QUESTION · AUDIO Q&A

Does Adobe's Enhanced Speech versus iZotope's RX Dialog Isolate versus Waves Clarity VX? Which one does the panel reach for first and which one wrecks sibilance?

ASKED BY · Paul Vahus · AUSTIN, TEXAS · 16 SEP 2026 · ▶ 00:37:55

THE PANEL'S ANSWER

Uses Waves Clarity VX first because he pays for Waves; noted all three are good but only uses noise reduction tools occasionally on remote recordings, as most audio he records is good quality.

Jeff CohenPANELIST

Discussed that Adobe's enhanced speech regenerates voice and lacks controls, mentioned Descript's original implementation was better than Riverside's initial version but Riverside has now improved; also noted DaVinci Resolve Studio's voice isolation (equivalent to Clarity VX) is very good.

Mickey

Prefers iZotope RX Dialog Isolate as the best tool for his work; notes that Clarity VX is not suitable for his use cases and Adobe's tool lacks control.

Mickey

Clarified that sibilance removal is different from noise suppression; RX and Clarity are restoration tools not designed for sibilant treatment, while Adobe's enhanced speech may handle it through built-in processing.

Summarised by AI from what the panel said. Watch the moment for the full answer.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

From the transcript.

Machine-transcribed, so it may contain errors. Every timestamp opens the episode at that second.

37:54Which one does the panel reach for first and which one wrecks sibilance? What do you think, Alexander? Well, I generally don't like sibilance, so I usually tie to... When you say wrecks sibilance, I mean, usually we try to remove excessive sibilance. But as far as what I use, I mean, I've tried all those and they're all pretty good. I tend to, first of all, most of the audio that I deal with that I record is good.

38:24I don't need to use these tools. However, once in a while, if my client does a pod, if he travels remotely, he's done a couple where he goes somewhere else. He'll record the podcast in their studio, and I can hear the sound of the room. So I'll use Clarity VX for that, and that works exceedingly well. Is that an isotope? because I pay for Waves.

38:46No, it's a Waves plugin. So I use it because I pay for Waves and I don't have a reason to pay for other ones. But I've tried all the other ones. They're pretty good. I mean, obviously, iZotope is probably the most well-known and most well-entrenched in the post-production world for removing noise like that. Adobe's tool is a web-based tool that is a lot newer.

39:05And from some of the examples I've heard, it sounds pretty good, but I haven't tested it excessively or extensively because, again, I don't deal with a lot of bad audio because 99% of it is what I'm recording in my studio. It sounds good. Humble brag. Mickey? Yeah, between these three tools, definitely would rather use Dialog Isolate, which is just a single module within the RX product from Isotope.

39:36Um, honestly, like clarity to me is, no, sorry. It's not good. At least for the type of work that I do. Um, Adobe's enhanced speech. I'm assuming, I don't know exactly what this is, but I'm assuming this is one of those one click things. No, thanks. Give me something I can do a good job with, which amongst these three, um, the entire RX suite, which includes the dialogue isolate module would be my tool of choice.

40:08I will say about the Adobe thing, a couple of things. Number one, there is a one click thing, which I believe is what most people use. If you pay more, you get more controls. One of our producers has access to the pay more version. I don't for whatever. I don't know why I don't. I should. I should talk to her about that.

40:29Anyway, and so when she fixes stuff, oftentimes she'll send me like three options. It's like that just becomes a pain. Also, it is my understanding that the Adobe thing is oftentimes listening to the voice and then regenerating it. And in general, I don't like anything that comes out of the Adobe. I'll also say, and I'll get to Jeff and Mickey here in a second, I'll also say that recently

41:01I've been using the, I think they call it Magic Audio in Riverside, because we do a whole lot of Riverside recordings. And, you know, you get what you get. So it's essentially a self-recording where you try and talk somebody into it, but oftentimes they're just on their laptop mic or whatever. and their magic audio you dial down the the dry wet dry to about 60 percent i gotta say

41:25i'm really impressed with it and that's built into riverside uh jeff cohen yeah and and that is a recent thing by the way so yeah it is descript had that first and it was I mean, in this arena, it was very good, relatively speaking. Riverside's was horrible. But then they, to their credit, they changed it up. And it's, again, in this arena, it's very good.

41:53And you can, as you said, dial it in. And that is exactly what you get with Adobe podcast. Let me bring this up real quick, the enhanced speech. And do you have the extra knobs and sliders? Extra knobs. And now they have added one thing, which is interesting. I, you know, I heard their demo. I haven't had a chance to play with it, which is, I don't know why they're not showing it, but music separation.

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