DEQX Owners Thread

[aechmea]

What do we know about this?  Does this mean that you stick the microphone near each speaker where and when advised and it all happens auto-magically from there?

 

The DEQX Gen4 processors interface over the network to the DEQX Cloud™. The result is intuitive, cross-platform, zero-install speaker calibration and room correction

[almikel]

On 05/11/2024 at 2:45 PM, aechmea said:

What do we know about this?  Does this mean that you stick the microphone near each speaker where and when advised and it all happens auto-magically from there?

 

The DEQX Gen4 processors interface over the network to the DEQX Cloud™. The result is intuitive, cross-platform, zero-install speaker calibration and room correction

Big call from DEQX.

 

As a DIYer and DEQX owner for many years, I've always done my "speaker" measurements outdoors with minimal reflections, and applied "speaker corrections" based on those measurements.

 

I've always manually applied PEQ for room correction with my DEQX.

 

@Upgrayed has a Gen 4 - I'm very interested in his journey/impressions...

 

Mike

 

 

 

[almikel]

On 05/11/2024 at 2:27 PM, Keith_W said:

Regardless, all versions of the DEQX use Linear Phase FIR filters, rather than mixed phase as per MiniDSP.

Hi Keith,

 

Just clarifying - for DEQX HDP3/4/5, DEQX uses linear phase filters for speaker correction, including the Xover in an active multi-way speaker, based on a DEQX speaker measurement.

If using the DEQX for Xover duties only, DEQX has both linear phase and minimum phase options in varying steepness.

 

For Room EQ, the only DEQX option (HDP3/4/5) is global minimum phase PEQ.

 

Mike

 

[The_nautilus]

19 hours ago, almikel said:

Big call from DEQX.

 

As a DIYer and DEQX owner for many years, I've always done my "speaker" measurements outdoors with minimal reflections, and applied "speaker corrections" based on those measurements.

 

I've always manually applied PEQ for room correction with my DEQX.

 

@Upgrayed has a Gen 4 - I'm very interested in his journey/impressions...

 

Mike

 

 

 

Outdoor measurements are a no go for ribbon speakers

a decent breeze can be catastrophic.

[colinm1]

Would be interesting to see an indoor vs outdoor measurement ,

[GeertDL]

Hi,

 

I just want to share an issue I had with my HDP4:

If the front led fade out function is ticked off (so the led's will fade out), a harmonic noise is generated and is quite noticeable on sensitive drivers. It always started 20 seconds after pressing a button on the front or the remote.

I had this issue for two years and it could drive me mad even with the internal output jumpers on a lower position and the noise level very low.

Few weeks ago, I was sitting very close to a woofer cabinet while looking to the DEQX and guess what, when the led's faded out, the noise started. That took me two years to find out...

 

Greetings,

 

Geert

 

 

 

[tuyen]

Hi Geert,

 

thank you for sharing this discovery. I wonder if it’s the issue I have been experiencing too running the Deqx on  my horn setup. Gain on lowest settings too.   Quite annoying having that harmonic bzzzing sound keeps popping up.  Reminds me of the days listening to music from my windows pc and hearing that same robotic bzzzing sound.    I’ll confirm if I fact it’s the front LED fading option is the cause in the near year when I’m back home and able to play with the setup. 

[almikel]

Definitely talk to DEQX about this issue.

I only run HDP3 and the LEDs stay on...

...As I've said many times, the after sales service from DEQX is awesome - they will investigate and fix, but it will likely require the unit to go back to DEQX.

 

Mike 

[almikel]

Hi all,

 

I'm about to swap out the amp on my TD18 mid bass drivers - and it's been years since I changed an amp and adjusted gain on my DEQX HDP3 for level setting in an active setup.

 

My current setup is a HT multi-channel amp driving passively crossed PSE144's (2 channels) + 2 channels driving the stereo TD18 mid woofers - around 60W rms each channel, with a sub underneath with its own amp - so tri-amped from a DEQX HDP3 perspective.

I've acquired a 180W stereo amp to run the TD18s for a bit more oomph.

 

...I dug up old posts by @aechmea - I'm sanity checking that listening position measurements are the best option for gain matching on the DEQX HDP3 rather than say a 1m or 2m (in room) speaker measurement? ...I'm guessing listening position measurements are still the go considering there's a sub running underneath the TD18s?

 

old posts here:

On 31/08/2014 at 3:29 PM, almikel said:

I found Aechmea's post on gain setting - way back in 2011 !:

http://www.stereo.net.au/forums/index.php?/topic/37769-setting-levels-on-a-triamp-stereo-setup/?hl=deqx#entry629511

post #2

 

content pasted here for convenience:

"Sounds too complicated to me. The DEQX software will allow you to do what you want.

