russdog
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2006
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Boy, am I happy. For years, I had been amazed by the positive effect of using a hardware BBE processor. With my change from CD's to mp3's, I wanted to get BBE in the output chain of my mp3 player. Fortunately, BBE makes a software plug-in. It moves their BBE processor from a dedicated hardware box that's plugged into your tape loop into software that works with some flavors of mp3 players. AFAIK, it's intended for WinAmp and WMP. I much prefer MediaMonkey. Fortunately for me, MM can use WinAmp plug-ins. I just now got the BBE Direct-X plug-in working with MediaMonkey. (I had been frustrated before, but it was my own damn fault because I left out a step.)
It appears to work like a charm. So far, I've not used it through my main system. So far, I've just got it going on my laptop with its crappy built-in soundcard. I've been listening to it with MDR-V6's (because they are clear and accurate, and I know I'm hearing the BBE and not the cans). What's funny to me is that the settings I chose on the onscreen view of a BBE box's control panel turns out to be the exact same settings that I had used on a physical BBE hardware box I used in a different house listening to Polk SDA-1's. I guess those are the settings for me
If you like BBE, and if you want to get the plug-in to use with your software mp3 player, here's what you need:
The next thing I'm gonna fool around with is seeing if I can't get the desireable amount of BBE processing into mp3 files for my iPod. If I can do that, then perhaps my need for a Cowon might go away: Rockbox for EQ, and encoded mp3 files for BBE. But I'll have to see if that really works...
It appears to work like a charm. So far, I've not used it through my main system. So far, I've just got it going on my laptop with its crappy built-in soundcard. I've been listening to it with MDR-V6's (because they are clear and accurate, and I know I'm hearing the BBE and not the cans). What's funny to me is that the settings I chose on the onscreen view of a BBE box's control panel turns out to be the exact same settings that I had used on a physical BBE hardware box I used in a different house listening to Polk SDA-1's. I guess those are the settings for me
If you like BBE, and if you want to get the plug-in to use with your software mp3 player, here's what you need:
- The BBE software. Most places, it's $99. You can get it here for $75 plus $9 shipping. AFAIK, you have to wait for the box to show up, there's no online download. (Be careful to keep the paper sleeve the CD is in, because it has your necessary license key on the back of it in teeny letters that you won't even notice if you're not looking for them.)
- The AdaptX plug-in, which enables WinAmp and MediaMonkey to use Direct-X plug-ins. You can download it from here. You can use it free for 7-days but then must pay $19 via PayPal to get a registration key.
- To get it working with MediaMonkey, I also needed to have WinAmp running for about 1 minute, just to configure things. Now that it's set-up, I don't need it anymore. You can get WinAmp for free from here.
- So, all in all, it'll be $103, which is cheaper than a BBE hardware box.
The next thing I'm gonna fool around with is seeing if I can't get the desireable amount of BBE processing into mp3 files for my iPod. If I can do that, then perhaps my need for a Cowon might go away: Rockbox for EQ, and encoded mp3 files for BBE. But I'll have to see if that really works...
