Reverb

[Whoops]

Yes, they all care about hardware reverbs vs plugins. Come on....

A really really really small and tiny percentage of the 7,800,000,000 do, it's still a big number for you or anyone else to say there's a "general people opinion or experience", that was the point.

I was clear in saying I totally respect living sounds opinion, and I totally respect yours.
Just because you have that opinion it doesn't mean it's the "General opinion" of others, and it's not

I couldn't care less about hardware or plugins, I personally use both, and as more time goes the less I miss any hardware unit.
And I actually think in a lot of regards Protools mixing and plugins sound much better.
Specially in the Reverb domain I don't use or care any longer for my old rack gear or the gear I had in the big studio I worked in, neither did the quality of my work got worse, on the contrary I think it just got better
This is my personal opinion as an Engineer, the fact that is different than yours means no disrespect, we can disagree,
I respect you as I told before, hope you are able to respect others people experiences and opinions also.

I don't have a Lexicon 480, I used one for many years, but If I had one I would sell it straight away and start to use the Relab 480

 

[living sounds]

Hey gents! This is going nowhere. No dick contests here.
People are entitled to their opinions. Where I don't agree is when there's no evidence given, or when this evidence is questionable.
I have no religion about analog vs. digital or hardware vs. software, and I'm ready toaccept any preference, as long as it is substantiated.

Unfortunately, in these cases the only way to assess it is by ear. I think someone did a null test with the 480L connected digitally and the modulation turned off, and couldn't get them to null. But it might have been parameter related. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, of course.

I have done so many tests where the proof ultimately was in the process and the results only. I'm convinced that what may seem to be rather small things to some or even numerically may still matter very much for the end result, due to the nature of psychoacoustics. For instance, I think we should be less concerned about static harmonic distortion and more about changes to phase and impulse response.

 

[JohnRoberts]

A reverb is an effect, so unclear what kind of objective benchmarks exist.

Null tests can be confounded by delay/phase shift between stems being compared that may or may not be of consequence for subjective evaluations.

Party on...

JR

 

[abbey road d enfer]

I think someone did a null test with the 480L connected digitally and the modulation turned off, and couldn't get them to null. But it might have been parameter related.

I could have predicted that easily. Any minor - we're talking ppm's there - in the clock frequency or phase results in displaced samples. A null test of two copies of a same signal but played back through two different hardware systems will show significant differences, even when the two systems are sync'ed. Null tests are solid only for causal systems. Recording + playback is not a causal system.

I have done so many tests where the proof ultimately was in the process and the results only. I'm convinced that what may seem to be rather small things to some or even numerically may still matter very much for the end result, due to the nature of psychoacoustics.

Not only psychoacoustics. there are real differences between a fixed-point and a floating-point system running the very same algorithms.

For instance, I think we should be less concerned about static harmonic distortion

I wopuldn't know how to measure THD in a reverb, except in bypass. 

and more about changes to phase and impulse response.

That's what a reverb does, changing IR. Some change IR better than others...
[/quote] I

 

[living sounds]

I wopuldn't know how to measure THD in a reverb, except in bypass. 

Well, I wasn't talking about reverb here. Same for the impulse response. This was relating to my experience with DACs, where changing minute details about the reconstruction filter, seemingly at either end of the audible spectrum, have a massive effect on perception. I generally see a tendency to focus on certain easily measureable standard parameters (like THD, frequency response) while discounting others, which may have a much more important effect psychoacoustically.

 

[user 37518]

Why I don't get about stuff like the hardware Lex. 480, is how is a DSP from the 80s in any way superior to what we have now?

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Why I don't get about stuff like the hardware Lex. 480, is how is a DSP from the 80s in any way superior to what we have now?

Why is a Stradivari considered superior to any modern violin?

 

[JohnRoberts]

Why is a Stradivari considered superior to any modern violin?

Not apples to apples... and in principle a modern violin could easily be superior to a Stradivarius, but much harder to be sold for as much.

Speaking of DSP,  circa 80s DSP technology is likely much inferior to modern technology but mainly in metrics like processor speed, data and instruction path width.  SO porting over 1980s DSP code to a new processor will make no difference.  :

For some reason scarcity and age make some things more attractive to collectors (like that violin). I'm old and scarce but not in higher demand.

JR

 

[user 37518]

Why is a Stradivari considered superior to any modern violin?

Are you seriously comparing a fine violin to a 40 year old computer? It's not even in the same league, there are things that get better with age, like wine, computers do not...

 

[jensenmann]

Why I don't get about stuff like the hardware Lex. 480, is how is a DSP from the 80s in any way superior to what we have now?

Nobody said that a DSP from the 80s is superior to what we have now. DSPs are not responsible for the sound in the first place, it´s the algorithms mostly and a little bit the analog hardware (AD/DA). As long as a DSP´s horsepower is enough to calculate a given algorithm then it´s good enough, no matter when it´s been made. What counts in the end is how it sounds.

The OP mentioned some cheap lexicons before and how they sound thin. Yes they do, I made the same experience with the MX series. Their DSP is most likely a lot more powerful than a 480 or 200/224 DSP. It doesn´t help them to sound as good as the old Lexicons do.

