behringer vs rives

Rives is Analog whilst Behringer does things in the digital domain. The Behringer is a full paramteric equalizer it will overwhelm most people when trying to set it up and understand the width of filters according to Q etc. Behringer is better suited to geeks who spend hours reading and studying a manual....

The Rives Parc if I recall correctly has 3 parametric bands that can cut bass peaks (but not boost the dips).

Exactly....it is idiot proof. It will not ruin your sound like you can very easily do with a full fledged EQ. For example....you should NEVER boost room nulls with your EQ...this is bad....but you need to be quite knowledgeable about how audio equipment works to not make this fundamental mistake. This is where Rives come in....a product that will do as much for the room modes as you can practically do WITHOUT the risk of messing it up through ignorance.

Shadorne wrote:

"It will not ruin your sound like you can very easily do with a full fledged EQ. For example....you should NEVER boost room nulls with your EQ...this is bad."

Shadorne, you are making a lot of assumptions here to support your point... Your assumption seems to be that "everyone who uses an EQ is ignorant;" and that because the Behringer is a more powerful corrective tool there is more potential for ignorant users to do more harm than good."

Conversely, although the PARC has less potential to harm a system because it can only cut peaks and not fill in dips, but as such may not be as effective in attaining linear bass in a given room as the Behringer.

Also, the Behringer has an auto EQ mode and a built-in spectrum analyzer so that even dummies can use it... Probably a lot of audiophiles understand that it's not a great idea to boost the bass by more than a few dB.

I know that Rives was thinking about making a model that would allow a small amount of parametric bass boost as well so that it would be more useful in smoothing out small dips in response.

The simple truth is that neither unit will be ideal for every room and situation. But in making the decision on which to use it would be helpful to analyze the bass response in the room in order to determine if the simple cuts the PARC allows would correct the problem(s) to a large enough degree.

Plato,

Agreed. However I was just trying to point out that a full fledged paremteric EQ is really for a power user and not for audiophiles that tend to spurn technology in favor of purity of signal path. After all, many audiophlies eschew simple tone controls as getting in the way of the signal. they also eschew an A to D and D to A conversion of their TT signal...which is required by Behringer.

Rives is an audiophile quality product....Behringer is more of a pro product built cheaply. I think Behringer is great value but its greater complexity can be a negative to some. Rives Parc is higher quality and more suited to audiophiles with simple two channel TT rigs and no wish to read complex manuals and wish to maintain "purity of signal"...thats all.

Shadorne, yes, you're right about the PARC having greater signal purity and sonic integrity -- and for those with analog sources, or those who are using it not just on the bass, but full range, it is probably the better choice...

That's why I use an analog dbx equalizer in one of my systems. It works well for both my digital and analog sources.