Cleanfeed Pro has a new feature: “high performance” audio modes for voice and music.

You’ll find these modes listed in Audio, then Remote audio. These new modes embody a few changes, and we’ll explain some of them here.

They’re particularly directed towards the people who have been using the various “testing” modes in production such as “320kbps stereo”. If you’ve found yourself being drawn to those, read on.

Producers are usually attracted to these modes because they state clearly they have a high bitrate. Higher bitrate require more resources but mean higher audio quality, which in general nobody will argue with (though at these sorts of rates even the most expert human ear will have trouble distinguishing.) But there is an assumption that there are no negative side effects. In practice these modes easily use a greater network capacity and easily do in a manner which is not as efficent. They haven’t been tuned in the way that “Voice optimised” has been; that’s why they’ve been “testing only” modes since the launch of Cleanfeed over a decade ago.

The new “high performance” modes aim to take these sorts of things into account where you want to push the experience. They increase the overall bitrate hugely to give audio quality but also make use of some more advanced features such as smaller packets for reduced latency. The result is high bitrate modes that are specifically made with the Internet in mind. We’ve tuned the bitrate, packet sizes and other characteristics together, and added in the managing retransmissions of the (now) smaller packets. This goes a long way beyond the “optimised” settings (such as Voice optimised) and those settings remain unchanged in our most recent revisions.

For most workflows there’s a potential saving of 10 milliseconds in latency. When used in conjunction with the new buffer control “R” button to specifically request latency, this gives double the scope for retransmissions on a packet-by-packet basis.

So, if you want to push the envelope on your Cleanfeed connection, “Voice high-performance” or “Music high-performance” are the settings you should be using for great results.