Greetings:

I am a somewhat experienced MP3 and MPC user. I have recently downloaded new DFX plugin for winamp 2.81. Is DFX worth using? It is just empty promises with no real use or does it really make music sound better?

DFX claims enhanced sound over winamp's eqilizer, is this only true for MP3s? I have the plugin for MPC files set so that it is using it's own equilizer and not winamps.

Any opinions about DFX is welcome, but I'm really wondering if it has any good effect with MPC. I can definely hear a difference when it is on and I am playing a MPC file. Am I just losing quality somehow in this process?

From what I've seen (or better 'heard'), DFX enhances the playback of every audio file,
be that mp3, mpc, ogg, wav ... whatever. I don't know about aac and cda though. Although it is
developed for mp3, apparently it works with any format. Try playing an mpc file with and
without DFX activated and you' ll certainly notice the difference. Even if you set the mpc plugin
option to use it's own equalizer, DFX still processes the sound. Especially if you have a 2-speaker
system with an average soundcard, DFX can virtually transform the sound output of your PC,
provided that you adjust the fidelity, hyperbass, etc. settings. to your liking.

I'm using DFX since two years and in my opinion this plugin is worth of downloading and using.
DFX enhances the playback of every audio file without mp4 files (but it will be in new version of in_fadd.dll plugin - i think), so it only depends because of winamp's plugins.

I'm hearing the best sound when:
- the fidelity is on 2 points
- the ambience switch is off
- the 3D is on 3 or 4 points
- the basses are on 7 or 8 points

For better sound I'm using Compressor & Wider plugin, too.

These both plugins enhances my sound excellent.

P.S.

Sorry for my English

I tried DFX back when I first got into "plugins", and wasn't that excited about it. Also tried Izotope Ozone, played with it for a day and then bought it. Haven't been able to turn it off since. Everyones taste is different, if something sounds good to you, have fun with it! When Izotope came out with a version to work with Winamp 3, they "gave" me a copy, kinda nice of them.

Ok.... I agree with you - everyone taste is different. I used Izotope Ozone, too. It has a lot of different presets and it is a very good plugin, but... I don't like it because of it's look ( I was looking for full skinable and good sounding plugin, so I'm using DFX).... and we generally talk about DFX, so I wrote my opinion and suggestions about that plugin - that's all.

And... if we are talking about good sounding plugin - did you ever used Dee?
What do you think about it?

Regards

another cool plugin for casual listening is octimax. in addition to compression it also allows the selection of "signature sounds." great for playlists with many different genres in it.

info: http://www.octiv.com/tech/winamp/winamp_co...g_web_u_4ca.pdf
plugin: http://www.octiv.com/dnld/OctiMax_for_Winamp_151.exe

I tried DFX, Enhancer and Dee for my Audigy. I liked Enhancer the best of the 3, but then I found the kX Audio Drivers from www.kxproject.com .
The 10 Band EQ took care of all my sound tweaking, I totally adore it! And a big plus is that it's effective for all sounds played by the card, not only by Winamp, which allows me to enjoy enriched sound when I am using other sound apps, such as Traktor DJ or mixmeister, or when watching videos.

Disgusting thread.
You bad evil naughty abusers of destructive effects!!
I feel sick to my guts...
(almost serious)

DFX............uhhhhhhh...............better get the "3D" switch off, try using a song with large stereo separation like "Don't let me get me by Pink", 3D switch makes them sound mono alike.

I can imagine some possible bad effects on mp3 and mpc that might render the masking less successful and bring forth artifacts you normally wouldn't hear. In addition to that, I don't like any kind of 'sound enhancers,' but that's just my opinion.

I like any kind of 'sound enhancer' when there are weak speakers (sound emitters in common) and environment, or significant quality losses present in the sound source. (Or something with ears )
And such sound enhancer's mission is to reduce, mitigate that factors.
I use DFX about year at different places (at work, at home, at friend's). It's nice as 'some kind of sound enhancer'. But I adhere to the position to listen as possible the sound that autor creates. Thus I use settings: for Fidelity - 1, for 3D Surround - 1, for Hyperbass - 1-2, rarely 3. There are some not rare cases when I toggle off the DFX (generally, when in headphones), because composition is mastered with lot of HF or basses, or when adding 3D enhancing causes original panoramic effect evidently violent.
I avoid to use settings more than 1-2, reason see later.
When I want to sound the room by very weak little computer speakers, I set the Dynamic boost to 5-7 and toggle off all other functions - the result is great. But, of course, it is not a "music listening", it's just a sounding the environment.
In DFX since 6.110 the Ambience gives some interesting sound to some compositions, but only for experiment.
I have wondered they wrote about Fidelity function - about his ability to regenerate HF. From what?! It's like SBR? Don't know, but at worst tracks (old 128, for example) it rises all HF distortions they have. In that cases I would like to use HF filtering rather!

And, of course, I like his skins :-)

I'm not a native English speaker, and I'm not sure my essay was clear for all. Excuse me.

To MTRH:
Drink some cool water

Sometimes when I wanted to make the music seem sound more dynamic I used DFX, Dee etc but they do mangle the music, DFX has always had stereo separation problems with & without 3D. Shame to use this with HQ files & average quality audio hardware with this shit.

In my experience with DFX I've always seemed to find that when playing lower quality mp3's... like 128kbit songs, DFX seems to fill in the gaps that the mp3 compressor removed. I have a DTS amplifier with a BIG set of 5.1 speakers, and when you play 128kbit mp3s on it, you easily notice the lack of resolution in lower quality files. DFX seems to dither, or reintroduce the lost data that was removed so that mp3s sound half decent again. I seem to think of DFX as a noise shaper rather than an equaliser. If you play mpcs on it, you really don't notice much of a difference, since theres heaps of quality in mpcs anyway, so the effects are quite negliable. I've used DFX for as long as I can remember and I couldn't ever think of removing it. Infact, on a few rare songs the 3D feature makes songs sound so much better, it brings the background effects to the front, and makes music sound totally different. Try listening to "anything but the girl - walking wounded' with 3D effect on 10.. WOW!!! utterly stunning, but if you turn of DFX it turns into a really drab and boring sound/song.

Don't discount DFX.. I doubt it was ever meant to just be a fancy equaliser.. its merely just turns low quality files into much better sounding songs.