Focusrite preamps and channel strips, the BEST, the OK, and the WORST

Hi there. I am on the verge of buying new preamps and channel strips, so I thought you can share with me your sentiments on Focusrite stuff.

Let us say our benchmark would be a Neve 1073. How would these Focusrite stuff compare:

- ISA 428

- RED 8

- Twintrak Pro

- Octopre Platinum

- Octopre LE

- Voicemaster Pro

anything below the isa sounds boring and thin to me...i love my isa 428's they are quite a bit more hi-fi and more transparent the x73s we have here at the studio...not better by any means just different. both are curently my fave pres for guitars. the red series is fantastic, phat and just enough color to be cool imo...they are definetly the current flagship of focusrite. you really need to listen for yourself on some consistent if not identical sources and decide for yourself...

I think the Octapre stuff sounds great, YMMV.

I've done some work at Beartracks in NY and they have one of the three FR boards in the country.

I think the pres pre-date the ISA's, but I think they may have design similarites.

The pres in the board are great, but the one time I used the ISA's I wasn't as impressed.

I used the RED years ago and it was very clean.

I would steer clear of the lower-end though, I'm not thrilled with any of the cheaper stuff they make.

I would not buy any of the platinume stuff. I think the mackie pres sound better frankly.

Spencer

Red red, redredred!