Add support for ultrasonic meters

For High resolution formats, 88.2 KHz and up, it would be useful to have a second meter for ultrasonic content, and filter the main meter for audio only band, 20 Hz - 20 KHz.

Checking ultrasonic content is important before or after format conversions, during final master creation, or during recording.

Subsonic meters would also be nice but unnecessary just like ultrasonic meters…IMHO

spectral displays show ultra sonic content if configured to do so

Level meters for high frequency content is something that do exist in other high end software. Pyramix do have that.

Content above 20 KHz cannot be heard (except for young peoples that can often hear around 23 KHz) but has some direct influence for phase coherence in the lower part of the spectrum. And excessive content here can be a clear indication that something is wrong in the setup, at the analog side, or at the processing / conversion side.

We are not in the marketing world here with Wavelab, we are in the pro audio world. And in this world there are more and more people working with high sample rates and recordings.

Checking for high frequency content and impulse response from end to end is something probably more important than 64 bits float for example.

Checking ultrasonic content is important to check for correct microphone and preamps, correct high sample rate recordings, as well as correct impulse response from end to end. It is useful too for checking conversion process, specially when the recordings are in DSD or DXD format.

As a side note, it would be useful too if Wavelab could get some tools for DSD files checkings. This would be a nice addition for a major version update, specially when we see the new meters in Cubase 11, Wabelab 11 could give a bit more here.

It is quite strange that a software that support DXD sampling frequencies and 64 bits float does not support at least DSD checking tools and conversion tools. It is important in the recording and mastering process to have tools that can check and compare audio quality from end to end. And the reality is that there are more and more DSD masters floating around in the recording industry, even if the tendency seems to be DXD (simply because DSD “pure” from end to end is not doable most of the time, except for analog mixed or direct two mics sound recordings where DSD is possible from end to end).

Sure, i think that DSD is a bad joke from the start because it’s a terrible format to process (nobody is able to do it mathematically without conversion to PCM), but there is a growing market for it on Internet sales and that’s a reality. It still get enhancements, rising from DSD64 to DSD512 lately, and even DSD1024 in some DACs.

PCM get the same enhancements, going from 44.1 to double DXD or even quad DXD sample frequencies lately. This show that there is a market for those HD formats, even if formats above 24/96 is more a marketing thing than a necessity for music (but scientists can have a use for those formats).

Pyramix for example do support DSD256 format. Most players today support DSD playing up to DSD256.

This mean that people need more tools to check and compare those formats. Generating DSD test files and test signals is another area where there is almost no tools available and where Wavelab could help.