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Hello together,
This is my first (and, attention: rather lengthy) post in this board, although I already read and searched a lot here. I am using stereo tool for approx. a month now, and I am really deeply DEEPLY impressed, what it can do to clipped & compressed music, as we get it these days. So, you see: I’m a private user, I am not interested in certain “FM sounds”, which seems to be the main approach of this tool (at least it looks like).
I’m grown up with the breakthrough of the CD back in 1985 and I’m grown up with some really good & dynamic sounding records like Dire Straits “Love over Gold”, Fleetwood Macs “Tango in the Night” or Jennifer Warnes “The Hunter”, just to name some titles so you might get an impression what I mean when I say “good sounding music”. I still have the amplifier and the speakers of 30 years ago and I still get a really great and natural sound with the “right” discs. If that is really an “audiophile” approach, I'm not sure (but thought it was a good topic title nevertheless^^). I just like really good & natural sounding music.
So, I’m still interested in current music, but with very very few exceptions (e.g. some excellent Steven Wilson releases & remixes), it is not listenable anymore. Approx. 98% of current rock & pop releases are either "heavily clipped and compressed" (DR 4-6) or "slightly clipped and compressed" (DR 7-9). My understanding of a good and natural sounding rock album is a DR 11 or DR 12. These are the best dynamic values in my opinion (DR 14 and onwards are not perfect imho, because it then often misses a certain "punch" you need for rock music). A return to the better sounding vinyl is no solution for me – too expensive "hardware" and still too many disadvantages compared to the digital format.
I tested many different (mainly free) audio tools in the past 12 months, which already brought a certain degree of success. But the final results were always “not as worse as the original” but also far away from “REALLY good and enjoyable”. With all these attempts, there was always something missing in the end, at least with the distance of two or three days to the first impression (which is necessary to confirm if something sounds really good - or not).
Now I use stereo tool 7.73, and with my current settings, I think I have maybe 98% or even 99% of what I am looking for and want I want to get with this excellent tool.
My current settings:
- Declipper: Enabled
- Input: Compressed (M3 etc.) input: Enabled (but dirty area option disabled)
- Restoration: CPU usage at max. for ALL three settings & Peak restoration at 300%
- Nothing else different to the "factory settings" at the moment.
If the original album production is good enough (that problem is not new, bad recordings I already had 30 years ago), I get some really excellent results with these settings – although the max. CPU usage means (on my 3 years old average Laptop), that the time to convert is close to real time of the music! But the results are really worth the wait, I’m really impressed at the moment.
The reason I enabled “Compressed input” although I usually use uncompressed input (wav or flac) is: the enabling of this seems to have a subtle but listenable (& visable!) positive dynamic effect on some "slightly clipped & compressed" sound files (DR 7-9), where the Declipper does not react at all, if this option is disabled (although the wave form obviously looks clipped and compressed). No idea, what the tool is doing here, but at the moment I am using these settings for the best results so far.
That also means, that I don’t use the “Natural Dynamics” option at the moment. I toyed with it in the beginning and some first impressions were pretty good, but with a little distance I was not convinced. At the moment I think the only use of the Declipper brings (in most cases) the best & most natural effect.
Well, and here are beginning my questions. I’m not sure, if these results so far are already the best possible ones or not? (an uncompressed original is obviously not available to compare, so it remains a subjective impression, if the result sounds natural or not) This tool offers so many possibilities, but I have no idea which of the "1000 effects" has… which effect? I have not studied sound engineering and I cannot hear slight & subtle differences on my laptop. I have to burn the results on CD and listen to them on my real audio equipment to say: yes, that’s an improvement - or not. This is very time intensive, as you can imagine, and it does not make sense to me to try each possible effect, if I have not understood, what the effect is really doing. The online helping manual is not really helpful for me, sorry to say that (I come from Germany and my English is not so bad, I hope, but not good enough for these technical descriptions of the tool).
So, my final question here would be: which of the current standard factory settings MIGHT still have a negative impact to what I am looking for? (= a “natural dynamic clear sound”, as I would call it, if you don't like the term "audiophile"). Any suggestions for setting changes, which might mean a real further improvement, are welcome. But maybe I am already at the best possible results for my approach....?
Thanks for reading this and a BIG thanks to the author of this fantastic tool!
Greetings from Bremen/Germany,
Dietmar
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