AD conversion come to Jesus talk

Right, but I would go further and say you never WANT to split a mic signal ever. Not when sonics count. Mic splitter transformers (which is one of the best ways to make a mic split) effect mic performance and lack hifi response themselves. It will most likely negate/mask benefits the device you want to test/use.

If you can’t tell which of two consecutive, level matched, unsplit recordings are preferred, then leave it alone. Performance changes but resolution does not. More helpful to listen for that.

Absolutely, but some of uss grew up in the world of old school live fighting over who got the non transformer split or who got the BSS splitter, Dante and other Audio over Ethernet protocols have made this somewhat easier.
Of course I’ll admit something, manufacturer’s coming in saying “never split a mic signal” has always really pissed me off as both an end user and a successful gear pimp ( your in very prestigious company here). Gear design and practical use should be based on the real world needs of the customer ( first rule of any business is the customer is always right) well the customer decided around 1970 the industry standard would be split it at the mic! You could have designed consoles or pres with 4 outputs with individual trimable outputs but nobody did! Instead in the world of low dollar wedges I got those crappy Yamaha 1608s or Allen and heath. Wedges always got the transformer, Wasn’t till I got to use one of those BSS boxes that I felt special.
Even today when I can do a painless split via Cobranet for FOH and monitor world I still need a traditional mic splitter for broadcast or video because they don’t carry a compatible stage box or I either don’t want to give them as little control of the network as possible, or have time. Nope instead I currently sub lease a Transformer split or I’m going to breakdown and buy a used KT square 1 32ch system. But again I can go through this system and point out that the manufacturers could have sure made this easier.

In theory yeah, in reality, even with the Jensen everyone could always hear the difference between the different the different transformer splits. Plus you’re going to have to still have something plugged into the clean split to provide phantom.

Now your way was how I always did shoot outs because nobody made a great not transformer based split in less than 4 channels and I found one of those BSS’s for cheap, of course it doesn’t come with PSU and the BSS PSU costs 100 less than 16 ch with PSU!

Now that you mention it, I think when I was moving stuff around I just said screw it did SPDIF, and yanked the WC cable. Putting it back on now...although, I really don't think I've noticed anything.

Well, I have zero idea whether it actually sounds better, but now that you mentioned it, and I switched back to WC...yeah definitely it's better. Power of the internet

When I first bought the ADC I had no idea how to hook it up to my Apollo. The guy I bought it from instructed me to use the spdif out, so that’s what I initially did. Being curious, I also bought a WC cable and tried the WC out since that was an option when selecting the clock source in Luna. After going back and forth a few times I felt there was a discernible difference. Both sounded great mind you - and I’m not claiming one is necessarily better - but it was enough of a difference for me to contact Burl support to see if my ears were deceiving me, and to know what the differences were. This is the response I received…

“Clocking over word clock is preferred as the audio data is not present in the clock signal as it is when sending out with SPDIF and will result in less clock noise. We usually recommend having the B2 ADC as the master clock, set to internal, especially if it is the main AD tracking device. If you plan on running it off another clock source it must be clocked over word clock and set to external.”

So at least this way you know you're listening optimally (according to the manufacturer) when making a comparison. 

Go John he's our man... if he can't do it..... well.. I guess someone else will...8)

So here we go...I just did a take through the Burl with the Burl clock and one through the Apollo with the Apollo clock.

Here's a mashup of the two. First phrase starts with one AD and then the next phrase is the other AD and so on...Really, not a ton of difference. I'll post the separate files too, but wanted to see how people heard the comp first. When you hear the two separate files, you can pick out differences.

COMP - drive.google.com/file/d/1IF2Q3kngvUm3qkSx723nr7zKau2G-GsH/view?usp=sharing

I'd guess B is the Burl. A has a midrange push that's slightly annoying. That said, A may actually be more accurate, just not as pleasing. Also, within a track, that mid push might help with intelligibility.

I don't hear the Apollo honk after getting the BLA mods, it's more like a Dangerous Music tone now.

I would guess A is Burl B is Apollo. I think you could use either in a finished mix and with music going comp and not have a problem…..A could also be proximity effect difference I am hearing.

It’s a very good example of the very small differences in converters for the money vs say taking the cash difference and purchasing another high quality microphone or preamp for the front end.


Cheers

Wiz

Yes. Different takes

It’s really hard to tell what’s what in that mashup, though.