I have recorded some demos with baseq3, XP 1.03 and XP 2.3. I can tell there is no difference between them, neither acoustical nor with an audio editor.

Unfortunately the videos are too large to upload because the demos I used were pretty long. Then I tried the very same with the default "four.dm_68". The result was the same but much smaller in size. Again unfortunately XP 1.03 cannot play baseq3 demos but it does not matter in this case, because 2.3 matches baseq3.

http://excessiveplus.net/~easy/sound/

I have included 2 baseq3 videos to show that even recording the very same demo several times in a row, will produce minimal differences in the waveform analysis. The Excessive Plus video is smaller, because the UI/HUD differs and the console text is much smaller. They have the same length.

This can be reproduced for any other demo and by anyone.

Programms used: ioquake3 1.36, Audacity (an open source audio editor)

I've spend half an hour looking for an appropriate audio editor and recording the demos, just to investigate into an unfriendly, biased and vague claim.

btw easy, i disabled cl_allowdownload in e+ cfg and baseq3 and still when i try to play on some server with e+ 1.03 it makes me download new e+ files, now gonna try single player

looks like there is some issue playing single player with 1.03, no weapons, not on map and not got by me or bot, with some error in console saying something about it ( forgot what was).

I think it is not about the sound quality or something like that, but more about sounds appearing in wrong directions, for example I heard few times someone on the left but in fact he was on the right, some sounds may popup and disappear but thats normal on active AWH, more annoying is when you dont know where the enemy is located if you hear him on different place where he is in fact.

Someone should reproduce that effect and record it, good place to test is public server with dynamic plusN cfg, rather than test it on baseq3 or play pre-recorded demos to prove anything