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I recently added two components to my system that together have hugely improved the sound. I am not talking subtle changes here!The first component is a Behringer UltraCurve Pro DEQ2496. The DEQ2496 allows you to correct the frequency response of each channel using a 31-band digital equalizer. This means no phase-errors or noise, since everything is done in the digital domain. The DEQ2496 permits correction of each channel for system- or room-induced non-linearity using its internal pink-noise generator, real-time analyzer, and a calibrated microphone positioned at your listening position. You can save the correction, then make additional changes to suit the music or your mood. It gives you total control of the tonal balance of your system. WAY more control than you can effect by changing IC’s or speaker wires. You can dial out any extra brightness, dial in more bass or mids, anything you like. I was amazed how many peaks and dips in the frequency response my system contained. Also, the frequency responses of the two channels were different from each other. Not any more! The DEQ2496 has multiple other features, but I haven’t found them to be as useful as the digital equalizer.
When I first started using the DEQ2496, something about the sound annoyed me. I couldn’t listen at high levels without feeling tense. I sensed a loss of smoothness. Then I read in one of the audio forums that the DAC in the DEQ2496 is not that great. Probably worse than the DAC in my CDP. Also, the digital cables may have been introducing jitter. So I bought a Benchmark DAC1, which is extremely resolving and has a circuit that eliminates jitter. What a difference! The sound from the DAC1 has a kind of creaminess that is not at all fatiguing. The way I have it dialed-in now, the soundstage jumps forward when I toggle in the DEQ2496/DAC1. I used to like my system before, but it sounds so much more live now. This is without any loss of transparency, soundstage width or depth, or change in dynamics. The impulse response is better with the DAC1. I have practically stopped listening to my SACD collection because I cannot listen to SACD’s through the DEQ2496/DAC1 without an extra round of AD-DA conversion. The same with vinyl. To be honest, I cannot really hear any degradation going through another AD-DA cycle, but the idea bothers me. I will probably just get over it and start listening to SACD’s and vinyl through the DEQ2496/DAC1.
I feel like Christopher Columbus after discovering the New World. I can’t believe other people aren’t using this combo, or at least not writing about it. Here’s the kicker: I bought the DEQ2496 new for $300, the DAC1 used for $750, and the ECM8000 measuring mic for $60. People pay more than this for a power cord!
Associated equipment:
CD/SACD player: Sony 999ES
Preamp: Modwright 9.0SE
Amps: Conrad-Johnson Premier 12’s
Main speakers: Gallo Reference 3’s
Subwoofer: REL Storm III
Follow Ups:
I've got the Benchmark and the Behringer. Actually, I've got two of the deq2496's but am only using the one in my living room system. It makes a huge difference in an untreated room. My main system is in the basement so I don't much care how it looks. There are 28 Risch type home-made bass traps and another 15-20 fiberglass on plywood or styrofoam panel type absorbers down there. In addition, my speakers, b&w n802's, are much less prone to excite room resonances in the bass than other speakers I've had so the combination of the excessive treatment and room-friendly speakers makes the behringer unnecessary. The measurements could be improved by the behringer but deviations in the lower frequencies are small enough to not be worth messing with. I am using the behringer digital crossover, dcx2496, with a pair of subs crossed over in the 30-35 hz range. It gives better control than anything out there that I know of and is cheaper than the deq2496.I think one of the main reasons people prefer to spend their money on wires that make very little difference rather than on room treatment and bass eq is that it's just so hard to feel cool in a room full of bass traps and/or cheap looking pro gear. Not to mention the humiliation of actually measuring the frequency response and fiddling with an equalizer. The only thing I can imagine being more humiliating than that is spending hundreds of dollars on a power cord.
for best effect use jitter control on both the input and output. For a good price you can get a couple Monarchy Audio DIPs. It makes a significant difference in portrayl of soundstage and image focus.
So I guess you are digitizing the sound of your vinyl too?Geez, to each his own. But keep all that extra "band-aid" stuff out of my system.......
Oz
As noted by many vinyl asylum posters, and by stereophile, vinyl can be digitized very successfully. I use the Alesis Masterlink ML9600 which stereophile deemed so transparent one could archive the sound of various phono cartidges and phono stages onto disk for future reference. Many vinyl asylum posters with very good front ends agree. The review is online at stereophile.comI too digitize my vinyl using the ML9600 at 24/96, then feed it to the DEQ2496 - and will ultimately get a decent DAC to put on the end of the DEQ but even with the DEQ's built in DAC, various phono stages/cartidges are easily discernible.
