AmbiophonicDSP VST Plugin Now Available

[poldus]

[rmiller]

Re multi-channel surround replay ("PanAmbio 4.0"), in all the testing of AmbiophonicDSP on several PCs using two instances of the plug-in within AudioMulch, I have not had a long-term sync issue (even one sample!). Have you tried replicating the problem leaving out the plug-ins in attempting to isolate the cause? (Possibly it's a data timing problem inside Poldus' PC, either asynchronous dual 2-channel file-reading, or an AD/DA i/o issue?) Good luck, and let us all know more.

[poldus]

Thanks for your help. Good to know the AmbiophonicDSP is not to blame. I will try it on another computer and report.

[ppw72]

Hi, Thanks for your wonderful plugin. It has rekindled my love of listening to music. Just a couple of questions. I'm hosting the plugin in foobar and have files with various sample rates. When playing a 44.1khz file the delay scale is standard and behaves predictably. For files with higher sample rates the same delay setting, eg. 70ms changes to a progressively smaller value with a shorter scale of adjustment. So for a 192khz file the 70ms setting for the 44.1khz file will change to a much smaller value and result in a much shorter range of adjustment. Could you please explain the correlation between delay and sample rate and is the plugin's behaviour perfectly normal?

My other question concerns balance. I've noticed that center sources tend to pull to the right despite calibrating with test tone signals. I can counteract this somewhat with the balance control. Is this merely ambio's heightened sensitivity to balance levels or am I hearing things where they should be from conventionally recorded sources. i.e if vocals etc. are not usually panned dead center etc.

Hope my questions make sense. Thanks again. Kind regards,

Paul

[mosc]

Paul,

Good questions. I will check out the delays. I thought when I coded up this plugin that the delays would take into account the sample rate. 80 micro seconds should be 80 no matter what the sample rate. If there is an error, I'll fix it an put out a new release.

As for the balance control: I found when first developing this circuit that it was very sensitive to errors in balance. We decided to put in a balance control to allow one to make corrections. This is strictly for convenience. If your system is really set up properly, then the plugin's balance shouldn't need to be adjusted. But sometimes the room acoustics is off a bit, or the recordings are off once in a while too.

I've found that once I have delay, recursion, and space set, the only thing I change is Zentrum. It seems that each recording needs a different adjustment for Zentrum.

I suggest

Delay 70 to 80
Recursion 27% ( no more than 30%)
Space about 5 to 7
Zentrum 0 to 7 ( no more than 7)

After I look into the delay calculator, I'll post something in this threads.

[mosc]

[ppw72]

Thanks very much for the clarification and your suggestions Howard.
Cheers, Paul.

[kraut]

Does not seem to be a concern of some developers.
I had decided to purchase the ambio plugin at the electro music store and payed by paypal.
Despite several reminders - the last one rather impolite due to the fact that I seem not to be worthy of a response after two weeks of waiting for the link with no answer - I still have made a payment w/o receiving the product, and seem to go now where fast with e-m.com.

I do not think I can retrieve my payment from paypal - they frown on retrieving money for non tangible goods - so how do I get my product?

[mosc]

Kraut,

Sorry you are having this problem. I'll send you a PM. I don't see any unfulfilled AmbiophonicDSP orders in the database.

--Howard

[kraut]

Hi,
Thank you for the download link, and the plugin is installed in foobar.
I assume an honest mistake was made, and apologize for any harsh words.
The plug in works in foobar within the vst wrapper, although foobar crashed twice in the beginning after playing for about five minutes.

I have both ambio one and the Ambiophonics DSP installed, and while changing of the settings in ambio one (a free plugin) does not to any major extend change the soundstage, the settings in Ambiophonics DSP are very noticable and one has to change the settings with caution.
Especially the "zentrum" and the "space" settings have to be adjusted with caution, and it will take some time in adjusting the settings to achieve the optimum in reproduced sound.

Foobar sends the signal in Asio mode to my enabled m audio soundcard, sampling at 48kHz, as this is the sampling frequency of dac in the hypex amp I use.

[mosc]

Kraut,

Glad you are up and running in foobar, and that things apparently are sounding good. Feel free to post any questions and comments

As for the adjustments of the controls; after a time one gets an intuative feeling for them. With the exception of delay, I adjust them sometimes for every recording I play. You can really tell how different recording engineers deal with stereo specialty.

