14 DAY TRIAL // Plugins and plugins... all theoretically sworn to enhance something, no matter how little or big, but just (supposedly) making things run better. Some given away for free and some kindly offered for the big or even bigger bucks, some working and some working less, but again, all trying to make things better. DFX for Winamp is one such software, which tries to compensate the lack of serious gear, be that gear the one that plays audio (like soundcards, in our case) or merely reproducing it (speakers and the rest).
The Looks
From my very first contact with DFX for Winamp, I noticed it's a program meant for large audiences: it looks more "game" than "professional". It has skins, some coming bundled with the software by default, but users are still able to download more skins over the net; these skins look really good and truly appealing, yet they are more like flash games interfaces: very colored and highly 3D, with carefully-drawn buttons and sliders and with no options for the graphic tweaks that may be sometimes needed.
I won't describe here all the skins coming with DFX for Winamp, since this would be rather ridiculous. I'll just add that - despite this toy-ish appearance - DFX for Winamp does not have lots of futile elements, as some might have expected: everything is at its place and every piece of color "does something when moved". Even if the GUI is rather eye-candy, I must admit that - in this way - DFX for Winamp becomes more accessible for users with little or no sound-tech knowledge at all.
Basically, the DFX's GUI is a small window whose size and shape changes accordingly, as you load various skins; it houses the 5 direct-access controls in the shape of slider-bars, each with a digital clock-type indicator which shows the numeric value on the slide bar. Next to the grouped sliders, one can see a half-useful so-called "spectrum analyzer" in the shape of 5 LED-simulating VU-meter horribly colored, looking like a cheap toy. Below all these are the processing mode regulators, for music or speech, buttons for presets and the very few options.
It has a rather technologically-simple interface with highly colored or at least very shaped designs meant to be eye-catchy, especially for those who like to charge their desktops and trays with lots of "cool" things; one good point for DFX for Winamp's GUI is that you can make it disappear in case you do not include yourself in the category I have just described.
The Works
First of all, I must say that I really can't write too much abut the efficiency of the DFX for Winamp, because the unregistered version has very drastic limitations which ended up in seriously annoying me, close to the point where I intended to drop the review and change for something more reasonable.
The first thing which literally poked my sight was the said "spectrum analyzer" which unfortunately is nothing more than a colored joke. Those LED-like lights colored in sparkling and ultimately inappropriate colors help you observe thing better and live up your desktop, if you wish: it is slow-responsive and seriously, 5 bands or no bands at all is almost the same.
The Fidelity slider controls some high frequencies and nothing but some more acute sounds will come out of this, while Hyperbass regulates the amount of "deep" frequencies. The difference is that these amounts and values have been carefully studied such as to enrich your sound and not simply boost and cut sound.
Dynamic Boost is some sort of preamp as it states it "can significantly increase the headroom" of your playback... preamp maybe, but explanations like "carefully processing the audio to increase the perceived loudness of the audio without altering the perceived dynamic range" (http://www.fxsound.com/dfx/pages/overview/features.php?vendor=0&subvendor=0&plus=0&refer=0#effects) are rather related to marketing than to DSP-field.
The Ambience menu is supposed to re-build the stereo field depth, but truly, I could not hear such a notable difference...or maybe I wasn't playing some audio lousy enough. A change in the way audio media sounds is evident as the processed sound is growing fatter as you slide the cursor further up the bar, but I guess this feature is really handy ONLY on lousy audio sources or low-quality speakers.
About 3D and Headphones, you shouldn't even ask me, as these options are available only in the registered version. I should add that DFX for Winamp sports a broad array of presets for most of the situations one might meet, and you can easily add more as you tweak the settings and save them.
Now, close to the end of the article, I can clearly state that DFX for Winamp is rather a piece of code which can come in handy when crappy audio is on or when good (or again, crappy) audio is running on crappy speakers, whose decayed state "murders" the sound. I personally can't see the point in buying such software, as long as you own a serious soundcard and serious sound system/headphones; I have them all and little did DFX for Winamp do for me.
The Good
The good part about DFX for Winamp is that it offers a great deal of help to those who (unfortunately) happen to own crappy gear or have crappy audio around them. A very intuitive program and - at the same time - dead-simple to use, thus fit for newbies and people who don't know anything on sound whatsoever.
The Bad
The complementary of the above statements is the bad thing: the moment you buy decent gear, the software becomes totally futile.
The Truth
I am still very pissed off for the fact that the developers of the DFX for Winamp have really put in such drastic cutoffs for the unregistered version, making it impossible to test the limits and true capabilities of the program. Should this be mended somewhere in the future I'll be glad to test the software more thoroughly.
As a conclusion... DFX for Winamp is well worth trying, but if you have decent audio gear at home, forget about it, buy some chips and beer instead.
Below are some screenshots of the DFX for Winamp which are only waiting for you to check them out:
