LE Quality compared to HD/TDM Quality

[dfusion]

I realize the benefits of HD when tracking outboard instruments and vocalists but when using 100% software plugin instruments and effects can anyone tell if a track is rendered in HD vs. LE? Assuming the same exact plugins are used on both systems.

[TheLP]

No, not really. Since the audio quality (usually) is better when using TDM systems, the plug-ins will just naturally sound better applied to higher quality audio.

[Eric Lambert]

I don't know that the audio file itself would be better in TDM than in LE, but the mixer in TDM is of a higher resolution so, technically, a TDM mix has the potential to sound better. I've done a test where I mixed a bunch of audio tracks via a TDM mixer, then imported the same tracks to LE (without any plugins or level adjustments) and the TDM output was indeed a little better. Wider, deeper, more defined. It wasn't drastic, but noticeable.

And for the record, I don't believe there's a difference between the TDM and LE plugins themselves. Someone else feel free to chime in, but it's my understanding that the audio processing code itself is typically the same.

[Tarktones]

Delay compensation!!!!!!!!

Your phase across the board will be smeared by plugin-induced latency. TDM systems compensate for this and allow you to run your entire session without killing the horsepower on your host computer.

[mindnoise]

Hi,

You can always improve the outputquality of a LE System with a pro wordclock and D/A
drastically and still have only 30% of the expense of HD system.

so MIXBus issues are TDM with 48Bit fixed vs LE with 32bit float.

both have their pros and cons. There was a pretty extensive thread in the TDM forum once
and various other threads concerning the issue but I can´t find them at the moment.

and as always: the most important link in the chain is the engineer, not the tools.


regs