Is DEQX a game changer?

Anybody have any insight on the hdp-5 and how it compares with any of the following:

Lyngdorf 3400 TDAI  (DSP is done via microphone)

Linn SELEKT (DSP is done using measurements)

Anthem ARC2 (DSP is done via microphone)

https://www.deqx.com/products/hdp-5/  (??)

How does the DEQX stand in relation to the others?

@yyzsantabarbara - Firstly I must remind you that my & any other replies here are likely to be rather biased towards DEQX - you might get more balanced responses elsewhere!

Having said that, the single feature that probably gives it an edge are the speaker measurement & correction algorithms which I don’t believe are available in any of the others mentioned above.

Lyngdorf 3400 TDAI
I’m not familiar with this - it handles room correction & crossovers & is Roon ready. This product does not appear to have speaker time-phase correction though.

Linn SELEKT
I’m very familiar with Linn Exakt which (as with Selekt) uses room dimension/material based ’space optimisation’ calculations. It can produce very good results although DEQX does have greater transparency, sharper imaging and a more realistic sense of the soundstage. Bass is also tighter and more defined via DEQX, no matter how much effort I put into improving this on the system I set up. Logic suggests to me that this results from actual measurement of the speakers being used (via DEQX) vs calculations (via Linn).

Linn Space Optimisation can get close to DEQX but the two systems I am comparing are ~$350k Linn vs ~$85k DEQX (which makes the latter somewhat of a bargain!) Calculations do not match the accuracy of a mic based processor & when we measured the Linn room separately using REW, some of the auto corrections were inaccurate by comparison - manual adjustment after using a mic improved things.

However one aspect that I prefer with Linn is the ability to set individual eq for each channel, as opposed to DEQXs combined eq approach.

Anthem ARC2
I have listened to a system using this processor & as with Lygdorf, it handles room correction & crossovers. Although ARC doesn’t work in the time domain (speaker time-phase correction), it does manage room correction better than Linn, especially if aesthetic considerations preclude acoustic treatment.

All of the above will be very good for room correction if that’s your main priority but if you are looking for measurement based speaker correction AND room eq then only the HDP-5 covers all bases (preamp, DAC, speaker correction, crossovers, sub integration, room eq, Roon). The clincher for me was the fact that the mic FIRST takes a clean measurement of the speaker, corrects each frequency for timing & phase across all drivers and THEN room eq is applied separately afterwards. As I said previously, this makes by far the most significant impact to the quality of music produced.

As far as room correction itself is concerned, my own opinion is that acoustic treatment is the most effective solution, backed up with eq to address only remaining bass peaks.

(...yyzsantabarbara your forum name implies where you live - we have family there & spend many months a year in town so if you do decide on any of the above I would be interested to listen)

Hi Drewan
I was talking to you recently about the chord dave with the deqx. I have just read some of your older comments and can see you are using a dac before the deqx via its analog input and I had some questions. 

1. I was using the Dave after the deqx via the digital output, and wasn't overly impressed with it in that configuration. Do you think if I placed the Dave before the deqx via its analog inputs that it would yield better results than running it digitally out after the deqx? I felt the Dave sounded slightly different to the deqx on its own but not much better compared to the deqx. I have heard the Dave is supposed to be an amazing dac so I was confused with that. 

2. The reason I was looking at the Dave was to get the chord mscaler which upsamples the file from say a 24/96 file to a 786k file which apparantly does wonders to the sound. Do you think if I placed a Dave and mscaler before the deqx via the analog inpit that the deqxs analog to digital Converter would ruin that up sampling? Or does the analog Converter maintain the nicer signal that is put into it? I heard you were running vinyl and dacs via the analog input and you were very happy. Not sure if you are still doing that.

Do you think based on what I done, the Dave would have sounded better before the deqx instead of after? I would check myself but have sent the Dave back interstate but I may be able to get it back.. 

@ drewan77 Sorry for the late response, I forgot to check this thread. Your response was very useful. When I get my small room sounding good you are welcome to hear it.

@steveo888 Yes I continue to use both analogue inputs to the HDP-5 via: turntable->RCA & external DAC*->XLR (*including analogue pass through for a second turntable & SACD player)

The inbuilt DAC is extremely good but I have a preference to something that sounds very close to vinyl without a slight sense of brightness or glare (which I’m afraid I hear when directly inputting a digital transport, streamer or server).

These processors work at 24/96 so an upsampled input would be handled in the same way as any pure analogue signal (or indeed any digital input up to 24/192). Personally I’m sceptical about how audible these ultra high bit rates really are & to me ’upsampling’ is artificially adding something in that isn’t really there in the source. Not meaning to criticise those who do hear a difference or wanting to get into a debate!

The real benefits derived from a DEQX processor come from the work it does AFTER it receives an incoming signal, hence in my case the best possible analogue source.