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Default The Amazing 2496

I felt a need to get into equalization of my audio system because I will be
getting my new experimental speakers in a couple of weeks and to see just
what a little EQ can do. I turned to the Behringer company because of good
prices and choices. Started out with the FBQ6200, which is a large 31 band
on two rows of sliders, strictly manual mechanical solution where you have
to adjust each band after taking an RTA reading from some other piece of
equipment. In my case it was a CD from Bruel & Kjaer that had a track of 31
bands of pink noise. Take a reading of the level at each band, write it
down, graph it, adjust sliders as required.

Then another newsgroup alerted me to the Behringer DEQ2496, a digital
RTA/Equalizer that you wouldn't believe possible for such a price - $300
sometimes discounted to $250 or so.

I knew about the advantages of parametric over graphic EQ, but graphic is so
much more understandable and straightforward. Well, this thing has graphic,
parametric, a combination of both, and something they call Dynamic EQ. There
are pages of menus, a little screen on which you set sliders electronically
with buttons and knobs, and inputs and outputs for XLR, Phone jacks, Midi,
two kinds of digital I/O, and optical. It has 64 memories for the EQ of
various pieces for various situations. This is important because if you want
to EQ another set of speakers you don't want to have to take a picture of
the old EQ so you can go back to it again manually. You want to just press a
button and you will be back on your A speakers.

But wait - that's not all. The thing has a mike input with an RTA (Real Time
Analyzer) function with pink noise generator. You can take a reading on the
pink noise and see where you want to go with your EQ, but (natch) that is
not necessary with this unit because it also has automatic EQ with the
ability to shunt out certain frequency ranges that you do not want to
subject to auto EQ.

But that's not all either. You don't necessarily want flat response at the
listening position, you want some sort of "room curve" with a humped low end
and a gradually rolled off high end. Or maybe even something else. Well,
with this unit you can decide what response curve you want, draw it on the
little screen with a set of slider settings, and then have the 2496 meet
that automatically! There is also a gain offset where you can adjust the
output gain if the EQ process ended up amplifying or reducing the total gain
too much.

A totally great piece of equipment, but I had a couple of problems figuring
out the install. First, the I/O is all balanced XLR inputs and outputs. I
had to buy some XLR to RCA adapters because most all home Hi Fi connectors
are unbalanced RCA jacks. The second major problem was that modern receivers
do not have any sort of tape loop or signal processor loop that lets you
insert a piece like the 2496 into your signal path. This meant attaching it
between the receiver and the power amps, which in turn made me worry that
the signal out of the receiver could be too strong because it comes after
the volume control. But with its 24 bit 96k AD converter it did just fine,
hardly cracks the -6dB reading on the meters.

One more minor detail - if you want to play with EQ you might want some
audio inspired graph paper I thought it would be a piece of cake to
download a ton of it from the net. No dice, gave up the search on the net
and ended up brewing my own. I had a tiny little graph of audio freqs from
the same B&K test disc booklet that I am using. So I blew it up to 8.5 x 11
and printed several.

So I purchased their ECM8000 Measurement Microphone for an amazing $59.00
and may be able to try it out tomorrow.

Oh, and for those with a digital paranoia, don't worry about the extra
digital I/O stage that your signal will have to go through. It is 24 bit,
96k and sounds great and does not clip and is what is responsible for all of
the tricks that the amazing Behringer DEQ2496 can do.

--
Gary Eickmeier

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