Thoughts on my current medium-fi setup?

[maxp]

Hi all,

I've been gently trying to introduce myself to the world of 'hi-fi', without breaking the bank, and have now pieced together the following setup, leaning heavily on recommendations found on this forum.
The predominant source of audio is my Macbook laptop (I am stuck with this), thus presenting the following digital-only pipeline (speakers notwithstanding):

Macbook -> Douk U2 USB Toslink adapter (Optical out) -> DEQ 2496 hardware equaliser-> Optical out > Loxjie A30 > Concept 20 speakers.

Regarding my choices, I've found a mild 'smiley face' (yes I'm a philistine) parametric EQ setting, offset to slightly negative in the midrange, to really bring out the best sound profile on the speakers, and the tone control on the Loxjie A30, whilst decent, just feels a bit too vague, hence the addition of the DEQ2496.
Furthermore, I really struggled to get on with a system-wide equaliser on the mac, and everything felt a bit too 'hacky' for my liking (the only working solution I found was Blackhole loopback driver and Hosting AU).

Any thoughts / comments appreciated.

 

[bryan0101]

just a quick observation. The Q acoustic spk, for similar price you can get some used yamaha or even jbl studio monitor.
My first pair of spk was the original Ascend acoustic sierra 1, it now is around 3xx used. still holds up very well I believe, and can be upgraded to the latest version (woofers+tweets+crossover) by users.

 

[JeffS7444]

Your MacBook probably already has Toslink optical output via the headphone jack, and you'd access it via a mini-Toslink plug.

Behringer DEQ2496 (I own one) is pretty old hat, but it can auto-eq simply by plugging in a measurement mic and pushing a couple of buttons. The part that's "old hat" is equalizing via pink noise generator, whereas newer solutions typically emit a series of clicks or chirps through each channel. One cheap/free hybrid approach would be to measure sound via Room EQ Wizard and enter resulting filter parameters manually into the DEQ.

 

[Midnight Audiophile]

Welcome! Did you try SoundSource for your Mac? It's got some great features and is easy to use. I also recommend measuring sound with REW and a Umik. You can enter the PEQ settings in SoundSource and check them by running sweeps in REW. Another thing you may like is Audirvana. It has an app for your iphone that will let you control the music streaming from your Mac. Also has a full range of EQ features and interfaces with Qobuz, Tidal, etc.

 

[maxp]

Your MacBook probably already has Toslink optical output via the headphone jack, and you'd access it via a mini-Toslink plug.

Unfortunately not! They've newest breed of macbook's no longer have optical in or out.

One cheap/free hybrid approach would be to measure sound via Room EQ Wizard and enter resulting filter parameters manually into the DEQ.

Thankyou, I will give this a try!