Whether for recording, broadcast, or motion pictures, you need metering that tells the truth about audio levels. This isn’t just about detecting peak and overs to prevent distortion, but about the average levels that help define the emotional responses to which listeners and moviegoers react.

Now, Waves has modeled Dorrough’s patented Ballistic process—the result of a 20-year quest to perfect the science of audio measurement—and created the world’s most precise software meters.

Using patented technology developed to give broadcast and recording engineers a true indication of loudness as perceived by the human ear, Dorrough Loudness Monitors graphically display audio power. Because Average and Peak readings are based on a real-time waveform analysis, the degree of processing, compression, and even distortion are indicated by the relationship between the average and peak indicators.

Dorrough Electronics designs and manufactures precision audio and video monitoring devices. For over 20 years, Dorrough has pioneered new technologies in audio signal processing and monitoring for the broadcast, motion picture, and recording industries. Founder Mike Dorrough grew up with a love for radio and an insatiable desire to understand how sound devices worked. In the early 1960s, Dorrough was working as a sound engineer when he devised a revolutionary Multi-band (or "Discriminate") Audio Processing system. By achieving optimum relationships between frequency, time, and amplitude in the complex waveform, Discriminate Audio Processing provided greater loudness with no reduction in fidelity. In 1965 one of his first Multi-Band Composite Audio Processors was installed at a popular LA radio station.

In 1971, Mike decided to set up his own factory to produce his processors, and launched Dorrough Electronics. Dorrough realized that the perceived loudness of sound is a mathematical function of time and amplitude, and the Dorrough Loudness Monitors grew directly out of the Discriminate Audio Processor. For his many contributions to world of professional audio, in 2000, Dorrough was honored with a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.