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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


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eldartford
eldartford OP
4,262 posts
 
In case anyone is reading this thread, here is how I answered Mingles by E-Mail. (He had contacted me directly because his posting seemed to have gotten lost).
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First of all, you shouldn't assume that only the LF needs equalization. If you are truly biamping (using an electronic crossover) the equalizer would go between the crossover and the LF power amp. If you are just using two amps you can put the equalizer in between the preamp and the LF amp.

Unless you run the whole frequency range through the Behringer the automatic equalization won't work. It would be trying to fix the awful HF roll off caused by the crossover. The autoeq is particularly good if you are biamping because it will clean up any gain mismatch and any anomalies of frequency response around the X/O frequency.

One mic is all you need...use the Behringer one made to go with this unit. Don't forget you need to buy a mic cable also
jcfergus
2 posts
 
A couple of clarifications that might help others considering the use of the DEQ2496.

The Behringer mic is the model ECM-8000. It is readily available from Behringer dealers on-line, not particularly expensive (~$50) and is reportedly a superb mic for recording acoustic music as well due to the wide, flat frequency response.

There is a work-around for the problem of the Auto EQ trying to offset the affect of the crossover. When setting up the AEQ, you can select each individual frequency that you want to equalize. In the manual, they recommend that it not be used for lower frequencies (the reason I bought it), but these bands can be manually added to the spectrum that is automatically equalized. It seems to work fine on frequencies all the way down to 20 Hz.

You can not only add or remove individual frequency bands in 1/3 octave increments, but you can also change the starting level and width of each band (although I haven't experimented with that).

There doesn't seem to be any reason that you couldn't put one in each signal path between the electronic crossover and the amp and equalize each band of your biamp/triamp setup.

One "characteristic" that I don't fully understand yet is when using the AEQ, as it runs its level adjustments, I always seem to end up with two or three bands that the automated adjustment seems to not fully adjust. They are not together and appear to be randomly distributed. These end up being ~3dB lower than the rest of the spectrum, while the rest appear to be within +-1/2 dB. This is probably not noticeable considering that the bass peak caused by room acoustics that the DEQ2496 is compensating for was as much as a 14dB rise at 100Hz.

Also, you will need a mic stand to position the mic approximately where your head would be when in the prime listening position.
mingles
775 posts
 
Jcfergus, thank you for this useful information. What are the dimensions of your listening room in feet, and at what frequencies does it have bass peaks? Do your speakers boom without an EQ?
pchevalier
1 posts
 
Thanks for this thread.
I live in Paris and will buy an DEQ 2496 to-morrow to equalize my sub+2mains for hi-fi system (which is a part of a 5+1 system with an onkyo SR875). I will install the 2496 between the digital output of my CD-audio and digital input of the Onkyo. I will compensate some bumps (25hz and 45hz) due to the room. All the precious information I just read in this thread confirm the best advice I collected.
I would be pleased to exchange experience.
mingles
775 posts
 
The control interface of the DEQ2496 takes the cake for being the worst I've ever used. It works, but it's not intuitive. Be prepared to go through the instruction manual not once, not twice, not three times, but many many times. It's part of the reason why I'm pulling it out of my system.
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