User's Manual

User’s Guide ADI-2 DAC v2.2 © RME
15
8.6 Crossfeed
While headphones open the sound stage and make everything easier to hear and to locate by
spreading the narrow sound field of stereo speakers to the left/right extreme, some people
would like to have a listening situation that is more comparable to a standard speaker setup.
The ADI-2 DAC includes Crossfeed to address this wish. Crossfeed reduces the artificial
surround ambience that some productions have to make them sound better on speakers, but
which sounds unnatural on a headphone.
The Bauer Binaural method is used, with five selectable strengths of narrowing the upper
frequencies. This advanced method, which also includes a small delay and correction of the
frequency response, works quite well, and is another useful addition as well as a unique feature
on a device like the ADI-2 DAC.
Details on internal settings
The Crossfeed effect is mainly defined by the filter frequency and the amount of crossfeed, here
given as damping factor:
1: 650 Hz, -13 dB (just a touch)
2: 650 Hz, -9.5 dB (Jan Meier emulation)
3: 700 Hz, -6 dB (Chu Moy emulation)
4: 700 Hz, -4.5 dB (30° 3 meter emulation)
5: 700 Hz, -3 dB (example how even stronger would sound)
8.7 M/S Processing
The mid/side principle is a special positioning technique for microphones, which results in a mid
signal on one channel and a side signal on the other channel. This information can be
transformed back into a stereo signal quite easily. The process sends the monaural mid
channel to left and right, the side channel too, but phase inverted (180°) to the right channel.
For a better understanding: the mid channel represents the function L+R, while the side channel
represents L-R.
During record the monitoring needs to be done in 'conventional' stereo. Therefore the ADI-2
DAC also offers the functionality of a M/S-decoder. Activation is done in the Settings menu of
Line Out, Phones Out and IEM Out via the option M/S-Proc.
The M/S-Processing automatically operates as M/S encoder or decoder, depending on the
source signal format. When processing a usual stereo signal, all monaural information will be
shifted into the left channel, all stereo information into the right channel (thus the stereo signal is
M/S encoded).
This was another reason for RME to offer this option in a 'HiFi-DAC', because the separation of
the mono and stereo components provides some interesting insights into the mono/stereo
content of modern music productions. Use Balance to switch between left and right only to hear
the full details of the result.