VST pluggins for Roon/stereo expansion/tube/tape emulation

[Morpheus]

Hi, the title tells it all..
After hearing and loving a Crane Song HEDD quantum DAC an its triode/pentode/tape emulations, I am looking for an app to replicate or even surpass that in ROON as I don"t really want another DAC now. Not just an on and off thing, but something customisable like the original. Also, I use Focus Fidelity DSP. It is great, but ever so slghly shrinks the width of the stereo image, so I would like to get that back too.. I know there are a multitude of pluggins in mastering just for that kind of sound fiel expansion and tube emulation, but I am interested only in VST pluggins that are a able to work within ROON, I am not going to invest in and a learn any DAW stuff.
Thanks for your suggestions,
Fernando

 

[HarmonicTHD]

If you google VST or VST3 and Tube, Tape, etc you will find a huge selection. Additionally there is the Distort VST from pkane which also lets you add distortion in a quantifiable way.

I believe Foobar and JRiver can use VSTs. If not most, certainly any DAW can (I am only familiar with DAWs). Many DAWs come in Basic or TryOut Versions often for free and even contain some of the above mentioned effects already.

 

[Morpheus]

If you google VST or VST3 and Tube, Tape, etc you will find a huge selection. Additionally there is the Distort VST from pkane which also lets you add distortion in a quantifiable way.

Right, thats what I did at first,searched to see if there was a Crane Song pluggin wich would be my go to, but there isn't.. But there are dozens of this kind of VST pluggins, I was hoping to get a recommendation of specific ones that members here tried themselves or know to be excelent sounding. I know I like a bit of analog/tube distortion, but digitally, the Crane Song was the first that I heard and really liked.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I was hoping to get a recommendation

Many people here will suggest trying a plugin @pkane has developed. It might not be exactly what you are looking for, but it will help narrow the search.

 

[Morpheus]

Thanks, will look for @pkane software.
What about stereo/soundfield expansion pluggins, anyone has tried those?
About the tube distortion thing, a little story about what turned my attention to that, way back..About 30 years ago, I was shopping for my first self owned hi fi, and found this local manufacturer. I bought some lovely kit speakers, and listened to some amps, both SS and tubes. I was slighly leaning to tubes, probably biased too, since that was The audiophile thing to do..However, I was not woed. Then I saw this behemoth of a power amp stuffed away. He told me it was one of his first commercial designs, an all out, no holds barred, one effort thing, custom made transformers, stringent hand selected top of the technical pile componentry, 30 something kg, etc..Ok, more bias... But anyway, as soon as he hooked that thing up my jaw droped. It made the little bookshelves I had selected sound like they had an heart transplant, and had grown to big floorstanders. Sounsdtage was now really wide and deep, and tonally, it was going from bleached out old photos to full technicolor, guitars were drenched in beautifull harmonics, cymbals shimmered, bass was big, all with full swing dynamics...I just could not believe the transformation... and it only had 60watts, whereas the amp before was a 120 watter, and eveything was at least aa powerfull. I went crazy, mentally scrapping for every cent I could to get to buy that. However, he was adamant no matter how I tried, that this was a one off , forever to stay in his collection item, and far to expensive anyway. He was kind enough to explain to me that what I was so impressed with was the type of distortion being generated. All the SS and tube amps before had distortion that was way lower, but this had a lower noise floor, and the distortion was almost exclusively 2nd order. But it sounded so much bigger, bolder, and transparent, how could this be?? Now I understand the psycoacoustics behind it, but since that day, distortion was no longer a foul word in my audio vocabulary..just not all is created equal.l, and I want to add a little bit of that special sauce I heard again in the Crane Song, especially triode mode tastefully applied.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

Simply put you have a preference for the "extras" that a particular amplifier added to the sound, whilst amplifiers that added no character sounded anaemic.

It's relatively possible to build a preamplifier using tubes that accurately reproduces what it's fed. Tubes don't have to have a "sound", they are just a device that can be used in a gain circuit. Even then, they are potentially vulnerable to microphony. It's harder to build a power amplifier, because transformers are usually needed and the output impedance is often higher and more variable than a solid state equivalent resulting in less control and making the speakers impedance affect the sound balance.

We did tubes/valves on my electronics degree course. In my opinion, the true limit of valve-based amplifier architecture is the component count. You could try and build the equivalent of an operational amplifier, but you would need about 20 valves per channel and would never be able to get close to device matching and thermal tracking that a $2 device achieves with ease. To match a complex op-amp based preamplifier with valve op-amps, you would need about 50 tubes! No one can build that or keep it optimised over time.

Consequently valve circuits are relatively simple. This actually means many if not all are quite compromised in performance. But that compromise turns out to be an addition that many people fond pleasant.

Suppose we all enjoyed cars whose steering rack was loose and had a tendency to drag to the right or left rather going straight. When presented with a tight, centrally-dominated steering rack, we'd probably all find it a bit unexciting!

 

[boxerfan88]

I recently went down this path to experiment with VST plugins to color the sound/music. It is quite fun.

Allow me to share 3 that I have come across that might be keepers.

1. Chow Tape https://github.com/jatinchowdhury18/AnalogTapeModel

• try the Sony TC-260 emulator
• a fair bit of HF rolloff ... like a cassette tape

2. ReelBus 4 https://www.toneboosters.com/tb_reelbus_v4.html

• quite subtle

3. SN03G https://plugins4free.com/plugin/3058/

• this is my current favorite, makes the music warm, a little more bass punch, and smoothen the treble (far less rolloff than Chow Tape).
• my current settings:
  • EQ mode = IEC 15ips
  • Head bump = ON, 65Hz, +2dB
  • Hiss = +6 thereabouts
  • Do give the "Anarchy" button a try

Try them out and share your impressions.