Originally Posted by De Trop ➡️

Here's what Sean Costello wrote: "The PCM96 is a totally different story. It was programmed on a very high speed 32-bit floating point processor (TigerSHARC). Any differences between the hardware and the PCM96 plugins was either a difference in features/parameters, an error, or a bug fix when porting to the plugin. There is literally no magic mojo in a TigerSHARC - it's just a high speed floating point number cruncher."

In other words: if there is any difference, it's not from any analog mojo, though it *could* be an error, or differently set parameters.

And here's what Michael Carnes wrote: "There's apparently a video critique in which the video maker claims the plugins don't match the PCM96. I'm afraid he made the mistake of not checking to assure he was comparing the same algorithms. Parameters are not identical between the algorithms on either the box or the plugs, so it's easy for even an experienced person not to notice just where they are. But as I've said many times, the software matches the hardware. There may be some reference level differences on the DA/AD that cause apparent sonic differences, but once that's accounted for, they should really sound the same or very very close."

So if I'm understanding that correctly Carnes seems to be suggesting that the DA/AD doesn't add significant saturation or character, just a difference in level.