Stereo Tool

Hello all,

I have been using Stereo Tool for over a year now on my online radio's stream. I am now working on new settings in order to make the quality even better. That's why I have posted this topic, I want to get to know your opinion about the sound of our station

There are 4 streams available right now:
AAC+ 48kbps
AAC+ 64kbps
OGG (quality 4.00)
MP3 192kbps

I would really appriciate it if you sent me your feedbacks about the quality. I am currently using only the free features of Stereo Tool 4.22, currently operating stuffs in that: Pre-Limiter; Multiband Compressor; Final Limiter; Noise Gate and of course the Pre Amp and Post Amp slider.

I am looking forward to your posts!

All streams sounds nice. bit more highs for my taste but ok.
What you using for streaming ?

Thank you for your reply
I am using SAM Broadcaster for streaming. To be honest I am a bit confused about the amount of highs... I have now lowered that level a bit.

Hello all,

I have just upgraded to the 5.00 version of Stereo Tool on our server. I have to admit this tool is getting better and better, thank you for making this Hans After upgrading to the latest version the memory usage is reduced by 50 MB!!! It is a huge amount on a VPS server, so I love this new version

Please let me know your opinion about the sound of the streams:
AAC+ 48kbps
AAC+ 64kbps
OGG (quality 4.00)
MP3 192kbps

I decided to share my settings with you guys. Please find it attached and let me know your opinion about it. Some notes regarding this:
- I am using it on a VPS server (so the resources are shared with other users), so I cannot use the Loudness Filter for example (it makes the CPU load very high and my ISP doesn't let me to run the server with such a high CPU load)
- We are only playing trance and progressive music on our channel, so this STS file was configured for these 2 styles I have also uploaded an MP3 file (made by SAM Broadcaster, LAME MP3 codec, 192kbps), which was created by my Stereo Tool preset. Tracklist: BRK3 - M4CH1N3 (Original Mix); Ferry Corsten - It's Time (Agnelli & Nelson Mix - Set Rip!); M6 - Deep Inside (Vocal Tech Mix); Mozes Marcell - Guadeloupe (pure quality for the original MP3)

You can download it here! If you listen to this you will hear my settings in use!

I am looking forward to your comments!

hi Dave,
Now when you provide your preset it's clear why i said erlier that there is more "highs" in stream.

but if you like what you hear then there is not problem, since you don't use loudness filter, so your preset is reasonable.

Hi Bojcha,

Thank you for your reply! Can you please tell me how would you reduce the amount of "highs"? I am really interested about it.

Press reset button and watch difference in "multiband" between "reset" and your preset.

Will do that, thanks for the advice I will get back with an update...

As I recently wrote I have upgraded to the version 5.00 of Stereo Tool. First impression was really nice, memory usage was reduced on my server by 50 MB! I am using it with SAM Broadcaster enconding 6 channels at the same time. The usual CPU usage is around 23-28% without turning on Stereo Tool, 32-36% when using Stereo Tool. As my server is a VPS one (shared resources) sometimes the CPU load is getting over 35% without using Stereo Tool (in that case, it could be over 45% when I am turning it on). I know this phenomenon is due to others' CPU usage, so it is not due to Stereo Tool...

But since I have installed the version 5.00 (a week ago) the CPU load was not below 40%... It is usually around 45-48% (with medium CPU quality settings) which is quite high and I cannot run my server with such a high load permanently. I am also stuck in getting the best sound, because I cannot reproduce the sound from my last provided MP3 file. The output volume is constant in that one, the sound is not flat, it is just good in my opinion. Maybe there are too much highs, but this is another question. Because I am a bit confused now with this, I have decided to make a very detailed description of my problem.

I have done this with exactly the same songs, which were selected because they are quite different. List of them:
1. BRK3 - M4CH1N3 (Original Mix) - the original file is very loud
2. Ferry Corsten - It's Time (Agnelli & Nelson Mix) - this is a Set Rip
3. M6 - Deep Inside (Vocal Tech Mix)
4. Mozes Marcell - Guadeloupe - pure quality for the original MP3

If I play them in a row the output volume is dropped down after the first song, then it comes loud again for the 3rd one. It is not what I want. And the thing is if I load the second song separately to one of the decks of SAM, the loudness is perfect. I have uploaded all the files to make you able to check it on your own machine.

First of all, the settings which I am using and the 4 MP3 files what I am playing in SAM.

The first MP3 file (192kbps, 44.1 kHz, LAME MP3 codec) - you can see in the picture that the output volume is not constant :S


Ferry Corsten - It's Time (Agnelli & Nelson Remix) - this is the song where the output volume drops a lot in the first MP3 file. If I load it separately to one of the decks in SAM, the output volume is constant and very fine.


I have tested it with Stereo Tool 4.22 and 5.00 as well (with the same STS file), but the result is the same If I increase the preamp value the output volume becomes louder, but the sound is really flat, powerless and over-compressed then. So I think it is not the way to solve it. I have now turned off Stereo Tool on the streams until I get some advices how to solve this problem.

Could you please help with this?

Hello Dave,

I'm not home right now so I cannot immediately check it. But I quickly glanced at your settings and found what I expected: Your AGC output setting is very high (70). So you're almost not using the AGC, but instead lowering everything with Multiband, which would cause exactly the type of sound you're describing.

So, lower the AGC (Pre Limiter in v4.22) 'target output level' (v5.00) or 'soft limit band 1' (v4.22).

If you do this, you'll see that the multiband outputs bars are much higher (if the whole red-to-green bar is visible no multiband compression occurs and the output is nearly identical to the input, the lower these bands get the 'flatter' the sound gets).

[Pre Compressor]
Enabled=1
Difference=0
Delay enabled=0
Remove remaining loud peaks=1
Maximum volume - Band 1=70000
Maximum volume - Band 2=16750
Attack speed - Band 1=0.000040472
Attack speed - Band 2=0.000040472
Decay speed - Band 1=0.000314613
Decay speed - Band 2=0.000314613


About the CPU load: That's possible... Most filters use much less CPU load than before, but AGC and Multiband might both use a bit more. So if you're only using those 2...


Note: For constant output levels, the latest BETA version does a better job than all previous versions. See the News section, thread about Stereo Tool 5.00.