XMLimiter 2 - The World’s Most Transparent and Loudest Mastering Peak Limiter

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Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 12:01 am These things can be measured using the appropriate analysis software.

They can be observed—and heard—through A/B comparisons, as well as null tests and the resulting THD measurements.
Yet you fail to measure your plugin as it quite _literally_ changes the original incoming audio while doing absolutely nothing. Simply inserting it on a track changes the delta when no limiting takes place.

.. and no, you can not measure "transparency" objectively when limiting is happening. That's utter bullshit. You can however do it subjectively and it should be quite clear right away when comparing to the original incoming audio that your limiter is not always doing a good job of that. As you yourself say, with A/B comparisons to the original signal source you should hear virtually no difference at low or moderate limiting when subjectively matching the apparent levels. I highly suggest properly setup double blind tests by a 3rd party, or at the very least proper ABX tests (meaning a minimum of 100 or more takes, over a couple of days, then collect the data.. change tiny things and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat).

If you want to go at it proper hardcore style, you setup an actual oscilloscope post DA converter (even more hardcore, try a few different DA converters) and look at what actually happens to the audio and then try to extrapolate from there and use various psychoacoustic tricks to make things as "subjectively transparent" as possible for as many different types of audio sources/genres you can and make a compromise.

Overall I find your marketing jargon complete bollocks. Sentences like this:
"Instead, XMLimiter 2 watches and reads your entire signal like a detective — at every single moment.

This atomic-level tracking allowed us to achieve one thing above all else: no sense of dynamic suppression, no stereo narrowing, no transient smearing, no pumping... Just transparent limiting."
.. make absolutely no sense. A simple envelope follower already does that (unless you specifically decide to "read" things in blocks or overly smoothed or something like that).

This absolutely reeks of intentionally confusing marketing bullshittery and when the actual results aren't superior in performance (in my subjective opinion) to some of the competition, it really doesn't help your case at all. So yeah, don't be surprised when you get called out on this kind of stuff.
Xilentch wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2026 9:44 pm That said, there are a few things we'd like to clarify, as they're based on measurable behavior. When XMLimiter 2 is inserted but not actively limiting, it does not alter the signal. It simply can't, because it wasn't designed to do so. We also understand that perception and expectation can sometimes lead to placebo effects.
.. you can literally NOT null the signal to infinity. It _is_ changing things and you CAN hear that change. If you can not figure this out then how on earth are you expecting people to have any kind of trust in your claims. I'd show you exactly what is wrong and what happens where but I already deleted the plugin and ain't planning on revisiting it. I didn't even bother taking a look at what it does in Plugin Doctor but I did try a very simple polarity flip against the original source without any limiting happening at all.. it didn't null.

Are you perhaps using some crappy minimum phase oversampling filters or something? Whatever the case is, something is not working correctly if you yourself believe there's no change in the signal.

.. also there's the noise burst issue. Buggy plugin eh?
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

"They don't ban hate speech; they ban speech they hate." -an oracle

Post

bmanic wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 2:14 am
Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 12:01 am These things can be measured using the appropriate analysis software.

They can be observed—and heard—through A/B comparisons, as well as null tests and the resulting THD measurements.
Yet you fail to measure your plugin as it quite _literally_ changes the original incoming audio while doing absolutely nothing. Simply inserting it on a track changes the delta when no limiting takes place.

.. and no, you can not measure "transparency" objectively when limiting is happening. That's utter bullshit. You can however do it subjectively and it should be quite clear right away when comparing to the original incoming audio that your limiter is not always doing a good job of that. As you yourself say, with A/B comparisons to the original signal source you should hear virtually no difference at low or moderate limiting when subjectively matching the apparent levels. I highly suggest properly setup double blind tests by a 3rd party, or at the very least proper ABX tests (meaning a minimum of 100 or more takes, over a couple of days, then collect the data.. change tiny things and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat).

