Stereo Tool

@mapleleaf: Does it disappear when you move the Airy sliders to 0?

Changes in this version:
Behavior of Highs Priority improved: Does not cause drops in the mid freqs anymore.
CPU load reduced

CPU load is still higher than in beta005, but should be a lot lower then in the last few beta's.

Stand alone: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 32-013.exe
DSP: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 32-013.exe
Other versions not available.

Older changes:
- Bass sensitivity clipping level drop: If there are both mids and highs, the drop is a bit less strong than before
- Bass sensitivity clipping level drop: Determining more precisely when the clip is needed. So instead of dropping the bass the whole 4096-samples block, it's now only dropped at the locations of this block where there really are mid/high freqs
- Bug reported by Phoenix ( viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4235 ) should be fixed.
- BS412 also needs a max deviation (+/- 75 kHz) display --> Added
- BS412 sometimes caused drops of upto 2.5 dB. This is preset dependent. --> Adding a slider with which you can specify the amount of headroom; by lowering the output level by 0.05 dB the margin for error is already increased by 50% which seems sufficient. Test if adjustment adjust compressors properly.
- Also adding a BS412 slider with which the max deviation can be lowered; this way you can create a denser sound (apparently many commercial stations like that even though they don't gain any loudness) and it protects against spikes when the sound card or path to the transmitter isn't perfect (reason: Many current processors usually clip the signal at around +/- 50 kHz instead of 75, so in many cases the path to the transmitter doesn't have to be perfect). (Partially done, to be added: BS412 must take clipping into account; clipping level adjustment for pilot/rds).
- Something is broken in latency 512.
- Different up speeds for louder end result
- Sound card adjustment for low freqs needed (that was on my todo list anyway, but I'm moving it to the top now).
- Slightly changed sensitivity behavior (les steep drops and rises of bass). Not sure if this is the best possible solution: Alternative might be to let the bass drops start and end INSIDE the area where loud bass is present, or do the same as now but limit the maximum change speed.
- Made tilt configuration a bit easier (less steep changes at the extremes)
- 2nd RC slider is saved now
- Added displays so you can see what is being sent out to the sound card (including calibrations)
- Changed clipper distortion masking filter, this version should have slightly less distortion than the previous one but almost the same amount of highs.
- Added 2 extra sliders to control the distortion masking. Increasing the 1st or decreasing the 2nd increases the amount of highs. The goal is to find a combination of values which allows the highs to pass without adding (too much) distortion.
2nd slider determines how fast something is determined to be a tone instead of hiss - for tones I don't allow more distortion than before. First slider multiplies the calculated effect (that is, it multiplies the allowed amount of distortion, which doesn't mean that it will actually be used or lead to louder highs).
- Found and fixed several bugs in the clipper (hole punching by loud highs should be reduced).
- Allowing some extra very brief distortion to reduce hole punching by loud highs.
- Improved behavior of Highs Priority to avoid volume drops.


Planned:
- Check sensitivity


Note: High frequency square waves are NOT good for testing. Use square for low freqs, normal for high (above approx. 100-200 Hz).

Latest beta sound nice, without Gaps on Amd

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We had a (planned) power outage in my office, that's why the Wifi connection was down and I couldn't upload the DSP plugin anymore. It's available now!

It was very good moments when i have Athlon X2 4850E and stereotool 6.20 beta 79 was consuming only 17% of that CPU....
Now with beta 005 Athlon II X2 240E it jumping from 22 to 50% ?!?!? And why is that what happens ?

Yeas latest beta is reduced : beta13 average 50%
Previous betas after 005 goes to 85 %

edit: Hans you probably must redesign the MB before add this features because maybe when redesign most of them won`t work as now and must be removed/redesigned ...etc.
Think You make it more difficult that it should be
And only CPU is the one that handle all of this.Please make more easy for You if you really plan to redesign the MB.

I'm measuring an increase in CPU usage of 18% with everything enabled (Bojcha's Naomi One FM preset), compared to the released 6.31 version. I know that there are more optimizations possible...

With Airy at 0% the increase is about 4%.

Have you tried testing it using a CPU that has 1MB L2 cache per core, and no shared L3?

Beta004 ~= 70% in task manager
Beta013 ~= 90% in task manager (as high as 95%, actually!)

And that was with the bottom "airy" slider on 0!

On the bright side, the audio no longer stutters. However, I can't really do anything else with my computer.

Please make the filter optional, especially considering the either non-existent or barely-existent improvement in audio quality based on hearing, not by a scope.

Well, setting everything to zero, not just the bottom slider, for the new stuff does bring the load back down...

...however...

...the setting is not saved.

Settings read/write should be a modular process and extremely easy to add / remove. Instead of putting off read/write of the sts file, also consider adding the read/write initially. If the setting is no longer valid, it would just be ignored on a read, and then should not be written out on the next write.

Given the 30% relative increase in load (20% absolute), it either needs more optimization or the ability to be made completely optional, and not by having to set it each and every time.

Additionally, bear in mind that overloading CPUs limits the number of test participants, so you may be restricting the amount of feedback available to you. As has been pointed out before, there are differences between 1MB and 2MB L2 cache per core performance, and then additional differences between just 2MB L2 and 2MB L2 + shared L3. The inclusion of a wider test audience is something that would be of benefit.

If I seem "grumpy", it's only because this is a repeating process, and not the first time around this same barbecue. I'm about process improvement, and that's what my comments should be seen as - advice to improve the development / testing process.

It would be desirable to disable this filter as an option, to run the rest of the processor in the beta versions.
My AMD Dual Core, will thank you.

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by GAP
"Less is More" (Bob Katz)

Hans

I just installed #13 and it is almost perfect IMHO, crackling is far, far less pronounced then it was in #12 or #11 with 4096 but still there; switching to 2048

love the quality which appears to have improved, bedankt voor u werk, Hans.

btw, my cpu is running at 5-7%
I just love this cpu an i7-3770k
now waiting for my new motherboard (ASUS P9X79 PRO)
then going to 32gb

tot ziens

mapleleaf