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Is the AudioVero / ABACUS AcourateCleaner some kinda snake oil doohicky or what is it?

KSTR

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The point of this as I understand it is to minimize any L/R difference in distortion accumulated in your signal chain. Whatever happens to one channel will happen to both. The theory is that this will improve stereo imaging.

It actually kinda makes sense, at least to the extent that channel matching is key for stereo image.
Exactly. The M/S-trick is ages old, besides its origin as a stereo microphone technique it is used in mixing and mastering of music all the time whenever seperate L/R-processing is difficult or does not give the desired results, especially with compressors/limiters/saturators.
 

KSTR

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Show us how it reduces jitter? Show us it lower distortion, show us it lowers channel imbalance?
You're still not reading :-(
They never claimed it reduces jitter or distortion or channel imbalance. Rather, the effects of jitter, distortion and dynamic channel imbalance are mitigated by rearranging them to strongly correlate for the usually dominant mono(center) content which makes it less irritating.

This is a psychoacoustic fundamental, btw. A center signal fluctuating 1% in level on both channels simultanueously is perceived as much more stable than the same signal with 1% independant channel fluctuation. All of this you can try yourself in case of doubt.

For the same reason, static rematrixing 2-channel content to 3-speaker L-C-R playback (like trinaural rematrixing) is beneficial. The center content "materializes".
 
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voodooless

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You're still not reading :-(
They never claimed it reduces jitter or distortion or channel imbalance. Rather, the effects of jitter, distortion and dynamic channel imbalance are mitigated by rearranging them to strongly correlate for the usually dominant mono(center) content which makes it less irritating.
Same difference... If you mitigate the effect, the outcome is that it's reduced. Ergo: show it with measurements!

And to make something less irritating, they have to be irritating to begin with. Are they? Can we objectively show that?
This is a psychoacoustic fundamental, btw. A center signal fluctuating 1% in level on both channels simultanueously is perceived as much more stable than the same signal with 1% independant channel fluctuation. All of this you can try yourself in case of doubt.
What DAC has a 1% center image fluctuation?

To be clear, I don't doubt the theoretical background here. I do doubt the practical benefits given the performance you get from today's DAC's.
 
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mansr

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Any distortion on the side channel will end up inverted on one of the L/R channels. I don't see how that's supposed to be a good thing.
 

kemmler3D

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Any distortion on the side channel will end up inverted on one of the L/R channels. I don't see how that's supposed to be a good thing.
You just have to make sure the side channel goes through the one channel you have with no distortion, obviously. ;)
 
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