dbx DriveRack VENU360 Review (audio processor)

[kdp]

That's not in my charter. I have hundred pieces of equipment here to be tested with hourly reminders of "where is my review." Remember, my time is not "free" even though you are not paying for it. There is a huge opportunity cost to what I spend my time on, and the capital equipment used to make these measurements.

If someone wants more in-depth testing, write me a $2000 check and I will go through it A to Z. Otherwise, you have what you have. Feel free to ignore what is posted. Indeed if this feeling is mutual, I will not test this class of product in the future.

hello @amirm,

I don't know what in my post precipitated such an acerbic response, but I feel bad because at no point was the objective to belittle your obvious contribution to the community. I can only speak for myself, and for me, the ASR review page is a "daily habit". And I recognise that it is entirely your prerogative to review what you wish, in whichever fashion you wish.

I can understand your frustration with the unit, and possibly also with the responses following the review. The point that I could not get across, was that given the investment of time and resources, to me, there is an ambiguity about how to interpret the result thats rarely present in your communication: - "is it really that average, or was there a setting that's messing things up?"

Again, your choice to review such products in the future or not, but for many of us, this is the first place we turn to for an objective perspective, so it would be a loss.

Finally, I really cannot afford USD 2k, with exchange rates as they are, but I will definitely contribute to the upkeep of the site in the near future. Keep fighting the good fight!

 

[Mnyb]

A really interesting point would be does this unit performs better or worse than the built in DSP xovers that comes in your active speaker ?

It's performance is clearly odd (broken ) but will probably suffice for the intended use of driving some PA in a venue .

I understand the stance here no product should have broken DAC performance in 2021 it's cost 9$ in an apple dongle to have unbroken DAC performance , the unit would not cost more to produce with properly functioning DAC's . The cost is in R&D to take necessary care to implement good DAC's . DBX probably has wast knowledge in this class of product regarding its xover and EQ functionality and may have cheated on design hygiene here . suggest DBX hire some people to tidy up their DAC subsystems (this is probably reused in several products over the years and getting old ) then they are good to go another decade .

 

[Farenheit]

Dont do it, already tested one and my ear did no like it at all

Paradoxically, your answer contradicts the objectivist spirit of this test.

 

[DerRoland]

Here is a generally ASR problem: Amir reviewed a single unit with unexpected bad measurements.

What shall he do? Inform only the owner ("your device is broken"), publish the results in public and receive a bashing wave of disappointed readers or request here another unit "Who is willing to send me a DBX driverack venu360 for checking a possibly faulty design?".

In the best way DBX recognized the review and send Amir another device free of charge for cross checking the results, similar to Denon AVC-X4700.

No matter how, it means more work for Amir (please take a break before you get tired).

 

[oivavoi]

That's not in my charter. I have hundred pieces of equipment here to be tested with hourly reminders of "where is my review." Remember, my time is not "free" even though you are not paying for it. There is a huge opportunity cost to what I spend my time on, and the capital equipment used to make these measurements.

If someone wants more in-depth testing, write me a $2000 check and I will go through it A to Z. Otherwise, you have what you have. Feel free to ignore what is posted. Indeed if this feeling is broad, I will not test this class of product in the future.

Amir, I think each and everyone on this site is immensely thankful for the enormous amount of work you put in, all for free, pro bono, for the greater good etc. Sure, we may argue and complain from time to time, like old couples do, but deep down you should know that we all love you!

I think @kdp 's point was precise, and argued in good spirit. Here we have a unit which had unexpectedly bad measurements. That's puzzling in itself, but of course happens from time to time. At the same time there's a real possibility that the culprit was a setting in the software of the device. What complaining posters like him and me were wishing for was simply a simple test to see if that was indeed the case, or not. As far as I know these are the only independent measurements that exist of the Venu360, so your review here matters. (with great power comes great responsibility etc)

Btw, the unit is actually not difficult to operate, not at all, but it must be done from the app. Doing it on the device itself is like you say very complicated.

In any case, it is of course completely up to you how you spend your time with the reviews, and again - we are all extremely thankful for the work you're doing, even if we don't always remember to say it.

 

[Wombat]

Amir, I think each and everyone on this site is immensely thankful for the enormous amount of work you put in, all for free, pro bono, for the greater good etc. Sure, we may argue and complain from time to time, like old couples do, but deep down you should know that we all love you!

