Reply To: Improving Mac Profiles for DPS 2.0 – Full Featured Release

[andreas]

Dan,

Sorry for the late reply.
I am very curious now for the 2.1 version and the profiles included. I had played a bit with the equalizer controls in 1.0.7 mainly strengthening the very low base around 40 Hz and it will be interesting to hear the new version with more options.

I am aware every system is unique, especially when it is up to enhancing sound quality from ostly bad sources at often bad speakers. My setup is about playing bad source (mp3 with the typical low quality) to a good speaker system. DPS does this job extremely well and makes the bad source files acceptable when played to some speakers showing the weaknesses. Personally i could imagine this is a major target group for DPS – people who hear the difference, usually have and like good quality but for some reason either have source data or computer who is not capable. Those who do not hear the difference will not care and take the low quality of mp3 on bad speakers as long as there is some sound coming out.
So i guess Your target group is primarily people who care about sound and quality and so i assume it will not be so rare that they do have an adequate sound system connected but do use DPS for enhancing some low quality itunes or mp3 collection.

For doing this i have come to the profile ‘phoenix’ as it gives a very clear sound. I used some other speakers where i used the ‘los Angeles’ profile as i had to add more bass there but the findings i reported above were all for the profile ‘phoenix’
I got really better results for all the “clear” music with light tone and dynmics. Good example would be Pink Floyd / High Hopes (with that bee at the beginning).
The most improvement in sound quality i got with Maya Jane Coles / Comfort.
This song sounded somehow ‘swampy’ with the old 1.0.7 and is really sounding good now because it is much sharper and more distinguished (sorry for the strange words – difficult to describe the emotional quality of a sound)

Teh issue with the tones out of order i described is probably due to my setup and not to 2.0. I am using a usb sound interface wher ethe speakers ae connected to. This worked directly with 1.0.7 — with 2.0 it does not any more (sound distorted) which i could solve by routing it through soundflower. Personally i could assume that there is still some partial delays so things get maybe a bit out of phase. As i do not know what DPS really does i can not judge that. But it happens rarely – only if there are sharp tones in quick succession (Bomfunk MCs being a good example). I will look what 2.1 does and will report. What it sounds is like if you take several tracks of a song and play some of them with a slightly (very slightly) faster speed (or slightly out of phase) It must be milliseconds or something, but you can hear it like a slight echo.
But as i said nothing to worry about as i assume it is because of the rerouting and not because of any profile

All teh best
Andreas