[kraut]

this is a picture of the setting I use for almost all playback:

[mosc]

[poldus]

I am getting an error message when opening AmbiophonicDSP on Savihost. The window will open up normally and looks operative but after a few seconds the message pops up. I had unistalled both programs from my computer and this is happening since they were reinstalled. Any ideas ?

[mosc]

What is the message?

[poldus]

Sorry, hope this works:

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problema.pdf
Description:		Download (listen)
Filename:	problema.pdf
Filesize:	175.07 KB
Downloaded:	748 Time(s)

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problema.pdf
Description:		Download (listen)
Filename:	problema.pdf
Filesize:	175.07 KB
Downloaded:	817 Time(s)

---

[kraut]

Hi,
yesterday I was able to try the system at more than background music level.

Even at that level the differences between stereo and ambiophonics were discernible, but there are then problems with balance, and the resolution of the sound image does not fulfill all its promised.

At an output level at above 90db however (at the listening position) things change radically. The sound image is other than in stereo mode completely disassociated from the speakers, the instruments, the voices are just there in space, extending in depth and breadth to an extend that in stereo I have never heard.

This leads to a layering of the image that lets you hear instruments really as individual units, the background voices are not mashed together but can be heard as either individual voices or groups that perform different duties.
A good example is Jimmy Vaughn's "Six strings down". The background choir is revealed as actually two groups vocalizing two different rhythm patterns, something I did not hear before.

The clarity of almost any production wins to an extend that going back to stereo would really be a step backwards, not sideways to a different option.

The best 25$ spent on a real improvement in sound reproduction, and thanks for an exquisite component.

[mosc]

[poldus]

A pretty obscure message it is! Thanks mosc, I´ll try to fix it some way.
However, I think this is a good opportunity to suggest that you guys develop some little stand-alone device-ala MiniAmbio-with your software so we can enjoy the music without a computer and its miriad inconviniencies.

[mosc]

[rmiller]

[DW]

Hi Robin,
My new public domain filters, together with a couple of high quality pre-processed files (for a short time) are here:
http://www.wareing77.plus.com/Filters/
Regards,
David.

[DW]

[Tsardoz]

Just like to add my 2c.

I tried this plugin with Jriver media Center and

1) A minimal parametric EQ
2) A full on DRC FIR EQ.

Speakers are KRK Rokit 6 about 2' away.

It is certainly a worthy inclusion with the PEQ system and broadens the sound stage considerably. If I were using just PEQ for normal listening I'd certainly include this plugin.

However, when I use ambiophonics with DRC the sound is quite horrid. Not only is the volume much lower (maybe 4 dB) it seems to filter out some of the bass. Also the image suffers and seems to be split into 2 speakers.

The biggest improvement I had with DRC was a far superior stereo soundstage. Ambiophonics seems to mimic this to a large degree (but does not work well in conjunction with DRC).

Ambiophonics does not suffer from preringing to the same degree as DRC. One track that really makes preringing stand out is Colomb by Nicolas Jaar. It has a drum machine with very fast attack that just sounds weird on DRC (like a backwards drum). Ambiophonics does not suffer from this in the same way but still makes the drum sound unusual. I think this track does best with no such filtering. This is just one track though out of many.

So in short I'd recommend it for computer music soundstage improvements in systems that did not already include DRC (which is either expensive or hard to set up).

I do not really know much about Ambiophonics. Does this tie in with expectations?

[mosc]

Tzardoz to electro-music.com

Glad you like the AmbiophonicDSP.

I think you observations make sense.

I personally avoid DRC (digital room compensation) unless it is desperately needed, because I've found it usually does more harm than good. I think you have observed that same thing. Some others will not agree. If you want to use all three, EQ, AmbiophonicDSP and DRC, I would think they would go best in that order. The less you have in your signal path, the better.

As for AmbiophonicDSP reducing the bass in some recordings, I haven't experienced that, but I've seen the mid range reduced or boosted on different recordings. The plugin can change the tonal balance depending on the recording and the settings on the knobs of the plugin. This is a feature, not a deficiency.

Here is what I recommend:

Set Recursion to 0, then leave it alone.

Set delay to the appropriate setting for your speaker angle, ie 70 micro seconds and leave it alone.

Set Zentrum to 0.

Adjust the Space control by ear for the tonal balance you like for that particular recording. 10 will sometimes accent the mid range or bass.

Then adjust Zentrum to boost or reduce the center image as needed.

I have found that Space and Zentrum are really the only controls you need to adjust when changing recordings.