jellodog
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Must be nice to not have to fight the huge supply chain demand from NDSP, Line 6 etc., for the SHARC supply.
Fractal Audio Systems AM4 - Amp Modeler
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Must be nice to not have to fight the huge supply chain demand from NDSP, Line 6 etc., for the SHARC supply.
Lysander
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Pretty certain that SHARC DSPs are easier/cheaper to source than Keystone's - and SHARCs are usually much easier to incorporate into a design, as they require less accompanying hardware to work.
@FractalAudio might be kind enough to shed some light on why
but what's pretty amazing IMHO is that they still managed to hit the $700 price target. Nice job.
ZenrigsMan
Newbie
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Get the kettle on, I'm coming round...
Too late I’ve already eaten the included chocolate Santa.
Time to play badly through a brilliant device.
Initial impressions are just wow.
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The actual latency of the AM4 is:I don't why I watched this but the comments are hilarious
someone is claiming the latency of a Plexi is -70, that you actually hear the sound before you hit the strings
Unbelievable
No blocks: 1.33 ms
Amp only: 2 ms
Amp + Cab: 2 ms
Drive + Amp + Cab: 2.67 ms
The cab processing adds no latency. Any extra measured latency is due to the IRs themselves. IR's are inherently band-limited and therefore have "latency" between the IR beginning and the peak in the response. A real speaker cab has "latency" if your method of measurement is looking for the peak in the response (which is technically an incorrect method).
We could reduce the latency by using minimum-phase resampling (the Axe-Fx offers this as an option). Many products are minimum-phase resampling by default. However, minimum-phase resampling causes phase distortion which I personally find more objectionable than an extra ms or so of latency.
Regardless, an average latency of 2 ms is extremely low.
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SHARCs are cheaper. We haven't had any issues with sourcing Keystones. The TI DSPs require a little more ancillary hardware (PMICs, reset logic, etc.).Pretty certain that SHARC DSPs are easier/cheaper to source than Keystone's - and SHARCs are usually much easier to incorporate into a design, as they require less accompanying hardware to work.
@FractalAudio might be kind enough to shed some light on why
However, the Keystones outperform the SHARCs in several key areas: memory bandwidth, on-board LCD interface with video frame buffer, more robust USB implementation, superior per-clock DSP performance.
The SHARCs, however, benefit from on-board FIR and IIR accelerators. The FIR accelerator is particularly beneficial because you can process IRs with it and offload the DSP.
We continue to use SHARCs and have an upcoming product based on them.
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Careful buddy, you've given TOP fuel for their Fractal Derangement Syndrome fire.New AM4 beta firmware tone & feel is
I'm genuinely surprised that that it can be this different and indeed noticeably _better_ compared to how it was on the AF3 just 3 months ago.
"It's even more realer now".
jellodog
Rock Star
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Hah!
Well whatever you did, the amps are simply gorgeous to play. No complaints here.
I may be dumb but I feel better about paying 100€ more for the Cioks that's made in europe instead of China. I'm sure Harley benton is absolutely fine though
People make such noise about latency quoting silly figures people shouldn’t notice at all.
As an older person (56) I do wonder how all these big bands in the 70’s and 80’s played live without IEM’s and being more than 5 feet (5 ms latency as sound travels at approximately 1ft per ms) from a monitor or their cabs, let alone 10 or 20 feet on big stages.. Good job they were all superstars and focused on playing instead of physics.
Tracking audio in a studio environment (where round trip latency can and does matter) is very different to just playing.
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JiveTurkey
Goatlord
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People make such noise about latency quoting silly figures people shouldn’t notice at all.
As an older person (56) I do wonder how all these big bands in the 70’s and 80’s played live without IEM’s and being more than 5 feet (5 ms latency as sound travels at approximately 1ft per ms) from a monitor or their cabs, let alone 10 or 20 feet on big stages.. Good job they were all superstars and focused on playing instead of physics.
Tracking audio in a studio environment (where round trip latency can and does matter) is very different to just playing.
Yes, and it's an uniformed opinion. Latency is a trade-off. We could reduce the latency on an AM4 to under 1.5 ms by using minimum-phase resampling but that adds phase distortion.
Is phase distortion important? I think so. Remember when CDs first came out. The published specs were phenomenal. Ruler flat frequency response, nearly 100 dB of dynamic range. Yet, after the initial excitement died down people started complaining they sounded harsh and the cymbals didn't sound right. That was phase distortion. Sure, the magnitude of the frequency response was ruler flat but the phase response was anything but. This was due to the analog anti-aliasing filters. They introduced considerable phase distortion.
Minimum-phase resampling is the same thing. The magnitude of the frequency response is flat but the phase response is not. This causes a delay in the higher frequencies. This, in turn, manifests as harsh highs and "disembodied" distortion. The harmonics of the distortion don't align correctly in time and make the distortion sound "separated" from the fundamental.
Leo is a good reviewer but for this particular metric he is doing a disservice to the community. Latency, without attendant phase response, is an incomplete measurement.
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Stratzrus
Roadie
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"Upcoming product"...Nice!
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I should add that the phase distortion in CDs was solved with the advent of oversampling converters. The filtering was then done in the digital domain using linear-phase filters (analogous to the linear-phase resampling filters used in our products).
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The quantities of DSPs that the MI companies buy is dwarfed by other industries, particularly automotive. The automotive electronics industry is about 10 times bigger than the entire electronic MI industry.
Sascha Franck
Goatlord
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Well, while I defenitely support that kinda thinking, in this case, given that the device this is supposed to power and all the components inside are MIC, I don't think it's too important.
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