>Will others PLEASE conduct similar A/B tests? It takes mere minutes. I >can't believe I haven't seen this addressed on the list before! I was >planning to bounce to stereo wav's soon & start burnin'. My friend's >solution was to go out & buy a new DAT machine: mixdown through AW8 >sp/dif out to DAT, DAT through AW sp/dif in to a wav file. UGGH! > >Say it ain't so... Well Jason, it is, unfortunately. Yet Logic is not alone in this. When I was auditioning various multitrack software for my DAW, and this included Cakewalk, TripleDAT, Cubase, Samplitude, SawPlus and Logic, I noticed drastic differences in the audio quality between them on various operations. Previously, and presently, I use two Emu Darwin MDMs sync'd up for 16 track recording. I bought them because they sounded good. So, using a Sonorus StudI/O, I digitally transferred 16 tracks from the Darwins into the PC. Now A-B'ing the Darwin tracks and the PC tracks, (note: one track at a time soloed, using the same D-A converters in my DAT for monitoring and identical levels), I was amazed at the difference in quality between the software packages. The results? I found conclusively (by a wide margin) that only Samplitude and Logic could faithfully copy a digital source without any degradation in audible quality. So consider yourself lucky you made the right choice with Logic. Now on to the subject at hand.... Regarding bouncing, I didn't test any of the other packages for this, (why should I at that point) but I did find that Logic and Samp were about equal in track bouncing quality. That is, equally bad. What amazes me is that it can sound good with Logic doing the mixing in real time but the bounce function somehow mangles it. You're literally better off plugging the output of your card into the input and re-recording to two tracks. I solved this by doing all my mixing and bouncing with a DSP Factory, which is analogous to using an external digital mixer. However, one thing that can severely effect the outcome of a digital bounce, using any method, is the level at which each track is recorded. Keep your tracks as hot as possible. The more bits the algorithm has to work with the better. Don't be misled that just because everything is kept within a "digital domain" is going to ensure your audio quality is maintained. It simply isn't true. Randall