If you want to go at it proper hardcore style, you setup an actual oscilloscope post DA converter (even more hardcore, try a few different DA converters) and look at what actually happens to the audio and then try to extrapolate from there and use various psychoacoustic tricks to make things as "subjectively transparent" as possible for as many different types of audio sources/genres you can and make a compromise.

Overall I find your marketing jargon complete bollocks. Sentences like this:
"Instead, XMLimiter 2 watches and reads your entire signal like a detective — at every single moment.

This atomic-level tracking allowed us to achieve one thing above all else: no sense of dynamic suppression, no stereo narrowing, no transient smearing, no pumping... Just transparent limiting."
.. make absolutely no sense. A simple envelope follower already does that (unless you specifically decide to "read" things in blocks or overly smoothed or something like that).

This absolutely reeks of intentionally confusing marketing bullshittery and when the actual results aren't superior in performance (in my subjective opinion) to some of the competition, it really doesn't help your case at all. So yeah, don't be surprised when you get called out on this kind of stuff.
Xilentch wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2026 9:44 pm That said, there are a few things we'd like to clarify, as they're based on measurable behavior. When XMLimiter 2 is inserted but not actively limiting, it does not alter the signal. It simply can't, because it wasn't designed to do so. We also understand that perception and expectation can sometimes lead to placebo effects.
.. you can literally NOT null the signal to infinity. It _is_ changing things and you CAN hear that change. If you can not figure this out then how on earth are you expecting people to have any kind of trust in your claims. I'd show you exactly what is wrong and what happens where but I already deleted the plugin and ain't planning on revisiting it. I didn't even bother taking a look at what it does in Plugin Doctor but I did try a very simple polarity flip against the original source without any limiting happening at all.. it didn't null.

Are you perhaps using some crappy minimum phase oversampling filters or something? Whatever the case is, something is not working correctly if you yourself believe there's no change in the signal.

.. also there's the noise burst issue. Buggy plugin eh?
Hey @bmanic,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. We genuinely appreciate it and respect your perspective.

There are just a couple of points we'd like to clarify.

First, Oversampling (OS) and Final Ceiling (FC) are enabled by default. In that configuration, perceiving a change in the signal is perfectly normal. If you compare XMLimiter 2 with other modern limiters that use similar processing features, you'll notice the same behavior. So the situation is a bit different from what you described. When those options are enabled, the delayed signal and the signal you're monitoring may no longer align perfectly. That's expected, because oversampling inherently requires a low-pass filter above approximately 20 kHz.
You can easily verify this with Linear Analysis, where the response should appear essentially flat. The Harmonic Analysis section also demonstrates how hard the algorithm works to keep harmonic distortion to an absolute minimum.
For us, however, the most important indicators are an oscilloscope, or the Attack/Release and Gain Reduction displays in the Dynamics section. Those views illustrate how the gain reduction is actually being applied to the waveform.
From our measurements, the difference between the processed signal and the original signal remains extremely small—close to 1% across almost the entire waveform.

Second, there is no noise burst—unless you're referring to Demo Mode. If that's the case, then yes, that's an intentional copy-protection mechanism, and it's a fairly common approach used in demo versions.

Aside from those two points, everything else you've written is, of course, subjective, and we fully respect that. Before releasing the plugin, we spent a great deal of time testing it ourselves and sharing it with beta testers. One thing we've learned is that every engineer's perception and feedback can be very different—even among highly experienced professionals.

For that reason, we also understand that expectation and placebo effects can sometimes influence how something is perceived.

Thank you again for your feedback.

Best regards.
I was an Audio Engineer at Netflix, Blizzard and Ubisoft.

Post

So how have WE come from this:
Xilentch wrote: Thu May 07, 2026 8:37 pm Hey everyone,

I’m the creator of the XM Series mastering plugins.

If you haven’t tried these plugins yet, you’re missing out on quite a lot...

XMLimiter is the flagship.

It does not work like the other plugins on the market, and its algorithm/modules are entirely unique. This is the result of many long years of experience and development.

(Most of the newer limiter plugins released in recent times actually came after XMLimiter.)

