McIntosh engineering, explained

Headphone Crossfeed Director (HXD®)

Bring some of the spatial character of loudspeaker listening to your headphones. McIntosh’s Headphone Crossfeed Director introduces controlled crossfeed between the channels, helping the music feel more connected across the stereo image.

Conceptual HXD signal paths: each channel feeds its own ear, with a smaller contribution crossing to the opposite ear.

Two loudspeakers. Two ears. Four paths.

When you listen to a stereo pair of loudspeakers, each ear hears both speakers. The left speaker reaches your left ear most directly, but its sound also reaches your right ear. The same happens in reverse on the right. Those overlapping arrivals are part of the spatial experience of listening to speakers.

Headphones change that relationship. The left earpiece delivers the left channel to the left ear, and the right earpiece delivers the right channel to the right ear. A recording with an instrument placed far to one side can therefore feel unusually isolated. The music may seem to sit inside your head or at the two earpieces.

HXD brings the channels into a shared presentation.

Crossfeed introduces a controlled contribution from each channel into the opposite headphone channel. The main left and right signals remain distinct, while the additional information helps bridge their separation. McIntosh describes HXD as restoring some of the directionality and spatial character normally associated with loudspeaker listening.

The aim is a more natural sense of placement through headphones. It does not reproduce your room or guarantee that every recording will sound as though it comes from speakers in front of you. The result depends on the recording, the headphones, and your own perception of space.

Listen to where the instruments sit.

Try a familiar stereo recording with a voice near the center and instruments placed toward the sides. Keep the volume at a comfortable level and compare the same passage with HXD off and on. Listen for whether the musicians feel more connected within one presentation and whether an instrument at the edge feels less tied to a single earpiece.

Older stereo mixes with strong left/right separation can make the comparison particularly easy to hear. A more cohesive presentation may be preferable on one recording, while you may enjoy the original separation on another. HXD is a listening choice you can make for yourself.

How to use it

On the C2800, connect your headphones to the front-panel headphone jack. An HXD Mode option then becomes available in the Trim menu, where you can select On or Off. The C2800 owner’s manual describes the headphone setting.

Controls vary across models. On the MHA150, for example, pressing the front-panel Volume control toggles HXD when headphones are connected, and the HXD indicator shows when it is active. Follow the controls described for your component.

A place in McIntosh’s headphone story

McIntosh brought its approach to personal listening into focus with the MHA100, its first dedicated headphone amplifier. The original MHA100 brochure presented HXD as a new feature intended to give headphone listening some of the imaging of conventional speakers. It complemented the amplifier’s headphone-driving technology by addressing a different part of the experience: where the music seems to be.

HXD also appears in selected McIntosh preamplifiers and integrated amplifiers, including the C2800 and C12000. It lets private listening remain part of the main system, with a choice of spatial presentation at the headphone output.

A closer look

Does HXD turn stereo into mono?

No. It introduces controlled crossfeed while retaining separate left and right channels. The goal is to make their spatial relationship more like loudspeaker listening.

Can I turn it off?

Yes. You can compare HXD with the normal headphone presentation and choose the setting you prefer. The switch or menu location depends on the model.

Does it work with my wireless headphones?

HXD applies to the component’s supported headphone signal path. For the C2800 example here, use the front-panel wired headphone output. Headphones connected directly to a phone or another source do not receive that component’s HXD processing.

Is HXD the same as the headphone amplifier?

The headphone amplifier supplies the signal that drives the headphones. HXD changes the spatial relationship between the channels. They work together, but serve different purposes.