[wppk]

Maybe this thread will not be at the right place, but I couldn't find a better one. I would like to tell about something amazing I recently discovered in an auction sale : the spl vitalizer stereo mkII-T.
http://fr.audiofanzine.com/exciter-enhancer/spl/stereo-vitalizer-mk2-t/ ( sorry it's in french but you can google it to have it in english. Don't go to the oplug in, but to the hardware machine, that is told to mork much better. )
As I am using it with my headphones, I think that you guys who are looking for sound perfection and optimization should use this. To make it short, this is not an equalizer, it works with amplifing the harmonics that mp3 make disappear or sound poorer. You have to balance it by hear, and I give you here the positions of the know I found the best.
drive : +3
sound soft : first black bigger point on the right ( like ten o'clock)
compression : around 6
mid hi tune : 2.2
process 11
lc eq 10
intensity between 12 and 13
stereo explander : 13
you can try many other positions fittng your ears, but this one sounds the best to mine.
 
of course, this is not dedicated to mp3 only, it also works wonderfully with perfect wav files.
 
press "the active" knob, and you will find the sound really beautiful, and will catch the whole of the interest of the machine when you press it off, because the sound of your heaphones will then sound very poor compared to what you just heard a second before. And you will find it hard to believe that your beloved headphones sound so empty when the machine is off, hard to believe that this is here the unchanged, natural sound you had been dealing with for years. But it is !
I tested it with my stax lambda pro , omega 007, sony mdr sa 5000 sennheiser hd800 and a good bunch of collector akg form the eighties, this is really a great enhance, that does not "damage"' the sound, nor make it sound artificial.
 
it has no plug for headphones, cause this is an effect that has to be plugged between the source and the amp.
you also can use it, of course, on loudspeakers, thing that I didn't try because my system doesn't allow it currently.
 
the price is rather high if you buy it new, around 700 euros, but a second hand working one will be a very good buy.

 

[snellemin]

A cheap BBE processor(~$45,-) can achieve the same results with MP3's.  The BBE app from Itunes has a good adjustable mp3 enhancer built in.  Hardware wise I use rackmount processor and "portable" unit.  
 
If anything else cheapo Behringer Virtualizer works wonders too.  

 

[wppk]

Ok, but I don't think you will get the same quality with those.

 

[snellemin]

It's a processor.  You are altering the sound, what quality are you looking for?  Or do you mean features? My hardware have been lasting a long time and that to me is quality.  Don't need to spend an arm and a leg to get the same results.
 

 

[wppk]

as a sound engineer I know that the work of sound engineers is very often great and for that it has to be respected. Having this processor will not prevent my listening to music without it and with pleasure. I, like you I suppose, prefer to work with as flat a signal as possible. and I have been using quite a good deal of sound treatments and processing in my life. Never felt it interseting to cheat with the original sound. When I was young, I bought my first stereo, and as many people find it a plus, bought also an equalizer, that I soon unplugged.
But with the vitalizer I was talking about, the sound is not damaged. It is really better. fuller. filling the mind.
you know, it is just the same as wanting to have the best headphones, or alwas a better one. the sound is changed by the very headphone one is using, as soon as it is a different headphone from the other. it has a different curve, it is not flat, so, it models and alters the sound, just like loudspeakers do too. there is no stupidity trying to find the best sound one can, throuh as many systems as possible, and I mean, by this post, that as long as the sound is not artificial, but deeper, stronger bodied, convincing, without changing the golbal will of the original sound enigineer( and even really enhancing it), it is the same idea as trying new sound systems. since this is explained, there is no bad point in putting money in something that sounds really better than in putting money in a stax headphone rather than in a basic -whatever other trade mark - one.
and there is nothing wrong too in saying that in most cases, very expensive headphones or processors or amps or speakers sound generally better than first price ones.
for behringer, I used, too, some of their appartus, and it sounds sometimes interesting, but never convincing to me as what I am talking about today. and rather fragile, not always solid (lasting) enough.
I am not willing neither to try to make an evidence that as I spent more money on my system, the sound is better than others.
I just want to mention that there is really something exceptionnal with what I found in this auction. I don't want at all to make anyone jealous, but try to give those who whish the good successes I have passed thru.
When I think of my recording studio, It reminds me of Tuco, in "the good the bad an the ugly", when Tuco gets into the gun shop and make his pistol out of several others. My system is the same, it is made of things that are not obviously nor originally made to be plugged together, but they sound soooo good, if I refer to the people that come to my place to work with me or just whish to share a sound test moment. and I always tell my visitors that the important is not the brand, nor the price ( for instance, my main speakers are Leedh Aura II added with two magnat mp02 ionic tweeters. I found the tweeters for 200 euros, even if one can find them ar huge prices) but the result in the ear, in the mind, and I would dare to say, in the soul. 
so I don't whish to compete with anyone nor pretend I know everything about what quality ought to be, just, I give my good experiences, as I did on other subjects, and I don't want to have to fight in any way about that, because this is just my helping hand, nothing else.