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Ha, that would have been my question as well...I've often come across the idea that digital synth emulations are necessarily "perfect" and indistinguishable from the original, but is that really true in your opinion, from a first principles standpoint? If not, which component would make the emulation most difficult?

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If you look at it from that perspective, there are two factors. First, are the digital values identical? This is something my research can help with, using exactly the same exponential values (bit width, rounding, etc.) Second, a digital synth produces an analog output, so even if the digital values are perfect, the digital-to-analog conversion is going to produce its own distortion, filtering, etc, which can be pretty substantial.

Also see raphlinus's answer.

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