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September 28, 2007

updates

SRS iWOW 2.0 released, unlikely to wow you

Posted Sep. 28, ’07, 11:30 AM PT by Thomas Gagnon-van Leeuwen
Category | Software » Updates

If I am any indication, the recent MacUpdate bundle helped publicize SRS iWOW quite a bit inside the Mac shareware community. I’ve now been using the fancy sound enhancement iTunes plug-in for a while, and I’ve been pretty happy with the results. I don’t know how iWOW does it, but the music really does sound much richer, more detailed, and just plain better (in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not one of those Dan Frakes-style audio experts versed in the art of sound quality description).

So I was pleasantly surprised to see iWOW 2.0 be released. The new version brings welcome improvements, including the much-needed ability to save your custom presets. Also cool is that iWOW can now automatically change the active preset based on the playing song — I assume it looks at the Genre field. Speaking of presets, we’ve now got a few more, including podcast and techno. Finally, there’s some kind of virtual 360-degree surround sound experience thingy which sounds interesting. See for yourself at the website.

That’s all very fine, but frankly, many of these changes are (a) fairly minor or (b) should’ve been there in the first place. And this leads us to the bad news: the upgrade cost for registered 1.x users is $11.99 (the full version is $19.99). I don’t want to complain too much as I got iWOW as part of a bundle, but still, $12 is a little steep for 2.0’s new features. What do you think?


6 Comments

Bichufo said:

I also got this as part of the bundle but I never did get used to fist of all, the horrid interface and it never did sound well. So I invested in a set of LaCie firewire speakers. With those you don't need any iwow. I installed the 2.0 version to find out I had to pay so I decided to uninstall and go back to the old one. Well, that part doesn't work. So I removed it alltogether.

September 28, 2007 12:02 PM
rich Author Profile Page said:

I bought iWow less than a year ago for full price based on the value I felt it delivered (Made my relatively cheap speakers sound a lot better)

To have to pay 12$ to get features that should have been there to begin with is lame. I'll stick with the 1.x version I have. It does what I need and the "new" features simply aren't even close to compelling enough.

SRS - Know your customers and don't rip them off. This is one of those typical windows incremental upgrade scams. (You know the type, fix bugs add incredibly minor functionality, then ding the users for it.)

I can't support software companies that treat there clients with so little regard.

No (real) value = you don't deserve my business any longer. Shame.

Voting with my $.

Rich

September 28, 2007 4:56 PM
Yong Hwee said:

Why can't they offer a free update to existing users? Not compelling enough for a paid upgrade.

Oh I got this as part of the bundle too.

September 30, 2007 5:08 AM
Stanislav Majerski said:

Bichufo is right. Just get a decent pair of speakers or headphones. Don't mess with the artists vision of sound production. The beauty of sound lies in the hands of a good sound engineer. If sounds crappy it's not worth listening.

Listening with flat EQ on a great system makes you appreciate what the guys in the studio are meticulously trying to communicate us.

Just my 2cents
peace

October 1, 2007 3:29 AM
dan mercury said:

It adds a lot of flashy noise to the sound but I wouldn't recommend it. agree with the others, get good headphones, you are getting a lot of fake digital processing. you'll go wow at first, but it'll tire you out.

October 1, 2007 7:14 PM
mikelite said:

I prefer VolumeLogic by Octiv. iWOW hijacked the audio on my MBP.

October 2, 2007 10:10 PM

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