What's the difference between the Inflator and Limiter Enhance fader?

The Oxford Limiter is the leveling device you would normally expect to use as the last plug-in in your signal chain.  It uses look-ahead techniques in conjunction with adaptive timing and highly-accurate sidechain processing to provide transparent level control or loudness maximisation, inter-sample peak detection/correction and comprehensive dithering.

The Oxford Inflator can be used to increase loudness of almost any programme material, imparting tube-like warmth and dynamic excitement while retaining dynamic information - no 'pumping' or loss of presence or percussive attacks.

The Inflator is not the same as the Enhance feature in the Oxford Limiter, although the effects might be considered similar. In simple terms, the Inflator is a special kind of distortion generator which has no dynamic activity over time. It's a static process. It gives the impression of loudness by providing the harmonic cues we associate with loud and stressed sounds, increasing the harmonic density of the material in a way that is sympathetic to the ear.

The Oxford Limiter's Enhance function is a special kind of 'dynamic' process that does not add distortion to steady state signals. It works over time, programme history, peak and average levels and left/right stereo differences to limit the signal and squash peak events, while providing the listener with the impression that the peaks are still there. It can sympathetically remove peak events so that you can provide more transparent limiting, or make the programme even louder without causing sample value overs.

It's useful to refer to the user guides for more in-depth descriptions of the various controls and suggested uses

• Oxford Limiter user guide
• Oxford Inflator user guide