So that's a Behringer....(sp?)

[maxg]

Just got back from my favorite audio shop (www.stepcom.gr) and they have installed a Behringer thingie in one of their new listening rooms.

First impression - WHAT A GREAT TOY!!!! Cheap as chips too.

We played with it for about an hour - mainly with the Graphic equalizer settings but then on to the parametric stuff and a lot of other bits I didnt understand. Big manual to get to grips with!!

This is a way cool device that came up on this forum some months ago and raised a real battle between those that said it was a bad thing to implement in a system and those that said it wasnt.

It seems to do just about everything you could ever want - even acting as an active cross-over (although I think you would need 2 or more of them for that - or a sub with a low pass filter I suppose).

Anyway - no idea if it does something to the signal or not when in bypass mode as we didnt get to that - but I am thinking of getting one - just to play with.

What would be an interesting challenge would be to connect it only to the CD side of things and then see how close I could make the sound to that of the pick-up. Could also fix that 45 Hz suck-out my room suffers from.

So much to play with - so little time!!!!

[Griffinator]

For the record, my only argument against the Behringer was that

spending a few bucks more on a better version of the same unit would

yield far better results. That's all I'm going to say on the matter -

I'm so over the Behringer thing - I realized some time ago that

convincing people who buy Behringer that it's a bad product is like

trying to convince Bose owners of same...

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Griff,

I still like my Behringer, but you did get through to me. I just picked up a Yamaha D2040 divider on your reccomendation. Can't wait to get it. I am going to use my QSC 1202 for my woofer, a Teach 700 for the tweeter and either another 700 lp or a SET amp for the midrage .

I also picked up a Benchmark DAC1 and a DBX 400x route selector and now I have some questions.

Dynamic Expansion. I think that some form of a dynamic range expander for tuner and badly compressed CD's is a good idea. I Have a DBX 3BX expander that works great for LP's, but it is an analog unit. Have not put it in the new system yet. I am thinking that some form of digital expander would be a good addition. What can you reccomend? Is an expander/gate what I am looking for?

ADC/DAC - my Yamaha D2040 divider has good adc/dac's (I'm assuming) and it has to be connected to the output of my Peach (I want to retain the tube preamp in the signal path). For other signal processing, I can use the Benchmark DAC-1 to get back to analog. What ADC would you reccomend?

Thanks,

Chris

[Griffinator]

I would suggest passing digital from the Yamaha to the Benchmark, with the Benchmark being the final stop before the preamp.

Some DSP's don't have this option - not sure if the Yammy does or not,

really - but the Benchmark dedicated DAC is going to be far superior to

any built-in DAC on any of those units - remember, you spent nearly a

grand on a two-channel DAC - it's going to perform better than the DAC

that is included with a DSP unit that costs about the same money but

has a lot more functions. Simple economics, really...

[sfogg]

" Can't wait to get it. I am going to use my QSC 1202 for my woofer, a Teach 700 for the tweeter and either another 700 lp or a SET amp for the midrage ."

If/when you try the Teac's be aware you might run into a hiss problem with the tweeters. I did on the tweeters/mids tri-amping with the Teac's.

If you do have hiss I may have a way around that, figured out a few new tricks with the Teac last night.

Shawn

[sfogg]

"I would suggest passing digital from the Yamaha to the Benchmark, with the Benchmark being the final stop before the preamp."

Then he would need 3 Benchmarks (6 channels of output... two speakers... woofer, mid,tweeter) and a 6 channel pre-amp (or adjust the volume on each Benchmark) to make that work. But that wouldn't work anyway since the Yamaha doesn't have digital outputs to feed external DACs.

Benchmark -> Pre-amp -> Crossover ->Amps is going to be the way to make things happen.

The trick with that approach is going to maximize signal levels to the crossover to keep resolution highest.... esp. with the Yamaha since it is using 19bit A/Ds. According to one sheet it says it has analog attenuation after the DACs, that is nice as it will make it a lot easier to maximize the DACs resolution without totally overloading the amps. As you turn down the volume you loose resolution through the crossovers in this method which is why you need to maximize it in the first place.

