UltraRes vs NormalRes

[jlynnb1]

if you listen with phones theres a resonance on the low that isn't there on the first...it's subtle but it's there.

 

[axel]

Sounds like a large fly trapped inside a Low-Res bass drum.

 

[Morphosis]

Clark, we heard you well! Normal-res (Lo-res) 1024 point (approx. 21,3ms) vs. UltraRes. If fremen is right = vs. IR content of 28ms. If this is true, the comparison sucks, sorry. But if so, i wonder why i hear clearly a difference in the Lo-End department. 28ms to 21,3ms? I shouldn`t notice any differences, no?! Why? Because i can`t hear any differences between 1024 and 2048 points (21,5 vs. 42ms) ... Curious!

Take one with full potential of 170ms or clear out, that this is one with a RAW length of this capacity.

Secondly: I`m with you: Since Cliff post the first freq.-response diagrams it was clear, that Ultra res can`t be a game changer, but do something for more accurate low-end - scientific wise.

A liked "normal res IR" will still work better for somebody than a "not-so-liked" "UltraRes". hat`s clear. At the end it`s flavour, IMHO. More scientific "trueness" must not result in better liking ...

Hopefully i will find time tomorroow to capture my cabinet twice: "Normal IR" and a "UltraRes" and will figure it out for myself ... in comparison to my real cab vs. the FRFR + IR ... we`ll see ..

 

[VegaBaby]

But that's the thing. We shouldn't need to learn what to listen to since we all have that "tone in our head" that we want. Is that UltraRes tight low end a good thing? 80% didn't think so based on this comparison.

well... your poll asked "which one is UltraRes" and not "which one sounds better?". that's what folks jumped onto straight away though. that's why I said, people don't really know yet what to listen for to point out the UltraRes. I knew straight away which one was which. I had heard a few before and know where the differences are by now. if one or the other sounds better to someone is surely up to taste. I definitely prefer the openess of UltraRes, the definition of the frequencies. LowRes has something in the lower frequencies I always tried to dial out but couldn't quite, because then there was something missing. UltraRes seems to just do that by itself...

 

[ninja9]

LowRes has something in the lower frequencies I always tried to dial out but couldn't quite, because then there was something missing. UltraRes seems to just do that by itself...

I agree, I used to cut a lot of bass to tidy up the low frequencies but then you can be left with a thin sound. Ultra Res is significantly clearer and better defined with less smearing of frequencies, letting the bass breathe. Less congested, all frequencies sit nicely as you said.

Huge upgrade for me. My sound is more musical, it really sings.

 

[Speculum Speculorum]

Yeah, well as I said last night I had been listening to guitars all damn day and could hardly tell a difference. To me, the 2nd clip does sound wider, and at the same time better controlled in the lows. As I said, my initial response was the second in the clip.

As far as what sounds better? How the hell should we know? Seriously!? Who could tell the difference between two tracks of crappy playing completely out of context?

Clark - you sometimes, every once in a while, make decent guitar tones. Most of your bravado on this forum is basically just childish tooting of your own horn. Get a life.

 

[jlynnb1]

it also depends on the tones being used, I'm sure...what might not be apparent here might be more so with a different tone. it could also be more perception and feel than some "AHA!!" sounds you just hear.

 

[ML SOUND LAB]

Sure. And I'd also love to test longer IR's if there are some available. This was just one of the first UltraRes IR's out there that Cliff himself posted for us to try out. Somehow I jumped to a conclusion that these would show us how good UltraRes actually is so I wouldn't go that far and say:

the comparison sucks

There is no need to feel threatened by this poll or my words and there's no point on defending UltraRes either unless you've hear it do a lot better in an A/B test. Until we get longer UltraRes IR's this is the closest thing to the truth.

Just realize that we're on the same side here. I'm in no way against free updates. :lol I want to maximize my tone and I want UltraRes to blow me away. These are the poll results and I didn't make them, you guys did. I didn't know the IR length. I assumed it was using UltraRes to the fullest because Cliff posted "free UltraRes IRs".

