Toft ATB vs Trident 8T : audio samples

[Croaker]

Originally Posted by heyman

"

Is this your way of using Leverage over the Toft board..?? I appreciate Ciozzi's efforts and I happen to like bits of both boards. I also think that more testing needs to be done.

I dont appreciate the fact that you are taking his results and turning it into a shameless plug for your business. One more reason your name and business will never see dime one from me. Oh, and I will make sure to tell my freinds as well.

People in this forum are intelligent enough to figure these things out. Way to Shit all over any positive feedback for John Oram/Trident.


...

well said

Originally Posted by SeanBlack

DELETED BY MODERATOR - reproduction of private / business emails is not allowed and is bad "netiquette"

Ya the inescapable conclusion is you have managed to taint the good work Ciozzi did to bring us some audio samples of both consoles and turn this thread into yet another dick measuring contest.

Did you happen to notice one guy stated he owned a 8T and thought console A was the trident. I dont know how you came up with 82 and 18%. I listened to all the files myself and didnt hear that great of a difference between the two to totally cast out either board.

You make it sound like this was some super scientific blind listening test done by an independent lab in you email statements.

Originally Posted by Ciozzi

Since this two boards are getting discussed a lot lately, I thought that posting some audio files would have been a good thing

As usual this is a non scientific test, even if I did my best to be precise!

[Jules]

Jules wuz here

[blaugruen7]

that julez dude.
i have seen his avatar on this forum before.
contributing nothing, just spam posting to get
his post count higher and higher.
i should inform the moderator.

[CKK]

Julez = troll?!?

[Ciozzi]

Originally Posted by Jules

Jules wuz here

Thank you

[jeronimo]

Originally Posted by Jules

Jules wuz here

awsome!

[ralphski]

Hi Guys,

Just thought I would post my experience... Recently moving to London from Australia, I've never had much opportunity to extensively test out equipment before buying. Sure in Oz, you can listen to behringer, mackie allen and heath everywhere, but if you want to test something like an Avalon AD 2022 for example, you have to hope a studio near you has it, and pay studio time for a test.

Anyways, given that I am in south london now, and Oram is in Kent, I got on the train tried out the Trident 8t for myself. I got to play with it long enough to feel comfortable with sound, feel etc. Very nice board for the price. I liked the low end EQ a lot.

I want to make it clear that I am not advocating the Trident over the Toft, but in my case, given that the head office is 30/40 minutes away by train, if I have problems I can speak to the head honcho face to face very quick.... Never had this option in Australia so this appealed to me, and hence why I ordered one.

As I've only had intermittent net access (waiting for virgin media!), I didn't see the posts about where to demo the Toft... and in hindsight I would have like to, but I felt comfortable with the sound of the Trident, and was at the end of my tether organising everything else in London, so went for it and crossed that purchase off the list.

I figure, if I ****ed up and I don't end up liking the sound of this board, I'd be able to get a good price for it 2nd anyway - they don't lose price like mackies. But I am quietly confident/hopefull this board willl serve me well.

I am surprised that more London / southern UK gearslutz haven't been to Kent to mess around with the board themselves.

So, again, I am not definitely advocating the Trident over the Toft, but felt comfortable enough, after the visit to Oram to purchase the Trident.

cheers,
ralphski

[Croaker]

congrats ralphski,

You wont have a problem making good recordings with either board.

aloha

[salomonander]

hey
thanks a lot for the test.
would it be possible for you to upload the eq test in wav format as well?
it's really hard to make a judgement when the sound quality is as low as on the mp3....

thanks a lot

[Ciozzi]

Originally Posted by salomonander

hey
thanks a lot for the test.
would it be possible for you to upload the eq test in wav format as well?
it's really hard to make a judgement when the sound quality is as low as on the mp3....

thanks a lot

I'll see what I can do

[salomonander]

Originally Posted by Ciozzi

I'll see what I can do

awesome...cheers

[phutureboy]

Originally Posted by Ciozzi

I'll see what I can do

Hi Cizzio,

Thanks for the excellent job of recording and posting all these files.
In a perfect world all threads about gear should start with listening files to compare I think…

Now I have a few questions for you :
1. In your last post you said you would try to send the files in wav format. Do you think you will find the time to do this soon ?
2. There are 2 files for which I didn't understand fully how you did them. One is the "toft-atb-vs-trident-8t-eq-test-cubase-15-db-400hz.mp3" : do you mean the -15db is done with internal Cubase EQ, so this file has not past through any of the boards ? The other is the "toft-atb-vs-trident-8t-eq-test-2-no-eq.mp3" : is it directly from computer or via one of the boards but without any EQ. If yes, which of the boards ?
3. Have you ever had a chance to compare one of these 2 consoles with a TLAudio M4 ?




