[JonnyRocket]

I'm pretty new to this and I've been going through the threads, but I haven't found anything about digital sound processors. I own an old school Sony 1000esd pre amp and I miss the different soundfield presets such as jazz and disco when im on the go. Is there anything similar to this that is portable and can plug into an iPhone or iPad? If not, is there a MP3 player with such features that sounds good? I'd appreciate any help on this, thanks!

 

[ProtegeManiac]

There might be an app for that. Are you on iOS or Android?

 

[JonnyRocket]

iOS, I've found a couple of decent EQ apps, but nothing wit a DSP. I would like to find a stand alone unit because I listen to a lot of Internet radio and the music apps will only work with iTunes music.

 

[NamelessPFG]

The JVC/Victor SU-DH1 is a Dolby Headphone DSP by definition, and is generally battery-powered (the JVC-branded versions don't even have the AC adapter input), so yes, portable DSPs exist.
 
Whether there are any that do the effects you're looking for is another question. For an iPhone or iPod touch, it'll probably be easier to find a media player that has the DSP features built-in to save you the hassle of having to attach a second hardware device to it.
 
Also, EQ effects applied at the digital level are technically a DSP effect, and if you're talking "jazz"/"disco"/etc. settings, those sound a lot like EQ presets that don't allow you to adjust the bands manually, sort of like my PSP and the default iPod/iPhone EQ settings.

 

[ultrabike]

Quote:

The JVC/Victor SU-DH1

 
Thanks for sharing that.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by NamelessPFG /img/forum/go_quote.gif
 
Whether there are any that do the effects you're looking for is another question. For an iPhone or iPod touch, it'll probably be easier to find a media player that has the DSP features built-in to save you the hassle of having to attach a second hardware device to it.
 
Also, EQ effects applied at the digital level are technically a DSP effect, and if you're talking "jazz"/"disco"/etc. settings, those sound a lot like EQ presets that don't allow you to adjust the bands manually, sort of like my PSP and the default iPod/iPhone EQ settings.

 
I would consider buying a portable full featured and well behaved DSP (battery/usb powered) with EQ, soundfields among other stuff... with out the player, and with input(s) to it ... Just a portable sound effects processor. Most portable players have some sort of EQ in them, but if you plug your headphones to different players, laptops or any source, it would be nice to just take your settings with you using your portable DSP... And it would be nice if the DSP did more than the average portable player...

 

[JonnyRocket]

Thanks for sharing that.


I would consider buying a portable full featured and well behaved DSP (battery/usb powered) with EQ, soundfields among other stuff... with out the player, and with input(s) to it ... Just a portable sound effects processor. Most portable players have some sort of EQ in them, but if you plug your headphones to different players, laptops or any source, it would be nice to just take your settings with you using your portable DSP... And it would be nice if the DSP did more than the average portable player...

This is what I was thinking. I used to have a Sony MD player that had a few of these sound presets, it wasn't as good as on my home head unit but it was great and fun to listen to. The presets on my iPhone just move the EQ around, but dont as any effects such as reverb or sound density or spread, which is what I'm looking for. Does anyone know if you have to by-pass your source units DAC to have The JVC Victor sound correctly? Thanks for your help.

 

[ultrabike]

This looks promising: http://www.minidsp.com/onlinestore/detail/15-minidsp-in-a-box/flypage/62-minidsp-2x4-reva?sef=hcfp

 

[Joe Bloggs]

ultrabike,
 
I see you doing equalization in Audacity a lot.  Not quite a substitute for a portable DSP but what I do is batch process my songs using foobar2000, it's quite easy.  You can have it run through a whole chain of DSPs through your whole playlist in the background and burn the resulting files as encoded mp3s in a new directory.  Right now I do crossfeed and EQ for the SHE3580 and put the resulting songs on my phone.  Poweramp on the phone has its own 10-band EQ so what I do is shoot for as neutral a sound as possible with the SHE3580 on the computer and use a single preset with all songs, then use the EQ on Poweramp to fine tune the sound for songs mastered differently, or my different tastes for the day.
 
Your last link looks very promising indeed but batch processing on foobar is so easy I'm not sure I'd want to lug the extra box around over just plugging my phones into my phone

 

[ultrabike]

Thanks Joe. I'm currently using Ubuntu Studio on my computer and installed fb2k under Wine (WINdows Emulator). I got it to work but the plug-ins are not behaving. However, after reading your post I'm feeling more motivated to get it up and running (didn't know about the batch processing capability!) THANKS! 

 

[Joe Bloggs]

How is it misbehaving? I did have some troubleshooting to do too and the free edition Electri-Q and the foobar VST component don't play nice with each other, I have to use some workarounds. Will post more when I get back to my computer and a real keyboard.

 

[ultrabike]

I tried using the 31-band GEQ plug-in. Trying to move the bars resulted on them being getting stuck to max, while no equalization took place. I'm going to give it a few more shots today. I'll let you know how it goes...
 
EDIT: Got it to work. The 31-band still goes nuts if I touch the bars, but can configure it by entering the dB values manually (this is probably a Linux - WINE issue only). It does some seriously good job! (Thank you xnor!!!)

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Have you got batch processing to work?  Select a bunch of files on your playlist, right click and select Convert...

 

[ultrabike]

Got the convert feature to work using a couple of plugins (GEQ and Xover.) How did you add the Electric-Q plugin to fb2k? I'm running this under WINE and while I was able to install the VST adapter, installing the Electric-Q freeware crashes the application...

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Electri-Q will crash with the foobar VST adapter whenever you try to load or save a preset to file.  Use George Yohng's VST adapter instead: http://yohng.com/software/foobarvst.html
 
(and I check the "don't reset DSP between tracks" option for gapless playback with DSPs and it doesn't really seem to slow things down)
 
(I get around the problem with the foobar VST adapter by loading a desired preset from George, pressing "Store", going to the converter processing setup, opening Electri-Q (using the foobar VST adapter) and clicking "Load")

 

[ultrabike]

I'll continue asking fb2k questions on Joe's thread (http://www.head-fi.org/t/615417/how-to-equalize-your-headphones-advanced-tutorial-in-progress#post_8510678 - as fb2k is really a computer application.) As far as the MiniDSP, I found out somewhere that it does not support crossfeed. It seems the little gadget is really geared towards speakers. I still would like to see a good portable DSP gadget and will continue to be on the look out...