I think @kdp 's point was precise, and argued in good spirit. Here we have a unit which had unexpectedly bad measurements. That's puzzling in itself, but of course happens from time to time. At the same time there's a real possibility that the culprit was a setting in the software of the device. What complaining posters like him and me were wishing for was simply a simple test to see if that was indeed the case, or not. As far as I know these are the only independent measurements that exist of the Venu360, so your review here matters. (with great power comes great responsibility etc)

Btw, the unit is actually not difficult to operate, not at all, but it must be done from the app. Doing it on the device itself is like you say very complicated.

In any case, it is of course completely up to you how you spend your time with the reviews, and again - we are all extremely thankful for the work you're doing, even if we don't always remember to say it.

I thought Amir's response came across as 'Never mind the quality, note the quantity". Step back and breathe, man.

Some Pro line signal processing gear can can be a good price choice for those who don't reach for the sky re their home systems. It is a shame most of this has now just been dropped from ASR testing.

 

[Wombat]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the dbx DriveRack Venu360 audio processor including DAC and ADC. It was purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me for testing. The retail cost is US $1,136 but company has it on sale for US $909 as of this writing.

NOTE: dbx is owned by Harman. Our company, Madrona Digital, does a lot of business with Harman (on the custom installation side) so feel free to read as much bias as you like into this review.

As the name indicates the Venu360 fits in a single rack unit:

View attachment 124100

As I had feared, the machine user interface is very difficult to use. I asked my son to read through the manual and he eventually figured out how to configure it. Alas, we could not find a way to disable internal processing units. There are also various settings for different input and output levels. I messed with the latter a bit in the measurements to follow. My testing is strictly focused on the DAC functionality from the point of view of audiophile use. I am not qualified to evaluate the unit functionality for its intended purpose (live sound, etc.).

For my testing, I used AES input for digital feed and balanced Channels 1 and 2 for output:

View attachment 124101

dbx Venu360 DAC Performance
Out of box configuration was very strange with one channel clipping and another not. After half hour of messing with the unit, we managed to get it produce proper output voltages and distortion:

View attachment 124102

There is a lot of distortion plus some strange interference around our main tone. SIAND, representing noise and distortion, is quite poor in our domain:

View attachment 124103

We are talking about 14 bits of distortion-free range.

Company rates the device as having 1% THD+N at 24 dBu. Strangely, the max output is just 22 dBu. You only get there if you let the device severely clip:

View attachment 124104

Fortunately that doesn't happen until you get to 8.9 volts or so.

Dynamic range is more respectable than distortion:

View attachment 124105

IMD test versus level shows the early rise in distortion:

View attachment 124106

Jitter test shows high noise floor and aforementioned sidebands/noise around our main tone:

View attachment 124107

At this point, I was disappointed enough that I stopped running more tests.

Conclusions
Some pro products fit well in a hi-fi system. Sadly the dbx Venu360 isn't one of them. It is very difficult to use for some new to it. And measured performance is quite poor, certainly worse than mass market AVRs and such. If you need the specific functionality that it provides, it may be OK but would not be a choice for me over something like MiniDSP.

I can't recommend the dbx DriveRack Venu360 for our applications.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

This OP did not mention what the product does. Mfrs. description: https://dbxpro.com/en/products/driverack-venu360

 

[gonzoucab]

Paradoxically, your answer contradicts the objectivist spirit of this test.

When you can hear the noise it makes, why test it? i hear the noise

 

[mdsimon2]

I am of the opinion that if Amir feels like a device like this is beyond his scope of expertise (or he does not want to put the time in to learn how to use it) I would prefer he not test it. If he decides to test and the results look funny but he does not want to take the time to explore further I would prefer he not write up and publish a review as it just adds confusion.

That being said, this was mentioned earlier but what were people expecting? Manufacturer specs are shown below:

0.0025% THD+N is equivalent to 20*log(0.000025) = 92 dB SINAD and the +4 dBu output level is 1.2V. This unit has variable output gain settings and the spec seems to be taken at the lowest gain setting of +4 dBu but Amir's measurements were taken at the highest gain setting of +22 dBu. Even so Amir measured 89 dB SINAD at 2.4V which is really not that far off from the manufacturer specs. I would have preferred some testing of different gain settings but this really does not seem that far off.

I agree that the issues around the main tone are weird and ideally would warrant further investigation but I just do not understand how people keep yelling "broken".

One thing I think this site does not do enough of is encouraging folks to make their own measurements. With a MOTU M4 or similar performance ADC you can easily test all sorts of electronics. While you will not be able to measure the fullest capability of super low distortion DACs it is more than good enough to determine if something is "broken". The beauty of making your own measurements is you are free to explore different settings and there is no rush for you to publish a review and I guarantee you will learn a lot along the way.

