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An innovative new
technique for digital audio Word Length
Reduction (WLR) is now available from the Pow-r Consortium, LLC. Some
of the world's top digital audio designers have come together as a team
to create what is being hailed as the audio industry's most transparent
and dynamically stable method of reducing digital audio word lengths.
Pow-r,
an
acronym for Psychoacoustically Optimized Word length
Reduction, is a unique, patent-applied-for algorithm, which reduces
longer word lengths (20, 24, even up to 32 bits), to CD standard 16-bit
format while retaining a high degree of perceived dynamic efficiency
and very low noise. Pow-r is a scalable algorithm, meaning it is
dynamically optimized and ready for all sample rates from 44.1kHz to
192 kHz, and beyond.
Pow-r
is
compact and designed for portability. The algorithm will
operate optimally in both DSP and native software in digital audio
workstation applications. Pow-r is technically not noise shaping.
Rather, the original Pow-r algorithm is based on narrow-band Nyquist
dither and is free from artifacts present in other popular Nyquist-band
WLR techniques, such as "birdies" and "motor boating." With Pow-r,
archaic look up tables are avoided and all audio program is
decorrelated from Nyquist-band dither. To better target all audio
sources, non-narrow-band techniques are also offered in the POW-r
algorithm set
Pow-r
has
been licensed by a number of key pro audio companies,
including Apple: Logic Pro, Avid/Digidesign: Pro Tools, Cakewalk:
Sonar, Magix: Samplitude/Sequoia, Merging: Pyramix, SADiE, E-Magic,
BIAS Inc., Clair Brothers and many others. Moreover, the four
Consortium development members (below) are all licensees of POW-r.
The
Consortium development team is comprised of:
David
McGrath, Founder & Chief Scientist, Lake DSP Pty, Ltd.,
Australia
Daniel
Weiss, President, Weiss Engineering Ltd., Switzerland
John
La
Grou, President, Millennia Media, Inc., USA
Dr.
Glenn
Zelniker, President, Z-Systems, Inc., USA
The
Pow-r
design consortium was assembled for the sole purpose of
creating the most sonically transparent digital word length reduction
algorithms available. After months of development and extensive
listening tests, we feel our goal has been achieved. A number of audio
industry leaders, including major record companies and numerous audio
mastering houses, have called Pow-r the finest sounding WLR method
available.
"The
POW-r
noise shaping is the quietest and the best I've heard so
far, no question. It gives the music a slightly "pillowy" effect,
smoothing out the high end in a very pleasing way...very, very nice."
Dr.
Toby
Mountain, Northeastern Digital, February, 2000
I've
also
just finished reviewing POW-r. In my opinion, all other WLR
schemes are mostly obsolete. The POW-r Consortium has provided the
music industry with tools and methods to preserve the quality of high
resolution audio in 16 bit renditions. The POW-r process is the closest
thing to perfection that I have heard to date.
Glenn
Meadows, Chief Engineer, Masterfonics Emerald Mastering,
Nashville, 2000
Over
the
years at Telarc, we've gone through the whole range of
dithering schemes to keep PCM well-behaved -- everything from levels of
DC to white noise and various noise shaping curves. We had eventually
come to employ the xxxx dither as our standard means of getting from
20- and 24-bit PCM to the 16-bit PCM CD master.
Our
introduction to POW-r word length reduction changed all of that.
POW-r is making it possible to have so much more of our 24-bit master
represented on the 16-bit CD than we could do with other dithering or
word length reduction algorithms. I have been able to have a signal
level near -120 dB from digital peak in 16-bit still be audible and not
distorted. That great increase in depth better represents the width and
depth of the 24-bit PCM master in its 16-bit CD form than the other
means of dither available, in my opinion. In fact, Telarc's producers
insist that POW-r word length reduction be used exclusively of all our
PCM-source masters. Once one hears something this good, there's no
going back!
Michael
Bishop, Multi Grammy Award Winning Engineer, Director of New
Technology, Telarc International, Cleveland
"For
about
8 years, I've been doing shootouts of re-dithering
algorithms, and every system I tried was unable to recover ambience as
well as my venerable **** unit. But when I heard [POW-r], I began to
cry, because I couldn't believe my ears---this box brings 16-bit audio
closer to the 24-bit source than I had dreamed possible. This includes
previous tests of [virtually all top dithering algorithms], and other
lesser-known varieties of dither.
Until
I
heard [POW-r], I thought that every dither was a compromise;
some sacrificed ultimate depth and space for a pleasant tonality, or
vice-versa. The POW-r dither seems to have broken a new barrier,
removing the compromise of tonality versus depth."
Bob
Katz,
President, Digital Domain Mastering, Pro Audio Review
Magazine, Feature Review
Full
Text
here.
The
Pow-r
Consortium, LLC is a "non-competitive," autonomous entity
established for the sole purpose of licensing, supporting, and
marketing the Pow-r software. For licensing information, please email:
info@mil-media.com
Article
courtesy of Millennia Music and Media
Systems
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