Element IV Firmware v1.5.0 and Core gets OPRA by Roon

Element IV firmware v1.5.0 is now available! But before we dive in…

Core™ Supports OPRA by Roon!

OPRA coincidentally appeared within weeks of Element IV’s release:

OPRA is an open, community-maintained directory of product information and EQ compensation curves that optimize a wide range of headphone models. Our mission is to simplify and reduce the effort required to unlock the full potential of your headphones regardless of your level of experience, which software you choose to use, or the price point of your gear.

Core has grown to over 3000 internal presets, while relatively few Element IV owners opt to share presets they have imported from elsewhere. Now, you can browse the OPRA preset database directly within Core, giving you effortless access to oratory1990‘s preset library and much of AutoEQ. No more manual entry. Just browse and enjoy!

As a reminder, presets are a starting point: find what you enjoy and then adjust to your preferences. We’ve also enhanced Preset entry so that you can easily add notes and author/attribution info when sharing in Core.

Element IV Firmware v1.50

Some of this will come as no surprise to those following the blog:

• Replaced Auto Preamp gain approximation with transfer function
• Added configurable Loudness
• Added configurable Crossfeed
• Added Left/Right Balance adjustment
• Fixed random mutes and restarts upon DSP changes

Smarter Preamp Gain

Previously, Element IV performed a quick calculation to arrive at a usually adequate preamp gain. The math was simple: Set preamp gain 2 dB higher than the strongest DSP filter. This worked fine until using overlapping filters, in which case manual preamp gain adjustment was necessary to avoid digital clipping.

This simple calculation fell apart once we began testing the new Loudness and Crossfeed functions. Each placed shelf filters on top of any existing PEQ filters, requiring manual entry of preamp gain.

To improve the experience, Element IV now performs a proper transfer function to find the resulting frequency response of all 16 DSP filters (12 PEQ + 2 for Loudness + 2 for Crossfeed). The new algorithm finds the largest gain at 1000 logarithmically spaced points, as well as the center frequency of each DSP band, and then adds 1 dB headroom. Our firmware team and I spent weeks testing and iterating to make Auto Preamp Gain bulletproof—and it now provides 1 dB greater dynamic range than before.

In short, you will no longer need to use Manual Preamp gain under any scenario. We’ve retained the option in Core for backwards compatibly with older firmwares.

Loudness and Crossfeed

Loudness is fully configurable. You’ll need to experiment with the Reference Level based on the efficiency of your headphones/IEMs. The default Reference Level of  -20 dB is a decent starting point for most open-back headphones:

Crossfeed is similarly configurable. As with all features, we validated both by analyzer and by ear. It’s quite difficult to notice Crossfeed with modern mixes (it’s most useful with older recordings featuring hard panning).

Loudness and Crossfeed settings are never stored with Cloud presets, but will save to your EL4’s on-device profiles if you wish.

Balance

Valuable to those with specific hearing needs. Balance is saved as part of cloud Presets/Profiles:

What’s Next

As always, we appreciate your feedback! Firmware and iOS development is ongoing. By the way, you can find us at CanJam London on July 19th.