1. Run a room measurement for all of the drivers with no EQ.

2. Display the results in the EQ window of the Control Panel.

3. Select one driver at a time and press "Normalize to 0dB". Important to do one and only one driver at a time otherwise you will get an average of whatever traces are showing.

4. The "Scale" column at bottom right will then show the differences in dBs between all the different drivers ( L and R as well) referenced against an arbitrary 0dB level.

5. Choose the smallest value and calculate the differences between the other values and it. You now have the small dB values with which to modify the basic volume level in the "Gain Adjust" section of the IO Manager. You can choose to adjust some values 'up' and others 'down' if that works better. Don't add too much 'up' gain though - I prefer to reduce gain.

6. Re-do the room measurement, and re-display the results to check that you have achieved what you wanted and applied the gain adjustments in the right direction! (been there done that)

7. Apply the EQ that you want/need, and repeat the whole process and make the (now) tiny adjustments to level match. Only need to do this if you are pedantic as to how closely drivers are gain matched - you can get it to 0.1dB if you want."

 

I'm definately going to save this somewhere I can find it quickly next time!

 

Thanks again Aechmea !

 

cheers

Mike

 

 

On 01/09/2014 at 7:44 AM, aechmea said:

Just to explain this a little more.

 

This process is for the end of the set-up to get the subs and mains at a consistent volume.  It comes after the main speakers have been measured, XOs set, filters calculated and included in a profile and you have moved onto sub integration and room correction.  After all the prior bits have been done, it may be that the left sub ends up louder than the rest or the right channel of the mains ends up a bit louder than the left, or the subs are too loud compared to the mains or … whatever.

 

Then you can use the scaling feature on a room measurement to determine how much to adjust the individual volumes of the speakers.  Scaling will tell you to within 0.1dB but the adjustment is done in 0.5dB increments. eg. my subs are 6.2dB and 4.7dB respectively louder than they should/need be relative to the mains.  Easy then to add the appropriate negative gain into the 'control panel' or into the profile itself.

 

But of course you might want to have the subs 3dB louder to provide a sort of 'house sound', or you may want the right side a little louder because you are a bit deafer in that ear, so you make your choices and set the values accordingly.

 

cheers,

 

Mike

 

 

[Keith_W]

If you need to match the volume between two drivers, I would measure at the listening position and change the gain at the amp and not use DSP to do it for two reasons: (1) you will provoke pre-ringing if you are using FIR, and (2) the more volume you cut, the closer you get to the noise floor. The goal is to adjust the gain until the corner frequencies can not be seen when the two drivers play together. 

TBH I don't think there would be much difference measuring at 1m, 2m, or MLP if all we are doing is driver matching. Unless very long wavelengths are involved, of course. 

[aechmea]

I think that 2 different processes are being mixed here.

 

In a bi-amp with sub(s) configuration the volume matching of drivers within the one speaker is done as part of the speaker calibration process.  A speaker is calibrated by using a measurement of all drivers in that box at an appropriate distance.  Often about 1m but could be more depending upon the physical size of the speaker.  It is imperative to gate the measurement to exclude any reflections.  'Tis almost impossible to gather reliable data for frequencies below say 250Hz with any in-room measurement (my experience) unless one has an anechoic room.

 

Therefore the only way to integrate low freq drivers/speakers like subs is to do an in-room measurement at the seat, including reflections, and use the technique that I posted all those years ago, which is essentially the way that the DEQX manual describes.

 

In Mike's case, we don't know whether his configuration is a bi-amp of the PSE and TD (ie. a single logical speaker with 2 drivers with 2 amps) or whether he has treated them as separate speakers each with their own calibration.

 

If the second configuration, then, the technique documented above is the only way that I know of that the can integrate 3 speakers (PSE, TD, sub)

 

If the first configuration (PSE+TD as one, and sub), then technically Mike might like to re-do the calibration of the PSE and TD together as a single logical speaker.  However considering the size, logistics and nuisance of a pseudo-anechoic measurement, I would be very very tempted to use the method described for volume matching at the MLP with an in-room measurement.

 

I can't really see how manipulating the volume of drivers in the control panel is any different to having the calibration process do it automagically.

 

Anyway one has to always match the sub volume with the mains volume.  In my case the subs are very efficient and loud and must be attenuated considerably by choosing -9dB for the DEQX sub analogue output and by turning the subs amp down to level "5" from a possible "99".  Yes, big Maggies are at the completely opposite end of the speaker sensitivity scale to horns.  Also my room is asymmetrical, and one ear is less good than the other, so I have to increase the vol on the right hand side to compensate.

 

An in-room measurement at the MLP is really very useful as you get to see all of the room anomalies that don't show in the gated pseudo-anechoic measurement used in calibrating the speakers.

 

I also run the DEQX digital volume at between 0dBFS and -10dBFS so noise floor is never an issue and a few dBs boost or attenuation here or there are inconsequential.

