Akai MPC X vs Gold MPC X - Sonic Shoot Out - by TONELAB

To me it was a draw. Any liked 1 over the other?

I'm sure that Tonelab has good intentions with putting out videos like this.

The best litmus test in my opinion is to record the same sounds, post the .wav files so that anyone can load each respective .wav into a DAW, do a frequency analysis so that we can see for certain what differences there may be.

It'll be far more helpful than random YouTube commentators saying that one sounds "warmer" over the other or other terms like "this one sounds more soulful than the other"

Just thought I'd throw that out there as a potential idea for the future.

Peace

YouTube doesn't do audio content any favors either with the codecs for playback that they've chosen so that they can compress the audio files down into smile, lower quality sounds.

richie wrote:I'm sure that Tonelab has good intentions with putting out videos like this.

The best litmus test in my opinion is to record the same sounds, post the .wav files so that anyone can load each respective .wav into a DAW, do a frequency analysis so that we can see for certain what differences there may be.

It'll be far more helpful than random YouTube commentators saying that one sounds "warmer" over the other or other terms like "this one sounds more soulful than the other"

Just thought I'd throw that out there as a potential idea for the future.

Peace

He said he has the files for download. I would post your comment on the YouTube comment section if you haven't already.

NearTao wrote:YouTube doesn't do audio content any favors either with the codecs for playback that they've chosen so that they can compress the audio files down into smile, lower quality sounds.

Maybe, but at least whatever it does to the sound will be done to both so in a way it' s still even

While I understand your sentiment, it all depends what you are measuring. If one were to record a sound at 44.1khz, 48khz, and 96khz... and then the codec downsampled to 36khz (I am making this all up)... I would imagine that the differences between the playback quality of the 44.1khz, 48khz, and 96khz to be largely negligible when played back at 36khz in most instance.

Without watching the video, I suspect both sound nearly identical, barring possible manufacturing variations that would likely have little to do with the actual equipment, and more to do with age, use, and possibly changes in discrete components used due to the nature of component supply/demand.

This feels like trying to take effectively the same car, and comparing whether the car with a yellow paint job drives faster than the car with a red paint job. I'd be more interested in the topic if Akai said that the Gold used special components or otherwise altered the sound. There was no marketing about any audio changes for the Gold model, it was just a re-skin of the original X.

NearTao wrote:While I understand your sentiment, it all depends what you are measuring. If one were to record a sound at 44.1khz, 48khz, and 96khz... and then the codec downsampled to 36khz (I am making this all up)... I would imagine that the differences between the playback quality of the 44.1khz, 48khz, and 96khz to be largely negligible when played back at 36khz in most instance.

Without watching the video, I suspect both sound nearly identical, barring possible manufacturing variations that would likely have little to do with the actual equipment, and more to do with age, use, and possibly changes in discrete components used due to the nature of component supply/demand.

This feels like trying to take effectively the same car, and comparing whether the car with a yellow paint job drives faster than the car with a red paint job. I'd be more interested in the topic if Akai said that the Gold used special components or otherwise altered the sound. There was no marketing about any audio changes for the Gold model, it was just a re-skin of the original X.

This is from the videos description:
In this clip, I put the original first generation MPC X up against the Limited Edition 'Gold' MPC X. Is there a difference?! .. some owners claim there is, and the X-SE is packed with Burr Brown converters (according to Black Lion Audio). So, let's see what the Gold LE sounds like next to the original Black/Red MPC X.

B-Wise wrote:He said he has the files for download. I would post your comment on the YouTube comment section if you haven't already.

Oh dope, thanks for pointing that out, I didn't notice that at all.

I don't have a YouTube account setup for commenting but feel free to copy what I wrote and post it on there if you feel like it man.

Like I pointed out, he already offers the wav files.

BTW he told me yesterday that he should be getting a MPC60II & a 2500 soon. I would love to him do the 2500 vs 4000. Since he did the 3k vs 4k also & the 4k sounded a little better at lease from the main outs on in most tests. The individual outs were more even. So not including the 60s, if the 4k sounds the "best" & the 2500 is said to sound worse than even the 2kXL I want to hear just how "bad" the 2500 sounds compared the 4k. I know others done this comparison before, but I want to see his. I still can't get how someone on here said that 2500 sounds grimey