![]() Worth mentioning is the phase reversal feature which would give you an idea of what the sound would be like when your headphones are wired in an incorrect phase (hint: when phase inverted, soundstage tend to be wider, but don’t get fooled as the image is totally messed up with no proper center focus). Finally, you get some bonus features such as phase reversal, channel reversal, mono signal output, and solo channel features. The crossfeed effect also tends to lower the treble quantity and adds a tad more bass, so some basic treble/bass equalization control is also added with the FHX add-on to reverse those effects introduced by the crossfeed. In regards to the crossfeed, basically you get two parameters to adjust: Speaker angle (0° to 60°), and intensity of the crossfeed filter (0% to 150%). Aside from the usual sound changes associated with mixing the stereo signal (a warmer darker sound with less wide but less panned-out soundstage), signal quality remains very high with the FHX and at the moment I think this is the best crossfeed mechanism I’ve yet found (and for $49.99 it’s far more cheaper than the SPL Phonitor). Although the Phonitor amp has more control over the crossfeed parameters, the FHX has the benefit of operating in the digital domain allowing for a far better preservation of signal purity. The FHX add on is one of the best crossfeed control I’ve ever used, second to the SPL Phonitor amplifier. It reminds me of the canz3D plug in, but I’ve always found canz3D to be too complex for a casual day to day use. The latest addition to the Fidelia package is the FHX add on which is an advanced crossfeed processing control. But the great thing about Fidelia is that even after purchasing the $19.99 and $49.99 licenses, it’s still cheaper than the basic Junior from Sonic Studio or Channel D’s Pure Music, while offering very solid features and a far more mature user-interface. Likewise, while I love having access to the iZotope resampling parameters, one thing you need to realize is that the $49.99 add-on is not going to give you a sound that’s 2.5X better than the basic $19.99 software. Are they really that mandatory? The exclusive DAC access can be a nice thing to have, but even without it you are already getting good sound out of the standard Fidelia. The next step up is Fidelia Advanced which costs $49.99 on top of the basic software, and gives you more advanced features that include exclusive access to the DAC and advanced control of the iZotope resampling function. It is not quite as enticing as BitPerfect’s $5 price tag, but I believe the iZotope resampler is superior to the SoX resampler of BitPerfect. Personally, I find the basic Fidelia to be a very solid player for the budget-minded, considering the list of features and sound quality that you get for $20. Although it misses out on some features like device hog mode and memory cache playback (which you’ll get with the Free Audirvana), overall the sound quality discrepancy to the Advanced Fidelia is not as big as between the Free Audirvana to Audirvana+. It is the cheapest player to feature the iZotope resampler and with manual controls over the upsampling engine. Looking at Audiofile Engineering’s Website, it seems clear that these guys have the most experience when it comes to designing audio softwares for the OS X (and also iOS), and that experience is evident as I compare the day-to-day usability and user-interface factor of Fidelia.įidelia starts as a basic $19.99 software, and it really is a solid piece of software for the price. Fidelia from Audiofile engineering has the best combination of sound, user interface, and features.
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