Since this is not really a question, but an observation, I posted in General.

Out of curiosity I notice that the equalizer in Xmms (or most media players for that matter) is so broken that it's jarring to listen to music (esp. with higher bass).

The reason I believe is because they implement the Finite Response and not the Infinite Response (somebody with more knowledge in DSP can explain this better).

Now for BeOS R5 Personal, there is a fantasic app called SoundPlay, which really implements the equalizer so superbly that it's almost equal to hardware bass and treble controls.

This implements the IIR (Infinite Response). Has any Linux developer thought about making an equalizer with IIR rather than Finite Response? Because the difference is staggering.

What do others feel about this issue of "bass tearing" and software equalizers in general?

Normal equalizers (and XMMS' equalizer, too) just make the sounds with particular frequencies louder, and if you have cheap boxes/headphones, of course the bass will tear. You need some kind of equalizer that amplifies bass but doesn't allow the sound to get too loud (or just better boxes

I think it's a little more complicated than that, but basically what you said is correct as far as it goes.

I believe that the algorithm used to do the Digital Signal Processing for Equalizing is very important and it's the algorithm that decides the quality of output.

Although, yes, hardware equalizers tend to have better equalization that software equalizers.

I totally agree to Harishankar. One of my friends has really cool audio system on his computer, but also the same problem...

I'm getting very pleasant sound with cheapo (20?) Creative Inspire 2.1 boxes and with no equalizer at all. However, it depends on soundcard, too, e.g. my desktop Creative ENS1371 sound a little bit better on louder volumes than my laptop's i810_audio.