rooHead - Incredible Headphone Sound

[DrCWO (C.W. Oehlrich)]

Dear Ronners,

It’s my pleasure to finally complete rooHead after a long period of announcing it.

rooHead provides FIR equalizers for your headphones, bringing the headphone sound to the level of a calibrated system with speakers in a reference listening room.

For more information please also visit the my Sellcodes page for rooHead.

The equalizers offered are based on the Harman target curve developed, published and scientifically verified. If you are interested here some background information here about Harman target curve).

Since setting the Harman Target curve also gives space for personal taste and your listening experience, rooHead offers two tone controls. One for the Tilt, and one for the Bass boost.Tilt shifts the balance between low and high tones, with a positive tilt increasing the highs. With the Bass boost, the behavior below 100Hz can be changed.

The default value for both is 0dB. This fits to the Harman curve, which most listeners liked best during the research phase. One result of the research was also that experienced listeners will tend to reduce the bass Boost a bit and older listeners will increase the Tilt.

Next to the Bass boost and Tilt settings there is a checkbox to enable Headroom management. This makes sense if you want to compare the sound with and without the equalizer at the same volume. I recommend using that.

Myself I own an older Sennheiser HD 580 precision headphone. I never liked the sound, too thin and overall, just too bad compared to my calibrated system in the living room. This dramatically changed using the equalizer provided by rooHead as it now literally sounds the same. This surprisingly good result led me to renew the already deteriorated foam of the headphones and to replace the cushioning in the headband. Since that I use it quite often in my study while working and enjoy the incredible sound.

Many thanks to Jaakko Pasanen for his great work supporting the public headphone database that rooHead uses for calculating the easy to use equalizers for Roon. He is always happy about donations, and I will also donate part of the income from rooHead to him.

In my YouTube playlist you will find a video on how to setup rooHead and how to use it.

In this thread I like to encourage you to drop your questions and comments regarding rooPlay. Feel free to ask and tell me your success story. I will be here to support you.

Best DrCWO

[Seventy7]

Hey DrCWO,
long awaited, finally here. Thanks very much.

[ericafterdark (dark and moody)]

Amazing! Can’t wait to give it a go with my Focal Celestee.

[Burkhardt_Petermann]

Fine, but three questions:

(i) What’s the advantage in using rooHead and not only convolver with the files from Jaakko Pasanen (ok, the “Adjustable Bass Boost and Tilt”) ?
(ii) Why not to use a git client and clone the repository? So rooHead should also working without a available repository.
(iii) It’s possible to save the settings from rooHead as Roon DSP (usefull, if using a mobile as remote)?

[DrCWO (C.W. Oehlrich)]

@Burkhardt_Petermann

(i) What’s the advantage in using rooHead and not only convolver with the files from Jaakko Pasanen (ok, the “Adjustable Bass Boost and Tilt”) ?
(ii) Why not to use a git client and clone the repository? So rooHead should also working without a available repository.
(iii) It’s possible to save the settings from rooHead as Roon DSP (usefull, if using a mobile as remote)?

Here my answers:
(i)

• Easy to use for everybody, not only for educated people like you.
• Bass Boost and Tilt (I think both are a very important features!)
• Equal volume with Headroom management.
• Extended frequency range up to 96kHz removing cut off at 22kHz that is in the original files.
• One filter crafted for each sample rate (up to 192kHz) and not only one for 44kHz that will be upscaled up by Roon keeping all its limitations.

(ii)

• Cloning means violating the copyright of Jaakko and those who measured the headphones. It’s all a bit complicated by law. The way it is implemented now, only the end user accesses the data (that is public domain) and I am not violating anyone’s copyright.
• With the current implementation each new headphone added by Jaakko will be immediately available in rooHead.

(iii)

• Equalizers from rooHead are delivered as a ZIP file that has to be opened with the convolution DSP of Roon to be functional. If you use a mobile with Roon App you can include it in the playback path as you did it locally.
  At the moment Roon ARC does not yet have this ability but I read Roon works on supplying DSP with Roon ARC.

Best DrCWO

[Burkhardt_Petermann]

Thanks for your answer.
The third question was not about ARC, but saving the settings (also include headroom, upsampling, …) in the Roon DSP:

This is for me a must, because I’ve on one endpoint multiple headphones or speakers and with a mobile you can’t choose in another way a DSP.

[DrCWO (C.W. Oehlrich)]

@Burkhardt_Petermann

This is for me a must, because I’ve on one endpoint multiple headphones or speakers and with a mobile you can’t choose in another way a DSP.

This means you have multiple DACs connected to ONE Roon Core ore Roon Bridge?
They all should show up as separate devices with separate DSP settings…

Edit:
Ah, now I believe I know what you mean. You have one Output Device in Roon and connected different headphones and Speakers to it

• Just install multiple Convolution filters one for each Headphone.
• For the Headroom management at the beginning use the maximum of all you got. But this is not so important once you are convinced that the Equalizers sound better than the headphone without. So for production turn of headroom management and you will be fine.
• You can then enable the convolution DSP for the according device only and disable the others

Best DrCWO

[Burkhardt_Petermann]

Perhaps, it’s better to show more screenshots to identify what I’m meaning:

I’ve multiple endpoints, which are using each multiple headphones.
For example on the Naim, I’m using a Stax SR-007 MKI, an Stax SR-007 MKII, a Clear MG, an Audeze LCD-2, an Audeze LCD-XC, a Stax SR-009,…
For each headphone there different convolver.
Here the stax_007.zip and this saved as "Atom Faltung 007_1:

Here the stax_007_2.zip and saved as "Atom Faltung 007_2:

Als there is a setting “Atom ohne EQ”, which has only an upsampling set:

Or here (on another endpoint) the setting “Rose Faltung 007_2”:

And so my question was: Is this with your extension possible in the same way, which means, that you can save different settings in Roon.