 

If one must really run at really low volumes then a better way is to keep the digital domain at say -10dB-ish and change the jumpers on the mother board to adjust the analogue-out.  However I don't think that Mike is a low volume sort of person 

[almikel]

Volume matching all done with the mic at the listening position 

 

Un-related, but I recently upgraded my music laptop to Windows 11, and so far the DEQX app (v3.02.02) running my HDP3 is a bit glitchy...I knew I was running a bit of a risk upgrading from Win 10, as DEQX don't officially support Win 11 for the app running the old versions of DEQX....

 

...and wouldn't you know - Microsoft is not letting me revert to Win 10  

 

If you're still running a DEQX HDP3/4/5 - I would suggest staying on Windows 10 on the laptop/pc controlling your DEQX.

 

Mike

[aechmea]

Fortunately my Windows laptop is incapable of running W11; far too old, but DEQX and Dbpoweramp (to expand HDCDs while ripping) are the only things that I use it for.

[bhobba]

Hi All

 

I have not posted much recently because I have taken a low profile due to being in a very high risk COVID group and not doing too much with my system.   I have quite a lot of stuff I need to put in my system. 

 

That is now changing.

 

I have just ordered a beta version of the PRE 4.   I plan to connect its digital output to my MSALER and TT2 direct to my speakers.

 

I chatted with someone at DEQX, and he was very confident I would not need the DAC, although he thought the MSCALER and TT2 were very good. Directly connected to speakers, the TT2 and MSCALER are the best I have ever heard—above the Grandinote, my previous top of the heap. It will be interesting to see how the internal DAC compares.

 

Anyway, I'm just letting people know, I haven't been billed yet, so it needs to be shipped.

 

Thanks

Bill

Edited March 13 by bhobba

[givita_burl]

44 minutes ago, bhobba said:

Had a chat to someone at DEQX, and he was very confident I would not need the DAC, although he thought the MSCALER and TT2 were very good.   Directly connected to the TT2 and MSCALER is the best I have ever heard - above the Grandinote, my previous top of the heap.   Interesting to see how the internal DAC compares.

 

Anyway, just letting people know.   I haven't even been billed yet - then it needs to be shipped.

Well, I'll be awaiting on the outcome of your assessment (when that happens). I've remain curious about people's experiences about the quality and neutrality of DEQX in an audio chain.

 

BTW, I found your experience with Naquadria amps useful - I now have one in my system.

Edited March 13 by givita_burl
added comment

[Upgrayed]

 

Looking forward to hearing someone prefering a Dac over the DEQX implementation.

 

 

[bhobba]

4 hours ago, Upgrayed said:

Looking forward to hearing someone prefering a Dac over the DEQX implementation.

 

The advantage of the TT2 (and I use the MSCALER) is that its proprietary output stage has enough grunt at 18w to drive speakers directly - no amp required.   It's not an apples for apples comparison.

 

Thanks

Bill

[Upgrayed]

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

 

 

 

[GeertDL]

Hi,

 

owning my HDP-4 for about 5 years and playing in single amp + dual subs, I finally finished a 3-way active system. It's an open baffle speaker consisting of 2 15" woofers (SBA 15OB150) in an H-frame with a 14" coaxial driver on top (B&C 14CXN88-8). The amplifiers are 2 3-channel Hypex NC400, each with a separate power supply for the bass.

Although this will probably not the end of the journey, I'm very pleased with the results so far. Former speakers were Harbeth SHL5 and the difference is night and day...

However, I’m running into a noise issue with the very sensitive tweeters (106dB). According to DEQX, the noise is very likely caused by too high gain from the NC400 amp. I can put an in line attenuator between the DEQX and the Hypex, make an L-pad for the tweeters or remove the R141 resistor from the NC400 to lower the gain with about 13dB (an “easy” modification also explained in a technical paper by Hypex). The latter solution might not be the most safe in terms of warranty and/or damaging etc... but it has my preference.

However, I struggle a bit over the insight concerning the gain matching between the DEQX and the NC400. Is it recommended / beneficial to lower the gain on all NC400 modules? What would be the recommended output jumper settings in the DEQX?

[The_nautilus]

Hey Team,

When I got my HDP-5 I popped the HDP-3 in a box in the shed hoping one day I would daisy chain it to be HDP-5 to run the subs and 3 way Apogee Divas in full quad amp mode.

I probably won’t get around to it or will upgrade to the new unit once the bugs have been ironed out

What’s a reasonable price for a HDP-3?

it has the extra balanced output board that was optional (that was a pig to find at the time).

Curious

Matthew 

[Upgrayed]

Hard to say what is reasonable, DEQX has not retailed a unit since the chip factory fire.

 

I have a Pre 8, replacing a PreMate and can confirm it's next level in performance.

