Anthony Magrath of Edinburgh, UK, has come up with a way to give MP3 players better bass performance (US patent application 2004/0022400).
Simply boosting all the low-frequency sound only works when the bass levels are weak. If the original bass is loud, the boosted bass overloads the headphones and causes appalling distortion. Magrath’s new circuit analyses the original bass, making it louder only when it’s weak. The treated bass is then mixed back in with the rest of the music.