If you have resentment towards me in this situation then maybe you should take a second and think where it's actually coming from. Feeling bad because a study is saying your new toy isn't that much better than the old one? What's next? I purposefully made this poll so that it would seem this way? :lol C'mon guys...

Doesn't really make me want to contribute more to this forum. I don't mean to get all drama up in here but this always happens in polls. Someone's not happy with the results and starts blaming the poll and its creator that it's crap. Where's my "thanks for the hard work" medal. I'd love one of those.

 

[VegaBaby]

Less congested

interestingly someone in this topic described the first one to have more "thumb". to me that "thumb" just sounds congested. just a smear of frequencies that seem to do "oomph" which may be called "thumb", but to me is very undesirable. but tastes definitely differ on that...

 

[Speculum Speculorum]

Doesn't really make me want to contribute more to this forum. I don't mean to get all drama up in here but this always happens in polls. Someone's not happy with the results and starts blaming the poll and its creator that it's crap. Where's my "thanks for the hard work" medal. I'd love one of those.

Don't threaten us with a good time, Clark. If you leave, I'm sure the door will hit your ass on the way out. If you know how these polls are going to go when you post them, one would think your skin would get thicker.

 

[Morphosis]

If you have resentment towards me

No resentments. No problems with you! I even like good AB comparisons much more, than reading about "awesomeness" of UltraRes at once when the majority think normal-res would be Ultra-Res in your comparison. And yes, i was wrong too. Does not matter. But a test, which can`t make the difference maximal transparent because the source file has not the potential to max out the differences between the common technology to the new one is not the best one. Right? IF the source was never longer than the 28ms fremen put into discussion.

I want UltraRes to blow me away.

I dont think they CAN BLOW anybody AWAY. Game Changer could blow ME away, but as stated: UltraRes could push on the accurateness of reality, but in fact: I did comparisons in the past with miced real cab vs. it`s counterpart of a 2048 IR. And they were IMHO spot on or at least nearly spot on! So, air is thin for improvements!

I will try to shoot some IRs myself, UltraRes and High/Normal res formats and compare them. And i`m really interested in the results i will get Will i "feel" a difference, when playing through FRFR? Will it be noticable audible on recordings? I will see ...

But one good thing, we shouldn`t overlook: UltraRes will be scientific more accurate by less CPU load in comparison to 2048 high-res. And this is a good thing!

And luckily we all can participate from this improvement Cliff give us for free! And that`s cool, no?! I appreciate this!

 

[Randy4Guitars]

Well I thought they both sounded pretty good. I'm used to the "can you really tell a difference" arguments from my audiophile diddling and think this is an interesting comparison.

Thanks for the hard work Clark!!

 

[StevenMcNulty]

Don't threaten us with a good time, Clark. If you leave, I'm sure the door will hit your ass on the way out. If you know how these polls are going to go when you post them, one would think your skin would get thicker.

Dear lord, people. Can everybody just chill the flip out. You don't have to like Clark, but he made a good point with this little experiment and we all learned something out of it. He didn't say anything hostile towards any of you so take what you want out of this post and if you're going to comment, then add to the discussion in a civilized way.

I myself got it wrong like most people which I'm sure is because I've only had time to play around with the new UltraRes IRs for about 20 minutes so I still don't know quite what to listen for specifically in an audio clip alone. The difference is subtle, but it is there. The point is this: don't listen to the hype and jump to conclusions. Play around with it, learn how to get the best out of it, and make the decision for yourself.

 

[fremen]

Another thing people might not realize here is that this was not UltraRes vs HighRes. This was UltraRes vs LowRes/NormalRes. (Correct me if I'm wrong but that's how I understood "NormalRes".) So there really should be a big difference there. I think I feel it. I think the UltraRes is a bit faster... but then again I know when I'm playing with UltraRes because I'm turning it on so it could be all psychological.

