Behringer DEQ2496 - wow

Danner: I hear ya and understand where you're coming from. The problem is that they can skew the response of the device to compensate for the mic's response, but who's to say that all the cheap mass produced mic's will have the same non-linearities / frequency response abberations to them? As such, if you can find a mic that looks similar to the factory supplied mic in terms of response, but would be more consistent from unit to unit, you'll probably get results that are even more accurate.

Other than that, i've tried contacting Behringer to verify if the circuitry was built for "max linearity" of it has a non-linearity built into it to compensate for the mic that they sell. No response from them on several different attempts.

For the record, i've used a Shure SM-81 with great results. Then again, this mic cost more than any of the Behringer components themselves. In this case though, you get what you pay for. Sean
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As a side note. If i were to use it between my CDP and DAC, digital in and out only, bypassing ADC and DAC, I would need two digital cables, one is RCA- XLR and the other XLR-RCA? It only has XLR in and out as far as I can see from the pictures. Please, correct me , if I'm wrong

Maril555...A XLR connector can be used for a single ended (unbalanced) signal. My DEQ2496 are single ended in. The unit detects whether the input and/or output is balanced or unbalanced, and adjusts gain to compensate.

Sean...The graph that comes with the Behringer ECM800 mic (which BTW is omnidirectional) looks "flat" to me, although it obviously wasn't drawn with a ruler. There is no broad band of boost or cut that would affect overall sound, and the small deviations that are shown are tiny compared with the frequency aberations (room effects) which the unit is measuring and correcting. Furthermore, these deviations are similar to those of the Shure mics, away from the high and low frequency ranges where the Shure mics are (deliberately) very nonlinear.

Of course it would be nice to design the living room for acoustic properties, but I agee with Smeyers that this is not going to happen. Even Rives audio, of room treatment fame, says that it doesn't work for low frequency problems, where active equalization is needed.

Smeyers...Regardless of what Sean says, the Behringer mic is a calibrated instrumentation mic. If your ears give different results, perhaps you ought to get your ears calibrated. I have just been through the process of having my wife's ears tested and hearing aids "installed". What you are doing with equalization and your audio system is very similar to what the audioligist did when she set up the algorithms in the hearing aids.

I had the Behringer 2496 and the mic in my system for a couple of months. In the end, I found it seriously lacking in transparency and it had a high noise floor. The build quality is just not there, the DACs are cheap, and the PC-based user interface needs work.

The EQ functions are impressive, but the side effects were worse than an unequlaized system. The auto-EQ function didn't work well in my system, but I suspect that the bi-polar radiation pattern of my ribbon speakers caused problems with their algorithms.

The DBX DriveRack EQ products sound much, much better, as about 3 times the price...

Rgodin, have you been able to try the Behringer in pure digital mode without going through the DAC's? I have not tried going through the DAC's, but find the unit to be very tranparent if kept in the digital domain. I cannot hear any difference between this unit and the many times more expensive Z-Systems RDQ1 when used in this manner.