# alpine Media Xpander



## pcallycat (Jul 22, 2014)

I've been googling for a couple data, but have been unable to find an answer to this question. What exactly does Alpine media xpander do? The documentation claim it restores lost audio quality resulting from compression. I'm not sure if that's through eq or some algorithm applied to the actual music.


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## ImK'ed (Aug 12, 2013)

As far it sounds well on my 9855r it just boosts bass mid alot and treble


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## pcallycat (Jul 22, 2014)

I've noticed, and read, that having it enabled creates significantly more preout voltage, but it's unclear whether this is due to boosts, or what. I guess what I'm really trying to determine is whether to tune with it enabled or not. It seems no matter how much I tweak setting I can't get the same quality of sound with it off as I can with it on. I suspect part of that is due to the higher dynamic range I can get from my amps with the lower gain settings it allows, but I really just know enough to shoot myself in the foot. I hope to understand its real effects so I can determine if it's good or bad when it comes to sound quality.


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## T3mpest (Dec 25, 2005)

I've had this discussion with a few people who had similar results. Whatever it does, it sounds better on than off an no amount of EQ work seems to make up the difference. One guy even won a national show with it enabled, if that helps at all. My last setup mx2 seemed to be the sweetspot and I had a h701, so I had plenty of processing at my disposal.


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## pcallycat (Jul 22, 2014)

That's pretty much what I've found. Thanks for the info on the competition win. I've been running mx1,but I'm pretty sure if I go 2 I can tame some of the wildness of my eq that occurs trying to get decent sound in my car.


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## santiagodraco (Feb 9, 2012)

I'm pretty sure it's doing a number of different processing tasks, with more or less effect and "types" based on the setting. As to whether or not it's boosting output voltage directly I'd be surprised if it was. I don't sense any noticeable volume increase when I activate it outside of the normal eq boosting it is doing.

As for quality on vs off I'm pretty sure that has a lot to do with your source material and possibly source type. Running full digital from source with high quality flac recordings I can't see the mxpander doing anything helpful, most likely it will overprocess.

From an analog of questionable quality and compressed audio source (ie mp3) then it definitely makes them sound better. Spotify is a great example. Even though it's high bitrate (at max quality) it's still lacking in bottom and top end and turning MX on helps a great deal.


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