dbx DriveRack VENU360 Review (audio processor)

[Sukram]

I use only the analog part of the dbx venu 360: crossover (2+1) and room correction.
For this purpose the unit is perfect. The room correction is
way better than Dirac. Dirac sucks a huge amount of power out of the PA.

 

[PureLIN]

It seems that the dbx processor design was easy to rip off, and there are some imitations model by China company.
I would to buy a venu360 imitation and test it by rme soundcard if they support 7 days refund.

 

[Falcon91Wolvrn03]

Hi everyone. This is my first post to this site, and apologies if bumping up a 3-month-old thread is frowned upon. I'll start by saying what a great site this is, and that I've been reading it for quite some time now and have learned so much!

I own a dbx DriveRack VENU360 because it was included with my Sanders Model 10e Electrostatic Speakers. I love those speakers, and to me they were the best sounding speakers I heard at The Home Entertainment Show (T.H.E. Show) in Long Beach in 2019. I'm not looking for a debate on whether others like electrostatic speakers with transmission line woofers as much as I do, but I have a few comments about the VENU360, as that is the topic of this thread.

The first is that Sanders believes any truly state-of-the-art loudspeaker MUST include a room correction system (RCS). I now believe this is true, because I felt the speakers sounded amazing in a cramped hotel room, and now my own 10e speakers sound great up against the walls of my relatively small living room. DAC performance may not be as important as the performance of a really good RCS. Many other high-end speakers I looked at required at least 3 feet of clearance from the walls.

But then I wondered if I should even buy a high-end DAC for my system at all, given the VENU360 already does D/A. Before I knew about this site, I bought what I read to be great DAC in the Marantz SA-10 SACD player. The problem was that when the SA-10 output went through the VENU360, it was converted back to digital, processed, and converted back to analog again, effectively making the SA-10 DAC worthless (please correct me if I'm wrong on this). Now I've decided just to run digital sound into the VENU360 (I'll have a good discussion about this in another thread).

EDIT: I posted more about running digital sound through my system here (post #176).

I emailed the question about a high-end DAC to Sanders, and the salesperson who wrote me back said that most modern DACs now have near perfect performance, and that a pricey DAC was really unnecessary (this site seems to have confirmed that price doesn't matter much), and I should just use the VENU360.


So the question to anyone here is whether there's been any discussion about ABX testing between top rated DACs? Can people really hear a difference, or can they just see it on an oscilloscope (apologies if I missed that thread)?


PS - I've recently burned all my CDs to a Roon Nucleus+, so I don't use my SA-10 to play CDs. I'm going to sell it but am willing to ship it to Audio Science Review and back at my cost if anyone here is interested in having the SA-10's DAC tested (and if Audio Science Review is interested in testing it).

 

[win]

So the question to anyone here is whether there's been any discussion about ABX testing between top rated DACs? Can people really hear a difference, or can they just see it on an oscilloscope (apologies if I missed that thread)?

We are at the point now where there is literally no difference in audible performance between a $100 DAC and a $10,000 DAC. Their errors are so much smaller than the human threshold of hearing that debating it is pretty silly at this point.

That being said, errors are cumulative. If you have a DAC on the threshold, and you add in another AD/DA conversion in the chain (which the VENU does), it just keeps getting worse. For what it's worth, I have a Topping D90 DAC before my VENU360. I need two DA conversions, because I also have a tube-preamp, so that needs an analog in. I almost never use the tubes, and could reduce my setup to just the Venu360 DA, but I don't because I don't have a golden ear, and neither does any other homo sapiens.

edit: Here is a thread that runs a sample file through an AD/DA loop up to 8 times, and challenges you to identify any differences.

Listen and choose the 8th generation digital copy.

