Highend Gear Which YOU LOVE, but NO-ONE else HATES

[soundseeker]

We've all seen the ever youthful thread: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/high-end/80473-higher-end-gear-youve-hated.html

It is extremely useful. It confirmed what i suspected were the best pieces of gear around:

U47
V76
V72
Lavry
Prisim converters
LA2A
Neve 1073
Bricasti M7 (CHALLENGED)
Great river pre

How do I know?

Coz they are absent from 411 posts of frustrated engineers. Yet they are hailed by the great experts of the ages and still stand the test of time.

On gearslutz people always say use your own ears. But the musicality and character of the gear listed above seems to strike a universal chord. As we cant test everything, what experts agree on is a good pointer.

MY RULES FOR THIS THREAD ARE:

Don't list a piece of gear, untill you have checked it doesn't appear on "Higher end Gear you've hated?". by doing a "Search this Thread ". Then list it and we'll see if anyone challenges you. If not, your gear gets listed right up here. If you think any of these pieces are overrated, please say so, and say why. (IMPORTANT: Please do not knock the thread with "this is pointless" etc. It slows down our ability to read through. Thanks).

PEOPLES' LIST

HHB Radium 50 Tube Pre & Compressor
Brent Averill 312a,
LaChapell 992EG's
Aphex 1100 tube pre
ELAM 250/251
BAE 1073 , BAE 1084
Shure SM7, Little Labs STD, Redeye, plug-ins Sonnox Dynamics , Altiverb, Crane Song Phoenix
UAD LA2A and 1176 , Soundsoap , Massey limiter, Mogami cable, ATR 102, Fairchild 660, Fairchild 670, Alpha Elysia, Mojave Peacemaker, Peter Montasi, Dimension D, Moog Mini D original, Aeron chair, LA-3A, Greg Hanks BA-660, Inward Connections Vac Rac
Peluso 22 251 multi pattern mic
Sounound Devices 744T
LaChapell 992TLS, LaChapell 992EG
Pendulum OCL-2
sound Devices 702
Alesis Q20 Digital Reverberator
Lawson L47, lucid ad9624 converter, weiss adc2, cranesong flamingo
ASR-10
MOTU HD192, express 128, Nuendo, LA2A, 1176, Yamaha Keyboards, and the SevAkai MPC3000
K&H O300, Lexicon 480L, Steinway Pianos
Yamaha Motif Series, NEVE 1073/1081/1084, API 550a/512c, SSL FX G384 /SSL 4000G+, Wunder PEQ1, Parfour, U 47, U 67, Brauner VM1 KHE
Lavry Blue/Gold, Prism Converter, Purple Audio MC77, Universal Audio LA2A, 2192, GML Comps/EQ/Preamps, A Designs REDDI, Pacifica, Hammer
enth circle Audio Pre's, DPA mics, DBX 160SL,Edirol UM880
Plug-ins: Sony Oxford plug-ins, MDW EQ, crane song phoenix, Massey Limiter
Canare and Beldon mic cable - Star Quad and 2 pair, Neitrik and switchcraft connectors, K&M and Tama mic stands
Great River and John Hardy stuff.
HandCrafted Labs. -Affinity pre, the Solution compressor and the Faust mic in particular.
Zaolla cables, Lynx Aurora 16
Eventide H8000
Microtech Gefell M300
Microtech Gefell M930
IC Vac Rack TSL3.
Heil Sound PR40
studer 827
Aurora Audio GTQC
GML anything
Gordon mic pre

[The Chemist]

HHB Radium 50 Tube Pre & Compressor.

Great for Bass and Vocals.

[Ken Walker]

Brent Averill 312a

[robot gigante]

No offense, but this seems like a bassackwards way to approach buying gear.

Good luck!

[chrysb93065]

Neumann M149

[Dan]

My ears. for rent by the hour, or by the day. (not for sale permanently)

I checked, it's not on the list!

My eyes, on the other hand, Damn my eyes!

