You could always use something like Audio Hijack Pro for applying equalization (though I think Decibel will eventually have AudioUnits support). Regarding your third question, Decibel does support integer mode. Last I heard, however, there's a bug or deprecation in Lion that prevents it from working.

Bitperfect is still buggy, but Fidelia is amazing in my view.

No talent???

So I guess it's just a fluke that she's smashed several records and won nearly every award possible? Everyone else must be wrong, right?

Just because YOU don't like her is no reason to criticize her as a performer, especially on this website that is all about software, not music!

There are millions of artists, and no matter which one was used in the screenshot, somebody wouldn't like it.

There's no accounting for taste, or lack of. Keeping this software related I'll say this: AutoTune.

Haha, good one. By now I think everyone got your point.

I think you're right with some of your views, and of course Ethan Winer (the YouTube link you've posted) is right, at least about the the examples he shows. However, I feel you've misunderstood one or two things…

It's true, audio has a lot to do with placebo effect, and many audiophiles are embarrassing – little story here: once we had a recording session where a guy claimed he could hear the difference between 176.4kHz and 88.2kHz (I cannot). After a while, I heard a very high frequency hiss. I asked the others about it, but none of the others heard it. Then I recorded silence and played it back at much lower speed, and now everybody could hear the (now by some octaves lower) hiss – even the guy with the super accurate 176.4kHz-ears…

However, there really exists better and worse audio quality. To say there isn't a difference between 16 and 24 bit tells much about your equipment and the music you listen to. Do you listen through the build-in output or do you have a dedicated audio interface? What kind of speakers do you have? Electrostatic headphones? What amp? Equally important: What do you listen to? Pop music? Classical music? Who made the recordings and with what equipment? What file type?

With most pop music, and even orchestral music I don't hear a difference between 16 and 24 Bit. However if I record a lute or a clavichord with a singer, it's starting to matter (that said, maybe 18 or 20 Bit would be enough for me). Same with dither; for 99.9% of music it really doesn't matter (at least for me; but I always consider there are people who hear better; my wife for example...).

I haven't tried Decibel, so I can’t say anything about it. However, I used Fidelia for playback, and there is a huge difference between the Izotope resampler and the standard built-in Apple AUconverter. You could download Fidelia, and try the Izotope resampler (select in Preferences); if you don't hear a difference (or it sounds worse, so to say: thinner=more highs), the weakest point in your audio system is not the software. Try with better loudspeakers or headphones; try to go into a good amp. For DA the Mac output will do for the beginning – it needs a lot of experience to hear differences anyway (and after a certain quality level, there are no differences: everything sounds neutral).

The last and most important thing: what sounds „good“? what is „good“ sound? There is no definitive answer for that, and for most people this is a matter of taste. My quality measure, as somebody who works in classical music recording: it must sound as realistic as possible. Problem here: the only way to know how it sounds in reality: you must be there to hear it „live“ when it's recorded, to know how reality actually „sounded“. And then: microphones, microphone placement, recording position, etc. have much, much, much more influence over the result than sample rate, file type etc. or the software you use to listen to it afterwards.

So is Decibel a waste of money? I can't say, haven't tried – probably for you it's a waste of money, but for others it might make well sense. Even if it's just a placebo: if it sounds better for the believers, than it's an improvement. And what if it is for real and your equipment is just not good enough to make the differences audible? Or you are not trained to hear the differences (many very good musicians are not good at judging sound quality. Matter of practice and experience).

However, if I'd be you, I would be careful with negative comments (unless you checked with phase invert that there is no effect so you can proof the results). Thanks for the laugh with the Audiophile Ethernet cable though ;-)

16 vs 24 bit listening to music is going to be impossible to spot the difference. Test like yo conducted is a different storry.

There is no way this app can make your music sound better than other free players e.g... iTunes.