Synths you regret buying

[Dasheesh]

I'm going to throw one more Waldorf bomb in this thread before I bolt. When the blofeld was released I was one of the first to buy it and active on the Waldorf mailing list back then. There was some discussion about it being powered by a 55 MHz AV RECIEVER processor. Let that sink in. Maybe someone can confirm or deny that for us. I always had a hard time believing it but there was a lot of talk about it.

[ghettosynth]

It's not that they would outclass better transparent audio interfaces, it's that they have their own special character that colors the sound.

But, in general, the evidence doesn't support this. You're missing the point, what exactly are those DA converters and why do they have this special character that colors the sound when there is such a diversity of DA converters in interfaces that do not?

Surely if any particular modern DA converter colors the sound that much then there must be samples from some low end or medium end interfaces that also color the sound of software similarly and we'd hear about it?

OTOH, it's well known that bias hugely affects our perception of sound, so I'm basically not buying that any modern software in hardware synth has a special D/A character that is dramatic in any way.

More nonsense over here where people are arguing that Blofeld sounds better when modified to use an SPDIF output and that the reason for this is because the output stage following the DAC is crap?


https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewt ... 78792cc064

So, if we all add a little line amp built from a run of the mill opamp and off the shelf capacitors we will get that warm and grit?

I call bunk. It uses some standard off the shelf cheap DAC as does almost every cheap audio interface built into your PC. If it were so magical people would notice this about those interfaces as well.

Why is it so hard for people to accept that they are subject to various forms of perception bias? I'm not saying that there aren't algorithmic differences between the various waldorf synths, but this DAC argument is silly and there's not really any evidence to support that there's anything to it at all. Like I said, it seems to be the goto argument when people have no explanation for their perceptions.

[Ed A.]

How would you test this hypothesis? I'm not one of those hardware purists that think anything hardware is good and anything software is bad. I don't have a hardware bias, yet I hear a difference. Could be that the DA is not generic but custom in some of these hardware synths, or there's some other circuit related thing happening.

[chk071]

I'm going to throw one more Waldorf bomb in this thread before I bolt. When the blofeld was released I was one of the first to buy it and active on the Waldorf mailing list back then. There was some discussion about it being powered by a 55 MHz AV RECIEVER processor. Let that sink in. Maybe someone can confirm or deny that for us. I always had a hard time believing it but there was a lot of talk about it.

According to this post, it has a "180 MIPS DSP", whatever that means: viewtopic.php?p=5084485#p5084485

I highly doubt that the it only clocks at 50 MHz though. Typical DSP's in hardware synths clock at 200-250 MHz or so, as far as i read. Don't be fooled by such low numbers though, the whole processing of the different layers of what we know as desktop OS's is not necessary in such devices, so, more or less the whole processing is available for the DSP. As far as i read, i really don't know much about this kind of stuff.

BTW, whenever the talk is of Blofeld and Largo, i usually link to this nice article. https://modulatethis.com/2011/07/23/wal ... s-blofeld/

[anxiousmofo]

Alchemy. May Apple crash and burn.

[Ed A.]

May Apple crash and burn.

I hope not, I have 2,117 shares of Apple that I'm hoping will fund my retirement.

[ghettosynth]

How would you test this hypothesis? I'm not one of those hardware purists that think anything hardware is good and anything software is bad. I don't have a hardware bias, yet I hear a difference.

You don't believe that you have a hardware bias. We are ALL subject to various biases and may not even realize it. People take this as criticism, it's not. It's just the nature of our brains. Our other senses contribute information to how we hear.

To confirm that the DAC/output stage has some impact on the sound you could record the SPDIF output and play it back through a DAC that you don't believe has the character and then compare the two samples in a blind test. You should be able to tell the difference in a statistically relevant way.

This will not confirm whether it's the DAC or the output stage, however, that's a bit trickier since the only way to test that is to tap the signal prior to the output stage and, most likely, the mod will probably have some minor effect on the sound regarding noise and stray pickup. In short, without buying a couple of blofelds to do the testing, it's not really practical.

