The bench / 50 measured
Every plugin runs the same offline bench: identical sample rate, block size, and test signals, recorded to the bit. The charts and stats are the bench output. Each plugin also carries a measured score derived from those numbers by a fixed, published rule — objective, not taste, and never ranked. How we score.
48 kHz, 512-sample blocks, processed offline, faster than realtime. Magnitude from a stepped sine; THD / THD+N from a 1 kHz level sweep (THD is the trustworthy figure, THD+N is method-floor-limited at low levels); noise floor from processed silence; latency from the impulse-response peak vs. the reported value; linearity from a single-frequency two-level null.
Each measured score comes straight from a bench number, on a 0–10 scale, using a fixed rule — no opinions, and never mixed in with the review score some pages show (that one is separate and clearly labelled). What a measurement means depends on what the plugin is for, so every plugin is scored under a profile. A clean processor is judged on staying out of the way; a coloring design’s tone-shaping and harmonics are reported as character, not marked down for doing what they are meant to. The profile follows the plugin’s category, unless its voice is set by hand.
Overall = flatness, low THD, low noise and linearity, evenly weighted toward a clean pass-through.
| Metric | Role | In the overall |
|---|---|---|
| Flatness | scored | weight 0.3 |
| Transparency (THD) | scored | weight 0.3 |
| Noise | scored | weight 0.2 |
| Linearity | scored | weight 0.2 |
| Latency | info | factual readout |
Overall = signal-path noise floor (the shaping and harmonics are the design's intent, shown as character, not graded).
| Metric | Role | In the overall |
|---|---|---|
| Tonal shaping | descriptive | shown as character, excluded from overall |
| Harmonic character | descriptive | shown as character, excluded from overall |
| Noise | scored | weight 1 |
| Level dependence | descriptive | shown as character, excluded from overall |
| Latency | info | factual readout |
Overall = below-threshold passband flatness and signal-path noise (the clipping itself is the function, shown as character, not graded).
| Metric | Role | In the overall |
|---|---|---|
| Passband flatness | scored | weight 0.4 |
| Clipping (harmonic) | descriptive | shown as character, excluded from overall |
| Noise | scored | weight 0.6 |
| Clipping action | descriptive | shown as character, excluded from overall |
| Latency | info | factual readout |
Each score is a piecewise-linear interpolation between these anchor points, clamped at the ends. Values between anchors are interpolated; nothing else enters.
| Axis | Anchor points (value → 0–10) |
|---|---|
| Flatness (max deviation, dB → score) | 0→10 0.2→9.5 0.5→9 1→8 2→6 3→4.5 4→3 6→1.5 8→0 |
| Transparency (max THD %, → score) | 0→10 0.001→9.8 0.01→9.5 0.05→9 0.1→8.5 0.5→7 1→6 3→4 5→2.5 10→1 20→0 |
| Noise (floor dBFS → score) | -240→10 -160→10 -140→9.7 -120→9.3 -110→9 -100→8.5 -90→7.5 -80→6 -70→4.5 -60→3 -50→1 -40→0 |
| Linearity (residual dB → score) | -150→10 -140→10 -120→9.8 -100→9.5 -80→9 -60→8 -50→7 -40→5.5 -30→4 -20→2.5 -12→1 -6→0 |
| Harmonic character (max THD % → indicator) | 0→0 0.05→0.5 0.1→1 0.5→2.5 1→3.5 3→5 6→6.5 10→7.5 20→8.5 40→9.5 60→10 |
| Tonal shaping (max deviation dB → indicator) | 0→0 0.2→0.5 0.5→1.5 1→3 2→5 3→6.5 4→7.5 6→9 8→10 |
| Level dependence (residual dB → indicator) | -150→0 -100→0.5 -60→2 -50→3.5 -40→5 -30→6.5 -20→8 -12→9.5 -6→10 |
Apart from the measured score, some plugins also show a 0–10 review score under “What people report.” That is our own plain-language read of what independent sources said — never their words, never their star ratings, and never a number we made up. It appears only when at least two independent sources (published reviews or genuine user discussion) return usable text; launch or announcement coverage on its own does not count, so a plugin can read N/A there and still carry a full measured score. The measured score and the review score are never averaged or combined.
This lane is separate from measured results
No promoted plugins here. Anything in this lane is labeled and never affects the bench numbers or the order plugins appear in.