Their purpose is to preserve your entire soundstage—especially the transients—while delivering the power your music truly needs.

As an audio engineer who has been working in mastering for many years, I developed these plugins by addressing and combining several things I felt were missing in other products on the market.

The algorithms and modules are unique. A few world-renowned mastering engineers and mastering studios that you all know very well have not only approved of them, but have also described them as their new “secret weapons.”

If you haven’t tried them yet, I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts!

KVR: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/xm-ser ... y-xilentch
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/Xilentch
To this:
Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 7:26 am
bmanic wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 2:14 am
Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 12:01 am These things can be measured using the appropriate analysis software.

They can be observed—and heard—through A/B comparisons, as well as null tests and the resulting THD measurements.
Yet you fail to measure your plugin as it quite _literally_ changes the original incoming audio while doing absolutely nothing. Simply inserting it on a track changes the delta when no limiting takes place.

.. and no, you can not measure "transparency" objectively when limiting is happening. That's utter bullshit. You can however do it subjectively and it should be quite clear right away when comparing to the original incoming audio that your limiter is not always doing a good job of that. As you yourself say, with A/B comparisons to the original signal source you should hear virtually no difference at low or moderate limiting when subjectively matching the apparent levels. I highly suggest properly setup double blind tests by a 3rd party, or at the very least proper ABX tests (meaning a minimum of 100 or more takes, over a couple of days, then collect the data.. change tiny things and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat).

If you want to go at it proper hardcore style, you setup an actual oscilloscope post DA converter (even more hardcore, try a few different DA converters) and look at what actually happens to the audio and then try to extrapolate from there and use various psychoacoustic tricks to make things as "subjectively transparent" as possible for as many different types of audio sources/genres you can and make a compromise.

Overall I find your marketing jargon complete bollocks. Sentences like this:
"Instead, XMLimiter 2 watches and reads your entire signal like a detective — at every single moment.

This atomic-level tracking allowed us to achieve one thing above all else: no sense of dynamic suppression, no stereo narrowing, no transient smearing, no pumping... Just transparent limiting."
.. make absolutely no sense. A simple envelope follower already does that (unless you specifically decide to "read" things in blocks or overly smoothed or something like that).

This absolutely reeks of intentionally confusing marketing bullshittery and when the actual results aren't superior in performance (in my subjective opinion) to some of the competition, it really doesn't help your case at all. So yeah, don't be surprised when you get called out on this kind of stuff.
Xilentch wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2026 9:44 pm That said, there are a few things we'd like to clarify, as they're based on measurable behavior. When XMLimiter 2 is inserted but not actively limiting, it does not alter the signal. It simply can't, because it wasn't designed to do so. We also understand that perception and expectation can sometimes lead to placebo effects.
.. you can literally NOT null the signal to infinity. It _is_ changing things and you CAN hear that change. If you can not figure this out then how on earth are you expecting people to have any kind of trust in your claims. I'd show you exactly what is wrong and what happens where but I already deleted the plugin and ain't planning on revisiting it. I didn't even bother taking a look at what it does in Plugin Doctor but I did try a very simple polarity flip against the original source without any limiting happening at all.. it didn't null.

Are you perhaps using some crappy minimum phase oversampling filters or something? Whatever the case is, something is not working correctly if you yourself believe there's no change in the signal.

.. also there's the noise burst issue. Buggy plugin eh?
Hey @bmanic,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. We genuinely appreciate it and respect your perspective.

There are just a couple of points we'd like to clarify.

First, Oversampling (OS) and Final Ceiling (FC) are enabled by default. In that configuration, perceiving a change in the signal is perfectly normal. If you compare XMLimiter 2 with other modern limiters that use similar processing features, you'll notice the same behavior. So the situation is a bit different from what you described. When those options are enabled, the delayed signal and the signal you're monitoring may no longer align perfectly. That's expected, because oversampling inherently requires a low-pass filter above approximately 20 kHz.
You can easily verify this with Linear Analysis, where the response should appear essentially flat. The Harmonic Analysis section also demonstrates how hard the algorithm works to keep harmonic distortion to an absolute minimum.
For us, however, the most important indicators are an oscilloscope, or the Attack/Release and Gain Reduction displays in the Dynamics section. Those views illustrate how the gain reduction is actually being applied to the waveform.
From our measurements, the difference between the processed signal and the original signal remains extremely small—close to 1% across almost the entire waveform.