Whatever this UltraRes thing is it's welcome and I probably will be using it since it's scientifically more accurate. Knowing this forum we will get at least two dozen threads about how amazing the UltraRes is compared to what the Axe-Fx was before and how "the Axe-Fx is finally getting me the tones that I want jadda jadda jadda". That's fine and I hope that it is the case to as many people as possible. I was able to get amazing tones before UltraRes and I'll be able to do so after it.

Again I think the key here is that the original IR was not long enough, so it really mitigates the benefits of ultrares. For me, though, the improvements since firmware 9 are much more important than ultrares at this point. I noticed a difference on some of the Ownhammer provided (I loaded the normal resolution counterparts of the files for a direct comparison), not on all all them (not with the fane, which I tested with someone else clean hiwatt preset). My opinion may change when many more ultrares IRs will be available, using the full potential of the technology. My understanding is that even the Ownhammers are not 200 ms IRs ; I've checked the .wav files of the latest cabs I downloaded, the 48 khz mono files (the ones we would use for conversion) are from 14 kb to 70 kb. Maybe Kevin provided other files to Cliffs, it's not clear if these are the same .wav files from the packs available to users who already bought them or not


Anyway since 13 was released I spent 90 % of my time working on something else, not involving ultrares ; here's a short preview : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fKwoeQ6ET8 (this is a very rough video I did ten days ago for some friends, that's why it's "unlisted" ; I'm almost done with making one "idealized" preset for each hi gain amp now)

 

[Fabio KTG]

Wow, there's a lot of hostility in this forum today. What's up with that? I appreciate ALL of your hard work, Clark, even if others don't. It would appear that some people don't like to be shown up in a public forum. I guess that's their problem mate. I was completely surprised by the results, if i'm honest. I like the idea of Ultra Res, but I'm totally stoked with my current tones anyway. Perhaps you could do a more "tuneful" AB/B comparison, next time?

 

[lern2swim]

Again I think the key here is that the original IR was not long enough, so it really mitigates the benefits of ultrares.

So, is the takeaway that, if an IR is not long enough for UR, it will end up sounding (subjectively) not as good as the original IR?

 

[ML SOUND LAB]

Dear lord, people. Can everybody just chill the flip out. You don't have to like Clark, but he made a good point with this little experiment and we all learned something out of it. He didn't say anything hostile towards any of you so take what you want out of this post and if you're going to comment, then add to the discussion in a civilized way.

I myself got it wrong like most people which I'm sure is because I've only had time to play around with the new UltraRes IRs for about 20 minutes so I still don't know quite what to listen for specifically in an audio clip alone. The difference is subtle, but it is there. The point is this: don't listen to the hype and jump to conclusions. Play around with it, learn how to get the best out of it, and make the decision for yourself.

+1. Exactly what you said.

Guys answer me this... if people liked the shorter IR in this example what kind of logic leads to people liking an ever longer IR more? That's what I'm wondering about. Most people heard a difference so the problem was not that the clips sounded the same because the UR was too short.

But once again. I liked the feel of the UR more. It was faster. More attack. More responsiveness. I liked it. I'm not against UR in any way, I like it.

Please provide me with a full length UR IR and I'll do another test like this so we can stop pointing fingers and actually achieving something.

 

[fremen]

I like the idea of Ultra Res, but I'm totally stoked with my current tones anyway.

+ 1

Perhaps you could do a more "tuneful" AB/B comparison, next time?

+ 2

So, is the takeaway that, if an IR is not long enough for UR, it will end up sounding (subjectively) not as good as the original IR?

No, it won't sound that much better than the normal hi res IR

 

[lern2swim]

No, it won't sound that much better than the normal hi res IR

Say whatever else you want about this thread, but that is not what's been indicated here whatsoever.

 

[fremen]

we obviously read things differently. However, English is not my native language