I used a Tact TCS in a pretty harsh living room setup: speakers in cabinets above a built in TV, chairs up against a wall of bay windows, asymmetrical, etc. I also own an 861v4 (and prior to that an Audio Research Ref2 Mk2.) I'm currently using a DEQX.

In that setting the Tact made a huge difference. Muddied dialog snapped into place, surround effects snapped into place, and music was passable. Still, it was nowhere near the sound of my well configured dedicated music/theater room. It was not "plug and play", and it takes awhile to get the hang of the user interface and to set the various parameters appropriately for your particular room.

In my well configured well treated room I found the Tact more "subtractive" then an improvement and removed it from the system. It was different, but not better.

As an aside, I had pretty severe user interface issues with the Tact. I could not get it stable under Crestron control, despite paying big dollars to two different top notch Crestron programmers. I believe it was a bug in the communications hardware. This has likely been fixed in the last three years.

The DEQX is likely to be less useful in your setup. It's an amazing outboard crossover and parametric EQ, but it doesn't offer the same level of time and phase room correction as the Tact. Even in a great room the DEQX made a huge difference vs. the built in crossovers.


DirecTV HR21, Ram modded Oppo 93, JRiver MC17 on Win7 wi/SSD, Empirical Audio Ultraclock Offramp, 861v6, Bryston 28B SST2 amps, Salk 12" Soundscapes with Dueland caps, RAM modded Audyssey Balanced Pro, Lumagen Radiance, MarantzS4