As a DEQX happy owner, I've been following this this discussion with great interest.
I have been in DIY speaker building for more than 40 years (not getting any younger...). I experimented many things over the years, and yes, I can strongly affirm that DEQX is a game changer for me.
Achieving the "perfect" passive crossover is a mission impossible, at least for DIYers, which are not necessarily equipped to conduct all the required tests and moreover, because of the numerous technical limitations (especially phasing) that good old capacitors and inductors introduces by their electrical nature.
I moved to analog active crossovers and tri-amping 15 years ago and at that time, it was clear I would never go back to passive crossovers and single amp. I moved to the 3rd generation of audio filtering: digital. I bought the DEQX ExpressII and more than one year later, I can say it's the greatest toy I ever bought to myself! I would have never thought that the improvement would reach that level. It is a great pleasure to listen to commercial speakers that sells more than 10 times the price I paid for my drivers and doesn't "beat" my homemade speakers (hum...I may not be fully objective...) Therefore, I can now say that I would never go back to analog active filtering (2nd generation)... Imagine how far I am from the first generation of filtering...
I see no merit in commenting my own experience with my DEQX since it would be a copy of the excellent description Drewan77 made and as you can see, I fully share his enthusiam.
As a speaker builder, I'm having so much fun calibrating the speakers using a mouse and a keybord ! You punch in the parameters, save it to the DEQX and there you go, you can immediately listen to your design! And you can do silly things such as 96db/octave filters that you can't even think of in the analog world; no more physical limitations, just numbers crunching !
One element I can add to this thread is how surprised I was to observe how crucial is the crossover frequencies selection and how it can change the voicing of the system. While the frequency measurement of two drivers may show that they can easily handle a given frequency range, the resulting "voice" may be quite different. So I played a lot with the P1-4 buttons (Drewan77 explained) to find out the best calibration so my ScanSpeak Revelator performs at their best. By the way, Drewan77, I got the same result: 100 Hz is my best option to integrate smoothly my big guys (15" subwoofers).
In closing, from a DIY speaker builder point of view, I'm a little sad because my speakers are now performing so well, I can't imagine what I could do to improve them, which means I have to retire from this hobby..!! Fortunately, I'm also a passionate music lover and I now have a full discography to re-discover !
Regards,
Denis
I have been in DIY speaker building for more than 40 years (not getting any younger...). I experimented many things over the years, and yes, I can strongly affirm that DEQX is a game changer for me.
Achieving the "perfect" passive crossover is a mission impossible, at least for DIYers, which are not necessarily equipped to conduct all the required tests and moreover, because of the numerous technical limitations (especially phasing) that good old capacitors and inductors introduces by their electrical nature.
I moved to analog active crossovers and tri-amping 15 years ago and at that time, it was clear I would never go back to passive crossovers and single amp. I moved to the 3rd generation of audio filtering: digital. I bought the DEQX ExpressII and more than one year later, I can say it's the greatest toy I ever bought to myself! I would have never thought that the improvement would reach that level. It is a great pleasure to listen to commercial speakers that sells more than 10 times the price I paid for my drivers and doesn't "beat" my homemade speakers (hum...I may not be fully objective...) Therefore, I can now say that I would never go back to analog active filtering (2nd generation)... Imagine how far I am from the first generation of filtering...
I see no merit in commenting my own experience with my DEQX since it would be a copy of the excellent description Drewan77 made and as you can see, I fully share his enthusiam.
As a speaker builder, I'm having so much fun calibrating the speakers using a mouse and a keybord ! You punch in the parameters, save it to the DEQX and there you go, you can immediately listen to your design! And you can do silly things such as 96db/octave filters that you can't even think of in the analog world; no more physical limitations, just numbers crunching !
One element I can add to this thread is how surprised I was to observe how crucial is the crossover frequencies selection and how it can change the voicing of the system. While the frequency measurement of two drivers may show that they can easily handle a given frequency range, the resulting "voice" may be quite different. So I played a lot with the P1-4 buttons (Drewan77 explained) to find out the best calibration so my ScanSpeak Revelator performs at their best. By the way, Drewan77, I got the same result: 100 Hz is my best option to integrate smoothly my big guys (15" subwoofers).
In closing, from a DIY speaker builder point of view, I'm a little sad because my speakers are now performing so well, I can't imagine what I could do to improve them, which means I have to retire from this hobby..!! Fortunately, I'm also a passionate music lover and I now have a full discography to re-discover !
Regards,
Denis