2. member-reviews
  3. 1107728225

Review: Behringer DEQ2496 Equalizer

Category: Preamps

I mostly listen to classical music, but occasionally everything except rock pop and rap.

I am a sucker for spatial sense, and an effortless sound during loud passages. Note the elaborate subwoofer system and many watts of amplifier power.

Intermodulation distortion drives me nuts. Unfortunately this is often from mics used for vocalists, and can't be eliminated on playback.

I have just installed this unit, and it replaces nothing.
When set flat, or with its BYPASS mode engaged, I can detect no change in sonics. Its purpose is room equalization, and its effect will be whatever the benefits of room equalization are.

I did not go shopping for an equalizer: I have three channels of pure analog parametric equalization capability. What I wanted was a RTA, and this is one of few available other than Pro units costing several grand.
It costs only $340, and the associated mic and cable will set you back another $70 or so. It was my intention to bypass this unit once I determined the appropriate settings for the analog equalizers, but I now think that this is probably unnecessary, but it remains an option for digiphobics. This Behringer model uses 24bit 96KHz AD/DA converters, and I think some Floating Point processors for the DSP job. Very impressive. (An older model is being sold off cheap: it has less resolution). The unit has many capabilities beyond the EQ and RTA functions, but it would be worth the money for the RTA alone. You can download the owner's manual from the website. It looks complicated, but once you have the unit and play around with the controls is it all very easy. It is ruggedly built, (as prosound equipment must be) with well laid out controls, and, IMHO, an attractive addition to the equipment rack.

I auditioned the unit in the 2-channel bypass mode of the prepro.

This is a very nice toy, and cheap enough to gain easy spousal approval.

Associated gear
Denon 2900 with Underwood mod
Rotel 1066 PrePro
Ashley electronic crossover
3 CarverPro ZR1600 power amps biamped for front speakers
3 Magneplanar MG1.6
3 multidriver custom subwoofer systems


Similar products
N/A
eldartford
eldartford OP
4,262 posts
 
M297904...It appears that Behringer has replaced all their digital processors with 96KHz devices, instead of the 48KHz units used in earlier models. It was out of a slight concern for high frequency performance that I spent the extra $150 for the DEQ2496 over the DSP8024. 19.2KHz is as high as most folk can hear, and well beyond my hearing, and the 96KHz sampling rate is five times this frequency. And 24 bits equals the resolution of the best source material.

Believe me I gave this some thought, and I do have pure analog parametric equalizers if I want to use them. The reasons I offered this review are (1) Excellent RTA and (2) Parametric equalizer, dispite being digital, sounds fine. I realize that I am not being PC :-)
snofun3
601 posts
 
Eldartford,
Is this thing clean enough to be left in-line with the rest of the system? I know you say you can't hear a difference in sonics switched in and out, but when the volume is at 11 there's no additional noise - ie the S/N's pretty darn good?
I've spent a lot of time and money playing with the acoustics of my room, and think there's not a lot more I can accomplish in room treatments, so I may want to play with one of these to wring the rest of the performance of my system.
The mike you mentioned assumedly has a response curve the unit knows, or you can use what you want and it compensates?
Thanks
eldartford OP
4,262 posts
 
Snofun3...This thing is clean as clean can be. Too many specs to quote, but S/N is 113 dB, and THD is 0.007%.
Go to www.behringer.com for all the details. Some room treatment is a good idea, but an active equalizer is much more effective for room resonance below 350 Hz or so. Also, the RTA will enable you to quickly and accurately evaluate changes you might make in passive room treatments.

I just spent the day playing with it. WOW!!!! I never realized what room equalization can do. And the RTA (61 bands) is infinitely better than a test disc and a RS meter. And the automatic equalization process is fascinating to watch. You can do Left and Right channels separately, so they each have their own equalization. In my case this made a big difference. The LF equalizer that I was using before (Audio Control Richter Scale) had ganged controls.


eldartford OP
4,262 posts
 
The usefulness of the RTA continues to amaze me.
1...I have explored the effects of different SW crossover frequencies.
2...I discovered that one of my six subwoofer drivers got wired up backwards (recent wire rerouting).
3...I discovered that the rear speakers had a large LF (below 200 Hz) boom. (Ported...what should I expect). Like many rear speakers, mine are not optimally located: they are high up in a bookshelf alcove. The boom itself was not that noticable, because you are never sure what ought to be coming out of the rear speakers, but it seriously disrupted SPL matching between front and rear speakers. I fixed the boom using my old LF Richter Scale equalizer, readjusted the SPL balance, and the improvement was large.
4...The parametric equalizer that I am presently using for the center front speaker has five bands plus high and low shelving filters, but, dispite about an hour of work, it does not enable the flat response that the DEQ2494 achieves in about 90 seconds of completely automatic room equalization.

I tell you guys, buy one, even if it is just to measure how your speaker placement and room treatment is doing. I expect that after you hear your system with the EQ in you won't want to bypass it.

If this isn't enough, the price is down to $300, and even $250 for B stock.
suits_me
121 posts
 
Just to clarify, I am less interested in full range eq than I am in bass eq as a given, so I am more wary of putting anything like that in an analog system unless its restricted to the low end.

The problem with quoting specs and asking about noise at high signal levels with digital devices is that it misses the likely problems of the unit, if any. As others have pointed out, analog is montonic, digital is diatonic. So digital's sonic artifacts, if any, would happen more at low signal levels than at high. Analog's distortions usually increase as signal levels decrease. Of course, most music is relatively quiet.

I'd like to own one, or an rdes, in my preferred, restricted application. Thanks for the review and follow-up.
More to discover