Tone controls- to use or not?

Ralph and MR E- I've purchased 8024's and 2496's for a number of venues over the years. As far as inexpensive auto-EQs for live sound: They do for a cheap, fast curve. Much more convenient than the old Ivey! I've got one in my listening room to check my response on occasion. Yes- There is a sonic price to pay with it in the system, so- It's not. It resides across the room, on a shelf and use one of a number of pink noise records/CDs that I own. Mr E is correct in that another 61 band RTA cannot be found for the money(makes it worthwhile). Too bad Behringer(or anyone else) doesn't offer an inexpensive mic that is accurate between 16 and 100Hz.

The Accuphase that I used was the DG-28 digital room correction unit. It wasn't cheap either! The analog unit, once set to the same settings, sounded better (nor was it cheap; for either unit you could have bought 3 or 4 Behringers). I know that price does not define everything, but OTOH Accuphase isn't junk either :)

Taking them out of the system easily allowed me to reveal the sonic fingerprint of either one.

So- does the Behringer sound *better* than the Accuphase, despite being built to a price as opposed to Accuphase, wherein price is really not a concern?? IOW, has the SOTA of room correction progressed that much in the last 6-7 years? Or am I to surmise that the equipment that I am used to using is that much more transparent, that things like this as a result have a more obvious sonic character?

If I had to guess it would be the latter, but I've not heard the Behringer stuff in the last 3-4 years...

Atmasphere...For equalization and other kinds of sound processing digital technology, like the Behringer, is far superior to analog. Software can implement functions that are simply impossible with analog circuitry. In the DEQ2496 processing is done by a 32-bit floating point module. You can input and output digital data, but the A/D and D/A converters, should you care to use them, are excellent 24-bit hardware running at 96KHz.

Your really ought to spring for a DEQ2496 and see for yourself what it can do. Charge it off to your business as research.