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Samsung's on-screen media player gives you Web radio presets, lets you add special effects to music, and allows you to convert MP3 files to .wav format.
Is it software or hardware? Judging from the glossy metallic stack of components that Samsung's Jet Audio Plus launches on your desktop, it's hard to tell. Functionally, it's not important: This set of audio software "components" provides a handy, all-in-one playback solution for MP3, CD audio, RealMedia, and video files.
Despite its name, Jet Audio does nothing to "accelerate" audio, but this software--which was developed by Cowon--does go well beyond the functionality of most media players. Music hobbyists and tinkerers can add a range of 3D effects, tweak frequency response with a 20-band equalizer, and save streaming audio to disk. If that isn't enough, an Internet radio component allows you to listen to any of the thousands of radio stations broadcasting RealMedia streaming audio worldwide.
Jet Audio uses the now-classic onscreen stereo system metaphor-- seven modules that appear as stacked audio components. The top three are a module for tuning the display and hiding the modules, an EQ/Effects unit with numerous presets, and a mixer module that duplicates the functionality of the Windows volume control. Below these are four more modules used to play audio files, CDs, MIDI files, and video files.
All the modules share the same interface and controls, and have advanced playback features like list play, random play, and reverse order play. The modules also have the ability to define groups of files as "albums." Of course, you may also select files the old- fashioned way--one at a time--or simply drag files to the modules to be played. The drawback here is that, even when the modules are maximized, some of the text labels are difficult to read at the 1024- by-768 screen resolution I use.
A Bevy of Effects and Controls
I'm not a big fan of adding effects to somebody else's music, but the...