A few 500-series modules pics

[infiniteposse]

Hi all-

Over the last 8 months or so I've purchased several of the available 500-series modules and have taken some detailed shots of them before racking them up. Documented are the following:

2 x Brent Averill 312's
2 x OSA MP-1
2 x API 512c
2 x Purple Audio Biz
OSA 11 space rack

http://www.pbase.com/infiniteposse/500_series

When I was in the market for some of these modules I couldn't find anything like this and would have appreciated some pics like this, so I figure maybe someone else will find this useful as well.

Lee

[infiniteposse]

Double post...

[zimv20]

cool!

[TonyBelmont]

Nice shots, you can really hear the difference.... Sorry, just kidding... I couldn't resist.

[AdamJay]

mmmmmmm module porn.

[NathanEldred]

Originally Posted by TonyBelmont

Nice shots, you can really hear the difference.... Sorry, just kidding... I couldn't resist.

LOL!

[Jim vanBergen]

So...
Why did you decide against the OSA preamps?

[infiniteposse]

Jim - I didn't really feel like they were as well put together compared to the BA stuff I ordered at the same time. It was a lot of money to spend on something I didn't feel 100% about, so I decided to spend a little extra $ and get the API's instead and have been very happy with my decision.

The OSA rack's been great and maybe I was just being picky, but I like clean looking construction in amps or any sort of gear I'm investing in and didn't personally feel like the OSA modules were as cleanly constructed, IMHO. I think the pics kind of show what I'm talking about...

Tons of people have had such great experiences with them though, so as always, milage will vary.

[dj_who]

great pics thanks




why did you not keep the OSA's? was it too similar to the API ?


EDIT: ooooops i didn't see that there is a duplicate thread and someone already asked.

[SK1]

what are your impressions of the biz versus the 312's ??

I'm thinking about going from a six pack to 11 and buying a few more pres and eq's.

[SK1]

what are your impressions of the biz versus the 312's ??

I'm thinking about going from a six pack to 11 and buying a few more pres and eq's.

[SK1]

what are your impressions of the biz versus the 312's ??

I'm thinking about going from a six pack to 11 and buying a few more pres and eq's.

[Snatchman]

Hey infiniteposse, great pics! Thanks for your time. Listen, here's a question I've been wanting to ask concerning the 500 style pres. Which pres perform better, sounds better. The ones with or without the output level control? Just my thought on the ones with output controls, it allows greater input gain without having to use a compressor/limiter after it! Is my concept feasible?..

[DaveH]

infiniteposse, I wanted to thank you for posting pics. It was helpful
and interesting.

Originally Posted by infiniteposse

Jim - I didn't really feel like they were as well put together compared to the BA stuff I ordered at the same time. It was a lot of money to spend on something I didn't feel 100% about, so I decided to spend a little extra $ and get the API's instead and have been very happy with my decision.

The OSA rack's been great and maybe I was just being picky, but I like clean looking construction in amps or any sort of gear I'm investing in and didn't personally feel like the OSA modules were as cleanly constructed, IMHO. I think the pics kind of show what I'm talking about...

Tons of people have had such great experiences with them though, so as always, milage will vary.

Just my opinion: But I looked at the pics on your first post thought I would have been
very disappointed if I received those OSA modules. Guess I’m picky too.
(This was before I read any further down this thread).

I’ve worked as a tech, test engineer, production engineer, and in QA in my early
career and I would have returned the units pictured.

There seem to be many happy OSA owners.
(Maybe yours were built by the “new guy”).

[AdamJay]

Originally Posted by Snatchman

Just my thought on the ones with output controls, it allows greater input gain without having to use a compressor/limiter after it! Is my concept feasible?..

When i want that certain tone and coloration that preamps with more drive in the gain structure give me, i simply engage the pad and crank the gain.

[NathanEldred]

Originally Posted by DaveH

There seem to be many happy OSA owners.
(Maybe yours were built by the “new guy”).

No offense to Lee, but I don't find the pics to be helpful or to mean anything. Pictures are not a substitute for actually listening to a preamp. When a recording client walks out of your studio, are they going to walk out with 10 pics of the guts of your preamps, or are they going to have a CD master of their music? There is no doubt that people buy with the eye, but that doesn't necessarily mean that what looks better on the surface will sound better. I've seen beautiful gear that sounds horrible.

So what does a picture mean when the preamp doesn't work, but the board layout looks super slick and still doesn't work? Looks can be deceiving, if you saw how Dale @ OSA stress tests these units you'd know that they are indeed solidly put together. Avedis from BAE and Dave Derr from Empirical Labs both looked at the board layout of the OSA and complimented it. Yes, it's 'old school'. That's what people love about it, it's about the sound. The cards in my 2" 16 track Ampex MM1200 remind me a lot of the OSA circuit board. And those Ampex cards sound like nothing else (yes the card makes a huge difference in the sound of the tape machine).

There are pictures of the OSA PCB boards online (along with the others), I've posted it below just for reference. InfinitePosse received and returned his units to Atlas last May (2005), so those units that were in his possession were built 9 months ago. Lee (InfinitePosse) didn't comment on the sound of the preamps. We did everything we could to make him happy. And I would to think that to this day he has no complaints with the service he received from Atlas or OSA. Just my 2 cents, but I think that by someone looking at pictures (again what I'm saying is the workmanship of a employee who was fired for this very reason in Spring on 2005) they are getting away from the actual point. FWIW, the OSA in Lee's picture was a pair of MP1-A's 'Original'.