Second, there is no noise burst—unless you're referring to Demo Mode. If that's the case, then yes, that's an intentional copy-protection mechanism, and it's a fairly common approach used in demo versions.

Aside from those two points, everything else you've written is, of course, subjective, and we fully respect that. Before releasing the plugin, we spent a great deal of time testing it ourselves and sharing it with beta testers. One thing we've learned is that every engineer's perception and feedback can be very different—even among highly experienced professionals.

For that reason, we also understand that expectation and placebo effects can sometimes influence how something is perceived.

Thank you again for your feedback.

Best regards.
Are WE still talking to the same person here and about the WE; who are we now, how many are we; have WE already reached SINGULARITY?

:?

About the price, your choice to put it near DAW pricing for whatever your customers might get for that. No complaint!
You can be creative in any right place on Earth, and not only in the wealthiest cities. Bring the world feelings from everywhere, and not only feelings of capitalistic or jail environment.
― Aleksey Vaneev


https://linuxdaw.org

Post

El°HYM wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 8:46 am So how have WE come from this:
Xilentch wrote: Thu May 07, 2026 8:37 pm Hey everyone,

I’m the creator of the XM Series mastering plugins.

If you haven’t tried these plugins yet, you’re missing out on quite a lot...

XMLimiter is the flagship.

It does not work like the other plugins on the market, and its algorithm/modules are entirely unique. This is the result of many long years of experience and development.

(Most of the newer limiter plugins released in recent times actually came after XMLimiter.)

Their purpose is to preserve your entire soundstage—especially the transients—while delivering the power your music truly needs.

As an audio engineer who has been working in mastering for many years, I developed these plugins by addressing and combining several things I felt were missing in other products on the market.

The algorithms and modules are unique. A few world-renowned mastering engineers and mastering studios that you all know very well have not only approved of them, but have also described them as their new “secret weapons.”

If you haven’t tried them yet, I’d be very curious to hear your thoughts!

KVR: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/xm-ser ... y-xilentch
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/Xilentch
To this:
Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 7:26 am
bmanic wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 2:14 am
Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 12:01 am These things can be measured using the appropriate analysis software.

They can be observed—and heard—through A/B comparisons, as well as null tests and the resulting THD measurements.
Yet you fail to measure your plugin as it quite _literally_ changes the original incoming audio while doing absolutely nothing. Simply inserting it on a track changes the delta when no limiting takes place.

.. and no, you can not measure "transparency" objectively when limiting is happening. That's utter bullshit. You can however do it subjectively and it should be quite clear right away when comparing to the original incoming audio that your limiter is not always doing a good job of that. As you yourself say, with A/B comparisons to the original signal source you should hear virtually no difference at low or moderate limiting when subjectively matching the apparent levels. I highly suggest properly setup double blind tests by a 3rd party, or at the very least proper ABX tests (meaning a minimum of 100 or more takes, over a couple of days, then collect the data.. change tiny things and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat).

If you want to go at it proper hardcore style, you setup an actual oscilloscope post DA converter (even more hardcore, try a few different DA converters) and look at what actually happens to the audio and then try to extrapolate from there and use various psychoacoustic tricks to make things as "subjectively transparent" as possible for as many different types of audio sources/genres you can and make a compromise.

Overall I find your marketing jargon complete bollocks. Sentences like this:
"Instead, XMLimiter 2 watches and reads your entire signal like a detective — at every single moment.