Reading through the Yamaha's manual..... actually the ideal way of using it would be.....

Digital signals straight into the Yamaha (might need to convert from coax S/PDIF to AES/EBU balanced) and from the Yamaha directly to the amps.

Analog signals through a basic switcher (or maybe a level booster if required) and into the Yamaha.

The use the 'Fader Link' function to lock all the analog attenuation after the DACs together and use that to control overall system volume as well as relative level balance. Used in this manor you would get full resolution of the Yamaha all the time.

Shawn

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Exactly, the Yamaha is my crossover feeding my amps.

What about range expansion, any comments.

[sfogg]

"What about range expansion,"

Don't worry about it yet. You are going to have your hands full trying get the tri-amped system up and running while juggling the signal levels to/from the crossover to make everything happy.

After you get it all squared away and to your satisfaction then you can worry about the dynamic range expansion features.

If you have measurement equipment the parametric EQ in the Yamaha would be a much more interesting avenue to explore.

Shawn

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Shawn,

I have been reading the Tripath Technology Technical Information on the TK 2050 (TC2000/TP2050 chipset) which is teh chipset used in the Teac. The mods are pretty easy to figure out (Bypass attenuators, direct from RCA's into chip by adding caps, etc).

The sheet also says that the chipset will have difficulty with a load less than 6 ohms but if mono bridged, it will do very well with a 4 ohn load (and put out 60 watts). I will explore more. I need to figure out what power supply wil be necessary if I go this route (can't be too expensive as these are very efficient).

If you have two amps, you can use one in four channel for mids and tweets and one mono bridged for the woofers. Lots of headroom this way.

I attached the Tripath sheet (It is actually very easy to figure out if you can read a schematic).

Chris

TK2050.pdf

[sfogg]

" The mods are pretty easy to figure out (Bypass attenuators, direct from RCA's into chip by adding caps, etc). "

None of that does a thing to effect the hiss level of the amp itself. Been there done that.

If you are using the Yamaha crossovers you can bypass the attenuators. If you are going to use the Behringer crossover (which lacks the analog attenuation that the Yamaha has) you are going to need the attenuation in the Teac. If you want you can remove the pots but then you need to add fixed levels of attenuation to the input. Otherwise you have to turn down the outputs on the Behringer which does it digitally and you loose resolution in its DACs.

" I need to figure out what power supply wil be necessary if I go this route (can't be too expensive as these are very efficient). "

The PS in the Teac itself is fine. Esp. when you are going to be using a handful of watts.

Shawn

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Shawn,

Is the power supply adequate for all four channels (or mono bridged)? (assuming that I can get all four to work, I need to see what soldering is required, it may be tight in there).

What mods have you done? How difficult was it?

I will be using the Yamaha as a crossover and the attenuators to match teh speakers efficiency and the amps. I will use the Peach as teh volume control.

Chris

[sfogg]

"Is the power supply adequate for all four channels (or mono bridged)?"

Haven't tried all four channels, it is fine for three and will do about 31w/ch with all three channels maxed out into 8 ohms.

Why do it that way though? Dedicate a Teac per speaker. Bridge the center channel card for the woofer if you want to and then use the L/R for mid/tweeter. Gets rid of any chance of channel seperation issues and it lowers the total PS requirements since the mid/tweeter will hardly need any power at all.

I haven't looked into the bridging of the Teac very much though. I don't need the extra power as 30w+ on the LaScala bass bins are plenty crossed to my subs. Bridging you might need to change around the filter circuitry among other things and that might be trickier to do.

" I need to see what soldering is required, it may be tight in there). "

The input stuff is easy and I'd recommend keeping the input card (where the first input capacitor and the pots are) in circuit. That way if you need to add attenuation or anything on the input of the Teac's you can just pop out that card easily and add it in using the holes the pots originally mounted in.

