I know folks that swear by both. I just swear at both.

The only difference between sound quality is the algorithms between the effects plug-ins. The rest of your audio quality is dependent upon your analog to digital converters in your audio interface. A program is not an audio interface such as an HD 3 interface. So your nomenclature isn't quite cohesive. Do you have experience on both platforms? What is your workflow and what makes you the most comfortable? Unfortunately, I feel your your question is a little like what's better? Wiping with the right hand? Or, the left-hand? (I know there are certain cultures that have an answer to that)

Ambedexterous
Ms. Remy Ann David

your rigth but some people claim that samplitude has a new multi-cpu processing-setteing that will improve llatency and sound quality but you get what u payd for:)

NO DAMMIT!
IT WILL NOT IMPROVE THE SOUND QUALITY.

It will damn well let you run plugins faster or in greater quantities but it WILL NOT IMPROVE QUALITY unless the engine is incredibly crap and can't process plugins - if it was running in real time mode, you might get some dropouts when your PC isn't up to running all the plugins - in which case, you could mess around with buffers or use less plugins, or upgrade hardware.
So the problem is hardware/program settings - not the software itself.

Kristal would have the same quality as PTHD if it was used with high end equipment and pro plugins.

Well from the viewpoint of someone who has used Samplitude and ProTools. I can say this: they both can sound very nice. But for a more real world comparison I would say in comparison to Cubase, Samplitude is much "cleaner" sounding. That is, it is very true to it's source. It's nice for some things but I like Cubase for it's less perfect sound. I can't really describe it but Samplitude seems more detailed than Cubase which is good or bad depending on the application.

Multi CPU support is simply that. It just means that the software is capable of taking advantage of however many cores there are on your computer. The rest is just propaganda.

How can one DAW 'sound' better than another ? Various null tests have proved that this is not so, in terms of raw audio at least (without plugins). Samplitude has a reputation of being better sounding because once upon a time, it was the first DAW to have 32 bit float sound. So, yes, arguably 6 or 7 years ago, before Logic, Cubase and Sonar etc. all Samplitude may have sounded better. But no longer. If the pan law settings are the same and no plugins are being used, then there is no difference. Many tests have proven this.

However, where I agree with Hue, is that when you do include plugins, Samplitude has just about the best plugins in the box that you can get. Logic and Sonar run it close, Cubase improved with C4 but it's stock plugins are not the best. And let's face it, nobody just records raw audio and mixes it raw, processing is always going to be used to a certain extent and in the processing you can find differences. And Cubase just whips Samplitude and PT with it's MIDI options and functionality, Samp has improved a bit on MIDI in the past 2 releases but still is lacking - not surprising given that initially it was an audio only program that had MIDI tacked on, whereas Cubase initially was a MIDI program with audio tacked on - to be fair, Cubase was rewritten from the ground up with SX1 and is a very strong program for both audio and MIDI.

The other difference lies in the audio interface with the converters and preamps and singnal to noise ratios etc. PTHD is good but expensive hardware - you can get better audio interfaces with other DAWS and still spend significantly less than a PTHD system. Apogee, RME etc. However, latency in a native system will always be an issue - pro tools TDM environment has an advantage there, although most modern power computers with multiple cores, when coupled with performance HDs, lots of fast RAM and the fastest processors, should be able to run at very low latency.

leedsquietman wrote: And let's face it, nobody just records raw audio and mixes it raw

I do.

/Not pro though

email me privatly

BluepryntEnt wrote: email me privatly

Why?

This is a public forum...if we all just wanted to exchange e-mails with people we've never met, we could spam AOL users.

As for the original question -

I long held that Sequoia "sounded" better than Cubase (sorry - no opinion on PT. While I have used it, it was in other studios with other hardware - this just isn't a fair comparison).

My opinion of that fact will probably never change. That being said, I've heard/seen and even performed some of the null tests and found the results to be irrefutable. However, I believe some of the null tests are merely bogus from the beginning - many are conducted in mono. Additionally, while the pan laws can be modified and matched up between the various programs, the means in which they handle panning (not at the bit level but at the GUI level) is different. Therefore, matching pans is darn near impossible between different programs.

It seems to me that nowadays, it's more a matter of what bells and whistles you want from your software out of the box. For me, Sequoia is one of the only choices for me given its editing capabilities, Surround capabilities, routing (and ability to shift routing to any possible configuration on the fly), object-based editing and CD Mastering features. What I think sucks about Sequoia?? Using a hardware control surface with Sequoia/Samplitude is a pain in the butt. MIDI is a pain - it's everybit as powerful as Cubase, but you surely have to work much harder at it than you do with Cubase.

As for PT - my biggest gripes are getting smaller with time. The need to use proprietary hardware is becoming less of a problem since you can now use Lynx, Apogee, Mytek, Prism and other converters with PT and thus any other hardware. The biggest issue is the cost. 10 years ago, a daughter-card system was the only way to go. With the new quad and octo-core systems available, this advantage is going away as well.

The biggest advantage, IMO to PT is its universality. However, even this advantage is dwindling as so many companies now are much more capable of exporting and importing correctly using BWAV and other formats that exchange easily.

My advice - make your decisions based on your requirements, not on hype or who else uses it (unless of course they're someone with whom you'll need to collaborate on a regular basis.)

Cheers-
Jeremy