Each of these zip files will open into three wav files. One is labeled Reference, one is A and one is B. These are 30 second snippets of full songs. The originals were from CD so all 44.1 khz and 16 bit. Either A or B has been thru 8 generations of DA to AD copying. The other is identical...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Falcon91Wolvrn03]

We are at the point now where there is literally no difference in audible performance between a $100 DAC and a $10,000 DAC. Their errors are so much smaller than the human threshold of hearing that debating it is pretty silly at this point.

That's pretty much what Sanders was telling me, and that the VENU360 DAC should sound as good as any other (again, their system that included the VENU360 DAC was my favorite sound at T.H.E. Show).

That being said, errors are cumulative. If you have a DAC on the threshold, and you add in another AD/DA conversion in the chain (which the VENU does), it just keeps getting worse.

Agreed. That's why I decided to run a digital signal into the VENU360, though I may not notice any difference (I think speakers are the most noticeable component in a high-end system).

For what it's worth, I have a Topping D90 DAC before my VENU360. I need two DA conversions, because I also have a tube-preamp, so that needs an analog in.

I had the SA-10 before my VENU360. But I decided to get the miniDSP SHD Studio as a preamp as it is all digital and I won't get the cumulative error effect you mentioned.

 

[dualazmak]

Hello @Falcon91Wolvrn03,

You wrote, "I've recently burned all my CDs to a Roon Nucleus+"

Then, I highly recommend you to consider doing all the XO-EQ processing in digital domain before sending the digital signal into your DAC(s) which enables you to avoid/bypass unnecessary multiple AD - XO/EQ - DA processing by VENU360. In this direction, I hope my multichannel multi-driver multi-amplifier project thread would be of your reference. You may find my latest system setup and configuration at here.

I use digital software XO-EQ (DSP) EKIO, and OKTO DAC8PRO as my multichannel DAC, and you can also use FOCUSRITE Scarlett 18i20 2nd gen (and 3rd gen) as well as MOTU UltraLite Mk5 instead of DAC8PRO; it looks both of them support simultaneous sync 10-channel DAC processes. Please refer to this post and thereafter on this remote thread.

 

[win]

I had the SA-10 before my VENU360. But I decided to get the miniDSP SHD Studio as a preamp as it is all digital and I won't get the cumulative error effect you mentioned.

Good choice on the Studio, I love mine. I use the Dirac room correction on the SHD Studio (it's only L+R), and the equalization/room correction on the Venu360 does per-speaker adjustments (L+R+4 subs)

 

[Falcon91Wolvrn03]

I highly recommend you to consider doing all the XO-EQ processing in digital domain before sending the digital signal into your DAC(s) which enables you to avoid/bypass unnecessary multiple AD - XO/EQ - DA processing by VENU

Thanks @dualazmak.

I believe that's what I'm doing. Everything is digital now until it finally gets processed and then converted to analog through the VENU360.

That's why I asked "whether there's been any discussion about ABX testing between top rated DACs?" I'm wondering if the VENU360's D/A conversion (while not perfect as shown by the test in this thread) is even audible compared to higher scoring DACs or not.

 

[dualazmak]

Thank you for your clarification. OK, now I fully understand your point. I am sorry that I do not know about strictly designed subjective ear-listening ABX testing between top ranked DACs.

As far as looking at amirm's nice objective measurement data, however, especially the possible jitter-related broadening of the 1 kHz main peak (#149 and #151), I prefer "top ranked DACs including DAC8PRO" (I know you need multichannel DAC unit) instead of using VENU360...

 

[Falcon91Wolvrn03]

Fair enough. I was just wondering if anyone knows whether that possible jitter is audible .

The VENU360 was included with my speakers primarily for its digital crossover and Room Correction System, but it also has a Digital Signal Processor and Real Time Analyzer.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

That's pretty much what Sanders was telling me, and that the VENU360 DAC should sound as good as any other (again, their system that included the VENU360 DAC was my favorite sound at T.H.E. Show).


Agreed. That's why I decided to run a digital signal into the VENU360, though I may not notice any difference (I think speakers are the most noticeable component in a high-end system).


