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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
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eldartford
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.
eldartford OP
4,262 posts
 
Suits_me..."Monatonic" is a term applied to digital A/D converters, meaning that an increase in analog input always results in an increased digital output (it never "falls back"). I think you must mean "continuous".

You would need to hear it with your own ears, but this is not your father's digital gear. And the way it makes all your other gear sound better is the payoff.
deq2496remote-4556
1 posts
 
I have one myself and I wish i had 2 more!
The automatic roomcorrector, pinpoints exactly the acoustick problems of your room.
When all these acoustical problems are compensated, a lot of details emerge. They were masked by the resonace of the room.
At first the sound is flat! Well that is because of the enourmous inpact of all the walls ceiling and floor. But when used to that sound i don't want to bypass the equalizer.

example of my PCset
With this formula i tried to predict the effect of my room.
L = c/f = 340 [m/s] / 200 [1/s] = ~ 1.7 m

The walls 1.50 (left) 1.60 (Right) = 226hz & 212 & 125 & 121
Ceiling op 2.10 = 160hz
floor 1.30 = 261hz
opposit side 5.00 = 68hz

It was perfectly show by the Roomcorrection.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~seoman/pcset.gif
(the atocorrection was disabled below 80Hz)
Screendump is made with
http://www.xs4all.nl/~seoman/DEQ2496RemoteNew.rar
A midi program to remote control the deq2496 (stil under development)

Regards, Seoman
eldartford OP
4,262 posts
 
[email protected] did buy a second one for my rear channels. In addition to generally improving the sound by eliminating all the room resonances, I found that level matching of my multichannel system was much improved. Apparently the response humps were throwing off the SPL measurements. I find that the autoequalization works fine for the LF range right down to 20 Hz.
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