HeadMania-UpSampler-v1.16.1
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Headline — two new Kinetic V3 presets
v1.15.0 introduced the V1 Kinetic family — transient-adaptive filters that morphed phase character per-transient. The V1 approach worked, but had a known structural limit: its transient detector only modulated the far edges of each impulse response, where the kernel had already tapered to near-zero. The audible effect was extremely subtle, and the measured pre-ring delta sat near −245 dBFS — well below any documented JND.
V3 fixes this architecturally. Two parallel linear-time-invariant filters now run at the same time — one linear-phase (α=0), one cepstrum-warped (α=0.3). A transient detector with 8 ms lookahead sees each percussion strike or pluck attack coming and crossfades briefly to the warped path for the leading edge (~3 ms attack, ~30 ms release), then back. On sustained material — vocals, strings, ambience — V3 is bit-identical to the linear-phase reference.
Two new presets ship today, both marked 🔬 R&D:
- Kinetic Apex Hybrid V3 — 300K-tap
- Mega Kinetic V3 — 1,000,001-tap
Measured properties (V3 vs the linear-phase reference at the same tap count)
| Linear-phase reference | Kinetic V3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-ring time extent at the attack | 7.18 ms | 0.057 ms |
| Pre-ring amplitude at −5 ms before transient | −57 dB | −86 dB |
| Stereo L/R coherence (γ delta) | — | 0.000 (bit-exact) |
| Peak overshoot vs reference | — | None (1.000 → 0.742 at full kinetic) |
| Latency at 1M taps | 1.43 s | 1.43 s (same) |
| CPU at 1M taps | (baseline) | ~2× the V1 Kinetic equivalent — about 48% of one core |
What V3 does is move the pre-ring out of the audible window. On the linear-phase reference, the ring sits across the 7 ms before each transient — the window where backward masking is moderate and a trained ear can hear it. On V3, that same ring is compressed into a 0.057 ms sliver right before the peak — inside the ear's strong pre-masking shadow, where it fuses with the transient itself and cannot be heard separately. The audible-window amplitude drops 30 dB at −5 ms — well below the published JND for filter pre-ringing.
Other changes since v1.15.0
Kinetic Dual Engine — clicks fixed. The older V1 Kinetic Dual Engine preset had audible clicks on some material. Three separate causes were patched in sequence; the preset is now click-free.
Settings persistence — Windows and macOS. Filter preset selection now persists correctly across app restarts on Windows. Live-capture device and capture-format settings now persist correctly across restarts on macOS.
UI state sync. State changes initiated inside the engine (format changes, internal reconfigure) now push to the UI on Windows. Reconnect paths no longer leave the UI showing a stale snapshot. A small cluster of settings/status surface bugs is closed.
Boot-time meter freeze. On first launch some users saw the level meter and visualization frozen until they clicked something. Fixed.
About page. New V3 cards with the measured numbers. The measurement table has been reorganized so the V1 → V3 progression reads in order. A separate page summarizing the underlying research is now linked from the About tab.
Honest caveats
- Both V3 presets are 🔬 R&D. Blind ABX validation is still pending; informal listening reports are positive but not authoritative.
- V3 is not the same as the Organik presets. Organik is full minimum-phase across the board — zero pre-ring at all times, by construction. V3 only departs from linear-phase during the brief attack window around each transient.
- V3 is not a brightness boost, an EQ tilt, or a saturation effect. Sustained material is bit-identical to the linear-phase reference.
- V3 costs roughly twice the CPU of the V1 Kinetic preset at the same tap count. A worker-pool-parallelized version is in the backlog. On older machines, the V1 Kinetic presets remain a lower-CPU alternative.
How to try the new presets
Open the app and look in the filter-preset list under the 🔥 Kinetic — Transient-Adaptive group for Kinetic Apex Hybrid V3 🔬 R&D. For the 1M-tap variant, scroll to the Mega family for Mega Kinetic V3 🔬 R&D.
Recommended A/B method: pick a track with both sustained content (vocals, strings) and percussive transients (drum hits, plucked guitar). Compare V3 against its static counterpart — Apex Hybrid for the 300K variant, MegaLinear 1M for the Mega variant. Sustained passages should sound indistinguishable. Transients should feel slightly tighter without any change in tonal balance or apparent loudness.
Need help, want to share feedback, or chat with other listeners? Join the Telegram group: https://t.me/+lIFYDf6ZmMk4N2E0
Found a bug or have a feature request? Report it on the issue tracker: https://github.com/danghe/HeadManiaReleases/issues