DEQ2496

What a real good peice of gear to have in your PA rack forthe price. I paid more for ack in 2017. For the most part guitarist, bassist, drummers, keys and vocalist have a sound we like. Getting that sound to sound good in every room is the goal. IMO it takes more than the a GOOD ear, standard EQ tweaks, a PA and the right overheads subs. Bands/musicians tend to over EQ there sound unintentionally and frequencies xlash and cancel each other out. The sound guy compensates with his mix, its like multiplying and dividing instead of adding and subtracting. Some rooms are bigger, some smaller, some have a stage, higher ceilings, some with sheet rock or acoustic tiling, theres wood panel walls or standard sheet rock. Though experience sound guys can get a decent sound not every band has a sound guy handy. Most bands these days manage there own sound. This is were the Ultracurve comes in. Dont be fooled by the low price. I thought I was pretty good at mixing my bands sound until I installed the DEQ2496 in my PA to help speed things up as well. When I mixed my first few rooms with it, I got that smile you get when you know it sounds real good. Thats all I expect now at every gig and so does everyone else. Get a good measuring mic! The Ultracurves Auto Eq analyzer use white noise frequencys to eq the room flat which is what you want to start with. The band brings there sound up and you tweak it from there if need be. The auto eq analyzer is one part, there's the compressor, expander limiter, parametric EQ, feedback destroyer, stereo imaging, dynamic compressor, time correction solutions everything you need to master your end sound. There is a learning curve but nothing that good is ever that simple at first. There's YouTube demo videos to help you, so watch, read and follow instructions and be patient. Practice a few setups in your home or studio. Once you learn how to use your DEQ2496 save those gig settings for the next time or use the settings for similar rooms. It's all worth it IMO if your serious about your bands sound. The DEQ2496 will give you an edge and get club owners to notice that you sound better than the other bands. Good Luck...

Behringer is working overtime to earn the title of the "overpriced-garbage-flea-market-brand” of “pro audio” by ensuring these units fail before they’re even used. I should have paid attention to the frustration in all those terrible reviews. Based on the countless online complaints, this unit is a cancer—an absolute slap in the face to Behringer’s customers. How lazy and arrogant does a company have to be not to secure internal components so their products can at least survive standard shipping? Just ask Behringer—picture them them mocking you and laughing all the way to the bank with your money. Right out of the box, my unit had an intermittent LCD and would randomly power off and reboot at the slightest vibration. Clearly, it can’t even withstand normal shipping conditions, so I don’t plan to reorder it. I considered fixing it myself, but that would void the warranty, and I don’t want to end up with a $300 brick that has a multitude of other issues. If Behringer can’t even make a unit that survives shipping without parts coming loose or breaking, it’s not worth the time or money to repair. There will only be more hidden issues down the road. Yes, it does have good sound quality—when it works, which is rare. But it’s got an inexcusable, cheap, tiny LCD that might have been “cool” in the ’90s, and the interface is poorly designed, with a small knob for selecting EQ bands seemingly made for tiny hands. Adjusting it band-by-band is pure torture, especially knowing they could have put a larger screen but chose the $5 LCD option for a +$300 unit. I’m just going to use SigmaDSP’s 1701 platform instead. It might take more effort to set up the board and programmer, but it’s far more reliable and much easier to adjust through SigmaStudio on Windows.

Had this for a while now, testing and using mostly in an audiophile stereo setup. Was a bit skeptical from other reviews of this unit (heat issues and such). But Behringer hasn't upgraded it with a new version for nearly a decade now. For me, it seems to work amazingly well. I am using it in a full digital configuration from a computer to DAC to digital input on DEQ. Also input/interconnected with an ART DPS II valve mic preamp and other various components including Roland mulitrack recorder/mixer. Has a very small rack size which doesnt take up much space. Personally, i've had no issues with heat on mine, and it is even in a partially enclosed rack stacked with other components. Wonder if a hardware or firmware issue has been made with this unit since its introduction, or if there are manufacturing issues between units, as i dont wont to oppose anyone else's experience. I do not however use it in a heavy use for extended periods, but only for home use in a small "listening" room for music enjoyment and occasional recording (its not on the road in a heavy live gig function or such). My sound is output into a high-end t-amplifier to custom build tower speakers. The DEQ works well for analyzing/adjusting room acoustics. A measurement mic is a great addition to this unit. With all the built-in processors including 31 bands EQ per channel (graphic EQ) as well as parametric eq, compressor, expander, etc. you really cant beat the price! I also hear no distortion or noise floor introduced in the path (am using digital input, but have tried analog inputs with no noticable noise either). Layout use is a bit confusing at first, but you get used to it. Could use an upgrade on that as well as the display info graphics, but for the price i cant really find much to dispute with it.

For the price the features are unmatched. I owned this, and it worked fine for me for about a year. It took a little time to understand all of the features. I enjoyed memory, and autoeq features. I have my own band, but also run large scale PA for bands that I know. The bad-I was running sound for a grammy award winner and (luckily) this thing started rebooting constantly during sound checks. I had backup gear I was able to patch in, but it would have been horrible if it had happened during a show. A search on the failure modes for this device reveals an undersized, poorly cooled, power supply. STAY AWAY!

This unit was bought as an upgrade to an old Behringer Ultramizer Pro 2-band (with final limiter) dynamics processor used in a web radio and podcasting studio. This newer unit can be configured into a quite servicable 3-band processor/final limiter (similar to the popular TC Electronic Finalizers) with optional parametric and graphic EQ, expansion/compression and stereo width/expansion functions optionally available in the processing chain. If you want to use it this way, the device's instruction manual will provide absolutely no guidance, and unlike the now discontinued Ultramizer, there are no processing presets available to provide any sort of adjustment starting point. In fact you'll be confronted with screen after screen of geeky, obscure adjustments to set and tweek. It's too bad Behringer didn't take the time to detail suggested settings which would unlock the many great things this box will do. However, a ham radio guy, NU9N, has put up an excellent online setup guide, and his 3-band processor settings (ignore the narrow band EQ settings which are appropriate to a ham radio station) are loud, transparent and musical. A good resource for the DEQ2496 and a great starting point for anyone using the box for dynamics processing. In our case the box provides a substantial upgrade in sound over the box it replaced, it was quite inexpensive, and the build quality is adequate. Negatives to Behringer for not giving the customer the basic info to use it properly.

I finally got a chance to put it through its paces a few days ago. The AES/EBU digital output isn't functional but thankfully the optical is. Fairly complicated to learn but very nice features and audio quality. Having one with everything working would be great.

Excellent device. I’m quite impressed. Great alternative to a standard graphic EQ.

Lasted only a few days then locks up, makes awful loud noise when it errors, returned.