However, the evidence is not there that the DAC has that much impact. Like I said, if it did, there would be some crazy demand for cheap DACs to add "warmth and grit" to recordings.

There are other ways to explore this, I don't think that it's worth it TBH. I'm trying to make the argument here that unless you have some evidence that it IS the DAC beyond speculation, it probably isn't.

Could be that the DA is not generic but custom in some of these hardware synths, or there's some other circuit related thing happening.

This is exceedingly unlikely because of cost. It's a consumer product, and a low cost one that that. Waldorf will use off the shelf parts here like everyone else. What value would a custom DAC have? That's a hugely expensive process for a consumer product.

[ghettosynth]

I'm going to throw one more Waldorf bomb in this thread before I bolt. When the blofeld was released I was one of the first to buy it and active on the Waldorf mailing list back then. There was some discussion about it being powered by a 55 MHz AV RECIEVER processor. Let that sink in. Maybe someone can confirm or deny that for us. I always had a hard time believing it but there was a lot of talk about it.

According to this post, it has a "180 MIPS DSP", whatever that means: viewtopic.php?p=5084485#p5084485

I highly doubt that the it only clocks at 50 MHz though. Typical DSP's in hardware synths clock at 200-250 MHz or so, as far as i read. Don't be fooled by such low numbers though, the whole processing of the different layers of what we know as desktop OS's is not necessary in such devices, so, more or less the whole processing is available for the DSP. As far as i read, i really don't know much about this kind of stuff.

BTW, whenever the talk is of Blofeld and Largo, i usually link to this nice article. https://modulatethis.com/2011/07/23/wal ... s-blofeld/

MIPS is Millions of Instructions Per Second, but, that's a typo because it uses a 180Mhz DSP chip according to this article where there is also a guess on the DAC and the output is a 5532, a standard off the shelf audio op-amp. In fact, the DSP chip is ALSO 180 MIPS which just means that it's executing one instruction per clock cycle.

http://midibox.org/forums/topic/10797-i ... omparison/

So now warmth and grit is coming from a 5532, a decent but bog standard audio op-amp, and an off the shelf 24 Bit DAC?

It's a plugin in a box and if you're hearing differences between it and software it's almost certainly not because of the DAC or the 5532.

[chk071]

Ah, nice to have some more in detail infos on the hardware. A blazing 180 MHz DSP.

[EnGee]

It's not that they would outclass better transparent audio interfaces, it's that they have their own special character that colors the sound.

^^^ ding ding ding

I also agree

I thought to replace Largo/Blofeld with Massive/Dune 2 but they sound different. Even with Largo and Blofeld themselves, there is a small differences in the sound (maybe it is the same code and different DA converters as I tested through a crappy mixer and blofeld sounded warmer but less clear ).

I can sell any of them (Largo or Blofeld), but I don't regret buying them. I would regret a blofeld desktop, but I really like the keyboard version which I use 80% as a midi controller and 20% as a synth. There are some negatives, but as a synth, blofeld is a good synth in general especially if you don't want to depend on software in a gig or something. In the studio as a synth though, maybe you can use Largo instead, but still blofeld has much much much better presets than Largo and that what sells a synth mostly for musicians I guess

[Dasheesh]

I promised myself I wouldn't jump back in this but I have to say all this searching for the "best" is useless.

[Bump1]

I'm the best.

There, search is over

[layzer]

I'm the best.

There, search is over

no, that chikenchoker71 or whatever it means dude is the best,
knows what the best everything is and has the best everything and is the overlord KVR knowitall

[chk071]

Thanks. At last someone who appreciates my services for the community.

[confusedmuse]

While I partially agree with people commenting "Please not another best/worst synth thread", I find myself enjoying them over and over, because you can always find some interesting opinion, new info, or inspiring sub-discussion in them.