[soundseeker]

Originally Posted by chrysb93065

Neumann M149

Sorry mate but someone said "i cant believe no-one mentioned the m149" and loads a people dissed anything new by nueman. so the 149 doesnt make the peoples' list.

[trustyjim]

I love my LaChapell 992EG's. They are totally awesome!!!

[matt thomas]

I'e seen plenty of posts (in ohter threads) that don't like the bricasti, and I wouldn't say its stood the test of time, being only a year (?) old

narco

[u b k]

Originally Posted by soundseeker

How do I know?

Coz they are absent from 411 posts of frustrated engineers.

411 posts of frustrated *gearslutz*. it may be that gearslutz are a frustrated lot in general, and/or their frustration stems from factors unrelated to gear, and/or they have sacred cows, and/or everybody's full of sh¡t.

just sayin'.

personally, i'd be thrilled to find more gear i love that others *do* hate, because a) no one else will have that sound and b) i'll get it cheap.


gregoire
del
ubk
.

[Tim Farrant]

Originally Posted by soundseeker

How do I know?

Coz they are absent from 411 posts of frustrated engineers. Yet they are hailed by the great experts of the ages and still stand the test of time.

But what about the 1000 other pieces of gear not mentioned? Come on, what is this?

[Trebor Flow]

I think he's saying "what is hard to knock" coz it's universally enjoyed.

Oh by the way Tim - how the music scene in NZ - I'm married to a KIWI (captured her in a London pub ) thing is, now we have to kids, she wants to go home - so I wondered if Auckland has much of a live/studio scene.

Trebor

[ISedlacek]

Originally Posted by narco

I'e seen plenty of posts (in ohter threads) that don't like the bricasti, and I wouldn't say its stood the test of time, being only a year (?) old

narco

Really ? I thought I have read most of what was written here about it and have not noticed anything like that - rather opposite: people being quite amazed by this unit. Can you, please, show us those "plenty" of disliking posts you mentioned ?
Some links ?

[lu432]

Distressors!

[soundseeker]

Originally Posted by ISedlacek

Really ? I thought I have read most of what was written here about it and have not noticed anything like that - rather opposite: people being quite amazed by this unit. Can you, please, show us those "plenty" of disliking posts you mentioned ?
Some links ?

Yeah NARCO, I been searchin too. Cant find anythin bad about the Bricasti M7

Lu432, if you check the "hate" thread, Distressors seem to have given a lot of stress to a lot of people. sorry dude.

[casadios]

Originally Posted by trustyjim

I love my LaChapell 992EG's. They are totally awesome!!!

+1

[Fletcher]

So far nobody has hated the KM-69... which is a good thing!!

[SeanG]

Who cares what gear other people love or hate?

Popular opinion is generally driven by ignorance and a mob mentality. Throw anonymity into the mix and you have a perfect cocktail of misinformation and agenda driven process validation.

Pile salesmen on top of that and monetary gain becomes the compressor of accuracy.

Context and perception are in a constant state of flux, the solution for every situation will be variable.

Hatred should be reserved for know-it-alls and copy cats.

[soundseeker]

Originally Posted by SeanG

Who cares what gear other people hate?

Popular opinion is generally driven by ignorance and a mob mentality. Throw anonymity into the mix and you have a perfect cocktail of misinformation and agenda driven process validation.

Pile salesmen on top of that and monetary gain becomes the compressor of accuracy.

Context and perception are in a constant state of flux, the solution for every situation will be variable.

Hatred should be reserved for know-it-alls and copy cats.

EVERYBODY
No more post like this I beg you. Us copy cats understand that you individual artistic intellectuals are way ahead of the game. Don't keep on showing off how astute you are by making an exhibition of your prowess here. We get the point. Now please go do something else with your abilities.

[lord_bunny]

Aphex 1100 tube pre

Not the most popular, but everything I've read has been laudatory, and my experience has been good.