Did you ever hear a EMT250? Now that´s a very old DSP. It sounds great, though. One of the best reverbs ever.

I sold my 480 when I heard the Bricasti M7. MUCH more DSP horsepower involved and different algorithms. Both translated into better sound for me, at least different for others. I kept the 300 because I preferred it over the 480.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Are you seriously comparing a fine violin to a 40 year old computer? It's not even in the same league, there are things that get better with age, like wine, computers do not...

No, i'm comparing a 300 yo instrument with modern ones. There have been very serious academic studies that resulted in producing modern violins that sounded at least as good as Stradivari. When the people who had judged them as good learnt that they were modern instruments, they wanted to change their vote.
I'm suggesting that a similar process is at work in the comparison between vintage and new reverbs.
Blind test is the word. Indeed making the settings as close as possible to each other is an almost impossible and daunting task.

 

[JohnRoberts]

No, i'm comparing a 300 yo instrument with modern ones. There have been very serious academic studies that resulted in producing modern violins that sounded at least as good as Stradivari. When the people who had judged them as good learnt that they were modern instruments, they wanted to change their vote.

;D ;D  been there, back at Peavey last century we did a blind listening test of studio monitors (AMR vs other popular monitors). One bay area recording professional refused to continue after he was told that he selected the Peavey (AMR) box as best....  :

I'm suggesting that a similar process is at work in the comparison between vintage and new reverbs.
Blind test is the word. Indeed making the settings as close as possible to each other is an almost impossible and daunting task.

Double blind with enough samples for statistical significance.  8)

But that is a lot of work and for your own use, if it sounds good to you, it is good.

JR

 

[abbey road d enfer]

:Double blind with enough samples for statistical significance.  8)

But that is a lot of work and for your own use, if it sounds good to you, it is good.

Reverb is such a matter of personal taste, I doubt the results of such tests would be conclusive.  Can there be an universally accepted"absolute best reverb"? What is the best beer in the world? I guess your answer would be "mine"...

 

[living sounds]

When Quantec released their first Yardstick reverb in the mid-90s, a modern incarnation of the QRS algorithm from the early 80s, they had to scale it down to work on the availible DSP. For the specialised task (their algorithm is very different from the rest of the industries) the old box filled with cards was actually still more powerfull. But the 21st century versions of the Yardstick have surpassed the QRS in processing power (though not in mojo).

In theory a 480L algorithm should run as a perfect replication on a modern PC. Aside from the whole fixed-point - floating-point question and concerns regarding the plugin interfaces the problem is of course that noone actually has access to that old algorithm, not even the people at Lexicon or their former employees who developed those reverb algorithms and hardware units. So the plugin probably is only a close approximation, derrived from testing input and output of the original and tweaking the plugin algorithm accordingly.

 

[user 37518]

When Quantec released their first Yardstick reverb in the mid-90s, a modern incarnation of the QRS algorithm from the early 80s, they had to scale it down to work on the availible DSP. For the specialised task (their algorithm is very different from the rest of the industries) the old box filled with cards was actually still more powerfull. But the 21st century versions of the Yardstick have surpassed the QRS in processing power (though not in mojo).

In theory a 480L algorithm should run as a perfect replication on a modern PC. Aside from the whole fixed-point - floating-point question and concerns regarding the plugin interfaces the problem is of course that noone actually has access to that old algorithm, not even the people at Lexicon or their former employees who developed those reverb algorithms and hardware units. So the plugin probably is only a close approximation, derrived from testing input and output of the original and tweaking the plugin algorithm accordingly.

Thats exactly my point, if its  just an algorithm, then why an old DSP should be praised instead of a modern CPU and a plug-in, we are talking information here not circuitry.

 

[living sounds]

Thats exactly my point, if its  just an algorithm, then why an old DSP should be praised instead of a modern CPU and a plug-in, we are talking information here not circuitry.

There are probably idiosyncracies involveld with the old gear (to make it work with the limited hardware) that contribute to the special outcome and are not properly modelled in the modern recreations. Nobody in their right mind would doubt that an algorithm is an algorithm, but it's probably just not exactly the same thing.

In the case of Quantec the old reverb is a very different unit, with filtering taken care of in the analog domain, a different sample rate etc.

But a reverb like the Lexicon 300 from the 90s could in theory perform exactly the same calculations on a modern CPU as it does on the customized Lexichip. Plugin producers must choose not do let their plugin do the exact same thing the hardware box did for one reason or another.

 

[Whoops]

Why is a Stradivari considered superior to any modern violin?

Rarity
Hype
Collecting item
Re-Sale Value
and also because most of them seem to be regarded as really well built in it's day.

There's also all the surrounding "theories" on wood and Resin aging, so there's the aging factor. Something that I don't think will be of any help in a digital reverb, quite the opposite.

 

[Whoops]

Are you seriously comparing a fine violin to a 40 year old computer? It's not even in the same league, there are things that get better with age, like wine, computers do not...

It was a retoric remark from Abbey, not a straight comparison.

Sometimes it's just Hype.

 

[living sounds]

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/million-dollar-strads-fall-modern-violins-blind-sound-check

 

[Whoops]

Why I don't get about stuff like the hardware Lex. 480, is how is a DSP from the 80s in any way superior to what we have now?

It's not, far from it.