Seeking quality, but affordable mic pre

[Micha84]

Anyone who can hear the difference between A/D converters should email Mr. Winer with the answers to his test. He uses a (ca 2011) Focusrite 8i6, so it should be easy, right?

With A/D converters (as with a lot of mic pres, actually) my experience is like this: Play me comparisons between two pieces of gear without any context and I'll be having a hard time telling them apart, let alone pick a definite favorite, sometimes even in a studio environment. However, once you don't just run one signal, but 40+ through them, as you would in the recording of a song, and start mixing them together, the differences become very obvious. Like for example the lead vocals, that you just can't seem to get in front enough, or that you'll not be able to really give the impression of a room.

I realize that this may seem like me talking about the mojo of my bubinga fretboard or something... It is okay if you don't take my word for it. I am giving advice from my perspective and it is up to the OP if he/she decides to take it or not.

 

[silky smoove]

Converter differences tend to be down to how they address issues that are out of compliance or pushing the limits of compliance. For example, what occurs when you clip a converter? Some of them sound like absolute trash. Some of them sound shockingly nice if you don’t get carried away. Another example would be how they handle content above Nyquist. I’ve measured some truly bizarre foldback behavior with older cheap converters that was similar to aliasing but occurred at capture.

Outside of an intentionally colorful converter like a Burl, I’d prefer a converter package that I just gets out of the way and does its job. As long as you stay well below 0dbfs, including intersample overs, and you’re not recording extremely high frequency content (ie non-musical), this will be most if not all current converters. The one exception to this is the last gen Apollo converters, which are measurably pretty bad for some reason. Not sure what UAD is thinking there but they tend to fall apart if you push them at all.