Stereo Tool

I am new to using Stereo Tool and love what it does. One thing I'm having a problem understanding is resource usage. On my test machine (AMD Athlon 3000 cpu) with the standalone version running, the cpu usage in Windows XP averages about 82% by Stereo tool (with Stereo tool minimized in tray). That's with the Quality slider set at the default setting of about 7 (on a 1 to 10 to the most right scale). If I adjust the quality slider leftwards to let's say 4, the cpu usage goes down to about 75%. However, I don't notice much of a difference in sound quality (with my cotton ears ).

What kind of impacts to the sound is supposed to happen if we lower the quality slider? Are there any other good techniques to lower cpu usage?

It would help to know what you are using ST for, ie. FM broadcasting, streaming internet radio, enhancing audio for listening etc..

_________________
J0HN II

Internet broadcasting.

First: I would read the article: http://help.stereotool.com/cpu_usage.shtml
although it was written about version 4.10 it still applies to version 6 except the note about turning Loudness off (set to 1.00). I don`t think that pumping is as much of an issue with Loudness in version 6.
Second: If you are using the standalone or vst version set the input sample rate to match your audio input stream rate. ie if your recordings are at 44.1 kHz then set the input sample rate to the same. If you use the DSP version I believe that you get the sampling rate of the original anyway.
Third: Try one of the web radio reduced CPU presets.
Hope this helps.

_________________
J0HN II

The Quality slider mainly impacts the bass. Play some constant very low bass sound and you'll hear what I mean. For most music, you won't notice much difference. Except when you also lower the latency, because that increases the effect of the Quality slider a lot.

How much impact Quality has depends a lot on your settings, so it could be that you can get away with a lower setting.

Make sure that FM processing is turned off, or your CPU load will be a lot higher. Are you using the latest version of Stereo Tool (6.00)? Because the CPU load is a lot higher than I would expect (I have tested a slightly older version on a Pentium 4 @ 2.4 GHz, and if I remember correctly it used about 50-60% there. I could be wrong though - it's quite some time ago that I did this test and I never wrote down the result, just checked that running it was possible).

In newer versions, you could consider turning 'Strict bass clipping' and at least 'Very strict' (Loudness filter) off, that should reduce the CPU load considerably.

Thank you. Yes, I'm using version 6.00. I unchecked "very strict" bass but kept "strict bass clipping" and got the cpu usage down to about 60-65% (cpu quality slider at middle position). Additionally, these are not enabled: Hard limit, very deep bass distortion protection, singleband compressor/limiter, and the final limiter. It seems to sound pretty good.

Since this is a five year old cpu (AMD Athlon 3000), I gather from reading here that Stereo tool excels with more modern Intel 2, 4, or 6 core processors.