I have a 002 rack and a Cranesong spider. It is THE way to go. It's worth saving for. Granted you want to spend your money this instant but if you can hold out till you have a little more dough....call Todd Atlas at Soundpure in NC and I'm sure he can hook you up with a Spider for well well under the retail price of $7500. Check it out if you don't know what it is.
www.cranesong.com It is an amazing front end for an LE system. I do a lot of acoustic recording myself and the only other pre I use is an Avalon 2022. The palette I have to work with isn't exactly very diverse but I'm still building. One thing is for sure, the setup sounds killer. As for compressors? I yield to other engineers here. I own one 1176 and an Avalon 747SP. And I'm hoping that I can buy a Manley Variable Mu or Cranesong STC-8 sometime next year. Oh and if you don't have monitors check out adam 2.0a's or 2.5a's. I have the latter and they sing with superlative beauty to me every day.
Cheers!
Herb Plimpton
