Dsp Biggest Bang For The $$$$$$$$$$$

[satwilson 2]

I have been struggling for the last few years to seemlessly integrate my subwoofer system to my main front speakers. There were many variables to work with most importantly gain levels, crossover frequencies, and overall hardware compatibility, in the beginning. Source material, at least in my collection has always been the first variable to need some "tweaking". Either you got some,(bass, well recorded), or you don't, then balance it to the front mains. Trial and error using the speakers and room environment would eventually seek out the best Xover frequencies for your reality, set these, and you were pretty much there, (with what I had to work with at that time). THERE IS A BETTER WAY! I have been aware of DSPs for many years, but mainly in ProAudio PA applications. I know I am not the first person to see or use these units in home audio but sometimes it takes me awhile to "get it". One thing I learned in this process was that no matter how flat or perfect your hardware may be it is playing in your listening room and that introduces its own variables to this quest for perfection, once again something alot of you may be aware of, but it is easy to forget or dismiss this most important variable. Enter the DBX Driverack. There are other units out there from Behringer and others, but in terms of price, reputation, and reliability DBX is hard to beat. First, with a calibrated microphone available for about another $100 you can use the Real Time Analyzer to measure the actual frequency response at your listening spot and with the AutoEQ function come up with a baseline from which to manually tweak your system to what you prefer. This unit contains a stereo 28 band graphic EG, totally adjustable PEQ, 2X6, 2X5, 2X4, 2X3 variable crossovers with both LR AND BW slopes, speaker time alignment delay, and many other features I don't use, feedback supression, Comp/Limiter, Subharmonic Synthesizer, etc. For my money I have not had anything else that improved the overall sound of my system for the $$$spent. You can find these used for $250-$400 and new for around $600. Comments, questions, appreciated, OldSchoolSQ

[Deephaven 19]

Curious why you chose the DBX vs the Behringer?

[johnecon2001 5]

The Behringer is a bit hissy on the output side. A little harder to configure as well.