Resurrecting this thread to provide a review of Morphit compared to the Sonarworks. As I wrote previously in the thread, I am a fan of their room correction software. I also use a lot of the TB plugins. So I have no preferential attitude towards one company or the other.
My testing was done at three settings. 100%, 75% and 50% wet. Bellow that the differences were so subtle, it wasn't worth testing. After thorough listening, I decided to focus only on the 75% and 100% wet signal. At 50% blend, the differences are fairly small between the two. The characteristic of each correction is there, but it has a lot less obvious effect on the signal.
As far as the source material, I used a bunch of tracks that I know very well(nothing personal, just to keep things neutral), flac files.
I also adjusted the levels between the plugins to the same loudness and to the uncorrected version, using a bunch of metering and obviously my ears. I have mapped the fx racks so that i can easily switch between different versions seamlessly, and I could choose easily which version to listen to. The comparisons were always done between the same correction amount, not between 100% Morphit and 75% Sonarworks etc. When switching between correction amounts, I always ran through the baseline.
The headphones used were Beyer 990 Pros, with a lot of available signal to drive them beyond any decent level of listening. But I tried to keep things in line, listening at multiple volume, but mostly around a comfortable range.
I love these headphones and have been using them for years on and off and always was happy with checking mixes on them. However, they do have a few characteristics. A slightly recessed mid range and very particular top end sparkle (some love it, some don't) but they can show you a lot of details in the material. They do not sound like they have that typical hifi smile curve to them, but like any other headphones, the response is not perfect. They've been around for years, they are in most studios, a lot of love goes around for these headphones.
To get down to the results, I personally preferred the Morphit version of the correction. I used the standard calibration profiles and in Sonarworks case, I used the linear phase setting, to get the most out of it.
100%: The differences I think are enormous between the two. While they both try to address the same issues, I found that sonarworks takes things to extremes, the resulting sound having a very obvious "filtered" tone to it. the high end gets almost muffled (most likely just masked by the insane amount of mid range). The bass is bigger than on Morphit but I find it exaggerated and if I had to rely on that calibration to adjust a mix, it would probably not have enough low end for electronic music. On Morphit, the overall sound was tighter, with obviously tamed highs but the details were not missing. On some Jamiroquai records you could still hear the sticks hitting the hihats which through Sonarworks just sounded much lower in the mix and that kind of detail was just lost. Although the midrange is pushed forward, I still found that vocals sounded muffled/muddy through Sonarworks, the effect being more that guitars or mid range synths were being prominent, and again a lot of high end detail being lost, especially in the vocals and cymbals.
75%: The same overall characteristics were there, slightly less emphasised but pretty much the same points apply to this setting as well. I still felt that the TB version sounded a lot more natural, keeping the overall character of the headphones, but adjusting it to give you a better image. Overall I found that this level of correction was my choice as I felt that everything was tighter, tamer, but still keeping the feel that the headphones have and not losing their sonic signature.
I also ran this as a blind test to a couple of my friends, musicians, and their preferences were the same, the conclusion being the more natural sound coming from TB and the very obvious filtered character of Sonarworks. One of them even saying (at 100%) that it was like the music was coming from a radio.
So I will just go for Morphit personally, using it at 75% wet.
I haven't tested any individually calibrated headphones from Sonarworks but I have heard great things about it. Maybe some day in the future I'll get a chance. But as far as the general profile, for this particular model, I found it to be off.
This of course applies to this pair that I own. Can't really say how much they would differ from other ones, but like I said, I have used a bunch of them in all sort of places and I don't feel that my personal pair sounds any different than the ones I listened to in the past.
But as both companies offer their plugin in demo version (TB unlimited, Sonar 21 days) just try it for yourselves and see what sounds best. Just be careful with the loudness as they don't have similar ranges of adjustment on their output stage so you will have to do this in whatever DAW you use to test it.
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