I'm not sure what the value of your post was meant to be except to say "hey I'm too good for that" but if you read the vinyl asylum you'll know there are many posters with very good vinyl systems using the ML9600 with great success. Given that, the positives of room EQ in a room that needs it positively stomp the miniscule negatives of the DEQ into the ground - but hey, hold onto your religious principles no matter what - people will respect you for it!
I totally agree - the DEQ2496 is the greatest bargain in audio, at $300 is practically free in terms of audiophile pricing. I just use mine to flatten the bass response of my system to match my room and what a miraculous change it made - since I found digital EQ I was able to nail down my system very quickly and got off the perennial audio chase (whilst gleefully selling off $8k worth of acoustics treatment and thereby getting my living room back). Now I feel like a music lover in my living room rather than an audio nut in a padded room.One thing worth mentioning is that a lot can be achieved with the DEQ right out of the box - start by simply introducing a downward slope in the bass from 250hz to 20hz - steepness depending on the size (or lack thereof) of your room. That alone is a real eye opener - and that's all I ever needed to do, with only slight adjustment by ear thereafter.
For the first time ever I feel like my room is working WITH my system instead of against it, and I've achieved a synergy I've never known before. Since I moved to a USB based DAC, I now use the digital EQ in the PC based players to the same effect - but it was the DEQ that opened my eyes - what a find!
Even if you're a puritan whose ears are too delicate for such egregious sins, it's still a good tool to analyze the room - then you can bypass it if you feel you must. But put a good DAC on the end of it, and you've got it made.
And it amazes me how few people are willing to try it. The improvement the Behringer made in my dedicated and fully treated listening room made me much more knowledgeable about how the way the room can screw with the sound. Even in a well treated room like mine you still have quite an amplitude variation.The amplitude variation being on par with allowing a 5 year old to randomly adjust a graphic equalizer in your system for you!
I'm using a Bel Canto Dac 1.1 after mine and love it. Good point that people spend more than that on a power cord and here's a product that can make a large improvement in your system.
If most people bought the DEQ 2496 and Radio Shack interconnects and speaker cable they'd be far better off. The DEQ will more than make up for any weakness in IC's or speaker cables.
I'm glad to see others taking the plunge. I paid 150 for mine used with the ECM 8000 mike. The guy said he only owned it for a few months, when I got it home I noticed the manufacture date on the top which made it 4 months old. Been 2 years and never had any issues.
"This means no phase-errors or noise, since everything is done in the digital domain."The DEQ2496 uses IIR filters and introduces exactly the same type of phase shift that an equivalent analog parametric EQ would.
phase shift. Whatever it is that is wrong is easily trumped by the horrible amplitude variations all rooms have, even well treated rooms.Speakers also have phase issues, maybe the Behringer is actually correcting as much as it's doing damage. Either way numerous audiophiles have been to my home and have all been very impressed. A significant part of it I attribute to being able to make some adjustments to the frequency response.
That's depressing, are you sure? If the DEQ2496 does introduce phase errors, the system is still imaging beautifully. I wouldn't expect that, would you?
Yes, quite sure. Email Behringer support for your edification.
Mine images beautifully as well, and my Quads are extremely revealing. Image height, width, and depth way beyond the speaker boundaries and completely detached from the speaker locations. I can A/B mine by remote with my Creek passive pre. The only way to know for sure is to have and use it in your home on a daily basis. Check out the PC Audio forum - people rule in/out equipment based solely on nano level published jitter measurements - almost never do you hear anyone discuss how the equipment actually sounds, 90% of the time the are postulating about equipment they don't own. In the end, the positive effects of the DEQ - at least in my home - so positively stomp into insignificance the negative effects (if there are any), so anyone acute enough to identify nano-level phase effects should surely be able to identify the effects of a properly EQ'd room.
Way more control than changing cables! Seriously? You jest?
is the way to fly with the DEQ2496I use a LUCID DAC2496 that's been modified by www.audioupgrades.com, Jim Williams, in San Jose
Better Opamps, better capacitorsOptical cable from source into the DEQ; optical cable out to the DAC
Simply awesome "bang for the buck", like yourself I've bought my DAC used and spent about $700 on everything
Grins
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