Give Up on Bacch?

@blisshifi Yes, I do want to be convinced and so my disappointment was confounded. 

I spoke with Edgar this morning (I don't know where he finds time for his day-job at Princeton).  He said the trial period runs 14 days from installation, not the ship date although that's what the website says.  In any event I will install the Bacch system and have enough time to evaluate it.  I'll post my thoughts afterwards.  

Thanks for all the comments and advice.

Looking forward to your thoughts and glad you have the time to evaluate.  

@treepmeyer, when I’d read the previous comments from the ’who’s going to Axpona’ forum post-show, there was the impression of the need to be ’sweet spotted’ due to the camera and the ear mics.....

I’ll not surmise or comment further, as it would seem beneficial to you to have your in-home experiences as free of any conceptions from ’outliers’, esp. ones’ that didn’t attend the show and the intro to the system.

It does present a potential to achieve more ’stable and fixed point localizing’ of players in recordings, which is a leap forward for all. The entry fee does limit it to whomever has the means to apply it to their equipment, which does hint loudly that it ought to as du jour as possible....

Hope the rabbit in their hats contains a coax adapter to make the install go better....

Note that the players in studio recordings are only "standing" wherever the mixing engineer put them. In live recordings it's the same thing. 

The Bacch trial period starts ONLY after you have the setup session with Edgar.

Almost nobody returns it after hearing it in their system, but there’s no questions asked.

I’m surprised you didn’t hear a difference at Axpona given that almost all the other feedback was the opposite, but I’m not implying you’re deaf or anything. It actually brings up a good point that addresses the more common feedback/concern that it makes TOO much of a difference and may be a "gimmick".

I’ll explain...the demo at Axpona was getting 14 db of crosstalk cancellation on virtually everyone that got calibrated. That is clearly audible (assuming someone doesn’t have hearing damage), but MAY not reveal itself in every recording at every spot you may A/B click bypass.

The issue is that people are now hearing recordings in true stereo like never before. This could mean drastic changes or very little based on how the song was mastered and when in the song you decide to A/B bypass test. For example, if you test certain recordings where there are tons of spatial cues intended and mastered, then you can hear drastic differences that make people think it’s a "gimmick" because they’ve never heard these cues as precisely (or at all before).

On the flip side, you may not hear much of a change if there aren’t spatial cues included in the recording. One thing to remember is that the Bacch filter ignores everything that is recorded mono, so certain bass and vocals in parts of a song or the entire song may have little to no stereo information. That’s actually one of the marvels of the Bacch that separated it from previous attempts to eliminate crosstalk and ended up brute force impacting material it shouldn’t touch.

Thus, whether you hear too much or too little a difference...it isn’t the fault of the Bacch...it’s something you need to take up with the recording engineer where you are just now hearing more of what was included or not included in his mix.

One other important thing to note is that the demo at Axpona DIDN’T A/B bypass test the new ORC (optimal room correction) which makes an even bigger difference on every recording because that impacts frequency response. Unless specifically asked, Edgar didn’t A/B test the ORC because people were already blown away by the spatial cues alone and staying in the chair 30 minutes at a time. Thus, further testing of ORC was done strictly by request.

I guarantee when you get your B4M setup with Edgar, you will not only hear a difference...you will see a huge measurable difference as well with ORC. You don’t see Bacch’s on the used market for a reason and almost nobody returns it after hearing it on their own system. Nevertheless, there’s no questions asked if you want to return it, so don’t feel pressure... but make sure you understand why you may or may not hear a difference on a specific recordings... and hear it first in your system with Edgar giving you plenty more attention than he can at a show...plus A/B testing the ORC too.

Then, feel free to come back and share your impressions. I have a Whatsapp group of dozens of owners who are constantly sharing recordings and feedback on measurements that help them get better sound quality. I’ll be happy to add you to the group and learn of many other side benefits these in-ear measurements provide that no other product does. We’ve found many other uses and benefits that are constantly shared.