DCX upgrade or sell off?

[KevinTams]

My speakers are Goodmans 201's on an OB used wide range with a sub and tweeter, to top and tail the audio spectrum.
I've been using the 201's for several months on their own driven with my valve amp and although the sound is very transparent it doesn't extend as far as I want.

I bought a Behringer DCX2496 a few weeks ago and spent many happy days tweeking and playing with sound level balance and varying degrees of eq and xover points, to the level that I felt it was a really good sounding system with, for an OB, fantastic bass and excellent imaging. But....,always a but , I noticed I was winding the volume knob past where I would normally listen, for me always a bad sign. I then took out the DCX and played the 201's direct and realised the DCX was removing a significant level of transparency with asociated loss of information in the music. In fact I can't now listen to the system with the DCX in circuit

I believe I have 3 options
1 Mod the DCX in the hope that I can get back the transparency I desire.

2 Use the DCX, only to xover and eq the bass and tweeter, use the 201 direct from the valve amp and build the speaker baffle with a 30cm recessed baffle to time align the 201 with the bass and tweeter.

3 Do without the DCX competely and build active crossovers /eq using opamps.

I am really unsure which way to move on this and would love to hear advice from members here.

thanks
Kev

[pinkmouse]

First thought - Are you feeding the DCX with enough signal for it work properly? Bear in mind it is meant to be used with pro equipment that provides a much higher output, and as such, is not just a drop in item.

[KevinTams]

Originally posted by pinkmouse
First thought - Are you feeding the DCX with enough signal for it work properly? Bear in mind it is meant to be used with pro equipment that provides a much higher output, and as such, is not just a drop in item.

Pretty close on full signal, it doesn't go into clipping but I've got 4 leds on most of the time. I spent a long time balancing the outputs with attenuators in the interconnects to get a good signal input.

It is quiet with no noise from the DCX that I can hear at the speakers.
Kev

[aaronboumans]

I do have a similar problem;
need help with sacd-setup

My main question is to go all digital with all tweaking possibilities which are all very nice but can it archive the transparency level of an all analog(sacd being digital ofcource) system?
I saw some very simple tweaks op the yahoo dcx-group and a guy called thierry-martin (or something like that, sorry thierry?) published a new very simple (reversable) outputstage (2 C's and one R) for the dcx. I will give it a try, hearing a lot of positive results.

[KevinTams]

Originally posted by aaronboumans
I do have a similar problem;
need help with sacd-setup

My main question is to go all digital with all tweaking possibilities which are all very nice but can it archive the transparency level of an all analog(sacd being digital ofcource) system?
I saw some very simple tweaks op the yahoo dcx-group and a guy called thierry-martin (or something like that, sorry thierry?) published a new very simple (reversable) outputstage (2 C's and one R) for the dcx. I will give it a try, hearing a lot of positive results.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks the DCX could be more transparent
I use cd and analogue front ends so the analogue inputs to the DCX are important to me.

I have seen the mods by Thierry and others, and although they look interesting I think I'll need to modify the input circuits as well. I'm not happy modding the boards in the DCX as I may decide to sell it so I'd need to remove the output board.

I'd be very interested in your opinions of any mods you do

Kev

[aaronboumans]

When I just got the dcx I used the analog inputs with cd-player;horrible!!!! Using the digital input things got all lot better (not a little bit). I do think that the input stage is so bad it is not worth modding, you need to replace it with something completely different

[kepa1]

Maybe you should try the digital input instead (can be from SPDIF source) - this is what I've done here from the begining. I get maximum signal mevel (the red light turn of very regularely but strangely clipping can not be heard) and well I can't notice any difference between DCX and analog out from my TEAC cd player (my girlfriend can't either). Maybe a little more "metal" sound, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, there is still room for improvement, one easy and inexpesive way would be to follow this guy's mods:



This is barely taking the signal out of the DACs, add a resistor and two capacaitors and completely bypass the stock output stage. According to him, you get total transparency doing this. I might do that during the coming holydays...

More info here

Cheers!

[aaronboumans]

thats what I meant! will do this too in the coming weeks....

[kepa1]

aaronboumans, seems like everybody is considering the same ideas!

[aaronboumans]

some very very nice dcx 'updates'

http://freerider.dyndns.org/