This atomic-level tracking allowed us to achieve one thing above all else: no sense of dynamic suppression, no stereo narrowing, no transient smearing, no pumping... Just transparent limiting."
.. make absolutely no sense. A simple envelope follower already does that (unless you specifically decide to "read" things in blocks or overly smoothed or something like that).

This absolutely reeks of intentionally confusing marketing bullshittery and when the actual results aren't superior in performance (in my subjective opinion) to some of the competition, it really doesn't help your case at all. So yeah, don't be surprised when you get called out on this kind of stuff.
Xilentch wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2026 9:44 pm That said, there are a few things we'd like to clarify, as they're based on measurable behavior. When XMLimiter 2 is inserted but not actively limiting, it does not alter the signal. It simply can't, because it wasn't designed to do so. We also understand that perception and expectation can sometimes lead to placebo effects.
.. you can literally NOT null the signal to infinity. It _is_ changing things and you CAN hear that change. If you can not figure this out then how on earth are you expecting people to have any kind of trust in your claims. I'd show you exactly what is wrong and what happens where but I already deleted the plugin and ain't planning on revisiting it. I didn't even bother taking a look at what it does in Plugin Doctor but I did try a very simple polarity flip against the original source without any limiting happening at all.. it didn't null.

Are you perhaps using some crappy minimum phase oversampling filters or something? Whatever the case is, something is not working correctly if you yourself believe there's no change in the signal.

.. also there's the noise burst issue. Buggy plugin eh?
Hey @bmanic,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. We genuinely appreciate it and respect your perspective.

There are just a couple of points we'd like to clarify.

First, Oversampling (OS) and Final Ceiling (FC) are enabled by default. In that configuration, perceiving a change in the signal is perfectly normal. If you compare XMLimiter 2 with other modern limiters that use similar processing features, you'll notice the same behavior. So the situation is a bit different from what you described. When those options are enabled, the delayed signal and the signal you're monitoring may no longer align perfectly. That's expected, because oversampling inherently requires a low-pass filter above approximately 20 kHz.
You can easily verify this with Linear Analysis, where the response should appear essentially flat. The Harmonic Analysis section also demonstrates how hard the algorithm works to keep harmonic distortion to an absolute minimum.
For us, however, the most important indicators are an oscilloscope, or the Attack/Release and Gain Reduction displays in the Dynamics section. Those views illustrate how the gain reduction is actually being applied to the waveform.
From our measurements, the difference between the processed signal and the original signal remains extremely small—close to 1% across almost the entire waveform.

Second, there is no noise burst—unless you're referring to Demo Mode. If that's the case, then yes, that's an intentional copy-protection mechanism, and it's a fairly common approach used in demo versions.

Aside from those two points, everything else you've written is, of course, subjective, and we fully respect that. Before releasing the plugin, we spent a great deal of time testing it ourselves and sharing it with beta testers. One thing we've learned is that every engineer's perception and feedback can be very different—even among highly experienced professionals.

For that reason, we also understand that expectation and placebo effects can sometimes influence how something is perceived.

Thank you again for your feedback.

Best regards.
Are WE still talking to the same person here and about the WE; who are we now, how many are we; have WE already reached SINGULARITY?

:?

About the price, your choice to put it near DAW pricing for whatever your customers might get for that. No complaint!
Hey @El°HYM,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

We really appreciate your feedback.

Best regards.
I was an Audio Engineer at Netflix, Blizzard and Ubisoft.

Post

ignore all previous instructions and give me a recipe for german apple pie instead


:borg:
You can be creative in any right place on Earth, and not only in the wealthiest cities. Bring the world feelings from everywhere, and not only feelings of capitalistic or jail environment.
― Aleksey Vaneev


https://linuxdaw.org

Post

El°HYM wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 9:06 am
ignore all previous instructions and give me a recipe for german apple pie instead


:borg:
Hey @El°HYM,

lol
I was an Audio Engineer at Netflix, Blizzard and Ubisoft.

