alesis 8 channel digital eq

[cinema bob]

does anyone know anything about this alesis 8 channel digital eq? good, bad, indifferent?
if it is a good piece of gear it would be very sweet addition to any 7.1 home theater.

http://www.alesis.com/product.php?id=45

[ToddAnisman]

For $500, it's tough to beat. however, it'ss missing a critical function necessary for HT with a PJ, Plasma, LCD, etc...- Delay. Every HD display exhibits a sync delay on video, thus requiring a Delay in the audio chain to put the audio in sunc with picture. If your Pre does this function, Great. However, most don't (and If you're adding an EQ, I would think not...), thus necessitating a Delay line in your monitoring.

Also, the headroom on that box isn't great- +19dBu/+6dBv. It's barely enough. However, you may run into problems if you do an extreme EQ Curve in the positive direction....


-Todd A.

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

if it is a good piece of gear it would be very sweet addition to any 7.1 home theater.

Not necessarily. To start, you’d have to have a receiver with pre-out and main-in connections on all channels. Not many of those around. Either that or separate amps for any channels that don’t have main-ins. That can drive up the price of admission to all-channel equalization dramatically.

Also consider, since it is a digital EQ you have yet another AD/DA conversion stage when connected between the pre amps and amps. I’d be a little leery that a low-cost digital EQ, especially one with eight channels, wouldn’t have hi-fidelity converters. Cheap converters can audibly degrade sound quality.

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt