Winamp Plug-in Details

Winamp Staff Review

Breakaway Audio Enhancer
For a new listening experience. Try it out.

User Reviews

Love it/Bought it

Oct. 10th, 2008

Sounded so good, I decided to buy it. Am glad I did too. Couldn't be without this one. Presets are very functional.
- Herb Stanley

cool

Oct. 2nd, 2008

loud
- soon peng hi

Nice Interface, but...

Jul. 13th, 2008

#1: Sorry, this is NOT a plug in.#2: It installs as a separate piece of software, with nags.#3: It was gutless. Cut my sound by 50%, lost 2 speakers from my 5.1, and the slider action to make adjustments needs ALOT of work.Please, if you are going to offer items that are NOT plug-ins, you need another category to put them in.I prefer my sound goodies to ACTUALLY be in with my sound player.#4: For what this is, it caused my cpu usage to take a MAJOR jump..leads me to believe that there is alot of unnecessary code with this. When I looked at my task slaver, it showed at least 2 instances of this running, and both were needed for proper operation. This was a bomb...do not bother.
- Papa Smurf

Enhanced my sound very much......BUT

May. 10th, 2008

When I tried to uninstall it all sound in winamp stopped working..........sound everywhere else worked just fine though.
- Nik K.

Not Bad, NOT the best by far!

Apr. 30th, 2008

Don't get me wrong, this is a nice tool.The way the setup a sound driver that directs to the sound card is genius! (Pretty much they make it work with 99% of apps without much trouble)But I will say, ffdshow has more control by far, including hardware processing optimizations. ffdshow can handle 32-bit 192KHz audio streams, I have yet to find a consumer sound card that even supports that high of fidelity, most cap at 24-bit 192KHz.I currently use ATSurround to output my audio as a DTS stream via optical, ffdshow to process my input, and the 250 Band EQ by Nevi as a DSP. This configuration gives me complete control over stereo to surround upconversion, along with numerous enhancers.I can tell you know my sound card isnt much, but it is being maxed out as much as I've found possible without creating audio distortion.Any questions, contact me:s_k_h_a_m_e_n_e_h_@_g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m(remove the underscores)
- Shawn Khameneh

Masterpiece!

Apr. 28th, 2008

This thing sounds incredible out of the box. I'm a mobile DJ, and different recording levels has been the bane of my existence for as long as I've been doing this.No more! Breakaway is a HUGE improvement to the sound quality of my setup. Thanks guys, good work!
- Izzy Benford

Big Improvement

Apr. 28th, 2008

I've used Volume Logic before, and thought it was excellent, but Breakaway is in a different league. It evens out the levels at least as well as VL did, but also keeps the "punch" of the music -- it doesn't sound like anything the music is being compressed, if anything it things get MORE dynamic.The bass-boost is INSANE too - I'm loving it!
- Rick Steiner

EXCELLENCE!

Apr. 28th, 2008

This is by far the best, smoothest, most customizable, most intuitive and easy to use mixer. Even the many presets are so good at turning the most subpar staticky live track into a crystal clear CD quality version. Also, under custom settings mode, you can set anything from buffer size, to freq. range, to toggling on or off great features like the auto-sync that is spot-on in keeping the media player and the Breakaway outputs in total sync.You can boost the bass massively, even compensate for small speakers with a "bass shape" level to add punch to your music with no true subwoofer. It docks nicely, has a quick bypass toggle if you want to .. let's say a movie player use its own output settings after you've used Breakaway for mp3s.You can fix low volume live/studio/underground recordings with higher Range and less Power to eliminate background noise.Best of all, the presets are perfect. One click can make your NWA or Tonedeff rap tracks boom with bass and retain crisp lyrics - Then flick it to another setting to bring out each and every note of a ska or thrash metal song with clarity.I personally had a track from Eminem, a rare recording of the Rap Olympics battles he did..WOW. Originally it was tinny, drowned in crowd noise and bad recording. I set Breakaway to Magnifying Glass preset and it came out like a CD mastered track! I am in love with this plugin and it is WELL WORTH the fee!Best Hands Down.-SeifPS - Great for troubleshooting/fixing audio errors with driver changes (such as RealTek) that mangle your audio for games music and everything else. One click and Breakaway will automatically override managers like RealTekHD and let you bring wonderful quality sound to your system. (Hell I'm running on a 2 front satellite/1 subwoofer setup left over from a 7 speaker Klipsch 5.1 system from 1997! It sounds better then when I first bought it! Missing 4 speakers and all!)
- Seifer Almasy

