Author Topic: Analog or Digital XO?  (Read 6473 times)

mgalusha

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Analog or Digital XO?
« on: January 25, 2007, 08:20:10 PM »
Several months ago I pulled the woofer XO out of my speakers and have been actively biamping via a Marchand XM-44 crossover. I have a heavily modded SB2 feeding the Marchand and it's driving a Rotel 1080 for the bass (400W/4 ohms) and R.E Designs LNPA 150 monos (150W/4 ohms) for the mids/tweets.

Unfortunately I've been borrowing the Marchand and I need to return it soon. This raises the question of whether to buy another Marchand or other analog crossover or to go digital with something like a Behringer DCX2496.

The Marchand is a known quantity and I'm enjoying my system more than any other I've ever owned. I don't have much desire to tinker with it, I'd much rather just relax and enjoy the music.

The Behringer offers a some advantages, mostly in the realm of EQ for the bass region. There are quite a few folks modding these and the most common hacks are to remove the output op amps in the same fashion as the Squeezebox mods. This will actually simplify my signal path as the Marchand has 14 op amps inside. The unknown, at least to me, is how the DAC's in the DCX2496 sound in comparison to the SB2's DAC.

The downside is that I know how the analog outputs of the SB sound and I've been very happy with it. Additionally I have a pretty good vinyl setup and going with a digital XO means I'd have to convert the signal from my phono stage to digital although I could do this at 24/96 and feed it to the DCX2496. I suspect it would sound very good this way but it certainly won't be pure analog any more.

I'm trying to weigh the pluses and minuses of both solutions and any input would be appreciated. I don't play my vinyl nearly as much as the SB, simply because it's not as convenient and often I just want to sit and listen without messing about.

Thoughts?

Mike

miklorsmith

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Analog or Digital XO?
« Reply #1 on: January 26, 2007, 07:37:48 AM »
Hmmm . . . A conundrum.  I can see it from both sides.  The active route makes much more hypothetical sense but some of those gains, especially in the vinyl end, will be compromised to some degree by analog/digital conversions.

You could try a used Behringer, figuring resale at little to no loss.  It seems that an active setup would have more potential upside but also more obstacles to balance.  This is what I've been up against for some time with my TacT unit but it is proving to be a worthwhile pursuit.

mgalusha

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Analog or Digital XO?
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2007, 08:28:19 PM »
Hi Mike,

I might not have conveyed it properly, I'm currently running the system active but using an analog crossover, which of course doesn't result in digitizing my vinyl. The downside is all the extra circuitry in the signal path and the lack of EQ for the bass. The Marchand does support additional modules to give me Linkwitz transforms and baffle step compensation but all that is so much easier to do with the Behringer.

Regardless of which I choose I don't think I can go back to passive crossovers. The improvements from going active were just to great to give up.

Thanks for your input!

Mike

Ryno

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Analog or Digital XO?
« Reply #3 on: January 26, 2007, 09:37:44 PM »
I don't know how similar  the guts are, but I have the DEQ2496.  I hope you don't mean analog/ analog out to the behringer, I tried that for the hell of it and it was pretty bad. Compressed with a shrunken soundstage. Digital in/ analog out was much better, but not up to the CIaudio I had at the time. Now I use it digital in/out. Since my new dac has both coax and optical I go coax from the source to the dac and optical fron the source to the eq to the dac, and switch at the dac. Lately I've found myself not using the eq more than using it.
Ryan

Offline Woodsyi

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Analog or Digital XO?
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2007, 10:14:21 AM »
I use a Marchand XM44 with a tube preamp.  I also have a DEQ2496 in the path between SB2 and DAC-- digital in, DSP, digital out.   I won't digitize my analog.  For digital front end, DEQX I heard recently really provided excellent xo functions with DSP for room and time correction.
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Offline bpape

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Analog or Digital XO?
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2007, 10:41:37 AM »
That's the only way I'd do it - digital in and out.  I'd not go though that A/D D/A step nor would I use the Behringer DACs in my 2 channel system.  If you want something like that, I'd look at the TACT.

But, then again, I'm anal about EQ on my mains.  I only use it on my sub to deal with the last few nasty room issues down deep.

Bryan
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