[DrCWO (C.W. Oehlrich)]

@Burkhardt_Petermann

And so my question was: Is this with your extension possible in the same way, which means, that you can save different settings in Roon.

Ah, now I got it finally

The answer is: Yes for shure
The only difference is that I use a convolution instead of the parametric EQs you use in your settings. Anything else will work exactly as you got used to it with the parametric EQs

There is one thing I like to mention. Calculating EQs without Headroom correction adjusts the filter to not being above 0dB. After the evaluation phase you should use these and disable Headroom management.
Calculating with Headroom management they are calculated in a way, that the volume is increased to get same audible volume with and without the EQ so you can compare.

Best DrCWO

[Burkhardt_Petermann]

Thanks, but I’m also using the convoler and no PEQ.

[DrCWO (C.W. Oehlrich)]

Ah, yes, I did not realize hat the PEQs were all off

[Michael_Campbell]

I’ve been using Pasanen’s measurements to make convolution filters for some time now and for several different headphones, so I’m not sure I’d gain a whole lot from this but I agree that the two tone controls could come in handy. Plus I’m curious as to what your implementation of these filters would sound like. Should be the same, but there may be subtle differences. However, the requirement of an external Pi (or any other hardware for that matter) make this a complete no-go for me. I’m not super tech-savvy so if I can make convolution filters then I would guess that the vast majority of Roon users could make them also. It’s just not that hard.

[DrCWO (C.W. Oehlrich)]

@Michael_Campbell

but I agree that the two tone controls could come in handy. Plus I’m curious as to what your implementation of these filters would sound like. Should be the same,

I understand that for only calculating equalizers building a Raspberry Pi makes non sense. Normally my customers also use other functionality of rooExtend so the hardware is already set up.
What I can offer is to calculate some filters (max 10) for you
So get a license, and send me the invoice by e-mail to info@definiteaudio.de. Also send me the settings for the equalizers you like to get and I will send them back as soon as I can.

Best DrCWO

[Nepherte (Bart Verhoeven)]

@DrCWO

Cloning means violating the copyright of Jaakko and those who measured the headphones. It’s all a bit complicated by law. The way it is implemented now, only the end user accesses the data (that is public domain) and I am not violating anyone’s copyright.

How so? The git repo and everything in is is licensed under MIT. You can use it commercially, modify it and distribute it. You are only required to include the license and copyright notice. What am I missing?

[Brian_Inglis]

Looks interesting. My roon core runs on my Synology server, can I use this? Or do I need a Pi?

[DrCWO (C.W. Oehlrich)]

@Nepherte

You are only required to include the license and copyright notice. What am I missing?

Believe me, it’s more difficult.
I had a long consultation with a patent attorney that led to the implementation you see now. The problem is that the author of the repository isn’t the owner of the measurements and therefor uses copyright protected material by himself. Sure you can clone the repo but bundling it with your App and selling it will cause legal problems with those making the measurements…

Best DrCWO

[CrystalGipsy (Resisting the flow!)]

No you need a pi to run it on or his own pi based RooExtend box.

[Marcymarc]

At first i was really interested in this plugin. The fact that you need to use a pi to make it work made me back out.
I looked at a tutorial of “the headphone show on YouTube. They explained how you could use the Harman target. I googled the graph for my HD6xx and applied some EQing in Roon. It works for me! At first the 6XX sounded dull, now i have an open and nice clear sound with good base.
I don’t mean to bash or anything, but $45,- for a license and extra $$ for a box just doesn’t do it for me! I am, after all, a cheap Dutchman…

[ogdens_sliced (Walnut Plug)]

As an avid user of multiple pairs of headphones i think ill stick with the spirit of github headphone community and ease of roon DSP. I fail to understand what extra value this advertised product brings, especially when needing to pay for a licence and another pi (especially in todays market). I find it quite amusing that the 2 pi i do run are both running excellent software that add huge value to my network & roon setup (Ropieee / pi-hole / pi-vpn) whilst remaining contribution based.
Uterly baffling.
OMMV.

[DrCWO (C.W. Oehlrich)]

@Marcymarc

I don’t mean to bash or anything, but $45,- for a license and extra $$ for a box just doesn’t do it for me! I am, after all, a cheap Dutchman…

Hi @Marcymarc,
I heard this argument before and you are completely right. Buying a Pi to get ONLY this feature and using nothing else from rooExtend make no sense. This Roon Extension was made for rooExtend users

My plan is to soon offer the rooHead calculation as a Web service that can be used by everybody without buying a Pi

Sure you can build the equalizers by yourself if you are skilled enough. But you will loose some nice additional features rooHead offers.

• Easy to use in Roon (select headphone and go).
• Extended frequency range up to 96kHz without cutting off at 22kHz.
• Adjustable Bass Boost and Tilt to match personal taste and listening experience (explained in the Harman document above).
• Option for headroom management, so you can turn the convolution DSP on and off getting the same volume to better explore how the equalizer improves the sound.

Best DrCWO