Thank you, I will report it.

Thank you!
Let’s see 14% less please

I've been demoing for the last few hours with unfinished mixes, completed mixes, mastered tracks and commercial releases and it just doesn't sound good or useful to me at all. I've been using 3 pairs of supported headphones and they all sound better without Sienna to my ears. The "rooms" were particularly disappointing because they don't sound very natural to me. This is the first plugin that's peaked my interest in a while from AA and it's a hard pass for me. I wanted to love it but I just don't. It's a bit of a head-scratcher really.

I will give it a try. Is it correct that there are only 2 activations included? Ideally I would need 3, 2 for a dual booting Mojave/Win10 machine, and another for an M1 Macbook Air.

Interested to see how it performs on the M1 Air.

There should be 5 trial slots, and you are allowed to use 2 the product on two computers at the same time (by computer I mean computer ID) which is the way Aquarius counts the authorizations.

Tried this out in Studio One with my trusty HD600 and Slate VSX. Sounds DEEP with the VSX, mega punchy and the lows are pretty huge. I didn't like it as much as my other options with the HD600 off the hop (Realiphones and Sonarworks). I'm not sure how useful I would find this as a referencing tool because it sounds wildly different from my speakers and from the other headphone options I have above. It is fun to listen to though! CPU usage was pretty high, but not insane for Acustica stuff.

Agreed with this. I'm not really getting it to be honest. Maybe I just don't like room sims, idk. To me it sounds nothing like an actual room

I think I'll pass on this too. I can't make it sound natural or neutral. Tried different settings for over an hour but the sound is always sort of hyped, not sure how to put it to be honest. It's nice to listen to music but not for mixing.

The reference plugin can be used as a headphone correction plugin. Some beta testers were already happy with it.
Thanks to all those who have already preferred our curve to other products, it is something we are used to since we experienced the same reactions during beta testing.
For people who are unsure or unconvinced (because they are used to another reference), I can assure you that for many people it was a matter of time.
I can see that others got used to it right away and are already expressing a preference for our correction system.
There will be a short book (about seventy pages) that will describe a bit all the process behind Sienna and will give some useful information about some solutions that have been adopted.
For the moment, I will focus on one basic consideration: there is no such thing as a single reference for headphone correction. Even the flat curve is an illusion: if your speaker is flat, nothing flat will reach your eardrum at all.
If you think in these terms, every reference is purely arbitrary. If you already like Sienna, you're all set! If, on the other hand, you still have doubts, think about which reference gives you a more organic sound, and above all allows you to better detect errors. Evaluate the system that makes subwoofers appear with balanced, organic low frequencies and not as a decomposed sound that you have to dose at 60% or 80%.


As for the rooms: there are only two, to give you an idea of the product. We will have drier rooms and more reverberated rooms. Remember that the GURU plugin allows you to dose anything that doesn't work for you: for example, if you hear the speakers in front of you too narrow, or if you hear little contribution from the room reflection or too much.
In general, here's my advice: use the pan and send all of your sources to the right. Visualize the speaker in front of you and what position it has taken. Move it with the WIDTH parameter. Now put the center pan back in, and consider whether you want to hear more room or more speaker. This is what the FOCUS parameter is for.


There are some configuration presets that allow you to select certain listenings very quickly.
For example, Luca prefers very frontal listening with little phasing, there is a preset. Sometimes one wants emotional listening, there is "binaural emotional", which distributes things very well making them sound "in your head". Listens like "clean stereo field" allow for a good, rather conventional stereo plane, while "room mix" is a very tight listen, with the speakers strictly in front of you. Remember that Sienna's goal is not to have an immersive sound, but one that TRANSLATES. You need a mix that moves. Usually, people place speakers far apart, and need more stereo listening, it can be done. It's a matter of habit. In some rooms, the speakers will be much further apart.


As for Slate users: I consider VSX to be an EXCELLENT product. You can recover the experience you have in VSX by remembering two simple rules:
- use the VSX linear HD headphone profile, which is the one used in its software
- remember that in his case, depending on the profile, you can use DEPTH at a higher value, around 50% or 60%, against the 30% that we recommend otherwise. The depth parameter has nothing to do with what VSX calls "DEPTH". Their depth roughly corresponds to our WIDTH. Our depth in the original VSX software is missing instead.