Thanks again !

[Ciozzi]

Originally Posted by phutureboy

Hi Cizzio,

Thanks for the excellent job of recording and posting all these files.
In a perfect world all threads about gear should start with listening files to compare I think…

Now I have a few questions for you :
1. In your last post you said you would try to send the files in wav format. Do you think you will find the time to do this soon ?
2. There are 2 files for which I didn't understand fully how you did them. One is the "toft-atb-vs-trident-8t-eq-test-cubase-15-db-400hz.mp3" : do you mean the -15db is done with internal Cubase EQ, so this file has not past through any of the boards ? The other is the "toft-atb-vs-trident-8t-eq-test-2-no-eq.mp3" : is it directly from computer or via one of the boards but without any EQ. If yes, which of the boards ?
3. Have you ever had a chance to compare one of these 2 consoles with a TLAudio M4 ?




Thanks again !

Dude.. I spent 5 minutes laughing when I read "Cizzio" ... and I still laugh when I happen to read it again... the right spell is "ciozzi" but yeah who cares (thank you BTW)

This said, I have to say sorry cause I was been very busy in the latest weeks and I had no time to post or check this forum. To adress your questions:

1) The wav files are now available in wave format clicking these links:

http://www.ciozzi.com/ATB-vs-8T/eq-test.rar

http://www.ciozzi.com/ATB-vs-8T/voice-guitar-snare.rar


2) the no-eq sample is the original file not processed nor AD/DA converted while the cubase sample was processed ITB using cubase's eq.


3) I never used a TLA console and to tell you the truth I'd be really scared if I had to. I've got a C1 stereo compressor and it's really noisy, almost like a tape machine...

[Kris]

Originally Posted by Ciozzi

Having worked extensively on both, I'm surprised that a lot of people said that they sound similar. Even if I didn't try them in the same place ,from the first time I put my hands on the ATB I felt there was a substantial difference.

Are you saying that these 'comparisons' were recorded in different rooms/studios?

If so, then I'd venture to guess that the room itself accounts for the biggest difference in tones...

Ciozzi, which tracks do you feel sounded most like the source? Which room do you feel has the best acoustics to begin with?

[Ciozzi]

Originally Posted by Kris

Are you saying that these 'comparisons' were recorded in different rooms/studios?

If so, then I'd venture to guess that the room itself accounts for the biggest difference in tones...

Ciozzi, which tracks do you feel sounded most like the source? Which room do you feel has the best acoustics to begin with?

The two consoles used to be in different rooms until I took them in the same place, side by side, to perform the shootout. The tracks were recorded plugging and unplugging the same XLR cable from one console to the other.

Both consoles have a certain color, making difficult to say which one was the most transparent. FWIW the strings on the guitar takes were very old and dull sounding and what I can say for sure is that the two boards needed different mic placements to get the right sound.

I just recorded some songs for a couple of friends. The band line up was quite simple: guitar and voice.

I used a pair of r121's in bluemline in front of the guitar and two m295's with an AB setup one at the 10th fret and the other one facing the body.

The voice was recorded with a umt70s into an 1176 then straight to a rosetta800.

No compression on guitars nor on the master track. Eq wise I just cutted the low mids (200-300Hz range) by 3db both on vocals and guitars.

here is the link : http://www.ciozzi.com/ATB-vs-8T/come%20nero.mp3

Basing on the previous samples could you guess which console I used ?

[Kris]

[DodoByrne]

hey folks, i'm new to this forum. been watching the debate over atb v 8t. can anyone offer advice as to which of these two, or indeed any console in that price range, that would be good for mixing off tape to tape. I dont mind too much about pres, as i'll use my chandler and avalon pres trcking mostly. i just need a desk that can do a good off the cuff mix. Cheers in advance for any help.

[zoink]

either will be good. I would say (like it's been said before) go check 'em out at your local dealer.

really both are fantastic for the price. what makes the difference is from who (reseller) you're going to buy it from (support, after sale, part of a package deal, that kind of thing) and where you're going to buy (all the extra expenses as price after tax, after delivery cost, your country, area, etc...).

in this test i kinda prefered the oram sound yet i bought the toft and boy oh boy am i happy with my purchase. I am truly and honestly very satisfied. I also got a chandler TG2 pre and mix with ITB plugins (UAD) and OTB outboard gears. I have the toft 16 and pretty much use almost all of the EQ channels plus some monitor channels everyday. I personnaly find the unbalanced stereo returns a little useless but if i ever need extra channels they are there.

