EQ before Preamp?

Mordante...A deep dark secret..."Pro gear" is made with the same circuitry and electronics parts as audiophile gear. It's "cheap" because it is produced in greater volume, and is sold to serious audio people who care more about the sound than a prestigious brand name.

Mordante...I am not familiar with the entire line of Behringer equipment, but the DEQ 2496 is built as well as any audiophile gear, and sounds excellent. Any flaws are more than compensated by its ability to correct room effects.

Other pro sound equipment I use includes an Ashly electronic crossover. Circuitwise it resembles my old Marchand and Audio Control crossovers which are audiophile approved, and the construction is far better.

I also have a QSC power amp that I bought only to drive subwoofers. However the darned thing sounds fine full range, and I am using it that way in a second system.

I almost forgot my CarverPro ZR1600 power amps. Driving MG 1.6 speakers, they are every bit as good as the Channel Island D200 monoblocks which replaced them. The ZR1600s are now doing subwoofer duty.

Rodman99999...There are bubbles and there are bubbles. Some say rhodium anything is to be avoided, and black gate capacitors aren't anything special. Burr-Brown has no monopoly on good A/D and D/A converters. But, you are entitled to your personal bubble.

Rodman99999 and Joeylawn36111...Just for accuracy...My work was on missile guidance systems (which just happened to be launched from subs) and my audio electronics experience goes back to about 1955. I didn't make audio my profession because my family likes to eat, but it has always been a hobby.

Rod....What is "quality" of a component like a resistor. Is it the "Vishay" label? I prefer to evaluate equipment by how it sounds in my system rather than by removing the cover and inventorying the component parts. And yes, I have components with Black Gate capacitors, but I see no evidence that they significantly alter performance.

Nuff said.
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Rodman99999...Once upon a time Mil Spec components were superior. Perhaps you are unaware that military equipment, at least that I am familiar with, today strives to use only commercial design parts which, because of the volume of production are often better and particularly more reliable than low production custom designs. Also, as a matter of policy, effort is devoted in the circuit design part of the job to make the circuit insensitive to variation of component parameters. We HAD to do it this way because even the most precise component will change characteristics when you fly it through a nuclear blast or, for satellites, through the Van Allen radiation belt.! But, after learning to design circuits this way it has become evident that there are other benefits. Important benefits. Save the taxpayer money!

I agree that capacitors in the signal path can affect sound quality. I have a few. But they don't have to be a particular brand and sprinkling them everywhere is idiotic. I have no reason to doubt that Vishay resistors generate measurable less noise, but my audio equipment exhibits no audible noise, so I don't think further reduction makes sense.

Rodman99999...You ask..."Is there a way around the effects of an EMP bomb yet?"

Yes, but if I told you all the details I would have to kill you :-)

Actually there are multiple techniques; some obvious like shielding, but lead is heavy (bad) so we use as little as possible. As I was a systems engineer the exact details of making ICs "rad-hard" are not my expertise, but the general idea is that the runs and other parts of the chip are larger (less miniaturized) than non-rad-hard parts, and they run slower (more current). Computer memory is the worst problem, but there are some types of memory that will not only remain operable after exposure but also will not lose data. That is, unless you are reading or writing when the blast hits, so data is stored multiple times to assure a good set will be available for use when the system recovers. Also, there is an ultra-fast radiation detector which turns off much of the circuitry power so it won't destroy itself with runaway turned-on transistors. Recent generations of guidance systems have included a star tracker which observes a preselected star once we are in space, and development of a solid state video chip (CCD) that is rad hard was not easy, and an old fashioned vacuum tube!!! vidicon which is inherently rad-hard was still used in systems that were otherwise very sophisticated.

The radiation which the system must tolerate is not primarily from the enemy, but rather from our own bombs going off in a massive retaliation. (Horrible thought).

Interestingly the spec rad levels for this military application are not as high as exists in the Van Allen belts (which is why satellites don't orbit at that altitude) or inside nuclear reactors, or for some spacecraft missions.

Finally, the underground nuclear tests that we used to do were not primarily to make sure the bomb went off (as most people assume) but rather to verify under real conditions the radiation hardening of various military electronics. We know the stuff works. And so do the Ruskies, which is the whole point of the exercise.

Mordante...You're correct that the best capacitor is no capacitor (at least in the signal path). My Kenwood LO7M power amps (from the early 80's) are direct coupled input to output, and are flat to DC. You can really hear the benefits, particularly when used to drive a subwoofer.