The common PS cap upgrades some do are easy as is the bypass cap on the amp card itself. Much of the rest of the amp card is SMT.

Shawn

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Shawn,

I never thought that I woudl need any more power than my Scott LK-48 20 watt tube amp with my K Horns. One day, I hooked up my Denon 5800 receiver (170 wpc) and my K Horns just woke up. I turned up the bass all the and I could feel the cement shaking under my feet and in my chest. I immediatly added a QSC 1202 (200 wpc from 20 to 20K). I intended on buying a Carver pro digital amp but bought the QSC on Deans' recommendation. Believe me, Heritage like power.

What crossover are you using?

Did you just add input caps to your teac or did you do other mods with the output caps?

Chris

[sfogg]

"I never thought that I woudl need any more power than my Scott LK-48 20 watt tube amp with my K Horns. One day, I hooked up my Denon 5800 receiver (170 wpc) and my K Horns just woke up."

May not have been the power, could have been the difference in output impedance.

I know I'm not running out of power in the Teac. It has an easy time of it since the LaScala's are crossed over to subs. The subs have around 1200w available to each of them.

"What crossover are you using?"

The Behringer, I detailed the setup at:

http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/625446/ShowPost.aspx

"Did you just add input caps to your teac or did you do other mods with the output caps?"

Haven't touched the output filter. In the units that are in running in my system I did basic input caps and some power cap upsiding/upvoltage rating (nothing fancy $$$), the input attenuation, nulled the DC and some shielding. Externally I have added 10dB of attenuation between the tweeters and the Teacs to lower their hiss.

If all goes well with the unit on my bench I'll be adding those mods to the units I'm running as the hiss from the Teacs has been bothering me and if it works as well as it seemed to I can get rid of the autoformers between the amps and the tweeters.

Shawn

[Griffinator]

Then he would need 3 Benchmarks (6 channels of output... two

speakers... woofer, mid,tweeter) and a 6 channel pre-amp (or adjust the

volume on each Benchmark) to make that work. But that wouldn't work

anyway since the Yamaha doesn't have digital outputs to feed external

DACs.

Benchmark -> Pre-amp -> Crossover ->Amps is going to be the way to make things happen.

Gotcha - didn't connect on the Yamaha's purpose in the chain.

With that in mind, if you can feed straight digital pass-through to the

Yamaha, I'd suggest doing so with your digital devices. No point in

doing an additional D-A-D by inserting the Benchmark ahead of the

Yamaha in the chain.

[tigerwoodKhorns]

Shawn,

Check out the diagrams on page 6 of the attachment above. woudl adding teh C-case caps help with the hiss? (EMI Supression).

Chris

[sfogg]

"if you can feed straight digital pass-through to the Yamaha, I'd suggest doing so with your digital devices. No point in doing an additional D-A-D by inserting the Benchmark ahead of the Yamaha in the chain."

He can only do that if he uses the Yamaha to control the volume of the entire system.

Otherwise he has to go back to analog just for volume control then on to the Yamaha's. Or get a box that does digital attenuation (Meridian 518 for example) and put that between the digital source and the Yamaha.

Shawn

[sfogg]

"Check out the diagrams on page 6 of the attachment above. woudl adding teh C-case caps help with the hiss? (EMI Supression)."

I believe the Teac already has those installed on the mainboard in the amp.. though I haven't carefully checked that. EMI supression is way way beyond the audible frequency range. That is to cut down on the switching noise of the Tripath chip. The switching occurs around 630kHz. You can see it with a scope on the output of the amp or by plugging a counter into the output of the amp.

The hiss is a byproduct of the fact that the amp is digital. Its noise floor increases in level as frequency increases.

Don't sweat the hiss yet, it might not be an issue in your system. My room is very quite so it was an issue to me.

Shawn

[Griffinator]

He can only do that if he uses the Yamaha to control the volume of the entire system.

I'm sorry, I misunderstood the original post - I thought he mentioned

something about running it out to the Blueberry (did seem odd, now that

I consider it)