Rockbox Bass boost vs. Sony Clear Bass

[belushka]

Is there a difference? When I boost the bass in rockbox does it somehow distort the signal and other frequencies? I am asking because I am using the earphones with not so strong bass and I need a slight boost. Which will provide the cleanest bass?
And what about Jetaudio BBE effects? Can they be produced on rockbox by simply tweaking the equilizer?

[saratoga]

Is there a difference? When I boost the bass in rockbox does it somehow distort the signal and other frequencies?

Rockbox uses a conventional parametric EQ, so you can adjust the intensity of any given frequency band arbitrarily.  If Sony also has that, then there will be no difference. 

I am asking because I am using the earphones with not so strong bass and I need a slight boost. Which will provide the cleanest bass?
And what about Jetaudio BBE effects? Can they be produced on rockbox by simply tweaking the equilizer?

BBE is not the same as an EQ.  It also applies compression and other effects to "enhance" the sound.  Some people like that, others hate it. 

[belushka]

Can you achieve an effect similar to BBE in rockbox by tweaking various sound settings?

[saratoga]

Can you achieve an effect similar to BBE in rockbox by tweaking various sound settings?

No, there is nothing like that in rockbox.  We don't have sound effects, only EQ.

[gevaerts]

No, there is nothing like that in rockbox.  We don't have sound effects, only EQ.

Well, we do have compression I believe. Don't ask me how it works though

[sockbox]

I have no clue what BBE is but can guess it's something like SRS wow.

I would recommend that you manually adjust the parametric EQ according to your headphones and player. Stay clear of the EQ presets. LS & PK1 adjusts the bass, but you'll also want to adjust the rest of the settings to clean up the mud sound.

I've posted my sounds settings for different headphones on a Sansa clip so you can take a look at what I've done.

http://forums.rockbox.org/index.php/topic,34743.0.html

[yapper]

Rather than boost the bass, try reducing everything else slightly. Boosting is likely to make clipping (and hence distortion) more likely.

[belushka]

thanks guys, I'll try that...
BTW, what's the difference between just boosting the Bass in rockbox and lifting up low frequencies in EQ ? is there any?

[saratoga]

thanks guys, I'll try that...
BTW, what's the difference between just boosting the Bass in rockbox and lifting up low frequencies in EQ ? is there any?

I think on a couple devices it uses any bass boost built into the hardware, but on most its just a simple EQ setting. 

[belushka]

I found something interesting about Sony Clear Bass. This is from another forum:

"IMHO the old sony MD player's MEGABASS goes deeper that the newer generation chips. The toshiba amps on those players have dedicated low-pass filtes with twin attentuation for auto-fallback when the bass cannot be generated. CLEARBASS on the NW-S series uses complete attentuation that decreases the total output of the signal to preserve the depth of the sound. which I am not a big fan of as it is good when driving line level loads but not very pleasent using headphones. cowon's M3B also attenuates the total signal but it seems to sustain better than the NW-S series. The sony's later A series seem to be able to attenuate the bass only rather than the total signal. so it really depends on which model you have and what kind of attenuation you prefer."

Don't really understand what it means. Can someone explain what he says about S series?

[soap]

I found something interesting about Sony Clear Bass. This is from another forum:

"IMHO the old sony MD player's MEGABASS goes deeper that the newer generation chips.

Smells like bogus.  The Rockbox EQ (and any other competent EQ) goes plenty low.  And low frequencies are competently reproduced by many DAPs, and if the limitations of tiny tranducer earphones are taken into consideration we can upgrade that to "most".

The toshiba amps on those players have dedicated low-pass filtes with twin attentuation for auto-fallback when the bass cannot be generated.

Not a clue what is attempted to be said here

CLEARBASS on the NW-S series uses complete attentuation that decreases the total output of the signal to preserve the depth of the sound.

Sounds like a description of precut, which has been talked about already.

which I am not a big fan of as it is good when driving line level loads but not very pleasent using headphones. cowon's M3B also attenuates the total signal but it seems to sustain better than the NW-S series. The sony's later A series seem to be able to attenuate the bass only rather than the total signal. so it really depends on which model you have and what kind of attenuation you prefer."

A bit more rambling about precut, a bit more rambing about e-penis size with no statements of value nor objective fact.

[AlexP]

The toshiba amps on those players have dedicated low-pass filtes with twin attentuation for auto-fallback when the bass cannot be generated.

Not a clue what is attempted to be said here

I'll help!  Standard audiophile waffle