HOFA tells us that their new 4U+ BlindTest allows an objective comparison of equipment (e.g. plugins) inside your DAW. They say that, only if you do unprejudiced comparisons, will you achieve the best sound possible.

A spokesperson told us, "Very often a look or a name will draw off your attention. You believe that you are hearing differences that do not exist, due to the correlation of visual and aural perceptions and associations. So you compare your ideas of products rather than their actual sound character. To avoid this problem, we have developed a reliable blind test that lets you concentrate on what is important -the sound!"

HOFA tells us that this tool arose from their demand to develop the best plug-ins, when they needed an option to measure their software fair-minded against the most popular competitive products. Here's their description of how to use it:

Simply insert 4U+ BlindTest as the last plug-in on every track you'd like to compare. Now, only the track which is set on "SOLO" will play; all other tracks are muted.

Clicking on "Shuffle" will anonymise the tracks and put them into a random order. Now you can switch around between the different signals to judge them objectively: Assign a ranking and add your comments about your aural impressions. Later you can uncover the track names.

You can also run a sequence in which you shuffle and evaluate several times. This way you get average ratings, creating your personal sound study. The comments will be summarized, so that you can check if your aural impression was always the same.

There is a peak display and a gain control per track, so you can avoid influences caused only by loudness differences.

The GUI is freely scalable, so that you can use it to hide anything on your screen that may influence your decisions like your DAW's mixer panel.

Not always should all tracks be compared. Simply drag unused tracks to the "INACTIVE" section to exclude them from shuffling.
This can also be used to sort out tracks during a test run.

Pricing and Availability:
29,90 € introductory price (normal price 39,90 €)

HOFA 4U+ BlindTest is also available in a free version. In contrast to the full version, the number of tracks that can be compared is limited to three. You can upgrade any time to use it with an unlimited number of tracks.

More information:

• 4U+ BlindTest

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