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Hey Matt. Long time GS lurker, not to much for posting, but wanted to say thanks for talking the time to set up and post the examples, since not many comments on them. I will give you my comments, so hopefully you'll do it more in the future with other gear.
Sontec, ended up being my favorite, as it seemed the most natural. I found the buzz to be similar and agree with your comments about the highs, but the low end of the Sontec beat out the buzz to me. In the country example especially , if I was the bass player in that band(being a bass player myself), I would defiantly want the Sontec. It sounded the most natural, giving it the least "electrified" type quality. Just curious, am I hearing the bass rattling the snares (think that's what I'm hearing on the bass in the turnaround on the middle instrumental break before the next verse)? The Buzz was so close and sounded great on all examples.
Least favorite to me is the Mini Massive, instant high end ear fatigue for me, especially on phones (Sen 280's phones and Westlakes BBSM12's fed by Benchmark Dac) on the transformerless RNB example. The tranformer options were not much to my liking either. Maybe my ears are sensitive but the forward highs gave me fatigue that drove me up a wall. Didn't want to listen to the RnB examples after 5-10 sec. Just not my bag I guess, not sure why, as the curves of all the eq's are very similar.
The 550M muddled up the lows to much for me for mastering, I see why you sent it back. I could see using the 5500 on some things although the highs weren't my fav, it has that sound I think some clients would like.
Massive passive with trannies I didn't like the bloated low end, but transformerless helped a lot in my opinion, giving a user some good options.
There's my thoughts for what they're worth, thanks again for taking the time for GS'rs to hear well executed examples of gear they probably wouldn't have much access to personally. Back to lurkn...
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