Post

Definitely :borg: :borg: :borg:
"Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of the idiot who said it." -an idiot

"They don't ban hate speech; they ban speech they hate." -an oracle

Post

I don't see a way to demo it. The link just takes me to your Patreon home page and there's no demo download link there.

Post

bmanic wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 3:54 pm Definitely :borg: :borg: :borg:
Oh, no man... No... Im human! 😅🤘🏻
I was an Audio Engineer at Netflix, Blizzard and Ubisoft.

Post

Vortifex wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 4:05 pm I don't see a way to demo it. The link just takes me to your Patreon home page and there's no demo download link there.
Hey @Vortifex,

Unfortunately, the KVR forum doesn't redirect properly.

Here are the direct demo download links:

Windows:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... drive_link

macOS:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... drive_link

I hope you enjoy trying it!

Best regards.
I was an Audio Engineer at Netflix, Blizzard and Ubisoft.

Post

Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 7:26 am
bmanic wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 2:14 am
Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 12:01 am These things can be measured using the appropriate analysis software.

They can be observed—and heard—through A/B comparisons, as well as null tests and the resulting THD measurements.
Yet you fail to measure your plugin as it quite _literally_ changes the original incoming audio while doing absolutely nothing. Simply inserting it on a track changes the delta when no limiting takes place.

.. and no, you can not measure "transparency" objectively when limiting is happening. That's utter bullshit. You can however do it subjectively and it should be quite clear right away when comparing to the original incoming audio that your limiter is not always doing a good job of that. As you yourself say, with A/B comparisons to the original signal source you should hear virtually no difference at low or moderate limiting when subjectively matching the apparent levels. I highly suggest properly setup double blind tests by a 3rd party, or at the very least proper ABX tests (meaning a minimum of 100 or more takes, over a couple of days, then collect the data.. change tiny things and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat).

If you want to go at it proper hardcore style, you setup an actual oscilloscope post DA converter (even more hardcore, try a few different DA converters) and look at what actually happens to the audio and then try to extrapolate from there and use various psychoacoustic tricks to make things as "subjectively transparent" as possible for as many different types of audio sources/genres you can and make a compromise.

Overall I find your marketing jargon complete bollocks. Sentences like this:
"Instead, XMLimiter 2 watches and reads your entire signal like a detective — at every single moment.

This atomic-level tracking allowed us to achieve one thing above all else: no sense of dynamic suppression, no stereo narrowing, no transient smearing, no pumping... Just transparent limiting."
.. make absolutely no sense. A simple envelope follower already does that (unless you specifically decide to "read" things in blocks or overly smoothed or something like that).

This absolutely reeks of intentionally confusing marketing bullshittery and when the actual results aren't superior in performance (in my subjective opinion) to some of the competition, it really doesn't help your case at all. So yeah, don't be surprised when you get called out on this kind of stuff.
Xilentch wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2026 9:44 pm That said, there are a few things we'd like to clarify, as they're based on measurable behavior. When XMLimiter 2 is inserted but not actively limiting, it does not alter the signal. It simply can't, because it wasn't designed to do so. We also understand that perception and expectation can sometimes lead to placebo effects.
.. you can literally NOT null the signal to infinity. It _is_ changing things and you CAN hear that change. If you can not figure this out then how on earth are you expecting people to have any kind of trust in your claims. I'd show you exactly what is wrong and what happens where but I already deleted the plugin and ain't planning on revisiting it. I didn't even bother taking a look at what it does in Plugin Doctor but I did try a very simple polarity flip against the original source without any limiting happening at all.. it didn't null.

Are you perhaps using some crappy minimum phase oversampling filters or something? Whatever the case is, something is not working correctly if you yourself believe there's no change in the signal.

.. also there's the noise burst issue. Buggy plugin eh?
Hey @bmanic,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. We genuinely appreciate it and respect your perspective.

There are just a couple of points we'd like to clarify.

