Mir versus Savant Audio's Quantum Room Simulator

[Louis C]

Reverbs, reverbs, reverbs.

They make a mix. So I was intrigued by Savant Audio's most recent release the venerable Qauntum Room Simulator.

It's very very good and so I wanted to do a quick comparison for my own purposes against a long hall - and I chose to download the 30 day Demo of Pernegg Monastry - as I was looking for a compliment to the excellent Karl Bohm Hall.

The conclusion, to put it simply after about 10 minutes of A/Bing, is that whilst the Quantum Room Simulator (QRS) does an excellant job of the later reflections in a room it doesn't really respond AT ALL to the attack of a note.

In the Pernegg Monastry I can hear the bite and attack and breath of the note interacting with the room acoustic (I was using a SWAM flute) whereas in the QRS the sound is flattened out and de-personalised. It becomes a generic flute sound rather than a played and performed line with player dynamics not really exciting the room differently as is the case in MIR's Pernegg.

I'll carry on experimenting but gut reaction plays an important part and the MIR experience is that of a player in a great room - whereas the QRS experience is that of adding some Reverb at mixdown (albeit a particularly good one).

[Dietz]

Thanks for sharing your findings with us, Louis! I am very pleased that you like the results you're achieving with MIR 3D. 😊

To be fair: The Quantec QRS was a truly sensational device when it first saw the light of day in the early 80s - and years ahead of the competition. It was a pretty expensive one, too! I owned the original device for years and know a bit about its strengths and weaknesses.

It's also a great thing that companies like Relab or Savant Audio are recreating the unique "voice" of these boxes. But of course, the algorithmic approach used here is very different from the completeness of real halls. I wouldn't use a QRS today for the same (or even similar) task that I use MIR 3D for.

Thanks again and all the best,

[Dietz]

PS:

😉

[Louis C]

Very cool - thanks for sharing - Lovely space .. I have to ask;

... what are the Surround speakers ?

... and of course I'd love to know what else you have in those racks.

: )

[Dietz]

@Louis-C said:

Very cool - thanks for sharing - Lovely space .. I have to ask;

... what are the Surround speakers ?

... and of course I'd love to know what else you have in those racks.

: )

My 3D monitoring is a custom-modded combination of two Blue Sky MediaDesk 5.1 systems, a discontinued product from Blue Sky that I have been using for about 15 years. The additional racks and the equipment are now almost all no longer there as I only work and mix ITB in this room. Gone are the days of SSL surround compressors, 4-channel Quantecs, Ureis, and so on. 😉

Stereo monitors are Munro EGG 150, my trusty old Yamaha NS-10, and the equally old Auratones.

The actually quite small room is perhaps the best part of the picture. It's a self-supporting, fully acoustically isolated room-in-room construction by Boxy Designs, an Italian company that specializes in this type of studio design. Its acoustic treatment is remarkable: although my monitoring is corrected with Dirac Live, it sounds surprisingly good even without digital help, too.

Oh, and the keyboard in the background is my first synth, a Roland JX-3P which I bought when it was brand-new in 1983 (IIRC). 8-)