EQ's... why doesnt everybody have one?

Kal...Maybe it ain't perfect, but the $300 Behringer DEQ2496 does a job which needs to be heard to be believed. Really!
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Jafox...Rives will tell you that LF room resonances cannot be effectively cured by acoustic treatments, and they will sell you their highly regarded equalizer to do the job.

Memeboy...I think you are right..."Many people are afraid of them because they could be used to make things worse and they are not confident in their abilities to know when things are better or worse". I have had equalizers before, but they never gave me the satisfaction that the DEQ2496 does.

I think that the reason that the DEQ2496 satisfies is the Real Time Display and the automatic equalization feature. You can turn on the white noise signal, see on the RTA how lumpy the frequency response is. Then, after pushing the EQ button, watch the high bumps slowly move down and the low spots move up, until the response is flat 20-20K (or matches some curve that you have set up). All the while you can listen to the changing signal. Then put on a recording and listen with the EQ in, and EQ out using the BYPASS button. As I said, it "does a job which needs to be heard to be believed".

Jafox...I am sure you know the saying..."don't judge a book by its cover". You should not make assumptions about the DEQ2496 just because it costs $300. I, and a lot of other people, have been astonished by this device. I bought mine only for the RTA feature, not intending to use the EQ. But once I heard what it can do I was converted.

Onhwy61...DEQ2494 also has parametric eq if that turns you on. Perhaps you can tell us exactly what is better about Tact equalization. Both the Tact and the Behringer do their operations in the digital domain, which can accomplish things that are not possible in analog processing. I suppose that the computer interface is a plus for some folks, but not for me. Just to be fair, costs should be compared for both units being new.

Jafox...Low expectations? Mine were zero: I bought it for the RTA. I can hear no sound quality degradation, but perhaps a golden ear might. However, the overall improvement of my system in my room is dramatic. Sometimes we take a little step back to achieve a big leap forward. I carry a small scar where the surgeon removed my appendix, that was about to kill me. Good trade-off!

By the way I have great respect for the PARC, and my research on that product is what led me to the Behringer. But the PARC cost seemed too high, (especially if you have more than 2 channels to worry about) and the Behringer offers very much greater flexibility and features. One point of interest is that the PARC would only attenuate, never boost, and this was cited as a good thing. Now I hear that a revised PARC may boost. Go figure.

I really don't want to tell people whether or not the Behringer has a sonic character, and I don't think others should speculate. You must decide this for yourself after hearing it. I do suggest that people should get it for the RTA, and then let nature take its course.

Drubin...The mic, and its cable, is sold separately. Parts Express has the mic listed at $50.

Joeylawn36111...I make the Unbalanced/Balanced transition coming out of my preamp using cables that I had made up for this purpose. RCA on one end and XLR (into the DEQ2496 on the other end. Of course this means that the DEQ2496 input is unbalanced, but the DEQ2496 detects this and adjusts gain accordingly. (Clever little box!) The DEQ2496 output is balanced into my electronic crossover, and on to the the amps and speakers. I guess you have the DEQ2496 in the Tape loop, so you will be unbalanced in and out. More cables. I get my cables from a2zcables.com, but I am sure that other vendors could accomodate you, or, of course, you could wire the cables up yourself

Stevecham...THD 0.007%. S/N greater than 113 dB.
Sorry about that.

Jafox..I have read that certain specific frequency bands, boosted and/or cut, have the effect of enhancing "decays,ambience, harmonic textures" and (one you forgot) a sense of height. I wonder if the recording engineers who made the LPs that you like manipulated their equalizers (which they surely had on line) so as to satisfy your ear?

Everyone...My computer has been down for several days. Just two final comments.

1..People who have not listened to the DEQ2496 should not comment on its sonic qualities. The price means nothing. (I forgive you for this sin because I once thought that way too).

2..Noone should put out incorrect comments about features that the DEQ2496 does or doesn't have. (Like delay). For those with no hands on experience, the 22-page DEQ2496 manual can be downloaded from the Behringer web site. (Can I do that for TACT?).

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Onhwy61...

1. The DEQ2496 can delay one channel vs the other. This is very important for pro sound applications where speakers may be hundreds of feet apart. Range is 0 to 300 ms. Resolution is 0.02 ms. It is not automatic. This feature is not particularly useful for home audio since DVD players and Prepros all provide for speaker distance correction.

2. I use the Behringer mic. It comes with a calibration curve that you could insert manually when you initialize the auto EQ process. Frankly that would be a waste of time because the room resonances which the Behringer is removing are much larger than the mic nonlinearities.

3. The RTA is 1/6 oct. The Graphic EQ is 1/3 oct. The parametric EQ bandwidth range is 1/10 to 10 oct. There are 10 parametric filters per channel, plus high and low shelving filters. All these EQ filters can boost or cut.

There are also what I would call "notch filters" that they call "feedback destroyers. These only cut, and there are ten of them. Bandwidth is 1/10 to 1/60 oct. Attenuation is 0 to -60 dB.

There is also dynamic equalization (depends on how loud the music is). This can be used in home audio as a "Loudness" control.

It does some other neat things that I haven't figured out yet, but the above covers the specific questions you posed.

Yes the TACT manuals can be downloaded. Very impressive stuff. Very impressive prices also.

Nuguy...It's not the system being corrected...it's the room (mostly).

Henryhk...Digital Sound Processing (DSP) which includes EQ is almost universally done using a 32bit floating point processor called SHARC from Analog Devices. Google it. It, and everyone else but Sony, works with PCM.

SACD does not output digital, so you would need to run the analog through a A/D to get PCM digital that you can work with. And (just to give the knife an extra twist) PCM mixing is said to improve the sound of DSD material, in a way that a magnetic tape step is said to improve the sound of digitally recorded masters.