Realphones by dSONIQ?

VST, AU, AAX, CLAP, etc. Plugin Virtual Effects Discussion
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Just saw the news that "dSONIQ has updated Realphones to version 1.5." and today it's the first time I hear about this app and never saw anyone talking about it before, so what's the deal with this, nobody knows either or what?

Downloaded demo and gonna give the app some testing, if anyone have any experience, don't be shy.

https://www.kvraudio.com/news/dsoniq-up ... v1-5-49882

Last edited by Passing Bye on Fri Jan 15, 2021 5:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Even loads Sonarworks and Morphit profiles. Nice.

Slate VSX is 500 bucks including headphone, everybody is raving about that one but there's unfortunately no way to demo it.

If Realphones works well with my existing headphones it would be nice. They already announced that they'll add more room simulations. Time to demo i guess.
The loudness war is over, loudness has won

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Gave trial a whirl, it's nice it can be used system wide, don't have much experience with similar products, but it's quite interesting.

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I am trying it.

I swear I had a few moments I thought I was hearing the sound from my speakers. I wasn't :O.
After getting used to its sound, you figure out that when bypassing it the sound goes inside your head, while with it turned on the sound seem to jump in front of you, outside your head. And this also reduces ear fatigue, provided you don't work at excessive sound pressure.

It is also very helpful in detecting issues in the bass part (it has a subwoofer emulation).
And the one speaker simulator (not the same as mono) together with the ability to isolate or mute three different frequency ranges - bass, mid, high are helping as well to make mixing decisions more towards as if I'm working on speaker.

So, not perfect, but quite interesting so far. I've been using Isone Pro + Morph-it but this really seems on another league.
Also tried Blue Cat Audio Re-Head, wasn't compelled.

Until 24th October there's a 30% plus a coupon for another 30% for a total af around 50% discount.

- Mario

P.S. I'm not affiliated with them. Just very fascinated.

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edit : more testing :wink:
Last edited by dionenoid on Sun Oct 18, 2020 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The loudness war is over, loudness has won

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Here's something, it's pity guy didn't spent any time getting to know it before he made a video, pretty useless, but it's at least understandable compared to other Russian ones


it's like macOS vs Linux :lol:

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What is the coupon for the other 30% off? I tried codemixinheadphones and it did not work

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The code to save another 30% on the pro version is mixinheadphones

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Passing Bye wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 9:40 pm Here's something, it's pity guy didn't spent any time getting to know it before he made a video, pretty useless, but it's at least understandable compared to other Russian ones


it's like macOS vs Linux :lol:
Totally agreed, a review like this is pretty pointless imho. It just shows "there's a lot"... which is a bit disappointing for a 16 minutes video :)

- Mario

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OK, first impressions:
- GUI is quite good, resizable (although a bit hard to find: its the magnifying glass symbol which is commonly used today as a metaphor for searching - which in itself is stupid, but hey...).
- You definetely should read the manual and set the headphone correction according to the instructions and with some of your reference tracks that you know well.
- there are a lot of controls that might be a tad intimidating at first, but you'll most likely need to adapt only a few of them.
- don't switch too much between speaker models at first. I chose the nearfields because that is what I have here in my "studio". I intend to listen to a lot of reference material to get to know to that sound and then stay there, mostly.
- documentation is good, as is the FAQ on their web site.

Soundwise it is really good imho. I have used Morphit and Sonarworks for headphone correction, tried TB Isone, the Waves AbbeyRoad thingy, Re-Head and several crossfeed simulation plugins and was never happy with the results, they mostly changed the sound too much in a weird way. I've settled with a combination of Sonarworks and Airwindows Monitoring.
This one feels much better. The correction doesn't feel as intrusive as with SW and the room/speaker simulation feels pleasant and whenever I bypass the plugin I immediately want to go back. With Isone, Waves and Re-head it was the other way round.

I don't have tried the Slate VSX, I guess that the setup with that will be easier and the correction more precise as it comes with the calibrated headphones, whereas with the ones you have it's always an approximation. Also it has more different rooms and listening environments.
But then its like 500 bucks and you have to get used to new cans. I already have rather good headphones (Beyerdynamic DT1990 Pro) and I think for ~50€ with the coupon this is a no brainer.
Maybe I'll give VSX a try in the future and compare them.

Room (sic!) for improvement:
- maybe some optional tooltip help for the parameters?
- I don't think the three different editions really make sense. Just one with all the correction models, and maybe a little fee when further rooms or speakers are added. Keep it simple.
- they seem to use some unknown challenge-response authentication. I'd prefer iLok or some serial number. But then, even if the company goes bust in a couple of years, for that money it's not a big problem.

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mabian wrote: Sat Oct 17, 2020 4:39 pm ... I swear I had a few moments I thought I was hearing the sound from my speakers. I wasn't :O.
After getting used to its sound, you figure out that when bypassing it the sound goes inside your head, while with it turned on the sound seem to jump in front of you, outside your head. And this also reduces ear fatigue, provided you don't work at excessive sound pressure. ...
I'm not personally getting that "in front of me" feeling - it still sounds "in my head" to me. But the sound does feel a lot more spacious and enjoyable. Given the very reasonable deal going on right now (including the coupon on top of the discount), I think I'm going to purchase it, as recreational listening on headphones alone makes it worthwhile to me.

In addition, I'm hopeful that the improved spaciousness and other adjustments will translate to better mixes too. As a pure hobbyist (as opposed to pro) with a few years' experience who is interested in trying to get good mixes, but who has a completely untreated room (which is not going to change), I think this would be a good first step into the realm of headphone-correction technology, especially as it has profiles for both of my "decent but not spectacular" headphones.

(And if I really like it, maybe I'll take the next step into Slate's VSX at some point. Given Realphones' sale price is pretty much literally 1/10th the price of VSX, it seems a prudent first step. I know VSX is probably "better," including better underlying physical headphones, but hopefully this will be enough to make a difference.)

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I've used HD668B headphones for everything for years -- listening to music at work and at home, playing games, tracking, mastering. I wound up selling off my nearfield monitors because the room acoustics just can't justify them. Now I have a new paid of German Maestro GMP 8.35 D arriving tomorrow because I want more isolation at times, so I've been looking into this sort of software.

With every piece of software I've tried (not Isone yet, but I suppose I will give it a shot) the frequency response correction is possibly okay, just not what I'm used to -- but the spatialization stuff just strikes me as awful. It still sounds like I'm listening to headphones, only with serious phase problems and a bad head cold.

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foosnark wrote: Sun Oct 18, 2020 7:16 pm With every piece of software I've tried (not Isone yet, but I suppose I will give it a shot) the frequency response correction is possibly okay, just not what I'm used to -- but the spatialization stuff just strikes me as awful. It still sounds like I'm listening to headphones, only with serious phase problems and a bad head cold.
Yeah, this is more or likely what I experienced. Sounded better without. Not with Realphones, for me that is.
You gotta test for yourself, though. I think Steven Slate wrote in the
VSX thread on GS that for around 5% of people the binaural HRTF thingy just doesn’t seem to work.

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* nvm
Last edited by dionenoid on Thu Jan 07, 2021 3:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The loudness war is over, loudness has won

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I am going on with it. It's not perfect, but it's helping to find out a lot of stuff that just on headphones (AKG 240 Studio) I simply couldn't notice (sub-bass, vocal balance in the mix and so).

When I found I was on headphones thinking I was not I was not looking at the monitor, was focusing on the sound. And then figured out my speakers were not turned on :)

I think I must "learn" this thing, but it's already helping me.

- Mario

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