[sdiy] rev eng -> fwd eng?

[Czech Martin]

I know I'll get flamed for this one, but I have to:

AFAIK the discrete emulations of analog gear are not the result of
thoroughly analysis of the circuits.

Let me show what I mean with an example:
I GUESS that a four pole filter is turned into a four pole (plus
four zeros) filter by the usual bilinear transform for example,
which would be a very crude approximation because all the nonlinear
effects are simply dropped, and new problems are introduced
due to the frequency warping etc. Of course this shortcomming is
noticed by the manufacturers, and some nonlinear device will
be placed before the lp filter to get back some of the "juice".
We all know that this approach will not cover all the details
that were discussed e.g. for the Moog ladder.


Now, in the recent years there has been a lot of research,
also on this list, and computing power has shown no deviation
from Moore's law so far. I think we're at the edge where a full
blown circuit simulation with very high internal sampling rate
is possible, ie. emulation by "SPICE" simulation.
Perhaps the modells of the simulator could be simplified
to a certain degree. My idea is that this would bring
emulations a lot more closer to the original if not so
close that no difference on solo lines (no other "instruments")
is audible. 

In this case I would consider the emulation as 100% perfect.
In this case analog circuits would make no sense to me any
longer (for playing, not for development).

So far I have never seen or read about any attempt of that kind.
I'm no expert for continuous circuit simulation, I just use
these tools. 
Where is the pittfall?
Are there spice models of tubes?
I guess that a step width of 1000ns should be enough in most cases,
given that the modells are simplified (e.g. very high frequency poles).
This means internal sampling rate of 1MHz (sampling rate, not
chip clock rate, this is still very demanding).
Do you think that this high computational effort will stop
this idea?

And finally: 

A lot of people have done SPICE simulations on various structures.
Have you ever thought about LISTENING to the output?
(this requires downsampling, no magic).

m.c.