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Joe Gilder

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Everything posted by Joe Gilder

  1. I definitely believe you, but this means either the Presonus is broken, or something else is going on with the way you switch the A/D/A in and out. Again, if you had to do five generations of A/D/A before you could hear any change, that's at odds with what you now report, that even mom hears it after only one generation. The point danbronson is making is that from the moment he got the PreSonus, he was listening to everything through the D/A converters. Every track he recorded was being played back through the D/A on the PreSonus. He heard the big difference when he bypassed the converters entirely, listening to the mic before any conversion happened. The fact that he didn't hear much difference when he ran it through the A/D and D/A multiple times doesn't negate the results. If the converters were (for argument's sake) rolling off everything below 100 Hz, then it doesn't matter how many times he ran the signal through the converters, he wouldn't hear anything below 100 Hz, because the converters themselves were affecting the sound. He only heard those frequencies once he took the converter OUT of the signal chain. I know it's not as simple as a filter at 100 Hz, but I think the point still stands -- the converters made an audible difference to the sound. Either way, let me know when you guys do the double-blind test. I'd be interested to hear the results.
  2. Then I switched over to an all analog signal path (mic -> preamp -> speakers), something that hadn't occurred to me before... I owned a Firepod for a few years, so I'm intrigued. How did you conduct this test? How did you go about bypassing the converters? Did you go straight from the line out of the pre into the speakers? If so, how did you get it to both speakers? Was it all done through a mixer? If so, did you run the signal through the mixer for both tests? (I'm not doubting you here, just curious how you set it up.)
  3. It's not all that bad really. The only cumbersome part is if your preamp has only XLR outputs (which most higher-end preamps do). In that case, you'll need to buy a few XLR female to TRS cables. Word of advice: it's not a bad idea to have 2 XLR male to TRS cables and 2 XLR female to TRS cables in your studio at all times. That way if you borrow a piece of gear from somebody, you'll pretty much be able to connect anything to anything.
  4. okay then... wouldn't the preamps in the ProFire (assuming that's the interface) colour the sound as well? it was my understanding that anything connecting via the XLR inputs on the back of my ProFire would be utilizing the preamps in it, thus being coloured to some degree, thus negating the use of better quality preamps in the first place.... i'm sure i'm wrong somewhere here, but i don't know where! thanks for your patience You'll notice the inputs on your ProFire 2626 are combo jacks. http://www.sweetwater.com/store/closeup/ProFire2626--back.jpg If you use XLR the signal gets routed to the mic pre. This wouldn't be good if you're using a standalone preamp, as you'd be amping the signal twice. What you'll want to do is use the 1/4" TRS line inputs (the center portion of the combo jack). These will bypass the preamp and go straight to the converter. (There may technically be a little trim control on the TRS inputs, but you'll still be bypassing the preamp.) Makes sense?
  5. I'm with Fletcher. There tends to be a point of diminishing returns with higher-end gear. For a while, every time you spend twice as much money you get something that sounds twice as good. A $100 mic sounds better than a $50 mic. But it's hard to say definitively that a $6,000 converter is better than a $3,000 one. It becomes more subtle as you go. As long as you don't have a really poor interface, you may get a more noticeable improvement by buying nice preamps or microphones, or studio monitors. While going from the ProFire to an RME may sound better, keeping the ProFire and grabbing a few nice pres and mics may make a much bigger overall difference in how your recordings sound. Then you can always upgrade your converters to that next level down the road. I think most folks on HCAF would agree that a good standalone preamp will outperform the stock pres on most interfaces. Granted, I'm simply assuming from your original post that you don't have a rack full of really nice pres and a closet full of really nice mics. If you do, then a new converter might just be the ticket.
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