Hi Earl. There have been several good discussions about this, though none lately that I can recall.

In my opinion, the choice comes down to what you are going to do with the tracks. if you intend to make tracks for commercial use, there is a difference between the regular and audiophile versions, particularly since noise in a mix is additive. However, listening to any individual track, the difference is subtle, and requires decent equipment to hear.

Keep in mind that the storage requirements are multiplied by a factor of around 10. The 2010 audiophile version required a 1.5 TB drive, and 2010.5 adds more Real Tracks. Update patches take a lot longer to download.

A very tiny benefit to using audiophile Real Tracks is that they generate faster. However, this is not the advantage it once was, since PG Music considerably sped up the generation of Real Tracks in the last year. The newest version, 2010.5, goes one step further and regenerates even faster after the first time.

BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.