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Post by nobtwiddler on May 18, 2024 21:06:28 GMT -6
I loved Geoff, & Aurora Audio, as well as my GTM 822, for the two weeks it worked.
I was literally one of the best sounding units I ever heard.
I based my 8 track mobile recording rig around that unit, and it's sonics.
Long story short I spent over $8000 to purchase it, and waited months for it to be delivered.
After two weeks it had channels dropping out, meters didn't work, headphones, NFG, etc, etc, etc.
I had 3 remote sessions booked with this unit as the center piece, and had to cancel all of them, more lost money!
After sending it back twice (at my $$$ expense, shipping and insurance) for repairs, and waiting again for months to get the unit back each time,
I finally gave up, and sold it for parts to someone who also had the same unit that didn't work, for $3000, I lost over $5500 on that fiasco in less than
1 year.
And I know for a fact I'm only one of many who got screwed .... Live and learn
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Post by chessparov on May 18, 2024 21:12:47 GMT -6
Sorry to hear all this...
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Post by Johnkenn on May 18, 2024 21:34:31 GMT -6
I loved Geoff, & Aurora Audio, as well as my GTM 822, for the two weeks it worked. I was literally one of the best sounding units I ever heard. I based my 8 track mobile recording rig around that unit, and it's sonics. Long story short I spent over $8000 to purchase it, and waited months for it to be delivered. After two weeks it had channels dropping out, meters didn't work, headphones, NFG, etc, etc, etc. I had 3 remote sessions booked with this unit as the center piece, and had to cancel all of them, more lost money! After sending it back twice (at my $$$ expense, shipping and insurance) for repairs, and waiting again for months to get the unit back each time, I finally gave up, and sold it for parts to someone who also had the same unit that didn't work, for $3000, I lost over $5500 on that fiasco in less than 1 year. And I know for a fact I'm only one of many who got screwed .... Live and learn Auroras are like British sports cars. It’s a TR-6 |
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Post by paulcheeba on May 19, 2024 3:41:15 GMT -6
Microphone’s are the one thing that I indulge in. That old chocolatey sound is magic.
Otherwise most boutique replica gear is in a lot of cases better and doesn’t need the maintenance.
I agree there is a lower tier that doesn’t cut it for me but most sounds great.
You can always upgrade transformers to vintage ones as I sometimes do but not often. I’m more prone to finding good old tubes to replace EH or JJ.
Plus with such good saturation available and good eq you can match most vintage outboard if you feel the need.
For me it’s all about source sounds and space.
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Post by lowlou on May 19, 2024 3:53:52 GMT -6
reached the point that the non-(super)budget products are basically the same as their name brand counterparts? I think it depends on the brand and depends on the piece. BAE stuff, IMO, is certainly up there with its brand name counterparts. I've had a room full of engineers agree that the Serpent Splice sounded better than a Rev D UREI. In other cases, I haven't felt certain clones have nailed the thing the originals do. I have a few products from one of the darlings of the affordable clone makers and I don't feel the sound nor the build quality of their products are in the same league as the boxes they seek to emulate. No names ?  |
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Post by thehightenor on May 19, 2024 5:18:37 GMT -6
reached the point that the non-(super)budget products are basically the same as their name brand counterparts? I'm just striking up conversation, but there's absolutely no way I'm going to buy a UREI 1178 for $4k or whatever. I'm sure it would sound different than my AS version - but better? I guess my questions is kinda this: in the early days, the proper components weren't used or cheaper parts or the builds were bad...are we at a point now that in certain cases, the clone-HW isn't inferior, just maybe different? I spent years cork-sniffing different 1073s...but now after having the Stam (and you could say that about BAE, Heritage et al) I don't even think about it anymore. Am I growing up and letting go of the silly minutae or has the quality reached a point where it's moot? Agreed, and I hope you're applyng that to conveters too .... because imho you should. I recently heard some Focusrite Clarett + ADAT converters. The paper specs are absolutely first class in terms of dynamic and distortion. And they are sounds truly excellent and I have a HEDD 192. Same goes for the RME AIO Pro, the +24dB reference quality two channel converters on that card sound superb. I'd like to double blind ABX test everyone to see if they can reliably (not just guessing) pick out these "prosumer" converters from a HEDD 192 or Lynx AN or Hilo .... don't bet too much money you can is all I would say to people!! |
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Post by Dan on May 19, 2024 11:19:11 GMT -6