Michael

 

[gonzoucab]

The testing is standarized at 4volts because SINAD changes with voltage, to compare pears with pears we need 4 volts out.

 

[pkane]

When you can hear the noise it makes, why test it? i hear the noise

Because nobody knows what it is that you hear and why.

As far as testing complicated pro- equipment by @amirm , I think it will be a good idea to ask all those sending in their equipment to reset their device to the best (or factory) settings before sending, rather than to expect Amir to figure out how to configure each piece.

 

[gonzoucab]

Because nobody knows what it is that you hear and why.

As far as testing complicated pro- equipment by @amirm , I think it will be a good idea to ask all those sending in their equipment to reset their device to the best (or factory) settings before sending, rather than to expect Amir to figure out how to configure each piece.

Get one, you will hear the humm

 

[mdsimon2]

The testing is standarized at 4volts because SINAD changes with voltage, to compare pears with pears we need 4 volts out.

That's fine, but why not optimize the gain settings for making a 4 volt measurement? Also, why would you expect better SINAD at 4 volts?

The DACs in this thing are AK4413s so we were never going to see 100+ dB SINAD (not that I think this is a huge issue, I've enjoyed DACs with worse measured performance).

Michael

 

[pkane]

Get one, you will hear the humm

I have DBX PA2 and hear no hum. But then, I also measured it at 10dB better THD+N than Venu 360 measured here.

 

[DerRoland]

I apologize for my choosen word "broken", thats not right in this case.

 

[gonzoucab]

I have DBX PA2 and hear no hum. But then, I also measured it at 10dB better THD+N than Venu 360 measured here.

Maybe than one is better, i was talking about the 234xs

 

[gonzoucab]

That's fine, but why not optimize the gain settings for making a 4 volt measurement? Also, why would you expect better SINAD at 4 volts?

The DACs in this thing are AK4413s so we were never going to see 100+ dB SINAD (not that I think this is a huge issue, I've enjoyed DACs with worse measured performance).

Michael

Is just the standard at wich we are trying to drive our systems. Im sure is enjoyable but it leaves you with the question

Can it sound better? and you know what that means to us audiophiles

 

[kdp]

I have DBX PA2 and hear no hum. But then, I also measured it at 10dB better THD+N than Venu 360 measured here.

It was the measurements you posted that got me thinking about a Dbx crossover in the first place (thank you for those). And I felt that the venu360 being a step up in cost would surely be at least comparable to your results for the PA2, if not better. So when it was on sale on Amazon, I snapped it up. (paid closer to the list price of the the PA2)

 

[pkane]

It was the measurements you posted that got me thinking about a Dbx crossover in the first place (thank you for those). And I felt that the venu360 being a step up in cost would surely be at least comparable to your results for the PA2, if not better. So when it was on sale on Amazon, I snapped it up. (paid closer to the list price of the the PA2)

Yeah, I spent a few days configuring and listening PA2 before trying to measure it, so I knew how to turn off all the processing for measurements and how to enable things that I wanted to test. Considering @amirm 's workload, we can't expect him to spend this much time on any one device. The onus is on those who send in their equipment to Amir to reset them to the correct settings to be measured.

 

[ObjectAudio]

For all that were so disappointed from the results I have some good news. The unit actually can be great but looks like suffers from some production changes with the last few years of production.
I have two dbx VENU360 that I bought in 2019. One was bought new and the other was used. The first unit that I bought was the new one , and when I measured it with my R&S UPL I was shocked with the bad results I got similar to what Amir measured. I decided to debug it and did small mod to the DAC output with huge measured improvement. I need to go back and see what I did , but is should be very simple mod.
After it when I got the used older one I expected to have the same issues , bit surprisingly the unit measured great from the beginning.
It looks like that newer units are suffering from this issue.
Here you have some measured results with the R&S UPL.
The UPL that I have is analog only. so the driving signal is computer running test wav files and connected to the digital input of the unit under test.
I actually love these versatile units with their great iPad app and amazing easy room correction.
I used them as active crossover, room correction , and easy way to compare speakers when connected to multi channel amplifier.
They are much better than the DCX2496.

The first New unit after the mod:

The second used one as it is:

To compare here are my results for the Behringer dcx2496:

And another compare for reference unit the SMSL M500:

I hope later to post the mod I did.
So people that have the unit can have actually a great measured unit , but without actually measuring it they couldn't know.