8
8
What does the HeadRoom Crossfeed Do?
Imagine you are listening to a pair of speakers. If you turn off the left speaker, both
ears hear the sound from the right speaker. But because the left ear is slight farther
away than the right ear, it hears the speaker’s sound slightly after the right ear; about
300 miliSeconds. This time difference is called the “inter-aural time difference” and
it is the main thing your brain listens for in order to tell where to place sound left-to-
right.
But in headphones if you turn off the left channel, only the right ear hears the sound.
In headphones, if there is any sound that is only in the left channel, or only in the
right channel, then only that ear hears the sound. This is not natural, and you brain
becomes fatigued trying to figure out where sound is coming from when only one ear
is hearing it. This tends to create an audio image that is a blob on the left, blob on the
right and a blob in the middle.
HeadRoom amplifiers cure the problem by allowing you to cross-feed a little of the left
and right channels across to each other through a short time delay using the processor
switch. The usefulness of the circuit varies depending on what type of recording you
are listening to; mono and binaural recordings need no processor at all. Old studio
recordings that have instruments panned hard left or right, benefit greatly from the
processor. Live and classical recordings miked from a distance benefit somewhat less,
and can often be listened to without the processor quite comfortably.
Plain
Headphones
With
HeadRoom
The crossfeed switch in HeadRoom
amplifiers allow you to cross-feed a
little of the left and right channels
across to eachother through a short
time delay.
Far ear
hears
slight delay.
Near ear
hears
sound first.
30 degrees
off axis