reached the point that the non-(super)budget products are basically the same as their name brand counterparts? I'm just striking up conversation, but there's absolutely no way I'm going to buy a UREI 1178 for $4k or whatever. I'm sure it would sound different than my AS version - but better? I guess my questions is kinda this: in the early days, the proper components weren't used or cheaper parts or the builds were bad...are we at a point now that in certain cases, the clone-HW isn't inferior, just maybe different? I spent years cork-sniffing different 1073s...but now after having the Stam (and you could say that about BAE, Heritage et al) I don't even think about it anymore. Am I growing up and letting go of the silly minutae or has the quality reached a point where it's moot? Agreed, and I hope you're applyng that to conveters too .... because imho you should. I recently heard some Focusrite Clarett + ADAT converters. The paper specs are absolutely first class in terms of dynamic and distortion. And they are sounds truly excellent and I have a HEDD 192. Same goes for the RME AIO Pro, the +24dB reference quality two channel converters on that card sound superb. I'd like to double blind ABX test everyone to see if they can reliably (not just guessing) pick out these "prosumer" converters from a HEDD 192 or Lynx AN or Hilo .... don't bet too much money you can is all I would say to people!! You can just hear the phase shift from the junky anti alias filters in the Focusrite and RME converters. A blind test is pointless once you teach someone to recognize this by ear. RME uses prosumer analog parts in their multichannel interfaces to keep the cost down too. JRC4580 and lelon caps lol |
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Post by smashlord on May 19, 2024 11:45:14 GMT -6
I think it depends on the brand and depends on the piece. BAE stuff, IMO, is certainly up there with its brand name counterparts. I've had a room full of engineers agree that the Serpent Splice sounded better than a Rev D UREI. In other cases, I haven't felt certain clones have nailed the thing the originals do. I have a few products from one of the darlings of the affordable clone makers and I don't feel the sound nor the build quality of their products are in the same league as the boxes they seek to emulate. No names ? Let's just say its a builder with an excellent marketing department who has been able to create a massive hype culture around its products and is often spoken of as if every product they make is gold. While I find their products to be good, I don't know if I find them to be the level of above and beyond other affordable makers as their hype would suggest. Out of the multiple products I own, 2 arrived with some clear QC oversights and another has had an ongoing issue that has yet to have been resolved. Customer service has been helpful for the most part, but its still not great to have to deal with issues every couple of months with a new piece of gear. Its a bit annoying to see a builder come out with a new product seemingly every week when they clearly have some housekeeping to do on their existing ones. That, along with selling products for 25% less than initial release seems to penalize early adopters two fold... both in terms of resale value and being the folks that have to deal with the potential growing pains of a new product that hasn't had its kinks worked out yet. One can talk about the quality of capacitors and resistors all one wants, but when a user has to risk snapping a PCB board when a tube needs to be changed because of a design where the cheapest of tube sockets was placed in the weakest part of the PCB causing it to flex considerably with even the most modest amount of pressure, I don't consider that excellent build quality. Using cheap meters that come not calibrated properly is also something I do not consider excellent build quality. |
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Post by thehightenor on May 19, 2024 13:25:14 GMT -6
Agreed, and I hope you're applyng that to conveters too .... because imho you should. I recently heard some Focusrite Clarett + ADAT converters. The paper specs are absolutely first class in terms of dynamic and distortion. And they are sounds truly excellent and I have a HEDD 192. Same goes for the RME AIO Pro, the +24dB reference quality two channel converters on that card sound superb. I'd like to double blind ABX test everyone to see if they can reliably (not just guessing) pick out these "prosumer" converters from a HEDD 192 or Lynx AN or Hilo .... don't bet too much money you can is all I would say to people!! You can just hear the phase shift from the junky anti alias filters in the Focusrite and RME converters. A blind test is pointless once you teach someone to recognize this by ear. RME uses prosumer analog parts in their multichannel interfaces to keep the cost down too. JRC4580 and lelon caps lol I'm just about to order an 8 channel Lynx Aurora N (to go with my HEDD 192 and Avocet) so I do fall into your camp when it comes to converters. The Lynx uses stereo ADA modules not the usual prosumer blocks of 8 and I can hear the difference on my monitoring rig. But I had a client in the other day with a Clarrett Plus Octa Pre and another with an RME AIO Pro in his PC and so I threw them up through the analog inputs on my Avocet and I have to say - I was impressed - not in the HEDD 192 territory but still I thought they sounded great - very clear and very low distortion. Fantastic value for money imho. Budget conversion has come a very long way in the last 15 years. |
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Post by Dan on May 19, 2024 13:26:29 GMT -6
