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...One or two of them sound just a little over-engineered.




This type of thing is completely subjective. Might sound "over-engineered" in one setting, not so in another, might sound that way to different listeners regardless. Which is why some want the dry option. I think there is a need for both, as the new user or perhaps average user likely doesn't want to have to dig that deep into the inner workings of ambience, effects plugins and the like, but the experienced user and recordist is likely to be just the opposite case and wants the flexibility.

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Just a thought, as I don't have them, but aren't the audiophile versions dry?




No. They are identical to the compressed versions, matter of fact they are the root wav files that the compressed versions are made from. Ambience and all.


--Mac