I purchased this unit to use for live performances and found that the presets for my active speakers do not exist. Unless you have allot of time on your hands to make this thing work, don't bother. I did get it to work in my studio on my JBL's eon G2's and it sounded wonderful. Its a shame that DBX did not do their homework for all the powered speaker industry. They make it sound easy to do the custom set up however it is not! It is a big pain! My question to DBX, if it is so easy to do why did you not provide the presets in the first place? If you have the equipment that works with the, very limited presets menu, fine. If not don't bother, unless you want to put the massive amount of time into it.

I am an electronics engineer who happens to run sound for a local band part time. I have messed around with all kinds of PA sound gear. I bought this unit to aid in the setup of the various places our band plays around town. While it is a quality product, it is really too complex with such a small display, manually adjusting the eq is a real pain. NO way someone in the band would have the ability to make adjustments while playing during soundcheck.

The auto eq is a neat feature, but where we play, it is difficult to run the auto eq prior to the sound check as the sounds like a 747 flying over the building for about 3 minutes. Not a crowd pleaser. Good in concept but too much is hidden behind the non-intuitive user interface.

So, I am selling mine on ebay, going to something a little less complex.

I have been using a Behringer Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496 processor between our unpowered mixer and powered speakers for several years. Due to a power spike the other day, the Behringer unit became damaged and had to be sent in for repair. In the meantime I needed something to replace it for live sound. From the magazine ads, the DBX DriveRack px sounded tantalizing. Although approximately $100 more than the Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496, I was eager to give it a try.

Comparisons between the DBX and Behringer are going to be inevitable in this review as these units have very similar functions. The first thing I noticed was a smaller display with the DriveRack px which seemed unduly cluttered. Whereas the Behringer has a very user-friendly display showing exactly what you want to see via one or two pushes of a button and a spin of the data wheel. The DriveRack px's display seemed cryptic and hard to navigate.

In a live performance, making quick changes in the Behringer's graphic EQ is a one-handed breeze; whereas with the DBX, it is cumbersome and non-intuitive. Even when I get up close to the display, it’s hard to tell if certain key parameters had been selected. The Behringer’s graphic EQ display is quickly and easily read from several feet away; and the “Q” width can quickly be set so that EQ curves can be sculpted with ease. Unless I’m missing something, I didn’t see a “Q” setting for the DBX - each band must be raised or lowered individually.

As far as the RTA goes, out of several venues, the DriveRack was only able to do a acceptable job of setting the EQ in only one of those rooms. In the other environments, although I followed the Wizard's prompts faithfully, the EQ was typically bass-heavy with the lower bands boosted inordinately high. The whole “preset” thing with existing brands of speakers smacked a bit of marketing hype. If the unit is going to analyze the signal present at the reference mic, does it make any difference if the pink noise is coming from EON10s or Mackie 350s? Also, I couldn’t find a preset for simply setting up a single speaker.

The anti-feedback function seemed to work pretty well on the DriveRack px; although, due to the pickup pattern of mics I use (Shure Beta 87A) and careful speaker placement, I rarely have a problem with feedback anyway. I have found the anti-feedback feature of the Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496 to be fast and effective – you can even see the graphic display dynamically changing as it finds and notches out troublesome frequencies.

The DBX’s “famous” over-easy compression seemed to do a lot of pumping even at conservative settings. (To be fair, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with this feature.) Again, the display wasn’t as informative as the Behringer’s display for compression. With the Behringer you can actually see and modify the curve which is depicted graphically – along with the threshold, level, ratio and slope. With the DBX it’s just numbers.

Summary: I have been in the audio business for over 40 years as both a musician and studio owner. I’ve always been one to keep abreast of the latest technology, so I’m used to learning new equipment and software. However, I must say that I spent a lot of my time with the DriveRack px perplexed and scratching my head trying to navigate its confusing menus and deciphering its awkwardly-worded manual. From my experience with the two units, I must say that the Behringer Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496 can do everything that the DBX DriveRack px can do only much better; plus it does a whole lot more for a $100 less. The decision should be a no-brainer. In fact I packed up the DriveRack px today and sent it back in exchange for a second, Behringer Ultracurve Pro DEQ2496 for backup.

Kudos to DBX, not only for making a great product but keeping it affordable.

When I first got it, I was a little intimidated with all the button pushes necessary to set it up. After running it a couple of times, set-up was not only very simple it is quick. I can do it (almost) blindfolded in under 5 minutes.

What does this thing do? 1 – It balances out the PA to the room acoustics – automatically. 2 – It has a built in Parametric EQ so you can set your overall sound – rock, jazz, gospel, etc. 3 – Feedback eliminator.

5 minutes of set-up and the PA has never sounded better - ever. Feedback is now a thing of the past. I really was able to gain an additional 12 dB of volume before feedback, while preserving the integrity of the sound.

It sounds better than “ringing out the system” with a 31 band GEQ - plus it is all automatic - a real time saver. What more could you ask for?

If you want a fast set-up that makes your system sound great and tames the feedback then this is what you need. Yes, it really works.

The real issue is how well does it work and how good does it sound. To be honest, I couldn't believe the difference this thing made in both the volume and the quality of sound. Our PA never sounded better. DriveRack is so good that we're buying a second one to use on our monitors.

Follow the directions, line by line and your sound will be "dialed in" in under 10 minutes - no joke. After you've used it a few times, you can dial in the sound in less than 5 minutes total.

The feedback suppression will easily give you 50% to 60% more volume - that alone is worth the asking price. Couple that with an adjustable crossover, Para-EQ, Limiter, dbx compressors and the other included noise toys and you have a killer processor for live sound.

There are 12 notch filters to eliminate feedback and the cool thing about them is that you can assign any or all of them to be either fixed or floating. If your lead singer wanders all over the stage (don't they all?) then a floating notch filter will clamp the feedback frequency within a half a second - which is way faster than our soundman who usually drops the mains at the first sign of feedback.

After using one, I will never play without one again - it's that good..... in fact, if our sound tech didn't double as a roadie - I would replace him with a DriveRack.