No names ? Let's just say its a builder with an excellent marketing department who has been able to create a massive hype culture around its products and is often spoken of as if every product they make is gold. While I find their products to be good, I don't know if I find them to be the level of above and beyond other affordable makers as their hype would suggest. Out of the multiple products I own, 2 arrived with some clear QC oversights and another has had an ongoing issue that has yet to have been resolved. Customer service has been helpful for the most part, but its still not great to have to deal with issues every couple of months with a new piece of gear. Its a bit annoying to see a builder come out with a new product seemingly every week when they clearly have some housekeeping to do on their existing ones. That, along with selling products for 25% less than initial release seems to penalize early adopters two fold... both in terms of resale value and being the folks that have to deal with the potential growing pains of a new product that hasn't had its kinks worked out yet. One can talk about the quality of capacitors and resistors all one wants, but when a user has to risk snapping a PCB board when a tube needs to be changed because of a design where the cheapest of tube sockets was placed in the weakest part of the PCB causing it to flex considerably with even the most modest amount of pressure, I don't consider that excellent build quality. Using cheap meters that come not calibrated properly is also something I do not consider excellent build quality. The cloners all want you to think that they’re RCA, DW Fearn, Little Labs, or Grace Design (for amps, Traynor, old Peavey, old Hiwatt) or even that the stuff they’re cloning was that well built and durable rather than just clever, sometimes useful, and often cool sounding. Don’t even mention heat and older designs and how now we have lower power consumption, hi specced parts that manufacturers won’t pay for or they didn’t have in the 60s-80s so it’s not “authentic” |
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Post by Dan on May 19, 2024 13:37:03 GMT -6
You can just hear the phase shift from the junky anti alias filters in the Focusrite and RME converters. A blind test is pointless once you teach someone to recognize this by ear. RME uses prosumer analog parts in their multichannel interfaces to keep the cost down too. JRC4580 and lelon caps lol I'm just about to order an 8 channel Lynx Aurora N (to go with my HEDD 192 and Avocet) so I do fall into your camp when it comes to converters. The Lynx uses stereo ADA modules not the usual prosumer blocks of 8 and I can hear the difference on my monitoring rig. But I had a client in the other day with a Clarrett Plus Octa Pre and another with an RME AIO Pro in his PC and so I through them up through the analog inputs on my Avocet and I have to say - I was impressed - not in the HEDD 192 territory but still not shitty either - they sounded very clear and very low distortion. Fantastic value for money imho. The main thing with the claret line isn’t even the sound, it sounds okay for the price despite the phase shift color and focusrite branding, it’s the build and that focusrite wants you to pay thousands more for the rednets that only sound a little better but have digital control for accurate gainstaging. The apogee element 88 was a much better bang for buck but was only on the market for a few years. Better sound and digital gain control was easily worth twice the price over the focusrite pots in the real world. Rme doesn’t suck, and is good for what it is, it just sounds bad when next to something like lynx or apogee or a number of hifi converters. I loved the freakout from the rme is perfect crowd when they built cost no object power supplies to improved the performance of some products in many setups and wanted 1200 usd. Their stuff is like somewhere in between the guitar center stuff and the higher end but unaffordable in multichannel configurations high end stuff. A pimped out Lynx is 6000 dollars, apogee 9000, and dad even more and the avid rebranded dad even higher with additional chips to make the converter cards incompatible between them |
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Post by Dan on May 19, 2024 13:55:43 GMT -6
But really a lot of what we deal with has disgusting recording issues or will be slammed into a digital limiter and what’s in cleanish working recording equipment no matter who made it is trivial compared to those. Even for supposedly clean limiters like the dmg limitless and ursa boost, they’re only not distorted from having lookaheads to smooth the attack to be slower than almost all audio frequencies, pumping the audio around based on audio that hasn’t happened yet and are nasty when sped up. The ones that are cleaner / faster like the tdr, throw the audio through an envelope follower with similar ultra fast attack and release and see what happens 😝 a lot of these limiters like the Oxford, elevate, and tdr dug in on 1x look ahead and fast release can sound like guitar pedals…
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Post by chessparov on May 19, 2024 14:23:09 GMT -6
I'm SO glad I still have my Focusrite 3rd Gen to blame!! (Thanks Dan) And that its Conveters are massively impotent.  EDIT; Actually the subtly harsh AD/DC and "Air Button" help to pick out my Vocal... In a heavier practice Mix. So the "Cruel to be Kind" tonal standout effect is handy sometimes! |
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