Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike H  
With poor converters and monitors, you are always, day-in-and-day-out, trying to somehow compensate to get what you want to hear. You never get there................but you waste a lot of time trying. |
I wouldn't say that the Ensemble is poor converters!! And the advantage, mentioned above, I think, is that you get totally serviceable conversion, serviceable preamps, and you have enough money left over (assuming option 2 is buying lavry converters) to get some halfway decent monitors. As another decent option, I'd also look at Metric Halo. You can make great recordings with either of those.
The other thing about converters is, they tend to lose value more quickly/need to be upgraded more often than monitors, microphones or preamps. Which is why to me it makes sense to spend money getting the rest of the signal chain right first; if you spend everything on conversion and need to scrimp and save for three years to get the rest of it together, it'll be time to upgrade conversion before you ever get a chance to use it the way it's supposed to be used. Whereas, decent mics, preamps and monitors will be with you as long as you keep working....and if you do decide to move on, you can usually get back a decent chunk of what you paid for them.