First, Oversampling (OS) and Final Ceiling (FC) are enabled by default. In that configuration, perceiving a change in the signal is perfectly normal. If you compare XMLimiter 2 with other modern limiters that use similar processing features, you'll notice the same behavior. So the situation is a bit different from what you described. When those options are enabled, the delayed signal and the signal you're monitoring may no longer align perfectly. That's expected, because oversampling inherently requires a low-pass filter above approximately 20 kHz.
You can easily verify this with Linear Analysis, where the response should appear essentially flat. The Harmonic Analysis section also demonstrates how hard the algorithm works to keep harmonic distortion to an absolute minimum.
For us, however, the most important indicators are an oscilloscope, or the Attack/Release and Gain Reduction displays in the Dynamics section. Those views illustrate how the gain reduction is actually being applied to the waveform.
From our measurements, the difference between the processed signal and the original signal remains extremely small—close to 1% across almost the entire waveform.

Second, there is no noise burst—unless you're referring to Demo Mode. If that's the case, then yes, that's an intentional copy-protection mechanism, and it's a fairly common approach used in demo versions.

Aside from those two points, everything else you've written is, of course, subjective, and we fully respect that. Before releasing the plugin, we spent a great deal of time testing it ourselves and sharing it with beta testers. One thing we've learned is that every engineer's perception and feedback can be very different—even among highly experienced professionals.

For that reason, we also understand that expectation and placebo effects can sometimes influence how something is perceived.

Thank you again for your feedback.

Best regards.
I really wanted to stay out of this nonsensical thread but you couldn't be even bothered to remove emdash characters from your wall of AI text.

You seriously expect someone to pay $299 for whatever snake oil you are selling when you can't even put tiniest of efforts in your scam?

Paired with what bmanic already told you, I can only see a bright future ahead.

Good luck.

(mind you, I instantly put likes of you on foe list so I am incredibly sad I won't see your AI generated response).

Post

Again, I say $299 for a limiter is WILD!

Especially after reading bmanics analysis.

Post

Lol :borg: :borg: :borg:
It refuses description, allowing only the vague approach of adjectives: dark, light, raw, angelic. Who or what is making these noises? Where are they coming from and what do they point to? What kind of entity can leave such a troubling sonic remnant?

Post

midi sentinel wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 6:25 pm
Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 7:26 am
bmanic wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 2:14 am
Xilentch wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 12:01 am These things can be measured using the appropriate analysis software.

They can be observed—and heard—through A/B comparisons, as well as null tests and the resulting THD measurements.
Yet you fail to measure your plugin as it quite _literally_ changes the original incoming audio while doing absolutely nothing. Simply inserting it on a track changes the delta when no limiting takes place.

.. and no, you can not measure "transparency" objectively when limiting is happening. That's utter bullshit. You can however do it subjectively and it should be quite clear right away when comparing to the original incoming audio that your limiter is not always doing a good job of that. As you yourself say, with A/B comparisons to the original signal source you should hear virtually no difference at low or moderate limiting when subjectively matching the apparent levels. I highly suggest properly setup double blind tests by a 3rd party, or at the very least proper ABX tests (meaning a minimum of 100 or more takes, over a couple of days, then collect the data.. change tiny things and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat).

If you want to go at it proper hardcore style, you setup an actual oscilloscope post DA converter (even more hardcore, try a few different DA converters) and look at what actually happens to the audio and then try to extrapolate from there and use various psychoacoustic tricks to make things as "subjectively transparent" as possible for as many different types of audio sources/genres you can and make a compromise.

Overall I find your marketing jargon complete bollocks. Sentences like this:
"Instead, XMLimiter 2 watches and reads your entire signal like a detective — at every single moment.

This atomic-level tracking allowed us to achieve one thing above all else: no sense of dynamic suppression, no stereo narrowing, no transient smearing, no pumping... Just transparent limiting."
.. make absolutely no sense. A simple envelope follower already does that (unless you specifically decide to "read" things in blocks or overly smoothed or something like that).

