MyTunes for iPhone gives your music an impressive kick
SRS Labs has just released MyTunes, a free iPhone app that rather dramatically enhances music playback on your iDevices. Instead of using the stock player provided by Apple, you launch the MyTunes app, select your playlists, albums or artists, and you're away.
The sound of most tracks transforms in an often spectacular fashion. Matt Yaney of SRS told me the app uses a variety of proprietary techniques to eliminate the degradation provided by MP3 encoding and produce a more natural and immersive experience, usually lost by the recording and compression process.
I have to agree. Listening to a variety of Rock, New Age, Jazz and Classical improved every track I tried. Bass was firmer, percussion was much sharper, and the position of instruments across the sound stage are more precise. The changes just aren't a matter of boosting high and low frequencies, there is a good deal of sophisticated audio processing taking place. I found the effects most pronounced on music that was recorded live with acoustic instruments, but as I said, just about every genre of music sounded better.
This app is a bit of a breakthrough for SRS Labs, because the only previous way to get this technology was with a hardware dongle on the SRS Wow! product. I've compared the 2 systems, and found the audio quality quite close. The SRS Wow! does have an actual hardware DAC (digital audio converter) but I was hard pressed to hear the difference when listening to MyTunes.
There are a few caveats. The MyTunes app won't work with any music that has DRM, and it won't work on any videos you have. Since the app only connects to your iTunes library, it won't enhance Pandora, Spotify or any online streaming services.
If you want even more features there is a US$4.99 in-app purchase that provides additional custom controls for audio enhancement, more EQ settings, volume leveling, and an simpler interface to use when driving. I didn't find the extra features all that compelling, but SRS Labs will let you sample them for ten minutes to see if they are worthwhile for you.
If you listen to a lot of music on your iDevice, and most of us do, I wouldn't hesitate to download MyTunes. The basic app is free. It takes a little effort to explore all the features provided, but if you try it I think it will have a permanent place on your iPhone or iPod touch. The app also will work on an iPad, but MyTunes is not universal, and a separate iPad app is coming later this year.
Give the app a listen and report your impressions in comments, and check the gallery out for some screen shots.
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SRS Labs has just released MyTunes, a free iPhone app that rather dramatically enhances music playback on your iDevices. Instead of...
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I bought this app mainly based on your positive review. It worked a couple of days, but now crashes after playing 30 seconds of a tune. Then I reboot app and get a repeat crash. I tried to use it on an iPhone 4. Went to srs web site to put in a complaint, couldn't find customer support link on their home page. Don't want to take anymore time with this app. Just long enough to warn others to make sure it works for them before buying. It did sound good when it worked.
October 17 2011 at 5:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyTo address some if the comments:
Yes, the sound difference is quite impressive, even after the WOW has quit you can definitely hear a difference between it and the iPod app.
Yes, it is extremely buggy, for me it quits playing every song about 10 seconds before it ends. For such a buggy app it is way overpriced, I made the mistake of buying the premium content before giving it a thorough testing.
Support does exit but is not easy to find, click on contact on their web site, they have replied to me already.
Yes, the is a scratching sound in the bits with more silence which is due to their enhancing algorithms, you will never get enhanced audio without some noise, it is the digital manipulation if the sound. There is also distortion if you raise the enhancement too much or have the bass on high. Still, the difference with a good pair of headphones is quite impressive.
And finally, yes, the design is horrible. Everything from the buttons to the confusing way you access the enhanced features, the app is a mess, developed by engineers with no design considerations it seems, it's a good thing it's made mainly for listening and not looking at it (if it actually worked properly).
If I could get the olay issue solved I would orobaly use this ins tread of the iPod app.
Is this a paid review? This is NOT a good app, nor is it free, It is a crippled DEMO, and it takes forever to load.
October 10 2011 at 7:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI think you have a valid point. The app uses this website and a few others as a testimonial. Interestingly they both come out on the same day and the only websites that had a full review were the ones the app used as a testimonial. This is probably not too unusual since companies often give there products out for reviews before they launch the product. It's just that this review seems pretty one sided and not complete.
October 11 2011 at 11:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyGreat. But how do I improve the sound for Spotify.
October 10 2011 at 3:52 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyGreat. But how do I improve the sound for Spotify?
October 10 2011 at 3:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyNot with this app. This app only enhances music from your library.
October 11 2011 at 11:17 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI hear scratching and it skips a lot on my 3GS... No other apps running. I guess it needs more horsepower?
October 10 2011 at 3:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis app is worse than a beta. WHEN it works it's as good as you say. But most of the time it hangs, crashes, doesn't start, is glacially slow etc. And there is NO customer support - not listed on the SRS support pages. Really wonder how this got throgh Apple's QC.
October 10 2011 at 2:11 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI downloaded and used this app last night, and it definitely sounded great. However, when I switched to Safari, the music stopped. 'Oh well,' I thought, 'can't have everything.' when I woke up this morning, my iPhone was totally dead. I'm pretty sure MyTunes running in the background (and not outputting any music!) is the culprit. A word of warning/something the devs should definitely be working on.
October 10 2011 at 1:32 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThis is the buggiest app I have ever used on an iOS device! iPhone 4, won't run if iPod app open. If it does load it eith hangs or if you get it to the actual library it quits before playing. I have got it to work once only. Have deleted and reinstalled but no improvemnt. Desperately needs a bugfix update.
October 10 2011 at 12:48 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI heard a significant difference when WOW HD was active. As soon as my 10 minutes of premium content was up the sound back to normal. So it seems that unless you purchase the premium content you don't enjoy the enhancements. It seems like the developer used this route to give people a free preview, since the app store has no direct way of doing this yet. This review makes it seem like the premium content is not necessary which confuses me since once the premium content time period is up the sound is no longer enhanced.
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