, I can then play this back from my conventional stereo setup and compare the difference between the two. There won't be head tracking in the stereo version but the DRC and Bacch filters should work fine. Comparing the pre-Bacch and Bacch versions of the same track in an audiophile setup will also be possible this way.
Edgar certainly has opinions that are difficult for us "know the truth" Audiophiles. I fought for a while, then decided to try his way, and time after time I find I agree with him. When I wrote my response I was aware of the possibility you may not use Roon. So many people believe it colors the sound. I am not one of them.
As I mentioned, I can easily listen to music without the BACCH gear and do everything the Audiophile way. It sounds great for the ten or 15 minutes I listen to it before switching back to BACCH. You can use any program on your MAC to play music. Some of them offer conversion. Some do it better than others. I have set Roon to convert any and all DSD to 24.96 PCM. I don't wish to change the original files, my library is to large to consider that. I like having the files be all that they can be. I used to shout "Don't use any ROON sound processing ever!". And now I am where I am. Happily. Edgar knows what he is talking about.
As I mentioned, I can easily listen to music without the BACCH gear and do everything the Audiophile way. It sounds great for the ten or 15 minutes I listen to it before switching back to BACCH. You can use any program on your MAC to play music. Some of them offer conversion. Some do it better than others. I have set Roon to convert any and all DSD to 24.96 PCM. I don't wish to change the original files, my library is to large to consider that. I like having the files be all that they can be. I used to shout "Don't use any ROON sound processing ever!". And now I am where I am. Happily. Edgar knows what he is talking about.
I use the B4M and ended in the same place. Removed the Innous Zen MKII and when I purchase new files just purchased the 96/24. I let B4M do any necessary 192K file from Tidal/Qobuz conversion.
Looping back to this because I haven't seen it addressed in any later posts: I'm set up on a Mac Mini with the basic M4. I went with the 24GB/512GB version. Here's the key though: I'm running it headless with this: https://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/ADP4KHEAD/, which allows me to throw it on the rack in my electronics closet.
I also:
- Set it up to auto-login a specific user via Settings / Users and Groups - auto login.
- Changed Settings / Lock Screen to disable the screen saver, disable turning the display off, and require the password after 15 minutes.
- Changed Settings / Energy to start up automatically after power failure.
- Enabled Settings / General / Sharing / screen sharing so I can access it remotely from my other Macs.
- Configured Settings / General / Login Items & Extensions to auto-launch both Roon bridge and the BACCH-DSP software.
Then from my Mac(s), I run the Screen Sharing app, which is a default app installed in Applications, and I can run a remote session controlling the Mini.
My Roon Core is on a Grimm MU1. I set up the Mini using Roon Bridge, running over an ethernet connection, and output via USB to my DAC. The primary MU1 output is via AES3 XLR. It's interesting doing the A/B comparison between the two as the USB cable breaks in. (Side note: probably the biggest choke point is the USB-C > USB-A connector before the USB cable. Right now, that's an Apple product. I'll probably test a few others and see if it has any audible impact.)
On Roon, all I had to do was go into Settings / Audio, and there was the Mini with several different output options. I selected my DAC output, renamed it for clarity, and have been playing it overnight to start breaking in the USB cable.
I haven't yet had my walkthrough with Edgar, but that should happen within the next week or so. I posted this primarily to say that using a headless Mac Mini seems - at least for now - like a great solution.
Edited to add: I had to mess around with the Sharing options on the Mini a bit before I was able to login, but that's only because I was unfamiliar with the configuration and software involved. I kept changing the name of the computer to simplify and eliminate spaces, but in retrospect it probably would have been easiest to open a Finder window, click on Network, and click on the computer there. That seems to offer a "Share Screen" option if you right click on it, and I had allowed both Administrators and the user I established to run the music software, so it was a simple matter to login... *once* I had the connection via Screen Share. This Finder option is probably quicker if starting from scratch.
If that gives any trouble, on the computer from which you're trying to connect, in the Screen Sharing app, click the "+" sign for a new connection then in the "Connect To" dialog box type in <computer name>.local. where the computer name is the name in Settings / General / About / the name field. I *think* that'll get you going. Obviously I did all this before moving the Mini into the electronics closet. There was a bit of back and forth going on with my display, keyboard and mouse connections before I figured it out.
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Thanks for the setup info. This will be useful if I move to a Mac mini.
Do you have plans to bypass the switching AC electronics in the Mini? Any thoughts on this?
As I use the Bacch4Mac more, I’m finding that the improved soundstage image placements and size is really wonderful but the Mac / Roon resolution isn’t as high res as a dedicated streamer direct to DAC. It doesn’t sound like how high end, properly clocked streamers sound.
My personal priority in hifi is soundstage and believability so Bacch4Mac is moving in the right direction. But right now I have to accept the intro streamer sound.
Do you have plans to bypass the switching AC electronics in the Mini? Any thoughts on this?
As I use the Bacch4Mac more, I’m finding that the improved soundstage image placements and size is really wonderful but the Mac / Roon resolution isn’t as high res as a dedicated streamer direct to DAC. It doesn’t sound like how high end, properly clocked streamers sound.
My personal priority in hifi is soundstage and believability so Bacch4Mac is moving in the right direction. But right now I have to accept the intro streamer sound.
I'm certainly not averse to that. If Xymox came out with that kind of mod, I'd snap it up in a heartbeat. His AppleTV X is brilliant.
But I really don't know of any solutions available for that yet.
You did remind me though - I have a Shunyata power cable that should be compatible with this. I'm powering something inconsequential with it at the moment, so I should try swapping cables.
Also I plan to go with a separate switch and subnet for the audio system, to isolate it from all the other stuff on the network. But my schedule at the moment is quite busy, so it may be a couple months before I can advance on that one...
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