More experiences with the Behringer 2496

Had a really good play with my 2496 this weekend.
In short, I've been too much of a cheapskate to get myself one of their ECM8000 mics, meaning that I couldn't really use the unit as anything more than a DAC. As my Bel Canto DAC2 pretty much walked all over it, just been gathering dust for a few months.

Either way, Zanash was here with not only an ECM8000, but also a suitably long lead, so it was time to finally have a good play.
Following some of Tensons advise, we upped the buffer and tried to avoid massive changes from the room correction.
In practice we found that my room had a gentle suckout of upper frequencies, but a MASSIVE 18db hump at around 40hz.
We tried a manual override at 40hz, and let the system do the job automatically for upper frequencies.
Certainly changed the sound of things, though after some interesting comparisons with the Behringer in an out of circuit, I came to the conclusion that it did seem to be making a bit of a mash of the mid range, creating a very "flat" and dead sound.
So, plan B. This was to ignore the automatic correction and simply go for manual correction of -15db at 40hz. The 2496 was sat in between my transport and DAC. Have to say that this seemed to minimise the "damage" caused by the correction, whilst still eliminating almost all of the bass "hump" in my room.

Going forward, I see my using the 2496 to spot room issues in my next house, then trying to resolve the problems using bass traps and the like.

 

Interesting stuff Mr Sukebe, esp. in light of your new Ta'us speakers... which will certainly tell you all about the midrange effects. IIRC this is basically the conclusion Rob Holt came to also... with H2s.

 

Try just setting the auto EQ to only work on frequencies 200Hz and below, it certainly will make a mash of things above that with its auto EQ.

Interestingly Rob also has a bump at 40Hz, perhaps it is partly the speaker itself?

 

I'm guessing that the 40hz is just a product of our rooms, which are fairly similar in size and shape.

As for EQ under 200hz, well we did check the differences and below that, the only thing out of place was the really big bass hump. Manually dialing it out seems to work wonders.

 

Excellent, the less you need to use the better, really! I only have a bit of a bass cut to compensate for the room gain below about 40Hz.

 

Very similar bump at the same frequency with at least half a dozen other speakers I've used in the room - definitely a room thing. Even tiny Linn Kans which die pretty fast below 70hz get some thump at 40hz.

When i made my room measurements i used the resulting curve asjust a guide as to where to make corrections and limited any corrction to +/- 6db max. I also ended up only correcting below 200hz. Now i don't use the unit at all as the corner traps deal with problem well enough and i'm sure that the larger traps will sort things when installed.

The H2s and Ta'Us are quite characterful speakers and that character is part of what endears them to their users IMHO. Trying to bash the frequency response into a flat line using large amounts of EQ destroys some of that character - it rips the heart and soul from the speaker. A little EQ can work wonders in helping the speaker mate with it's surroundings, but don't get carried away with the EQ.

 

I'd agree with all that, Rob.

FWIW, my H2s don't seem to exhibit a 40Hz bump here (in a room 5.7 x 4.8m) - in fact they're pretty flat, right down into the high 20s

 

I find the Behringer of most use in the mid range with my 'speakers (Klipsch Heresy), allowing me to achieve an in room response that is better balanced and more transparent than without. It can work well in the bass region however, having just installed a Velodyne DD15 in the system, I am happier letting the DD manage the lower end adjustments. Early days yet though.

 

Well my take on the room is much the same....though I felt that I was hearing more detail in the mid and treble that were being lost in the uncorrected version .....but as Mr S has stated it did seem to mess too much with the signal.

Mr S's 2496 does not seem the same as my unit .......it has an 03 date where as mione is 06.

one problem I had was thar Mr S's unit would not bypass the deq and peq modules ..... it was either processed or no signal?

This may have been tiredness on my part following a nightmare journey [75miles standing trafic on the m25] but looking at my unit now I can switch between processed and unprocessed signals using the bypass switch.

 

Bypassing modules on mine is simple, so that does sound a bit odd.

 

One thing I find interesting when A-B demming the DEQ is that a corrected response may at times sound wrong cf. the un-corrected signal. Usually this is a simple case of sounding different, a few mins. listening to the corrected signal usually reveals that you've not lost any detail at all (excepting times when you've really stuffed it). With my room/system, moving from the 'raw' signal to the corrected one can initially seem like something's missing in the mid. There is - a big lump at arround 1200Hz. Once you've adjusted to the changed response you can actually hear more detail - just sounds odd initially as something has changed.

 

yes I've found that too......

the flat responce is just so different it sounds wrong as your not used to it.;

in my room I find it hard to play out of curcuit now.

 

Mr.S probably needs to update his firmware.

 

I didn't know you could.
Does the manual contain details on how to do that? (sorry, haven't got a copy to hand).

 

You need to plug it into a computer via the midi port and run their little utility that you can get from the website.

If you press the utility button, in the top right corner of the screen it should say V1.4

 

Just a question, has anybody experimented with the max switch on the back. Tried it for the first time and well make sure the volumes turned down quite a bit.

Seems to me even with lower volume on my amp i'm getting more detail and airiness around instruments. Bass seems deeper too. Is this because the switch is giving a db boost. What are your thoughts. Jim.

 

It sounds different because you are adding another opamp to the signal path. Personally I prefer to keep things clean and simple.