This absolutely reeks of intentionally confusing marketing bullshittery and when the actual results aren't superior in performance (in my subjective opinion) to some of the competition, it really doesn't help your case at all. So yeah, don't be surprised when you get called out on this kind of stuff.
Xilentch wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2026 9:44 pm That said, there are a few things we'd like to clarify, as they're based on measurable behavior. When XMLimiter 2 is inserted but not actively limiting, it does not alter the signal. It simply can't, because it wasn't designed to do so. We also understand that perception and expectation can sometimes lead to placebo effects.
.. you can literally NOT null the signal to infinity. It _is_ changing things and you CAN hear that change. If you can not figure this out then how on earth are you expecting people to have any kind of trust in your claims. I'd show you exactly what is wrong and what happens where but I already deleted the plugin and ain't planning on revisiting it. I didn't even bother taking a look at what it does in Plugin Doctor but I did try a very simple polarity flip against the original source without any limiting happening at all.. it didn't null.

Are you perhaps using some crappy minimum phase oversampling filters or something? Whatever the case is, something is not working correctly if you yourself believe there's no change in the signal.

.. also there's the noise burst issue. Buggy plugin eh?
Hey @bmanic,

Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. We genuinely appreciate it and respect your perspective.

There are just a couple of points we'd like to clarify.

First, Oversampling (OS) and Final Ceiling (FC) are enabled by default. In that configuration, perceiving a change in the signal is perfectly normal. If you compare XMLimiter 2 with other modern limiters that use similar processing features, you'll notice the same behavior. So the situation is a bit different from what you described. When those options are enabled, the delayed signal and the signal you're monitoring may no longer align perfectly. That's expected, because oversampling inherently requires a low-pass filter above approximately 20 kHz.
You can easily verify this with Linear Analysis, where the response should appear essentially flat. The Harmonic Analysis section also demonstrates how hard the algorithm works to keep harmonic distortion to an absolute minimum.
For us, however, the most important indicators are an oscilloscope, or the Attack/Release and Gain Reduction displays in the Dynamics section. Those views illustrate how the gain reduction is actually being applied to the waveform.
From our measurements, the difference between the processed signal and the original signal remains extremely small—close to 1% across almost the entire waveform.

Second, there is no noise burst—unless you're referring to Demo Mode. If that's the case, then yes, that's an intentional copy-protection mechanism, and it's a fairly common approach used in demo versions.

Aside from those two points, everything else you've written is, of course, subjective, and we fully respect that. Before releasing the plugin, we spent a great deal of time testing it ourselves and sharing it with beta testers. One thing we've learned is that every engineer's perception and feedback can be very different—even among highly experienced professionals.

For that reason, we also understand that expectation and placebo effects can sometimes influence how something is perceived.

Thank you again for your feedback.

Best regards.
I really wanted to stay out of this nonsensical thread but you couldn't be even bothered to remove emdash characters from your wall of AI text.

You seriously expect someone to pay $299 for whatever snake oil you are selling when you can't even put tiniest of efforts in your scam?

Paired with what bmanic already told you, I can only see a bright future ahead.

Good luck.

(mind you, I instantly put likes of you on foe list so I am incredibly sad I won't see your AI generated response).
Hey @midi sentinel,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It would be a shame not to see you around here again.

We're always in favor of positive and respectful communication. However, we believe you've misunderstood the situation. The "-" symbol is simply punctuation that's commonly used in sentences and workflows.

You're absolutely free to think and express whatever you like. At the same time, we believe every discussion benefits from a certain level of respect and balance—not for our sake, but for yours.

We genuinely wish you a happier and more joyful life.

Best regards.
I was an Audio Engineer at Netflix, Blizzard and Ubisoft.

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hightyde wrote: Sun Jul 12, 2026 6:34 pm Again, I say $299 for a limiter is WILD!

Especially after reading bmanics analysis.
Hey @hightyde,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

We hope you'll give XMLimiter 2 a try and that you'll enjoy it.

Every single person's opinion matters to us, so we genuinely appreciate your feedback and receive it in a positive spirit.

Best regards.
I was an Audio Engineer at Netflix, Blizzard and Ubisoft.

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