OSS 3D - 2.3b7

OSS 3D is one of the 'essential' apps on my macbook.

The difference in music quality is extraordinary. If you're willing to tweak it and spend some time adjusting levels to your preferred music and saving settings, you really won;t go back.

BUT don't use 2.3b7. Its all messed up, sound is horrible and obviously bugged up and its hogs cpu also, (whereas before it did a little bit during setting changes, but not during regular play)
After not updating for a long time I decided to see if there was something to be gained from the latest version, there isn;t. I'm going backwards until I get one that works...

I uninstalled all files related to previous versions of OSS 3D before installing version 2.3b7 on my 733MHz G4 with Tiger 10.4.11, but it crashes many applications. It also launches with everything off or set so that you can't hear anything. I had saved version 2.3b6 and re-installed it. It works great! I stay with it for now. I rate version 2.3b6 excellent, but stability problems with version 2.3b7 brings my ratings down some.

won't launch at all. Went back to b3.
OS 10.4.11 on a 2006 Mac Pro, 2 GB RAM.

I did some fairly extensive comparing between this and iWow by SRS and the built in enhancer for iTunes. This is just the conclusions. If anyone is interested I can provide details.

iWow has more presets so is a better "canned" product. If you don't want to do a whole lot of tweaking to get the sound just right, stick with iWow. But if you don't mind spending a little time to make things sound better, this is definitely a superior product.

I have decent (albeit custom altered) consumer level stuff, but not high end gear. I tried these apps out mostly because I just transformed an Intel Mac Mini into the center of our home media center. I wanted to improve the sound from my EyeTV set-up. The limiter/compressor is what attracted me. I hate how commercials are louder than the shows. OSS 3D does a great job with this, even just "out of the box". iWow only works with iTunes. So the fact that OSS 3D is a system wide processor works in its favour for me.

Re: iTunes, let me say I always prefer "flat" to anything processed. To me less is better. Most of the time these kinds of processors do crazy EQ things that usually result in thin, lacking-in-fullness sounds. Then they add either some delay or reverb tweaks. In both situations I had to reduce added FX to keep the sound from becoming too muddy. I already have a decent subwoofer, so bass always had to be reduced, or turned off (especially when playing some Victor Wooten)--similarly with the high freqs.

That said I was able to get superior results with this product with iTunes. I did a lot of comparison with classical, pop, vocal, jazz, and blues/rock. While most of this is purely subjective, where the difference was most noticeable was with classical and vocal music.

iWow consistently decimated female vocals. I did not find a female vocalist (opera, jazz or pop) and any setting in iWow that worked well together. Likewise, unprocessed classical and even most jazz, did better than with iWow. iWow thinned the sound out far too much and I couldn't reduce the "detail" setting enough to round the sound back out. I will say that "out of the box" iWow was softer on vocals than OSS 3D's single preset.

But as I said, OSS 3D's ability to be customized made all the difference and I was able to get a fairly decent overall setting that worked across genres as well as for EyeTV. (I hate having to constantly adjust things). I was able to achieve better clarity without weakening the female vocals.

Your mileage WILL vary. Both products are worth trying. But I would say the more sophisticated your set-up the more you'll value the flexibility of OSS 3D. The instructions are adequate, but in the end just experimenting with the settings is the only way that works--reality always trumps theory.

A bit of advice. One thing processors seem to do right off the bat is boost the volume. Almost anything can sound better louder! Find a typical listening level for you with and (especially) without processors. Then you'll get a clearer idea of what each product does to the sound.

I'm very pleased with OSS3D. Its sound enhancement features are excellent, and improbe the sound quality even on my SoundSticks.

While I initially had a problem with receiving a working serial number, the company worked with me to resolve this issue, including trying to contact me to ensure that I was satisfied.