Chiming in late, here.   Doing the B2 and Aether trials.  Comparing with Valhalla, which I own.  Solo piano material only, and I'm going for the typical med Hall verb that you'll find in a lot of solo piano albums, from classical to jazz and rock.   I'm guessing that the top pro mixes use a Bricasti Harware verb, which obviously hasn't been equaled in software YET.
 
I haven't spent much time with Aether, but B2 "scoring stage mid 1" I think it's called is very, very close to Bricasti levels, where "obsession" is the final mix. 
 
I'm now running a comparison with Aether's "piano concert" setting, also mixed at the "obsession" level.  
 
Valhalla Vintage is great, and certainly way good enough for the average listener, but good monitors or phones will show B2 to be much cleaner and more realistic, as far as I can tell, that is.
 
Does anyone know if there's a substantive algorithmic difference between Aether and B2?   B2, for example, has a "2 engine" mode, and "cascade", as well, which looks like more subtle processing capability than Aether...???
 
 

johnlewisgrant
 
Does anyone know if there's a substantive algorithmic difference between Aether and B2?   B2, for example, has a "2 engine" mode, and "cascade", as well, which looks like more subtle processing capability than Aether...??? 

B2 doesn't just have a 2-engine mode, it *is* a 2-engine verb.  You can, of course, turn one of the engines off.  Aether came first, so it's reasonable to assume there were things learned while implementing Aether that were applied to B2.  But just look at the controls in Aether compared to B2.  Aether remains the deeper of the two, and I would say that depth gives it a greater capability for subtlety.
 
By the way, the developer of Aether is a pianist, so it should be no surprise that his verbs do very well on piano tracks.

dmbaer

johnlewisgrant
 
Does anyone know if there's a substantive algorithmic difference between Aether and B2?   B2, for example, has a "2 engine" mode, and "cascade", as well, which looks like more subtle processing capability than Aether...??? 

B2 doesn't just have a 2-engine mode, it *is* a 2-engine verb.  You can, of course, turn one of the engines off.  Aether came first, so it's reasonable to assume there were things learned while implementing Aether that were applied to B2.  But just look at the controls in Aether compared to B2.  Aether remains the deeper of the two, and I would say that depth gives it a greater capability for subtlety.
 
By the way, the developer of Aether is a pianist, so it should be no surprise that his verbs do very well on piano tracks.

Hmmm a pianist?   That's encouraging.  I'm just getting into Aether now, with solo Bach stuff I'm doing.  Checking out as systematically as I can all the presets that I can. 

johnlewisgrant
...
Valhalla Vintage is great, and certainly way good enough for the average listener, but good monitors or phones will show B2 to be much cleaner and more realistic, as far as I can tell, that is.....

Well I would expect so, as Vintage verb was never meant to be clean and realistic -- it's modelled after a 70-80s Lexicon (Hence the name). 
 
If you want to compare a clean verb, then Valhalla Room is what you want.  

Andrew Souter is the developer of B2 and Aether.    And as mentioned above, he is a piano player.  There is a thread on V.I Control forum where he himelf talks about his paino albums and how he used his own products to make the sound.
 
http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=42826&highlight=ballad
 
 
PS : Oh, and I have Aether, and its a fantastic product.  If you want to keep things simple with a quality reverb as a send for all your tracks, you have hundreds to choose from as presets, which can easily be fine-tuned.  If you want special effects on any specific tracks, there are some amzing sounds you can get.  And if you want to go deep, and edit even the most fine details of almost any reverb parameter you can think of, and even ones you didn't even know about, you can.   
 
 

Great.  Will definitely read this with interest!
 
Here's what I'm working on: each prelude and fugue uses very different reverbs, as well as different settings.   Don't even recall which ones, at this point.   Generally the first preludes and fugues are "over-verbed" in my opinion, but I get leaner (I think) as I go along.
 
https://www.youtube.com/p...21rE5SoYC33Nxltdam8TPG
 
JG

I am looking at this with interest too. I have been making solo piano music with pianoteq, ivory 2 and my reverb is aether and breeze.

Here's an example of BAD verb settings.   Prelude and Fugue 9:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVkHC4srRXU&index=9&list=PLP5BZzcdRkq21rE5SoYC33Nxltdam8TPG
I'm pretty sure I used Valhalla Vintage here.   I would have killed the Mod, but WAY too much tail on this.  Just echoes all over the place.   Terrible.   Obvious, even on my little MMGs.   Now P&F 10 works better (in my opinion).  The character (tempo, length of notes (legato, staccato, etc) of the piece is, as mentioned above, critical to what you can get away with.  A longer tail seems to work in #10.   #9: NOT.

Here's a second attempt at the E Major (#9) prelude and fugue, using Valhalla Vintage "large chamber" but with the following changes: Mix 34.7%, Predelay 55.5ms, Decay 1.93 %, Color "Now", Mod Rate 0%, all other settings as in the factory settings for "large chamber":
 
https://www.youtube.com/w...;feature=youtube_gdata
 
(I've now replaced the old prelude/fugue #9 combo inside the "24" playlist with this newer version of the prelude, using the above settings on Valhalla Vintage.)