Is DEQX a game changer?

Ozzy, no, I didn't use the DEQXpert service.  I did, though, receive a useful 1 hour walk-through of the calibration software that was provided via web + phone by Nyal Mellor of Acoustic Frontiers, from whom I purchased the unit.  And I then spent several months patiently and methodically further familiarizing myself with everything, performing measurements, re-doing some measurements, tweaking settings, listening to a variety of material, etc., before I considered the process done.  And my application is simpler than most of the others that have been mentioned in the thread, with just a single pair of speakers, a single stereo amp, and no sub.

My experiences during that process are documented in posts on pages 6 through 9 of this thread.

The amount of time I invested in this process would obviously have been far less if I had chosen to utilize the DEQXpert service, and obviously I have no way of knowing whether the results of doing that would have been better than, worse than, or similar to what I ended up with.  But personally I feel that the learning experience resulting from doing it all myself was sufficiently valuable that I don’t regret not having utilized that service.

Good luck.  Regards,
-- Al
 

Good to hear that you are joining the DEQX ’club’ Ozzy.

When I originally purchased an HDP-3, I used it in the same way as your forthcoming PreMate - in that case using Shahinian Obelisks (including their passive crossovers) with a Miller & Kreisel MX200 sub.

The fist time I measured, corrected, time aligned & listened was the most significant ’wow’ moment I have had with hifi & even though the quality of my setup is now a long way beyond that, I will never forget that first session.

You should be in for a treat & if you need any assistance, then please ask. As with Al, I used the expertise of my dealer, supported by several emails to Alan Langford at DEQX and then an extensive period of research, questioning and self-learning. Quite a few other DEQX users have also emailed me their config files over the years & I notice that various DEQXperts had originally set them up in a very similar fashion.... which has been reassuring for me :)

The DEQX really does sound like a game-changer.  The reviews so far indicate it provides a very large improvement in sound quality and it makes good engineering and bio-acoustic sense as well.

Room interactions have always been one of the most major impacts on sound quality, and top speaker designers have been working on group delay and related problems for at least 30 years.