Behringer DCX2496?

ctviggen · « **on:** 15 Feb 2006, 03:10 pm »

Anyone have this? If so, how do you like it? This is quite a cheap price for everything this thing does. I'm thinking of getting one of these to fool around with, but I'd like to know what others think. (I'm actually thinking of -- down the road -- getting two of them, one for each RM40/Larger set; but that's when I transition to individual amps for each driver, and that's down the road.) I was thinking of doing my own home-brew digital filters/digital room correction, but that could take me many weekends to figure out. By contrast, I bet I could have the Behringer working in about a weekend.

Specifically, do you notice any ringing by the digital filters in this unit? Preringing is a common problem with digital filters, and I'm wondering if you get any with this unit.

JoshK · « **Reply #1 on:** 15 Feb 2006, 03:25 pm »

Bob,

You should have a look on diyaudio. Tons of chaps over there using them to quite good reported results. There are also a number of mods to loosen the bottlenecks in its performance.

Note, for best results (same with most active xo's) the volume control should be after, not before the xo unit, which means a multiple gang pot is called for.

ctviggen · « **Reply #2 on:** 15 Feb 2006, 03:42 pm »

That could be a killer -- I don't think I could have a volume control after the filter. I'm planning on a long run (possible digital) from my preamp to the Behringer then short runs to the amps for "individual" drivers and short (very short) speaker cable runs. The volume control couldn't come after the filter.

JoshK · « **Reply #3 on:** 15 Feb 2006, 03:45 pm »

Then there are some concessions on performance you must make in terms of noise performance. Such is life....

FWIW, I don't think the Behr will have pre-ringing problems as I believe that is exclusive to FIR filters and Behr's are IIR.

dwk · « **Reply #4 on:** 15 Feb 2006, 04:40 pm »

If you plan to run the DCX in analog mode, opinion seems to be that it's best to run it very hot to ensure you're using as much of the S/N in the A/D stage as possible. This would pretty much require some form of attenuation between the DCX and the amps.
When run digitally, I tihnk you can get perfectly acceptable performance using digital volume control for up to maybe 15dB of attenuation as long as you preserve a 24-bit output word. All this requries is fixed resistive padding on the outputs to match the sensitivity of your drivers/amps (or a level control on the amp itself).

Note that the DCX is backordered and has been basically unavailable for months. It's supposed to be back out 'soon', but until is actually ships nobody really knows what that means. There are other pro-style units that offer similar features to the DCX, but they're all much more expensive.

ctviggen · « **Reply #5 on:** 15 Feb 2006, 05:00 pm »

I didn't know the DCX was using IIR. I tried to read the DIYAudio site regarding this, but there's around 600 replies. It gets quite long.

I didn't know it was back ordered. I searched and saw places that adverstised it. You're right -- these places say it's back ordered. Also, I never once thought about volume control. I just assumed this would have volume control in it. No volume control means that it'll be way harder to integrate this in both my current and my future system.

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to do what I want to do. I'd like to triamp my RM40s and also possibly use a Larger for each RM40. Two DCX2496 would work and would only be about $600. Any other technique (TACT, DEQX) is significantly more expensive. A home brew solution would be cheaper, but would take much longer to implement.