[SEA]

Originally Posted by Roc Mixwell

In this corner, weighing in at.....

I've used both. The AST was built for people who wanted a box like the Dangerous 2-bus, but want "a sound" on the inputs, and not just a vast amount of headroom. Its much bigger sounding than all the Dangerous Mixers I've used, though the 2-bus is a monster with a DA16x. The DBOX offers an entirely separate spread of electronics, AS WELL as in aesthetic and in feature set.

The Mixer is clean, and able to hear my choice of equipment, without changing the tone, or doing anything to the transients or adding harmonic distortion [see AST for that]. It's on board DAC is SOLID for monitoring and gives you an ACCURATE picture of the RETURN of your SUMMING SYSTEM.

The InnerTUBE is point to point layout with eight custom Input Transformers, right before a tube summing amp that uses super secret Stayne Sauce and go-go juice to amplify whatever is sent through it. This box likes it when you send it monstrously hot level, and it likes it when you have copious amounts of syrupy tube/transformer stuff to patch into it. It will not make a Digi-003 sound better. You need something that sounds good to use this box.

The AST is ALL about "what it's fed from"....It will give you a way to patch outboard and continue the separation in the analog domain. Same with the DBOX, but I will suggest there is another level of "usefulness" that the DBOX has going for it, which just about nails the choice home for me as a better upgrade. There is always headroom for your converter electronics when you mix in stems. But the result of how "good" and personally "acceptable" how the thing reacts, can only be measured when its marched through battle with your weapons.

Ok... but what about some A/B demos between the two units?

SEA