Hi there,
I spotted a curious issue when dealing with Roon DSP to compensate a slight hearing loss in high frequency for my headphones.
I read 2 more threads about similar reports but in both cases something else leads to the same issue but in my case I have no idea what causes this. I tested nearly everything in settings and switching things in my gear to find a solution but I did not. Maybe anyone has an advice.
Whenever I switch on the headroom switch, even with 0db of adjustment and no other DSP filters active,just so see if some clipping occurs, the sound becomes flatter and little bit less resolving. Instrument separation is less sharp and dynamic is lacking. A slight veil is noticeable over the complete stage.
I have an Intel I7 NUC with 16GB of RAM connected to my router, accessed by the endpoints via WLAN
Windows Surface Pro8 is my endpoint for Headphone listening.
Going through USBC (ASIO driver) to my Headphone DAC/AMP (FiiO K9Pro ESS)
Tried everything from switching on/off filters, adjust settings for the K9Pro in Roon (MQA Settings, Buffer, …) but the issue stays.
Cross checked with different headphones and also with my home Hi-Fi system (Devialet Expert,….) and still noticible „flatter“ sound.
There is definitely something going on in Roon when switching on the Headroom adjustment even without adjusting the Preamp gain.
Has anybody an explanation or absolution for this?
I need a slight adjustment by 2.5db in Headroom for compensating a right channel Boost (2.2db) from 4khz above, because lots of Tidal titles partly clipping without adjustement. But overall sound quality is really worse even without adjustement and of course ever so slightly much worse when lowering preamp, but this is something I would expect. But not so much because of the fact that even no adjustment at all degrades SQ.
The problem is, even when there is 0db adjustment for headroom, the sound quality degrades. So technically there should not be any influence. But it is definitely. I Blind Tested with a assisting person and he also hears the difference immediately without telling him the first time.
I’m trying just to enable and disable the headroom but the volume difference it covers everything and I cannot focus if any SQ change (besides level). I did try with -3, I’ll try with 0 and post back
It is true that I have no headphones so I’m just using this with my speakers. Also I stream from roon to HQP (I do not know if matters as the settings changes are only in roon)
Until now I would say I’ve not noticed a great deal of a difference.
My headroom is -4.3dB.
I have a 10 band PEQ setup. Nothing so far starts clipping.
Turned the main volume down and turned it off (thought it was off). Yeah, I noticed the highs pop a little more.
@support is it possible that enabling headroom at any level is causing a reduction in frequencies around 3000hZ and upward.
Edit: tried on all my kit and I do notice it. Never have before.
Update: had headroom set to 0. Wife turning on and off randomly and blindly. I couldn’t tell the difference at 0.
At -4.3 I sensed a small level of high end detail lost. Difficult to match volume levels but a small (in my head maybe) difference noticed. I’ve tweaked my PEQ a little and notice very little with my headroom fixed at -4.3.
Not very safe to go without headroom I think, but if you edit your filters and none is adding (none on +) I would try and leave the headroom untouched (not because I notice any SQ difference but because less might be better)
There were some old threads, were someone from Roon explained about the headroom but I do not find them. And on 0 the signal path does not show any headroom (as in your screen)
I can concur applying headroom management at 0db changes the perceived sound and it appears attenuate the higher freq somehow. Just tried it and it’s noticeable difference.
It’s fine if the filters already compensate for the headroom well enough. None of the headphone dsp I use need to attenuate using headroom. I have it on at 0db and clipping indicator on but it never has. Using dsp in my main system even though HAF say it should not need it as it’s compensated for it does as it clips but it’s doing more than any of the headphone eqs do.
For the OP it’s mentioned they experience clipping with their DSP adjustments.
As you say and as I found out in this instance. I was able to minimise the affect of headroom by altering my PEQ and lowering the headroom. I forgot to have clipping indicator turned on so will try without headroom enabled again.
For me it seems to be a kind of middle-way/compromise to add a loudness reduction to my headphone PEQ. The sound quality is better then compared to using the headroom doing the preamp gain lowering.
But I find it still curious and would like to use headroom function, but for sure there must be something to be fixed for my understanding from Roon software aspect.
How do we make room support to have a deeper look into that thing?
I sense the way forward is to tweak the headroom and DSP/PEQ adjustments enough to stop your clipping and also so you get the level of detail you wish.
I can emphasise on the hearing loss, although mine is mild, I do concede a little that I’ll never get the level of detail I want without running into issues.
There’s been a post by Roon staff - I can’t be bothered to search for it, though - saying that engaging headroom with 0dB adjustment does nothing at all to the stream.
If you don’t want to turn headroom on but need to prevent clipping, you can just use the slider to the right of the PEQ graph to pull down the curve to not cross the 0dB line any more.
Spoiler:
PEQ gain uses the same code as headroom or DSP volume - info taken from another Roon staff post, that I’m loath to search for.
Ah yes, I was coming to that myself. To state volume levelling is essentially/exactly the same as headroom here.
I’ve just experienced clipping in the low end for the first time. Tweaked the low end.
And just popped in PM’s Memory Almost Full. Had to take headroom to -4.5 to stop clipping on the first track. I’d rather run without DSP to prevent needing headroom adjustment. I can live with this. Can’t live with clipping.
Having some time to play… I’m not sure that I did this correctly (for sure I did not align the two) I know I’ll get corrected.But it is fun. I was so annoyed that I do not hear it. Maybe I need to buy headphones
So I hit play for 82 seconds with headroom at 0 (zero) and with headroom disabled. To me does not look any different (maybe just some noise coming from the window) mic is at ± 1m from the tweeter
