Indeed, I think that it is especially helpful for mere mortals, precisely because we don’t have years and years of mastering experience behind us. Now unlike me, Hugh is a real expert and I respect his opinion enormously, but one of the telling statements he makes is “Perception is recommended without reservation for anyone involved in mastering at any level, and I envisage using it routinely as a standard part of my plug‑in chains whenever I am working on mastering projects myself.” I.e., even for non-experts like me, he believes it is a worthwhile investment. One of the reviews I read in my research was this one by Hugh Robjohns. Being able to A-B seamlessly with one click, make adjustments to the signal chain and do it again and without worrying about manually changing levels is huge. Being able to make level playing field judgements on effects and processors is a big deal. For me, getting away from the louder is better illusion is a big deal. I have a decent acoustically treated studio, and am enjoying mixing, production and mastering more and more. I don’t doubt that the others mentioned here could do a good job, and they are cheaper, but I felt this could really make a difference to me, and decided on (perhaps) the Rolls Royce version. This powerful utility plugin allows you to switch between the audio upon which you are working on in your DAW and up to nine reference tracks with the mouse click. I decided to follow my own instincts having read and watched numerous articles and videos, and invested in the MeterPlugs Perception. Magic AB VST is an impressive as well as very powerful reference tool that lets you switch between audio upon which you are working on and up to nine different tracks in a flash.

Thanks all, I appreciate everyone’s input into this. TB Pro Audio AB_LM is cheaper and from what I can see does the very same thing. Ian's plugin is rather expensive for providing this kind of thing. Make sure that EQ is just acting in the right part of the spectrum. It will be the compressors that are screwing up transients say. It is important to listen to the transients carefully in a mix and you can do this when the two sources are at a perfect level match. And in many cases the signal will sound worse meaning you have made it worse! This can be very revealing. It does remove the louder is better thing and leaves behind only the other stuff you have done to a master or a buss or a track. It is possible to set something yourself using the signal flow of your DAW and a quality VU meter in order to create two signals of equal loudness. All these plugins basically consist of a series of plugins that are set up in a certain configuration. An alternative way of thinking of this is that in fact escaping is not supported. There is no harm in listening to A/B comparisons of signal quality before an after an effects chain at exactly the same volume. But only dotted expressions of the form a.b, a.b.c, etc, are valid.

Magic ab plugin alternative