Fractal Audio Systems mystery product speculation

[Elf]

The C in the designator on the PCB means capacitor. Different can sizes are for different voltages basically.
There's a ton of smaller ones that are surface mounted on top of the PCB but those are rectangular.

Some people believe that, another theory is that those are the little houses where the Tone Elf live and come out at night to work!

 

[DLC86]

Different can sizes are for different voltages basically

Not necessarily, a larger cap could have a higher capacitance but lower voltage

 

[Achilles]

Some people believe that, another theory is that those are the little houses where the Tone Elf live and come out at night to work!

How bout cookie elf?

 

[Achilles]

those are polarized capacitors.

The two with the black quarter moon slice on one side are polarized. the other two aren't.
Think the black slice is the positive side if I'm remembering right.

 

[0XI0]

Some people believe that, another theory is that those are the little houses where the Tone Elf live and come out at night to work!

nah tone elves live in saturating inductors and transformers. distortion magic is in the wireless translation of audio energy... i just wonder why u don't see many surface mount inductors/transformers. I bet there's an issue with the magnetic field getting so small they stop working right once you get below a certain size package. the triaxis has like 27 little baby toroidal inductors scattered about

 

[unix-guy]

The heat is caused by the CPU. Modern ARM-CPUs create *way* less heat.

You've obviously not read Cliff's comments on ARM...

Here is a somewhat recent comment:

ARMs aren't particularly good at DSP. They're getting better every generation but still nowhere near a dedicated DSP

So, an ARM in this case might be an "upgrade" regarding heat but a definite downgrade in processing power.

 

[unix-guy]

Per Leons response to Andy's post on FB, he is in on this new thing too, so I'd say he 100% means Fractal... :)

Interesting...

 

[unix-guy]

unix-guy - beta testing since 1876

I'm not sure exactly what that means but it's funny in any case

And for the record, I've only been beta testing a little over 2 years

 

[Desertdweller]

what are these cylinders for?

 

[Sascha Franck]

So, an ARM in this case might be an "upgrade" regarding heat but a definite downgrade in processing power.

So, how comes I can run 4 (!) fully stuffed Helixes on just one single core of my Macbook Air at 3.5ms RTL (an RME would even take this down to a bit below 3ms)? A dedicated OS with its sole purpose being to run one single application could certainly bring latency down yet again and free up some more CPU ressources.
You gotta explain this "downgraded" processing power to me.

 

[unix-guy]

So, how comes I can run 4 (!) fully stuffed Helixes on just one single core of my Macbook Air at 3.5ms RTL (an RME would even take this down to a bit below 3ms)? A dedicated OS with its sole purpose being to run one single application could certainly bring latency down yet again and free up some more CPU ressources.
You gotta explain this "downgraded" processing power to me.

Doesn't mean it's quality... A Fractal is not Helix Native

I'll just tag @FractalAudio here and maybe he'll educate you on why.

Personally, he's convinced me he knows a thing or two...

 

[Sascha Franck]

Doesn't mean it's quality... A Fractal is not Helix Native

As said, we're talking generic hardware and a generic OS. Both things dedicated and you could squeeze a lot more out of things.
Besides, I doubt an FM3 requires more than 4 x the CPU power of a Helix.

I'll just tag @FractalAudio here and maybe he'll educate you on why.

Yeah well, let's see.

 

[sashimi]

Sascha makes a very good point. I know we don’t have Fractal Native to find out how it would run on the same Apple chip, but if you’re suggesting the same computer couldn’t handle complex Fractal signal chains, I don’t believe you.

 

[unix-guy]

As said, we're talking generic hardware and a generic OS. Both things dedicated and you could squeeze a lot more out of things.
Besides, I doubt an FM3 requires more than 4 x the CPU power of a Helix.



Yeah well, let's see.

We are in a thread talking about a Fractal product.

Fractal products use high end DSPs with a specialized "OS" and specialized hardware to achieve the results Cliff expects.

So "generic" doesn't apply...

 

[unix-guy]

Sascha makes a very good point. I know we don’t have Fractal Native to find out how it would run on the same Apple chip, but if you’re suggesting the same computer couldn’t handle complex Fractal signal chains, I don’t believe you.

I could care less if you believe me or not... I posted a quote above from Cliff. I'm not making it up, just passing on what he said.

 

[norminal]

Interesting...

Oh come on! You’re a beta tester and I’m betting you’ve had one of these, whatever this is!

 

[sashimi]

I could care less if you believe me or not... I posted a quote above from Cliff. I'm not making it up, just passing on what he said.

Sorry if that came out wrong, no attitude intended, I have read the same quotes about ARM processors in the fractal wiki myself and never doubted them, just saying the bit about 4x helixes running on a mac and not breaking a sweat was a good counterpoint to it, and I’d like to hear Cliff’s response myself. I understand it’s probably unrealistic to expect a specialized modeler processor, be it Fractal, Helix or any other, to be as powerful and efficient as apple silicon anyway, with the billions of dollars probably spent developing it.

 

[Sascha Franck]

So "generic" doesn't apply...

So, are you saying that specialized DSPs and operating systems should perform worse than generic things? Or did you just not get what I was saying?

 

[Sascha Franck]

and I’d like to hear Cliff’s response myself.

Same here.

 

[timbuck3]

No matter what Cliff has up his sleeve, the competition set the bar low lately..

What competition? Tmp?