@ Cliff, why are the readings for Fractal lower than the "other" until the 10K explosion? Is this an indicator of idling quietness?????
This is meant to show better aliasing performance. Aliasing isn’t idling noise, it’s a set of nasty unmusical seemingly random frequencies which are, however, a product of the sound being played. You may not discern them but they make things sound like cheap digital crap.
The way to fight aliasing is oversampling, running effects internally at higher sampling rates, which costs CPU cycles.
So that “competitor”, judging by the file name, is Helix. It has the same type of DSP chip as AX8, but lets you use more effects simultaneously. More effects means more CPU cycles, so there’s a trade off. Line 6 apparently sacrificed oversampling. That’s why you have less crap in the top end in Axe-FX.