Stereo Tool

Ow, that's annoying. BTW I think the non-phase linear HPF is better here anyway because it moves the bass foreward a bit so the punch in the highs is retained better anyway.

@Hans - Whenever you have a chance, can you look at the Noise Gate code for any performance issues / improvements?

To give you an idea what I'm seeing, and yes, it is more than just a number seen:

Azimuth ON
Stereo Boost (90s) ON
AGC ON (3-band, combine, head correction)
Multiband ON (clipping and EQ enabled)
Bass Boost ON
Bandpass ON (auto)
Singleband limit ON
Phase Rotator ON
Final Limit ON
Hard Limit ON

CPU load with all that with Beta099 is 5-15%

Enable Noise Gate in addition to that (still no Loudness), CPU load goes up to 30-40%. With Loudness, I'm up into the 60s again... Disable Noise Gate, leaving loudness on, and it drops back into the 30s-40s...

It may be that's just the best that it can be, but I remember saying that you didn't look at / use Noise Gate all that much...

Beta 099: Indeed also great improvement on Natural Dynamics!
Thanks Hans!
(Noticed the effect on CPU load caused by the noisegate too)

I found Beyerdynamic DT-880 Pro 250 ohm cans the other day for only $215 from Amazon. I highly recommend these headphones.
http://www.amazon.com/BEYER-DYNAMIC-DT8 ... B001B1QENY

On paper (actual artificial head measurements) they look every bit as flat as Sennheiser HD-600 and HD-650, but I've found they sit between the two sound wise, which is a very good things since there's a few small things to slightly dislike about the 600 and 650. Oh, and the 880s are half the price of a pair of 650s. They are also using a semi-open design, which means it's an open headphone that also has a bass reflex port, so you get that extra oomph in the bass that a closed headphone would have, but an almost identical bass response to the 600/650 (less than 1dB difference) with two benefits, slightly slower low frequency rolloff, and more SPL before audible distortion starts happening.

Hm, I just tried and I'm getting 27% without noise gate (everything else turned on), 29% with noise gate.

This might be a memory usage issue again, or a Task Manager issue. Could you try the following:
Instead of switching Noise Gate on and off, keep it on but switch Multiband on and off. My expectation is that you'll see exactly the same behavior. (In Stereo Boost 90s - do you have 'Protect against excessive reverb' enabled? If not you might get a very diferent behavior due to some optimizations that I'm using.)

You say that so easy, and difference in bass quality is so big. Same as bass quality difference between protected/clipped and not protected bass.
Maybe it's good moment to chack what "Waves R-Bass" is doing with sound

I'm now building a version where I *hope* that the effect that the HPF causes issues with punch should be fixed. I'm not sure if it is, without a headphone it's difficult to test it. But if my assumption about the cause of the punch reduction is correct, this change should improve things a whole lot.

Uhm, wait - it's the BASS that looses punch? Not the highs?????? (That doesn't really make sense - because then turning the protection on or off should not have any effect on it. I think.).

Well if it's that then the issue won't be solved. Or maybe it is - I'm confused. Let's just see what the new version does.

And for other rainy days shaq these too:
Hofa IQ EQ
and
Mildon Studios HUE-X

Beta 099 ! omg
It was definetly a wise decision to use three digits.
But I hope that Hans won't max it out (Beta 999 ? before the final version ?).

Not if I count like this:

BETA099A:
*MAYBE* fixed punch issue.

Winamp DSP plugin: http://www.stereotool.com/download/dsp_ ... 0-099A.exe
Stand alone version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 0-099A.exe
VST version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 0-099A.dll
VST version (No SSE2): http://www.stereotool.com/download/vst_ ... 0-099A.dll
Command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... 0-099A.exe
Linux command line version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... TA620-099A NOT AVAILABLE
Linux GUI version: http://www.stereotool.com/download/ster ... TA620-099A NOT AVAILABLE