Reason #3 to get an iPod: BBE

[Carson Dyle]

You mention Cowon. Is BBE's SonicMax Pro available on any other platforms, or as a feature of any PC audio players?

[CrowdAds]

[dfkt]

Yeah, I'm running the BBE D82 VST plugin in Winamp and Foobar.

But other than Cowon and that one weird Chinese player, it's not been licensed by any MP3 player brand (although it is in some Panasonic TVs, Sony car decks, etc). If Sony, Samsung, etc would license BBE instead of using their homegrown sound enhancement stuff, I would maybe even consider some of their players.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by musichound

Thanks dfkt. $4.99 seems like a high price for this, but I still might give it a shot. Marv, you wanna try first so I don't spend my money?

I probably will try it at some point, but that depends on when I get to a store and pick up a gift card. I don't put my credit card number into iTunes....I only use gift cards.

[Marvin the Martian]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Yeah, I'm running the BBE D82 VST plugin in Winamp and Foobar.

But other than Cowon and that one weird Chinese player, it's not been licensed by any MP3 player brand (although it is in some Panasonic TVs, Sony car decks, etc). If Sony, Samsung, etc would license BBE instead of using their homegrown sound enhancement stuff, I would maybe even consider some of their players.

Am I reading that right, $129 for the plugin? If so, I guess $4.99 for the app is a bargain.....lol. It must be good if you like it after spending that much.

[dfkt]

Well, that's the studio-grade algorithm, working internally with 64bit precision, and all that. It sure is worth the money, if one likes that kind of punchy sound - no matter if for mixing/mastering, or simply for listening.

[McDougal]

Wow, this is great news. I've never had a Cowon player before....it'll be nice to try out BBE on my iTouch. Kinda sucks that it's not a system-wide setting though. They should have included it with a iOS update or something.

[razorblader]

So far I like what I'm hearing. No gapless playback but works pretty well so far on Iphone 4, it does what it says and improves the sound considerably if you play around with it a bit. Just tested it with my RE-0 and you can kick up the bass to pumping levels without bloat which is quite a feature if you are familiar with the RE-0. As is the case with good BBE implementations you can shape the sound without giving it an artificial or plasticky quality.

Don't care that it's not system-wide, I just need it for music playback and the built-in player is fine, it does support playlists but tbh I'm one of these old farts that mostly just play whole albums so I don't really care, don't care for watching videos on the small Iphone screen either. I think it's worth the money but everyone has to decide that for themselves of course.

[IDvsEGO]

I was excited until I saw the screenshot and that it was only f you used that palyer. I dont like what I see of the player.

[musichound]

Well, there might be a 4th reason for those who have an interest in SRS WOW. There's an adapter that can be purchased and also an accompanying free app that extends the use for it. I also downloaded a different SRS app that doesn't require the adapter, but here's the link for the adapter if anyone's interested: http://www.amazon.com/iWOW-02-Adapte.../dp/B00405SCWE

[Marvin the Martian]

I didn't like SRS WOW at all when I tried it....but hey, to each his own!

[razorblader]

I've tried the SRS WOW app as well and the BBE app sounds better IMHO.
The improvements are more natural and refined sounding although the SRS WOW app is not bad in itself.

[Andreas]

Don't forget gapless playback, FLAC support through third party apps, line out and USB audio out (iPad only)

Great to have BBT on iOS but hoping for an Android version. As for SRS WOW HD BBQ WW2 ETC 123 WOW COD SWTOR or what that thing is called, it sucks so much I wanted to scrub my iPad with bleach after I tried it

[Marvin the Martian]

Well, as razorblader mentioned, it is not gapless. And if you just want to hear one album, you have to select it from the albums list, not the artist list. But you can't say "SR60i's have no bass" anymore, that's for sure!

[musichound]

Originally Posted by Marvin the Martian

Well, as razorblader mentioned, it is not gapless. And if you just want to hear one album, you have to select it from the albums list, not the artist list. But you can't say "SR60i's have no bass" anymore, that's for sure!

For me that's a deal breaker, even though I purchased the app. This is why I tried the SRS option (My Tunes app) also, because it does support gapless playback and can be sorted by album according to artist. It's also a free app to try out with 10 minutes per day to try its premium features. This is not to be confused with the other SRS WOW app that requires the SRS hardware that I linked before. Hopefully the BBE app will have this implemented in a future release.

[el maco]

Originally Posted by el maco

Can you build playlists on-the-go? Can you browse albums with cover art, ordered by the artist name? This is probably the most important feature I'd like to have...

So I'm getting the impression that the answer to the latter question is no, the BBE app doesn't let one browse albums with cover art, using artist name sorting. If someone can confirm this, it would be highly appreciated.

[musichound]

Originally Posted by el maco

So I'm getting the impression that the answer to the latter question is no, the BBE app doesn't let one browse albums with cover art, using artist name sorting. If someone can confirm this, it would be highly appreciated.

You can browse albums, but not according to artists. For example, you can pick and choose any album in your collection,then playback the entire album accordingly, however, if you would choose artist, instead of a list of albums appearing you get an alphabetical song list according to artist instead. IMO, this needs to be fixed, as well as gapless playback.

[el maco]

^ Thank you for the info. Now I feel much less tempted in replacing my Cowon pmp with the iPhone again. I guess that functionality could be achieved by swapping the artist name and album name fields inside the tags, but I bet that would get very bothersome before long.

[musichound]

I must say that since installing BBE on my iPod Touch it very closely sounds like my X7, if not exactly the same way. If gapless playback and albums sorted according to artists is added this would be perfect!

[razorblader]

I agree, the app definitely has potential and if they add the features that make sense it would be a winner. Sound-wise they've really done a fine job which becomes quite evident if you turn it off while listening with BBE on.

Another nice thing is that you really can tune it for the headphones you are using and the way they've implemented the BBE controls works pretty well.
Given the bump in sound quality the price is alright in my book.

[Adub]

I've been using the app for a couple days and it definitely needs some work, there's bugs and some bad implementation of certain features. I'm to compile a list and email them.