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except for applying "power bass" and "power highs"
Yeah, well... Again, my soundprocessing knowledge is very limited so i adjust according to my ears. I do know the basics of processing but most of the time i try to get a nice sound with my ears to guide me... Which is good in my opinion, cause i think the listener does'nt hear when the processor is adjusted accordingly to "the rules of processing". When it sounds right, they will listen.
But, with the AGC in ST on, no matter in what mode or configuration, from day to day i always found the sound "not the same". Something was always off compared to the other day. Either the bass was perfect but the highs not or vice versa.
For example the song Prodigy - Smack my b*tch up
This is a really busy track in some parts but must be very clean in the part with the woman voice. When the bass kicked in after that long haul of the woman voice, in my opinion the AGC in ST does too much. Not so much in levelling, but more like it's changing the bass.
Now, with the compellor i can feed any type of music in ST and it handles perfectly. I tried today's new music, music from the 50's and all in between. 50's music in Mono is handled nice, but also the 60's extremely wide stereo songs are very nice.
Before, i had a lot of problems with voices like in mama's & the papa's - california dreaming. They just went from center to left and back, just like someone was adjusting the pan constantly. And there is one song, i can't remember at the moment, but the voice is always on the right and the music, which was 1 instrument i think, was always on the left.
The voice had reverb on it, which was not only on the right, but also on the left. This created a nauseating effect. i think this was the result of too much stereo widening/boosting which i needed to get the sound i liked. Now, with the compellor, somehow i don't need much of that so this effect is gone. Or, at least at tolerable levels.
Power bass and power highs i did not use a lot. But i remember that the highs barely were boosted in my case. Not that it can't do it, but i guess there was no need for. With AGC off and Compellor on, i would'nt even think of boosting the bass before AGC, nor the highs, not even when i play vinyl records. Bass is nice and constant, punchy but also deep. I like it.
Only thing i would like to see, is Bass Boost from 0 to *** more configurable. Songs like U2 - With or without you, have a very deep bass and i really like to hear what happens when i boost the 70-80 Hz part for a little bit. But, they are busy with other things so i guess it's remaining a wish:P
So for me, AGC in ST is no-go but that does not mean it is not good. i think that my own limitation of knowledge is the reason but if i can fix it this way, then it works for me.
By the way, the music was played from original CD, vinyl or Spotify.