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The Schwede Loudness EQ  The loudness EQ is based on the Equalizer patent of Bernhard Schwede. The idea behind this equalization is based on psychoacoustic grounds. Mainly the psychoacoustic quantity loudness is eponymous and essential for the EQ design by Schwede. In acoustics this loudness describes the subjective perception of sound pressure. Schwedes EQ design then considers this subjective perception to create a more pleasant playback regarding the sound intensity. The specific design of Schwedes patent is implemented in the presented plugin. Summing up this EQ offers you the possibility to influence playback volume in such a way that the resulting loudness impression becomes more authentic throughout the audible frequency spectrum. Choose your desired loudness Level via the drop-down menu. These ten different level settings in dB are illustrated with comparisons benefiting an intuitive use of this plugin. Starting at the lowest level at 60 dB you can increase the loudness up to 105 dB. This plugin is based on the patent: ”Equalizer, audio system with such an equalizer and method for equalizing a sound mix” by Bernhard Schwede. His design describes an audio equalizer with a special concept. In general Schwede’s algorithm aims the purpose of an aurally linearized equalization of a sound mix.The idea is based on the psychoacoustic characteristics of the human hearing and and its anatomy.  Our auditory sensitivity is frequency dependent, which also effects the perception of loudness.  This sensitivity regarding the loudness can cause an unauthentic sound experience when listening at home to audio recordings for example of a concert hall. So Schwede’s concept tries to overcome these non linearities of the human sense of hearing with a equalizer design which creates an optimized compensation curve based on the psychoacoustic [...]

Stereophile Reviews Weiss DAC502 Two of the highest-resolution D/A processors I have measured have been from Swiss pro-audio company Weiss Engineering: the Medea and the DAC202. Both offered superb resolution - almost 20 bit performance - and both paired that resolution with sound quality to die for. Kal Rubinson wrote ‘The Medea remains in my mind as one of the only digital systems I’ve heard that could compete with the very best that vinyl has to offer while still doing what digital does best. In other words, there were warmth and musicality, staggering dynamics, and real silent background.’ Looking inside the DAC502 left an impression of a component constructed to a high standard. The immediate impression was of extraordinary clarity. This wasn’t as if the edges of the objects within the soundstage had been enhanced, as can be done to images in PhotoShop, but as if the pixel count of the image had been increased. It didn’t manage this by emphasizing treble detail, but the DAC502 cleaned the window into the recorded soundstage to an impressive extent. This soundstage clarity was a consistent feature of my time with the Weiss processor. I’ve never heard this so clearly delineated as with the DAC502. The layering of soundstage on this album, with various different instruments accompanied by different amounts of reverb, was also very audible. The DAC502s’s low frequencies combined clarity with an excellent sense of what the late Art Dudley used to call ‘force’… there was an excellent sense of forward momentum with the bass guitar and kick drum. Similarly, the double basses were superbly well-defined but with good weight. On both these albums, I was again struck by the well-differentiated layering of the [...]