Stereo Tool

Everything except loudness should be equal or better (multiband) than in v4.22. The Loudness filter (and the lowpass filter - but that wasn't perfect in v4.22 either) is the most problematic one.

I'm going to try a few things...

yes .. Highs (very High) is much cleaner .. but that's multiband .. and not with loudness!

Good thing .. i have less peeks created by mp3 decoding in stream (128k) .. maybe because better clipper in multiband ?

This is odd! Apparently there was a bug in v4.22 and all earlier versions that caused the high frequency content to be lowered a bit. I just compared the ouput of v4.22 and BETA3 with Loudness turned off and Loudness set to 1.01, in BETA3 the frequency response of the output is nearly identical, in v4.22 the highs are dropped.

This bug probably increases the quality of the high frequencies in v4.22 (louder is more difficult, the difference at high frequencies is about 0.3 dB). Not a big difference (about 3%, so Loudness 2.00 in BETA3 would sound like 2.06 in v4.22).

EDIT: I think it's not a bug! If so, the fact that this DOESN'T happen might be a bug in BETA3...

I found out what's causing the difference in frequency response between v4.22 and BETA3. The odd thing is that I made those changes to improve the sound quality... I'll build a version where the processing is closer to that of v4.22. I did some quick measurements and it looks like the output is getting very very close to the v4.22 output. I expect to be able to post it here in about 1.5-2 hours.

I ran into a lot of other issues, but - at least according to frequency analysis - the two versions SHOULD now be closer to each other.

I've made multiple changes, if the sound is not better (it's currently very difficult for me to compare, I still have only one side working on my headphones... Will pick up a new one on monday) I'll have to remove one of the two changes.

Among others, I've restored a tighter clipping mechanism that made the sound less good earlier - but now I think that was caused by the bugs in the lowpass and stereo boost filters.

Update is building now, should be ready in an hour.

Uploaded!

Because I really don't know if this new version is an improvement (for one of the changes I made I would expect the sound to deteriorate, but it is equal to v4.22 processing), I've uploaded the new version as BETA2.


So here are the links:

NEW version
Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... _BETA2.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... _BETA2.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... _BETA2.dll

PREVIOUS version
Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... _BETA3.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... _BETA3.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... _BETA3.dll

The processing should be roughly equal for Loudness values upto 2.20, for 2.20 and above there might be some differences.


Question to Bojcha: What exactly do you hear in the high frequencies? Do they sound distorted (harmonics), or do you hear ringing as in low bitrate MP3s? Those are the two artifacts that can occur in the Loudness processing...

Hey Hans,


Best wishes for 2010!


I have a T7500 in my laptop and it seems to be an issue to use stereotool.
It seems to be using only 1 core which is always at the max.
Anyway to spread this over 2 cores?
Rgrds,

Luke

Hi Luke,

Best wishes to you too!

I know that it's currently using only one core, however, this one core should use _approximately_ the same amount of CPU load as one of the cores in v4.22 (if you lower the Block Overlap slider a bit).

I'll check later if I can make it use two cores again - but if I do the latency will double (except for the stand alone version). I first want to try to lower the CPU load as far as possible, if that doesn't suffice, I'll have to use multiple cores again.

I accidentally turned a part of one filter off in the BETA2 version... Will update it asap!

Edit: Building now... The odd thing is that the highs are now again louder than in v4.22...

About that highs...
when i try to measure 4.22 and beta3 i gat very close results... but somehow "highs" are higher .. rly don't know how!
interesting is that there is no distortion .. they are just sounds like some "extra CD highs"
And i found that it's not only because Loudness. .. maybe it's not because loudness at all... maybe sound like that goes in loudness and makes loudness to sound like this.

maybe this is dumb ..it's like small emphasis .. highs up lows down .. because a get same feel about lowered Low Band, but again if i measure .. everything looks OK!

cpu usage:
Sometimes i have one core using more then other .. but mostly is used both cores.
i remmber for v4.22 i can use two of stereo tools with 95% cpu usage .. and both of them works without drops.
Now i have same cpu usage with "block overlap" 20%", but no way more than that.. and if cpu goes over 55-60% drops starts.
Same thing was with AMD CPUs, over 55-60% drops starts .. but that's was not case with intel .. Intel has used the full strength of both cores, till 90-95% everything works good.