My experience with this software is that it takes a little time to get used to. If you think you'll try it and be impressed in the first five minutes you're wrong because in any case, we are talking about tools that help the translation, not tools that help reproduce an experience. The experience could be retrieved with a very accurate profile of all your variables and also of the headset you are using and goes beyond what these products can provide. This product helps with error detection, better mixing. Sienna in particular allows if necessary to have a less filtered sound.

Correction for DT 1990pro sounds very bright to my ears, piercing even more than raw headphones. So different from Sonarworks or Realphones ones.

In reference plugin you have the magic q, of you move to left it moves to a linearized approach

I don't think that you can assess stuff like this in a short space of time.
It took me the guts of 3 months to become confident mixing with the Slate VSX, to the point where I was more confident making mixing decisions in VSX than I was in my treated studio, and the results were translating much better!

Think of how much time it takes to become familiar with a new room, set of speakers or new headphones.
This, VSX or Realphones are no different. There is a significant adjustment period for the ears and brain to adapt.

I will download the trial and give these a fair shake on the Slate VSX and m50x headphones.

That's it!

Yes, magic q tame the highs but still they too prominent for me. Also I know I'm sensitive to this frequencies so little grain of salt to my opinion included.

Yet another reason to extend the intro period ������

Compatibility with Sennhiser HD800 (the original model)?

This looks more like what Audeze does with their Reveal plugin. Audeze also only tries to push the headphone so far with correction, and also shies away from too much in the 3k area. Personally I find this doesn’t work as well for translation, I never quite got 100% translation with reveal. This could be different though.

They will be profiled next week.

I don't think I want a 3KHz scoop on my HD600.

Seems weird.

Bought it, sounds great on my Sennheiser HD380-Pro, as I don't have any room for mixing and usually mixing at night this is very useful for me, found plenty of problems, can't wait for next pack. Just one question for AcusticaCM, do I need to use default presets (room & config) as it gives the most accurate representation of correction and room or the best is to put "Depth" knob to 100% translation? Because I noticed every preset is only 30% of translation knob by default.

That’s exactly what I don’t get. I use my primary headphones to listen to commercial music every day. I know them better than any other piece of equipment in my studio. Why would I want to have to re-learn them? Why would I want to tamper with the reference that I already know intimately?

Enjoy! And yes, the 30% (default position) is the best starting point in most cases, you may also want to try it at 50%.

I'm hearing a similar 3k-ish scoop compared to Sonarworks on my HD650s, especially with the room off in Guru. With the room on (Acustica SUN 118 Sub), there are more highs.

I gotta say, my first impressions are that I am getting more overall enjoyment out of the sound than vsx. I even prefer the m50x in sienna more than vsx headphones in sienna, they sound very different and I wish I had some more pairs of headphones at home with me to try with. Will have to test how this translates to real world though...

I like these products and think they are a great way to work with headphones.

Honestly “flat” is an illusion to me. Everything I’ve used messes with the sound with phasing eq etc. I don’t get hung up on it. I do find them useful to work with as more speakerlike.

I also like that people mix and match to find the best solution. There are no wrong answers in the illusion business!

We took a run through this today - very fun tool. I was a little disoriented at first but stick with it - you have to settle into the sound for a while. Guru mode helps a lot.

Demoing tomorrow.

Going to make a decision in-between this & T.C. 6000 VSS4.

Let's see; who wins......

Is it normal to take about 3 hours to download and install, or are the servers just getting hammered?

Been mixing with the Slate VSX for months now and gotten consistently great results (my previous set up was a pair of Focal Twins with sub and a pair of auratones). I also recently fell down the Acustica rabbit hole (yes... I definitely took the red pill) and that has been a revelation to me. Their products flat out blew me away, so when this turned up they already had my attention.

This thing does what its supposed to do but for me at least it must be set up in guru mode. I initially found the stereo image very narrow and it took a bit of messing around with it to get it right. (frankly I was near panic because everything I have purchased from them I tested extensively and this I purchased without trying it out first)

All that aside, once the set up was done I loved what I heard. I had to listen to a fair amount of commercial material to make sure of my settings but all told I found this to be an excellent tool. If you are someone who believes that mixing in headphones doesn't work then no one will convince you otherwise. I sold a very expensive set up in favor of products like this because they worked wonderfully for me.

This won't replace the Slate (there's a bunch of listening environments in there that I find very very useful ) but it definitely complements it in the best possible way

I cannot wait to see what they come up with next

I want to try another headphone/speaker model setup maybe, but I did a quick mix and it came out pretty strange tbh. The dynamic differences were much greater than I perceived within sienna. Almost like mixing through a compressor and then taking it off after (much higher crest factor)