Radio Shack DSP 40 Vs Behringer DSP100/FBQ100

[clemfm]

I have just been comparing these two units, both of which can be bought on eBay for around $40 each, and to my surprise I found that they complement each other quite nicely.

The Radio Shack DSP 40 has low and high pass filters, resulting in anything below 300Hz or above 3KHz to being blocked. The DSP100/FBQ100 (same unit, different name and color as far as I know) has a Noise Gate feature which almost completely eliminates all noise between activity.

Below is a screen dump from Audacity on my Mac. The left channel (top) shows my streamed feed (Raspberry Pi / Darkice / Icecast) from the DSP 40 only. The right channel (bottom) shows the feed going through the Behringer's Noise Gate.

I must say that I am very impressed with the DSP 40 since buying it over a year ago, however the Behringer's ability to reduce idle air time to near silence is also extremely impressive. So which one to use? Both, I have now connected the DSP 40's output (modified with a line level output jack) to the Behringer's unbalanced line level input. The result is amazingly clean, especially for less than $100.

 

[Comp-100]

What's with the notch on the output just before 13.5?

 

[clemfm]

What's with the notch on the output just before 13.5?

Thank you for drawing my attention to the notch. I listened and it was a break between sentences, whilst the operator had his radio keyed.

So at that moment, the Behringer's algorithms judged that there was only noise and closed its noise gate. I did not expect that it would be clever enough to do this.

 

[Comp-100]

Thank you for drawing my attention to the notch. I listened and it was a break between sentences, whilst the operator had his radio keyed.

So at that moment, the Behringer's algorithms judged that there was only noise and closed its noise gate. I did not expect that it would be clever enough to do this.

Thanks for checking. Sounds exactly what whistler needs for their scanner, while they work on added the digital decode status line to the mute control for digital. I might look at these, but buying the 2 of them is a bit much as it's half of a WM unit that would probably be more versitile and hopefully better.