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The Beautifyer iPhone app is claimed to playback compressed audio files in an enhanced way, using a new algorithm.

Beautifyer "How it works" image Transform your [...] music files into an extraordinary new listening experience [...]

It is my guess that this is just marketing talk, and that the application, in fact, will not do much more than some equalizer adjustments and maybe some phase adjustments to give a stereo widening effect. In my opinion, this would make the music sound worse, not better.

Or is this really some new, revolutionary new algorithm that really does enhance the audio output?

I don't want to spend my money on an app that turns out just to be a fancy equalizer.

senshin
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BaGi
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    The manufacturers, Auro Technologies, have a a codec Auro-3D Octopus, but skimming the [white paper](http://www.auro-3d.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Auro3D-Octopus-White-Paper.pdf) I can't see the relevance to this application. – Oddthinking Oct 18 '12 at 10:48
  • There are number or technologies that are marketed as "Virtual Surround" or "Simulated Surround". They don't improve quality of the sound, just make it sound more "spatial". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_surround – vartec Oct 18 '12 at 13:22
  • The only way to know that is to download it and test it. You might already know this, but the app description says it's based on the work of [Auro Technologies](http://www.auro-technologies.com/) Chances are whatever they are doing is a trade secret. – Nathan Oct 17 '12 at 18:56
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    This is interesting and very cleverly worded. It doesn't say that it enhances the audio quality but adds 'immersive enhancement', 'adds new character' and gives a 'new listening experience'. I think you hit the nail on the head with what it actually does and whether it sounds 'better' or not is subjective. I also noticed they use the word 'saturate' quite a bit which obviously suggests some saturation algorithm is also run on the audio. I don't think it makes the audio any better it just gives a 'new listening experience' like they said, which is probably true. – mbx-mbx Oct 18 '12 at 10:21
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    Looks like I have some reverse engineering to do... – Polynomial Dec 04 '12 at 15:22
  • The app is free of charge now. And it does more or less exactly what I expected. I think it does compression, equalizer adjustments and phase changes in the higher frequencies. – BaGi Aug 02 '13 at 12:54
  • As it has been stated, 'enhancing' audio is a very subjective term and simply isn't really able to be answered here. That being said, assuming it talks about 'enhancing' files compressed with lossy compression, there's no way to recreate data that has been removed from a file -- once the data is gone it's gone. – SpellingD May 28 '14 at 19:54

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