Didn't work for me

Apr. 23rd, 2008

After reading all of the glowing reviews, I tried it. D/L the Windows program direct from the developer's site, installed it, and fired it up with some music, playing through first Winamp, then using another music playback program. with my system, whichis an audiophile sound card and high quality Hi-fi stereo components, and settings of 0 for both range and power (to eliminate any compression or equalization) and listening to classical music compressed with Mp3, I could not tell any difference in sound between this program being on, or bypassed. Then I switched back to my favorite DSP, which is Izotope Ozone, and the difference was dramatic. Ozone works for me. Breakaway does not. It may work well for others with different systems or setups though.
- Fred Glavin

Bloody Amazing Quality... At A Price

Apr. 19th, 2008

Seriously, this is the most amazing thing I have ever installed on my computer. I've been looking for something like this for years, but I have one problem with it:It devours system resources. Seriously, this thing will eat your CPU alive. If you can handle that, then this is your program.As for the nag screen: I'd like to think that the developers could have done without it. When you include nags it only degrades your consumers perception of your product.
- Red McCaster

Great!!!!

Apr. 14th, 2008

Makes my speakers sound WAy betetr
- wilton aft

Nicely done!

Apr. 12th, 2008

Sounds great, installed very easily, and improves ALL audio in your computer, not only Winamp. I cant recommend it highly enough!
- Eugene Mikhonkovich

The best sound

Apr. 12th, 2008

Very good plugin, i like very much, thank you!!!!
- Kittiporn Nonkukhetkhong

Audiophile grade

Apr. 12th, 2008

I was thoroughly surprised when I installed and listened to this in my hifi system (klipsch speakers, carver amp, apogee mini-dac). These guys actually seem to know what they're doing! With Reference Settings, it evened out volume levels really nicely, but without making it sound compressed. It also brought out details in the music and brought out a delicate warmth I have never noticed before, and yet never over-enhanced everything, it made it sound MORE natural, not less.. In fact, the feeling I got was "wow, this is how my music was supposed to sound all along" ...!
- Barney McCallum

Not good software

Apr. 12th, 2008

Made my computer crash when I tried to install it!
- Morten Andersen

Plugin?

Apr. 11th, 2008

Firstly this is separate piece of software not a plugin. Also plugins dont usually have annoying prompts to purchase full versions.Aside from all that, it didn't work for me anyway.
- ian jarvis

Great sound - some problems

Apr. 10th, 2008

I agree - the Windows plug in sounds fantastic. Just about the best sound conditioning I've heard. After installation, it can crash Winamp, though, until you configure Winamp's output to use the Breakaway pipeline.On the down side, for $30 you get one license for one hardware ID - and you should get at least two - many people have more than one computer (in my case desktop and laptop) - consumer-friendly companies recognize this now and give 2-3 licenses for their products.
- Michael Jackman

Music to my ears!

Apr. 10th, 2008

Hands down the best audio processor I've ever heard.. Not just on the computer, but ANYWHERE.
- ciraptor v

finally...

Apr. 10th, 2008

an audio enhancer that WORKS, does exactly what they claim it does, and does it with style. worth every penny!
- Jethro Janham

Who knew?

Apr. 7th, 2008

Who knew that my cheap PC speakers could sound so good!?! Incredible product.
- Jun Terashima

NICE

Apr. 5th, 2008

This one is in a different league from all the wannabe DSP plugins out there, this is the real deal. Well worth the money for anyone who plays music on their computer. My computer is hooked up to my stereo system, and ever since I installed Breakaway it sounds fantastic.
- Bruno Park

PARTY!!!!

Apr. 5th, 2008

Sound is truely hi-fi and very well mastered, bass boost is INSANE
- Miquel Jenner

WOW!

Apr. 4th, 2008

So many "audio enhancers" CLAIM to do what this one is doing, but this one really does it, and does it well! All my music suddenly sounds like a professional mastering engineer mixed it. Nice work guys! Can't see being without this one. I LOVE the user interface too!
- Sebastian Pamella

Impressive Interface

Apr. 4th, 2008

The best a man can get. If you don't like this plug-in, then I don't like you. It's that good...I send many thanks to Leif Claesson and anyone else that made this happen.
- Richard Owen

Good DSP But.....

Apr. 4th, 2008

This is a good plugin. Directly I heard a difference in my music. It's pretty straight forward to use. I like that you can use it with Winamp closed. But to be honest I can acheive the same sound with the jammix DSP plugin if not better. Not to be bashing on this Plugin, it is great. I could be just being cheap and don't want to dish out 30 bucks on something I can do with something free. Sorry if you like it, just being honest.
- Michael Norman

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