Good Preamp for Emerald Physics 2.3

Has anyone heard of these guys, www.asi-tek.com? I use a dbx as a crossover. The dbx does not suck out all of the life but does degrade the music to an extent.I need to upgrade. My budget is 4k or less.

You are right. The DBX is not a total assassin, but does influence things negatively. I have not heard of that modding outfit. If you have 4K to spend, I would look at the tudiokonnekt 48 and a mini. It would be under that price tag I believe and gives you much more flexibility, including upgradability for the future.

Investing 3x or more the resale value of these crossovers makes no financial sense. You would be lucky to get 25% of the upgrade cost back if you were to sell it. Interested however in feedback from those who went down crossover upgrade path as to the sonic benefits.

It’s unfortunate that the recent 6moons review focused on Spatial rather that the base CS2.3 with the Behringer. What about the DBX vs. the Behringer? 2.7 vs 2.3? There are some of us that can’t (or won’t) go down the Spatial path.

A decent review of the base product might have gone a long way to help answer the original question of this thread.

Charlie, one option is to get one of the higher level DBX units. I spoke to DBX last year, and one model does have a bypass so you do not have a redundant and degrading DA conversion. I don't know what the price is.

I would still talk to Clayton about the Spatial thing. If you source a used Mini, and get one of his lower level packages (and sold your pre-amp and dac and some cables), it would not cost you much $ if at all.

At some point I'm going to look at other options. I believe I have found a solution for the line leveling and gain/hiss issue on the active xover side. Final testing should be completed next weekend. I'll post the results on the other thread. Traveling a lot so have not had much time. Then on to my pre-amp issues.