Review on Enhanced Audio Control DQ-61 OEM Sound Processor by Michael Barrett

I personally like Audio Control as a company and most of their products, but when it came to the DQ61 I was disappointed. The biggest downside I encountered was how the EQ and summing functions are handled. First, the equalizer itself worked fine until you ran and summed the signals. For those not sure what I'm talking about there are often split signals from factory stereos where channels come out to say your door speakers may only have part of the frequencies of the music (e.g. low and mid) and then another set sends treble to your dashboard speakers. When you put that back into the converter you need a way to put all of those signals into one channel so you have one solid signal to feed into the amp - this is a simplified version of what the sum function does. So to the problem. If you instruct the DQ61 to sum the inputs to produce a stable signal for the amps, you technically lose any ability to set the EQ for each amp channel separately. You can see that the DQ61 has 3 pairs of input channels (front, rear, subwoofer) and 3 pairs of output channels to power 3 pairs of amplifier cables. Each of the EQ banks is labeled Front, Rear, and Sub so you can adjust them independently. However, if you sum the incoming channels from your main unit, you lose that functionality entirely. Separation of these controls is only at the input level - meaning that in sum mode the levels in the bass band are adjusted at the EQ marked for subwoofer, and then the output pins are affected for the front, rear and subwoofer - meaning I'm boosting and changing the bass levels on my fronts and In the middle. This really annoyed me when trying to clean up the sound the way I wanted, especially in the case of front and rear EQ setting, as the setting would change for any band, completely ruining the sound and making it impossible made to adjust the sound for the rear speakers differently than for the front ones. Bottom line: if you don't sum the signals (e.g. stereo systems) then you'll probably be fine and the DQ61 is a great product. If you summarize, I would move on to another product,