What makes Pro Tools HD so amazing?

[Infiltrator]

Ok so I am learning about HD and DSP processing cards of that etc. I have heard the sound difference too. So my basic question is why does Pro Tools HD with those DSP cards sound much better than a Mac or PC running LE?

I am also asking a similar question to Access Virus - why the Virus TI unit - acting as the hardware processor for the RTAS virus control plug-in - why does it sound so much better and clearer than my computer running some soft synth (same sample rates, etc) in terms of fidelity... this is very wierd because I thought there is not supposed to be a difference in sound quality once in the digital realm. But one salesman told me hardware matters.

Can anyone elaborate a little but? Because I am noticing a sound quality difference in hardware components even in the digital world. Very strange considering it's all 1's and 0's.

[formfunction]

Originally Posted by Infiltrator

I have heard the sound difference too. So my basic question is why does Pro Tools HD with those DSP cards sound much better than a Mac or PC running LE?

Please do a search of this site.... this has been beaten to death. Do we really want to do it again? ff

[Infiltrator]

Originally Posted by formfunction

Please do a search of this site.... this has been beaten to death. Do we really want to do it again? ff

Just summarize it for me in a nutshell. I tried a search already.

[formfunction]

Originally Posted by Infiltrator

Just summarize it for me in a nutshell.

Yes and No. Absolutely! Definitely not! ADC! Subjective! Objective! An obvious difference! No noticeable difference!! Clear enough?

[Carl Kolchak]

Unless your name is Kevin Flynn, you have to get out of the Digital World and listen in the real world like the rest of us - it's only 0's and 1's up to a point.

If you could listen from "inside" the digital world, and assuming you had been very attentive in how you had set up your HD & LE sessions, then they should null, making them identical.

In the real world however, the HD signal will have travelled through a 48bit fixed point audio engine (Vs LE's 32bit floating point engine), it may be being passed through a dithered mixer - if that is the option you have chosen, and you may have ADC enabled (which if you havent made manual adjustments for in your LE session - assuming some of your plugins are inducing latency - could be clouding your mix).

All that is before you hit the hardware digital to analogue converters, which is where you first get to "hear" the signal.

Obviously the converters in the HD hardware are of a higher quality than those of the LE hardware - in a nutshell.

[PastaViking II]

Originally Posted by formfunction

Yes and No. Absolutely! Definitely not! ADC! Subjective! Objective! An obvious difference! No noticeable difference!! Clear enough?

My kind of summary: 90 % nut - 10 % shell!

LOL!

[studiojimi]

What makes Pro Tools HD so amazing?

Oh...that's easy...the World Class Customer Service!

[Drew Mazurek]

HD doesn't sound better than LE. sh*t in, sh*t out.

[maxtn]

HD... Great Taste!

LE... Less Filling!

M

[propower]

Man..... it goes to eleven......