Analog Plugins vs. Hardware: What Blind Tests Actually Show — And Why Engineers Still Buy Gear Anyway

This episode starts with a confession: Dee Kei wants a new compressor. Specifically, he's been eyeing the Heritage Audio Grandchild 670N — a $3,000 stereo Fairchild-style compressor in a 5U rack unit that launched in late 2025. From there, the episode opens up into something much more interesting than a gear review.

Dee and Lu walk through exactly what makes the original Fairchild 670 so mythologized — the tube count, the time constants, the maintenance costs that make owning one feel like buying a second car you're afraid to drive — and why Heritage Audio's approach of distilling the circuit down to four tubes in an affordable, modern form factor is either brilliant or sacrilegious, depending on who you ask. They break down what the Grandchild 670N actually has on the front panel — DC threshold, AC threshold, sidechain filters, mid-side and stereo linking, true bypass — and why $3,000 for two channels of Fairchild-esque compression is a genuinely different proposition than it was even three years ago.

But the most interesting part of the episode isn't the gear. It's what happens when Dee reads from two actual peer-reviewed studies on whether listeners can hear the difference between analog and digital processing at all. The first study tested analog modeling plugins against free non-modeling alternatives across 540 participants — and found that not only did listeners show no preference for the analog mix, the majority who thought they could identify it were wrong. The second covered DAX differences using a loopback method with over 1,300 respondents. The conclusion: people largely can't tell the difference, and the majority who claimed they could were misidentifying what they heard.

So why does any of this matter — and why does Dee still want the compressor? The episode lands on something more philosophical than a gear recommendation: the difference between buying hardware because you believe it's objectively better, and buying it as an act of devotion to the craft. Dee draws a sharp distinction between using gear purchases to fill a hole in your love for music versus buying from a place of already loving it deeply — and how Tony Mazzarati still sharpening techniques at his level is proof that the rabbit hole never ends for people who genuinely want to go deeper.

Gear talk, research, psychology, and the irrational passion that keeps working engineers working. A lot going on in this one.

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The Mixing Music Podcast is sponsored by ⁠Izotope⁠, ⁠Antares (Auto Tune)⁠, Sweetwater, ⁠Plugin Boutique⁠, ⁠Lauten Audio⁠, ⁠Filepass⁠, & ⁠Canva⁠

The Mixing Music Podcast is a video and audio series on the art of music production and post-production. Dee Kei, Lu, and James are professionals in the Los Angeles music industry having worked with names like Odetari, 6arelyhuman, Trey Songz, Keyshia Cole, Benny the Butcher, carolesdaughter, Crying City, Daphne Loves Derby, Natalie Jane, charlieonnafriday, bludnymph, Lay Bankz, Rico Nasty, Ayesha Erotica, ATEEZ, Dizzy Wright, Kanye West, Blackway, The Game, Dylan Espeseth, Tara Yummy, Asteria, Kets4eki, Shaquille O'Neal, Republic Records, Interscope Records, Arista Records, Position Music, Capital Records, Mercury Records, Universal Music Group, apg, Hive Music, Sony Music, and many others.

This podcast is meant to be used for educational purposes only. This show is filmed and recorded at Dee Kei's private studio in North Hollywood, California. If you would like to sponsor the show, please email us at ⁠deekeimixes@gmail.com⁠.

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