ENERMAX Launches The DreamBass Genie

jojo69 said:
What? lossy compression and earbud speakers aren't "audiophile"??
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:p

For what its worth, you don't need to go lossless in in order to get sound quality high enough that the human ear can't distinguish the difference, regardless of equipment :p
 
Zarathustra[H];1038471536 said:
:p

For what its worth, you don't need to go lossless in in order to get sound quality high enough that the human ear can't distinguish the difference, regardless of equipment :p
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absolutely true, I was throwing off a glib one liner for sure

It just saddens me that more and more everyone is just used to low bitrate .mp3 and don't know any better
 
VRMan said:
Don't computers already have equalizers to do this? I know mine does, plus winamp does too. Not sure about cell phones though. I'm pretty sure teh portable mp3 players have equalizers too.
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From what it looks like the device does two things.

1.) It has its own DAC. Whether or not this DAC is any better than what is integrated in most motherboards/laptops remains to be seen.

2.) It looks like it boosts the bass of the analogue signal. This can - in theory - provide better quality bass boost than doing so on the digital signal (which is what you'd do with your equalizer), where you run the risk of having quantization errors distorting your sound.

I still think it's likely it's a turd though :p
 
VRMan said:
Don't computers already have equalizers to do this? I know mine does, plus winamp does too. Not sure about cell phones though. I'm pretty sure teh portable mp3 players have equalizers too.
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Exactly. I have been using my android phone for a while paired with my awesome Koss KO-727B headphones, but never touched the EQ, thinking it would just distort the sound. The headphones are very good, but they are studio headphones, and as such reproduce the sound in a very neutral manner.

So I recently got some dubsteppy music and didn't like the flat bass, so I turned to the EQ. After some tweaking of the preset Bass and Treble settings with PowerAmp I was amazed. Basically the EQ did it's job and sent the proper signal to my headphones and everything was good.

Products like these that are hyper gimmicky make me sad, because people buy them. Around school here, I see several people with those stupid Dr Dre headphones and people actually claim that they're good.
 
Or... if you really care....you could just get a decent USB audio DAC and use ASIO4ALL with Winamp and good set of headphones or ear-buds. Done.

But hey, folks like their crazy audio bling and BS equalizer settings to compensate for crap cans (see: Beats Audio on Android).

FWIW (and it aint worth much) I use a FIIO E7 DAC and E9 amp with a set of Sony MDR7506 cans. For ear-buds, a cheap set of JVC HA-FX30A.

The JVC ear-buds are awesome. And cheap. The Sony cans are inexpensive and sound wonderful. The FIIO gear is great entry level DAC/AMP goo that just effing works.
 
ianken said:
Or... if you really care....you could just get a decent USB audio DAC and use ASIO4ALL with Winamp and good set of headphones or ear-buds. Done.

But hey, folks like their crazy audio bling and BS equalizer settings to compensate for crap cans (see: Beats Audio on Android).

FWIW (and it aint worth much) I use a FIIO E7 DAC and E9 amp with a set of Sony MDR7506 cans. For ear-buds, a cheap set of JVC HA-FX30A.

The JVC ear-buds are awesome. And cheap. The Sony cans are inexpensive and sound wonderful. The FIIO gear is great entry level DAC/AMP goo that just effing works.
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I used to have a lower end early 90's era set of those Sony cans, the MDR250's. they were surprisingly good, and they lasted me from the mid 90s when I "borrowed" them from my dad until 2009 when I got my replacement. Not used to getting 15 years out of consumer stuff anymore :p Good stuff.

Now I use my Sound Blaster Titanium HD for output. The dual Burr Brown PCM1796 DAC's, on this board are the same as many high end CD decks from the 90s and sound really nice. Despite the reputation for internal sound boards being noisy, I have not been able to pick anything up when listening.

I have a Sciit Audio Asgard amp hooked up to the line level outs on the back of the Titanium HD, and use the amp to drive my Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro cans, which I love.
 
This is a stupid, throwaway product meant to take up space on the "impulse purchase" counters at Fry's. Frankly it's not worth being showcased on the [H].
 
AceTKK said:
This is a stupid, throwaway product meant to take up space on the "impulse purchase" counters at Fry's. Frankly it's not worth being showcased on the [H].
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pretty sure Steve put it up as a joke...we have all certainly been enjoying panning the product
 
Besides the fact that it is a wannabe vacuum tube, my chief complaint is the frequency response curve. Since they're calling it the DreamBass Genie, and the press release emphasizes the bass quantity, I think they are going to raise the low end up. I think this is really stupid, because the best amplifier is a transparent one. I shouldn't be amplifying the sound in a colored way, then pairing it with some special whiz-bang earphones that are meant to "complement" the sound of the shitty amplifier. I should be able to listen to whatever head/earphones I want and get the optimum experience from them.

Now all of the above wouldn't be the end of the world if it had an on/off switch for the bass emphasis, but I've looked at some pictures on Google and it doesn't let you turn it off. That is epic fail.
 
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