I had the SA-10 before my VENU360. But I decided to get the miniDSP SHD Studio as a preamp as it is all digital and I won't get the cumulative error effect you mentioned.

Out of interest, how did you decide on the SHD studio as your preamp ?

 

[Falcon91Wolvrn03]

Out of interest, how did you decide on the SHD studio as your preamp ?

It was the only pre-amp I found with digital input and AES output (AES is required by the VENU360 for digital), and this site generally had very good things to say about it.

 

[Sukram]

Out of interest, how did you decide on the SHD studio as your preamp ?

 

[Sukram]

I use the venu 360 only for crossover and RC.
I cannot hear differences in DACs, but I have an external DAC. The RC is really a game changer
And with the right cable and microphone it works like a charm. My opinion much better than Dirac.

 

[Falcon91Wolvrn03]

I use the venu 360 only for crossover and RC.

That's exactly what I'm using it for.

I cannot hear differences in DACs, but I have an external DAC. The RC is really a game changer
And with the right cable and microphone it works like a charm. My opinion much better than Dirac.

Good to hear!

 

[Falcon91Wolvrn03]

Out of interest, how did you decide on the SHD studio as your preamp ?

See post #192 above, and post #176 here.

 

[dualazmak]

Even though my tests were not the perfectly designed ABX comparison, I and my wife believe that we could/can hear differences between OKTO DAC8PRO, OPPO SONICA DAC, ONKYO DAC-1000 and KORG DS-DAC-10 through quasi-ABX comparison in our audio environment; we ranked DAC8PRO > SONICA DAC >= DAC-1000 > DS-DAC-10, all in 192 kHz 24bit and in DSD(2x) (except for DAC-1000) operation.

In my case, I now use DAC8PRO simply because of its fully sync 8-channel "pure DAC" functionality with nice total sound quality in all of the 8 channels. All of the XO/EQ and 0.1 msec precision time alignment (group delay controls) are taken care of using digital DSP software EKIO in PC.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

It was the only pre-amp I found with digital input and AES output (AES is required by the VENU360 for digital), and this site generally had very good things to say about it.

Thanks. The reason I asked is that I have a similar setup (sanders speakers and Venu). I understood from Roger that you didn’t specifically need an AES output. According to Roger:
The Venu360 can accept a S/PDIF signal through its AES input. You will just need to get an RCA/XLR adaptor to plug into the Venu360's input so that it will accept an RCA cable.

 

[oivavoi]

I use the venu 360 only for crossover and RC.
I cannot hear differences in DACs, but I have an external DAC. The RC is really a game changer
And with the right cable and microphone it works like a charm. My opinion much better than Dirac.

This is interesting, in what way do you think that the RC or the Venu360 is better? I also used the Venu360 in the past (lying in the attic right now due to room constraints), and thought it did a good job in that regard. Never did a direct comparison with Dirac though. My impression is that the Venu360 (and the PA2 which has the same RC/AutoEQ) does a more minimal correction than Dirac, and basically just does broad eq adjustments.

I otherwise agree that all modern dacs sound identical/transparent, unless they have consciously been designed to sound different. The things which makes an actual difference are loudspeakers, room acoustics and loudspeaker placement, and room correction / eq.

 

[Falcon91Wolvrn03]

According to Roger:
The Venu360 can accept a S/PDIF signal through its AES input. You will just need to get an RCA/XLR adaptor to plug into the Venu360's input so that it will accept an RCA cable.

That may work. I was just concerned about how well an adapter would perform (I have no idea) given there are high-end adapters out there such as this one (for example): MUTEC MC-1.1+. Maybe it's just snake oil - I know Roger has done a great job of dispelling a lot of high-end myths but I don't know if a simple adapter is good enough (I never looked into it). Or maybe the MUTEC adapter I linked to also serves some other purpose not needed in our particular situation.