The MiniDSP 4x10HD sounds completely flat and not in the positive sense of the word. I have had one and it sounds lifeless, has almost no resolving power, and has a soundstage as flat as a pancake compared to other DACs. It sounds like the soundcard of a cheap desktop computer, to be honest. I wouldn't bother buying one if I were you.
Purely a matter of opinion. I am using a 4x10 for four years now in a setup with towers having sealed 10 inch woofers, 98dB sensitive midrange and have exceptional width and depth. I use the advanced programming modes and biquads for my filter generation. All the criticisms Ive read about the 4x10 have not manifested. Some say poor noise floor but that is because the gain structure of the system is wrong.
My next pursuit is a Merging Hapi with DA8 card. Ive built a new PC to use HQPlayer as source and convolver. Accourate or Audiolense will be used for measurement and filter generation.
IMO, soundcards should always have their own clock and clean power supply to feed the dac and the analog outputs. Computers are way too much noisy as well as laptops. That begs for external soundcards, usb, wiffi, firewire, or ethernet wire port...all having a trade off in relation to each others soundwize.
well, actually I did nog replace it with anything. I bought it for my secondary system but went back to a diy dac and passive crossovers because it sounded much better. In my main system I use a modded DEQX and in my hobbyroom system I use a Danville DspMusik audioweaver crossover. Both sound quite a lot better then the minidsp. Initialy I thought the minidsp was ok but after direct compare it was flat, 2D , lifeless so I sold it.
If you have a PC, why not use it.
You can get a decent PCIe soundcard for $100 (I have both these, Asus Xonar AE, Asus Strix), use free Equalizer APO (channel mapping, XO IIR, FIR, convolution) and have it host your media server, player and measurement system (free REW). This is a loopback measurement for the Xonar Xonar loopback and loopbacks are usually limited by the A/D performance so the actual DAC is better. It's connected directly to a group of single ended Tripath amps, It's significantly better SQ than a Dayton DSP408 and easily as good as an active analog filter. The Xonar uses Cirrus DACs and the Strix uses ESS sabre DACs,
You can get a decent PCIe soundcard for $100 (I have both these, Asus Xonar AE, Asus Strix), use free Equalizer APO (channel mapping, XO IIR, FIR, convolution) and have it host your media server, player and measurement system (free REW). This is a loopback measurement for the Xonar Xonar loopback and loopbacks are usually limited by the A/D performance so the actual DAC is better. It's connected directly to a group of single ended Tripath amps, It's significantly better SQ than a Dayton DSP408 and easily as good as an active analog filter. The Xonar uses Cirrus DACs and the Strix uses ESS sabre DACs,
I'm familiar with Danville and very much like their Nexus dsp. How did you get a hold of their products as I thought they were only licensing to OEMs. And the spec of the DSP says AKM DACs for output, is there any current supply of units? Other pro mfg like Crane Song have delayed new orders until supply issues are resolved.
After all the 4x10HD's ADC & DACs couldn't cost more than a few $ each. Perhaps still useful as digital EQ to external DAC for a full-range driver, analogue-with-Delay to (sub)woofers i.e. so-called WAW.
The Strix Raid looks pretty cool too with an ES9016 chip in it. I have a DIYinHK board with that chip and it sounds really nice.
https://www.asus.com/au/motherboards-components/sound-cards/gaming/strix-raid-dlx/
Analog Devices has a number of evaluation boards available for their DSP chips from what I can see. They range in price. One of their larger boards runs about $700.00 and change but it has like 48 input/outputs. That's a lot. I've never played around with it but their Sigma Studio looks like it is a pretty comprehensive DSP programing software that they put together for their chips. Some of their boards look like they could be worth checking out.
Based on a recommendation from @kipman725 I'm using a QSC Basis 922az. It is ancient so I got two of them off ebay for around $100.00 each. They claim to be balanced 8 analog in and 8 analog out, there are digital inputs, but they are CobraNet which I never found a way to use. They use phoenix connectors for inputs and 15 pin high density D connectors (VGA) for the outputs. I hacked some Amazon Basic RCA to use the outputs. Not quit what you are looking for, but they work great and the price can't be beat. Looks like the price is up, here is one for $199.00.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/125448419197
https://www.ebay.com/itm/125448419197
Hi Jason, no the basis units are not compatible with Q-Sys.
If anyone gets interested in Q-Sys, the best way to see if the shoe fits, is to try out the online education tutorials.
The tutorials start with hardware, go to designer software, then applications etc.
The two presenters are sometimes deliberately goofy, and do a great job at teaching, making 'school' bearable haha.
The neat thing is that you don't need a hardware Core to go through the training. You can build Q-sys designs on a PC/MAC, without having a Core.
(you just can't use the designs, without a Core )
I took the training and saw how easy it was to build designs, then sprung for a used 110f on ebay...and have never once looked back...
(but again, be aware of used 110f' s caveats right now, per earlier post in this thread.
That said, it does look like their price is beginning to float back to earth )
thanks mark. Im in "semi-pro" audio but will soon be dabbling more in personal home listening so trying to gather all the information in advance of the big jump. I will take a look at vids..
It works with QSControl Venue Manager, it is free download off the QSC website, it is under legacy/discontinued product support. Here is a snapshot from the help about.