 

The smallest gains are in bass, legacy units if operated by knowledgable, are still great way to get "perfect" bass.

 

 

Once a review of the new products hits the airwaves, interest should ramp up for affordable second hand units keeping in mind DEQX commitment to continued full support.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[almikel]

On 27/03/2025 at 5:45 AM, GeertDL said:

However, I’m running into a noise issue with the very sensitive tweeters (106dB).

Is amplifier hiss audible at the listening position with no music playing?

On 27/03/2025 at 5:45 AM, GeertDL said:

According to DEQX, the noise is very likely caused by too high gain from the NC400 amp.

This is possibly the issue - properly managing gain across all stages is important (source to pre to power), and especially so in active setups with amps connected directly to tweeters.

 

Prior to my current setup (Paul Spencer passive Xover on my PSE144s), I ran my PSE144s for years fully active (the compression tweeter was ~106dB) with no noise issues from the tweeter from the listening position - you could hear hiss if you put your head in the horn.

 

On 27/03/2025 at 5:45 AM, GeertDL said:

I can put an in line attenuator between the DEQX and the Hypex

This won't help if the noise is coming from "too high" gain on the tweeter amp.

 

On 27/03/2025 at 5:45 AM, GeertDL said:

make an L-pad for the tweeters

This wastes power (maybe immaterial), reduces damping (amp control of the tweeter), and likely require more gain earlier in the chain to compensate (which is fine) - but would likely fix the issue  

 

On 27/03/2025 at 5:45 AM, GeertDL said:

or remove the R141 resistor from the NC400 to lower the gain with about 13dB (an “easy” modification also explained in a technical paper by Hypex). The latter solution might not be the most safe in terms of warranty and/or damaging etc... but it has my preference.

I'm never keen to modify OEM kit, but it's an option...another option would be another amp with lower gain for the tweeters, or your pad option (above).

 

On 27/03/2025 at 5:45 AM, GeertDL said:

However, I struggle a bit over the insight concerning the gain matching between the DEQX and the NC400. Is it recommended / beneficial to lower the gain on all NC400 modules?

If you're not experiencing noise issues on the other NC400 modules - no - leave them "as is".

 

On 27/03/2025 at 5:45 AM, GeertDL said:

What would be the recommended output jumper settings in the DEQX?

I've mucked with them heaps across many different amps - but I don't think this is your issue.

I've had no change in noise in any of the jumper changes I've made on the DEQX.

 

If you hear amp hiss from your tweeters at the listening position, your tweeter amp has too much gain.

 

Mike

[almikel]

On 27/03/2025 at 9:42 PM, The_nautilus said:

What’s a reasonable price for a HDP-3?

it has the extra balanced output board that was optional (that was a pig to find at the time).

Curious

around AUD$1K

[GeertDL]

3 hours ago, almikel said:

Is amplifier hiss audible at the listening position with no music playing?

This is possibly the issue - properly managing gain across all stages is important (source to pre to power), and especially so in active setups with amps connected directly to tweeters.

 

Prior to my current setup (Paul Spencer passive Xover on my PSE144s), I ran my PSE144s for years fully active (the compression tweeter was ~106dB) with no noise issues from the tweeter from the listening position - you could hear hiss if you put your head in the horn.

 

This won't help if the noise is coming from "too high" gain on the tweeter amp.

 

This wastes power (maybe immaterial), reduces damping (amp control of the tweeter), and likely require more gain earlier in the chain to compensate (which is fine) - but would likely fix the issue  

 

I'm never keen to modify OEM kit, but it's an option...another option would be another amp with lower gain for the tweeters, or your pad option (above).

 

If you're not experiencing noise issues on the other NC400 modules - no - leave them "as is".

 

I've mucked with them heaps across many different amps - but I don't think this is your issue.

I've had no change in noise in any of the jumper changes I've made on the DEQX.

 

If you hear amp hiss from your tweeters at the listening position, your tweeter amp has too much gain.

 

Mike

Mike,

 

Thank you for your extended reply!

 

I feel now more confident to which direction I have to go.
The NC400 mod is, despite the inherent risks regarding warranty, damaging,..., I think that is the best solution. At least for the tweeter amps. 

 

Yes, I can hear the hiss on the listening position and has a constant loudness. Music source is a Roon Rock connected to the USB input. 

Also, when doing room measurements, during the "initializing measurement" step, a much louder noise comes through the tweeters. Maybe this is also a consequence of the high gain... I reported this to DEQX but they didn't respond to my mails. Probably busy with there next Gen4 or so...

 

Geert

Edited March 28 by GeertDL
post not finished yet

[bhobba]

16 hours ago, almikel said:

around AUD$1K

 

That's why my installation friend keeps it for subwoofer integration.

 

If he sold it, he would not get much anyway, and besides, it was great with his subwoofer.

 

Thanks

Bill