The Eq does the boost and cut close/same freqs thingy quite nicely. something i do alot so for me it's a good tool.

conclusion, if you know a good reseller that you have good experience with ask for a trial of either and see/hear for yourself.

[DodoByrne]

Cheers brother, problem is i live in ireland. ireland is the arsehole of nowhere to europe.... i live in the arsehole of nowhere in ireland . its hard to know with so much good and bad reviews on either side. but i'm kinda leaning towards toft. if i can afford it though, whenever, i'd love to get the API 1608

[eman kayker]

Hi Ciozzi,
recently my old Allen&Heath died, and I've been doing quite a lot of reading on these forums and on the web looking for another board.
I got to learn about the ATB and found your very interesting thread, read it all, loved your files, and had one or two good laughs as well.
My question is, would you be able to run the same mix of the song into another board, like a Mackie, an Allen&Heath, even a Behringer... anything else in that budget to be able to make a comparaison?
This would be realy helpful for me to understand the Trident-Toft A/B test.
Thanks again for your effort and your help
Emmanuel

[Ciozzi]

Originally Posted by eman kayker

Hi Ciozzi,
recently my old Allen&Heath died, and I've been doing quite a lot of reading on these forums and on the web looking for another board.
I got to learn about the ATB and found your very interesting thread, read it all, loved your files, and had one or two good laughs as well.
My question is, would you be able to run the same mix of the song into another board, like a Mackie, an Allen&Heath, even a Behringer... anything else in that budget to be able to make a comparaison?
This would be realy helpful for me to understand the Trident-Toft A/B test.
Thanks again for your effort and your help
Emmanuel

Hi Emmanuel,

I don't have another board to make a comparison with, but I could try to post the single tracks in order for you to sum them with your console.

Otherwise, if you're nearby Pesaro, stop by and listen to both consoles yourself

[Ciozzi]

Ops, I just realized your city is "geneva" and not "genova"... for a while I thought you were italian too . Well... I guess you'll prefer me to post the files...won't you ?

[eman kayker]

Hi Ciozzi,
yes, that would be a very very nice thing to do.
I have a few friends I couls ask to do a quick mix on their boards, like an ssl 900, a neve 8816, a soundcraft ghost, I am realy interested to hear the differences.
Yep, I would have liked to stop by and see the boards... but will have to upload files for now : )
Will you explain how you did the mix? like you have all the tracks comming out at unity gain? or you did an actual mix? just a few explanations would help to keep it consistent with your mixes.
Ciao

[Ciozzi]

Originally Posted by eman kayker

Hi Ciozzi,
yes, that would be a very very nice thing to do.
I have a few friends I couls ask to do a quick mix on their boards, like an ssl 900, a neve 8816, a soundcraft ghost, I am realy interested to hear the differences.
Yep, I would have liked to stop by and see the boards... but will have to upload files for now : )
Will you explain how you did the mix? like you have all the tracks comming out at unity gain? or you did an actual mix? just a few explanations would help to keep it consistent with your mixes.
Ciao

I initially balanced the levels ITB (no eq,comp or any other kind of effects added). Then I routed all the channels to the consoles with all the faders and line gain knobs at unity gain.

I'll post the files soon!

[eman kayker]

Excellent,
Would you need some ftp space to upload the files? I don't know how much space you'd have in here to load waves. Let me know in case you need it.
Emmanuel

[Ciozzi]

I've already loaded the other shootout files on my website. I'll do the same with these ones too. Just give me some time to export them

[eman kayker]

no problem
take your time, there's no rush, but I am realy happy to be able to do some A/B test with the Tritoft... : )
I was thinking building some kind of summing box but will put this idea aside, in the meantime I am thinking of getting an Allen&Heath GL2400, waiting to upgrade to something like ¨Tritoft¨ in the future.
I'd just need to find someone with an A&H to do a downmix of your song.
Thanks... again!

PS: If I ever build that summing box, I'll try to remember Tritoft, that's a nice name people would remember....

[heyman]

Guys, this is not a comparison file, but a mix I did on the Toft ATB. I figured I would post it here. Sorry for the mp3 quality.

One more thing.. I used externals pres during the recording, but the EQ and summing is the Toft..



Campfire- Oh Brother where art thou.. Song.

...
..

[eman kayker]

When you have a moment, could you upload the files?
I've talked to my friends and I have an ssl and a neve I could test.
Amitiés

[Ciozzi]

The files are ready. They'll be available online in a few hours!