[bhp]

Pendulum anything

[danasti]

HA HA! I just found someone who posted in that thread that the they hate ALL AKG MICS, EVER!

LOL - LOL - LOL! Obvious that the gentleman has never heard a pair of c60s on a Hummingbird or a C12 on sexy, breathy lady. What about certain ela 250/251s are they also excluded - yikes, sounds absurd that one person's lame and uninformed opinion has the power to excluded any piece of gear. This is going to have more rules than most board games.

What's also funny is some people will probably start posting gear over there just to mess with this thread. Then people who actually care will have to verify the dates. Anyway...

Good Mixing!

[kittonian]

Just curious if the Brent Averill BAE 1073 would be the same as you mentioning the Neve 1073 or not. I don't know anyone who doesn't like both the BAE 1073 and the BAE 1084.

[danasti]

Originally Posted by bhp

Pendulum anything

There are quite a few Pendulum haters who posted on that thread.

[fross]

DRS-2
KSP-8
Xtramix

U99
E47
ELux 251
mc930

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by fross

Xtramix

i hate the stacked knobs on the Xtramix.. very tricky to move one function without disturbing the other...

ok, hate is a strong word.

[forthemusic.com]

Originally Posted by soundseeker

EVERYBODY
No more post like this I beg you. Us copy cats understand that you individual artistic intellectuals are way ahead of the game. Don't keep on showing off how astute you are by making an exhibition of your prowess here. We get the point. Now please go do something else with your abilities.

I am currently eating a steak taco that is more interesting than your post and responses. But while I'm here...SM57.

[Audio Hombre]

crane song everything

odd topic from someone who seems tuned into indian idealogical thinking. the word hate doesn't seem to fit here.

[fross]

Originally Posted by 3rd world order

i hate the stacked knobs on the Xtramix.. very tricky to move one function without disturbing the other...

ok, hate is a strong word.

LOL!
They are indeed small knobs.
Fortunately, it's the monitoring mixer for headphones, so it's setup and no more tweaking required.

[jslevin]

Originally Posted by soundseeker

U47
V76
V72
Lavry
Prisim converters
LA2A
Neve 1073
Bricasti M7 (CHALLENGED)
Great river pre

One common trait about almost all of this gear is that it's enormously expensive. How many people here have ever used a $3000 single-channel compressor, a $3000 vintage mic or preamp, or a $10,000 digital converter? My own experience with such things is slim.

Anything at those prices ought to be beyond hating -- it's not praise-worthy for them not to be hated, it's only what should be expected. They ought to be universally considered usable, and liked by a huge majority, and loved by many. And yet for plenty of those pieces, I bet you could find plenty of people to say not that they hated it exactly, but that they would never consider paying the going rate for it even if they had the budget. (The Great River is probably the exception to this ... it seems to meet the above standard while being by far the least expensive thing on the list. Distressors and API preamps perhaps a tie for close second.)

What I'm getting at is ... you could find 20 people who hate a $500 mic and nobody who hates a $3000 mic ... but that doesn't mean the $3000 mic is special. It just means it's more univeraslly unhated -- maybe it's just safe and harmless. Lots of people will like the $500 mic that 20 other people hated. But if the best thing you can say about a piece is that nobody hates it, I don't see how that makes it worth $3000.

Is it even possible for an inexpensive product to make the list? Audix drum mics? Shure SM7? Little Labs STD or Redeye? Or have so many people tried them that someone was bound to hate them, even if it's just because they're idiots? Threads like this make me wonder not just about the ears of a lot of the people posting, but about their listening environments. Ravers are often considered suspect, but the haters are just as suspect.

How about plug-ins? Does anybody hate Sonnox Dynamics or Altiverb or Crane Song Phoenix or UAD LA2A and 1176 or Soundsoap or the Massey limiter? Anybody hate Mogami cable? How about MoreMe headphones -- are they too cheap to be hated, or will someone hate them anyway?

How about GearSlutz itself? For that matter, how about Bob Katz?

JSL