To DaveH - The "new guy" that you speak of did indeed exist - he worked for OSA 9 months ago, and also got fired very soon after in June. He came highly recommended by someone else (a former employee) and ended up building a slew of orders very poorly before we could rectify the situation. OSA has a new production manager who is an EE, and he works closely with Dale Epperson the owner, and he is doing a great job and is very sharp.



There are many hundreds of happy OSA users.
OSA has a risk free demo program available.

[infiniteposse]

SK1 - I just got the Biz pre's and haven't even got them into the loop yet. I need to go through and rewire a bunch of stuff and get some patchbays going.

Snatchman - "Which pres perform better, sounds better. The ones with or without the output level control?" - At this level, I don't particularly think any of the pre's sound better or worse than any others, just different. I never seem to be able to get a "horrible" sound out of any of them and with the right mic choice I seem to always get what I think are great sounds. Re: adjustable output, I love the control on my Great River MP2NV and I assume the Purple will work much the same. You get different colors by just pushing the gain and easing off the output level or vice versa. The API and BA pres are way hot, so I've got 4 Shure attenuators I keep in line most of the time to knock down the input level hitting the pre's. This allows me to push the pre's a little harder. Again though, I feel like we're all really lucky to have so many amazing options available to us. What a wonderful time to have a 500-series rack

AdamJay - Yum.

Lastly, Nathan did indeed take the pres back and was pleasant to work with - Atlas and OSA did me right. I had no idea about the employee-that-is-no-more.
Regarding Nathan's point about clients walking away with a great sounding recording and not caring less about build or the "look" of what got the job done, that's been my experience. People that come through my little studio couldn't care less how I did it, just that it sounds good. Having said that though, I do like to feel good about build and ultimately reliability so that I can feel confident that I'll always be able to give people a good recording experience.

That's actually one of the things I love the most about so many of the small companies that we all buy from is the "built like a brick shit house" quality of the gear. My inner-gearslut loves it. We always see tons of pics of the outside of gear around here and I often think the innards are way more sexy.

I'd love to get some more shots of newer-build OSA's up into this thread. Anybody got any out of their rack they could shoot some pics of?

I'm glad some folks find this helpful.

[AdamJay]

Originally Posted by infiniteposse

I'd love to get some more shots of newer-build OSA's up into this thread. Anybody got any out of their rack they could shoot some pics of?

infiniteposse,
i've got one of each on the way, just got shipped out Friday, so should arrive in just a couple/few days.

say... i'd love to hear your comparison of the 512C to the 312A. I've got a 512C on the way and along with the MP1-C on the way i dismissed the 312A. But my inner gearslut yearns to know if i should re-consider the Averill.

bummer about the old 'new guy', Nathan.

[Bradahman]

I have an OSA L that I purchased in January. I don't need to take a picture because that shot that Nathan has is exactly how my unit looks. Built quality is great.thumbsup

[Jim vanBergen]

Lee, thanks for your reply. I know several folks who have been blown away by the OSAs, including a buddy who has two of the Averills down south, plus a remote engineer up here in NYC who is a long user of original APIs. It's nice to hear an alternate opinion while knowing Nathan takes great care of all the customers equally, those who adore the OSAs and the occasional ones who don't. We all understand that gearslutting is a "point of view" experience where everyone has an opinion that is equally valid towards their work. Again, I appreciate hearing your POV.

JvB

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by DaveH

Just my opinion: But I looked at the pics on your first post thought I would have been very disappointed if I received those OSA modules. Guess I’m picky too.
(This was before I read any further down this thread).

I’ve worked as a tech, test engineer, production engineer, and in QA in my early
career and I would have returned the units pictured.

There seem to be many happy OSA owners.
(Maybe yours were built by the “new guy”).

Hummm.... Well I guess it is your money but the build quality of the unit pictured would not be enough to make me send them back. If I were really concerned about it I would have sent them back to Nathan and let him know why they were returned then ask him to ship some new ones just to see what they looked like.

Either way I would judge my gear purchase on how something sounds before how it "looks" like it is built, after all the construction of a Mackie board sure looks impressive if you don't know anything about electronics.

I didn't see it in your post infiniteposse but did you listen to the OSA pres before you sent them back? Not knocking anyone or anything, it's just that this seems like a pretty small thing to get picky over. Yes you have to worry about long term reliability and all that, I understand. It's just that these types of threads end up causing problems for the manufacturer years down the road when 9 times out of 10 there is really no problem.

The Soundelux iFet7 thread is a great example of this. Sounds like 25 or 30 bad mics came out (could even have been a 100 out of the 1000's and 1000's of mics they have sold) but all of a sudden there are questions about the build quality of the Soundelux stuff that will just not go away. I hate seeing good boutique audio companies get their names drug through the mud for something like this. I guess YMMV.

Thanks for the pics.

[axisdreamer]

I might be wrong on this but doesn't OSA have a lifetime warranty on their pres?

I have some old prototype OSA pres that I built years ago when Dale first started the co. that are still working fine and they would never pass OSA's inspection standards now. I never had a problem with any of them just for the record.

Just my 2 cents.........

Stace

[Tone Laborer]

The new guy.......that sorry bastard.

Nice pictures. No, I wouldn't think you'd get any horrible sounds out of that rig.

Thanks.

[infiniteposse]

not_so_new - I did indeed plug up the pres. There was an issue with one of them that concerned me, specifically, when used with the Mic in, with the phase button inserted and with the level turned up to max a high pitched whining sound is emitted that's total noise...almost like an oscillator. This couldn't be duplicated on the 2nd OSA module. It only happens when the volume is cranked on the one module.

When I emailed Nathan about this he explained that:

"It probably sounds strange, but this is actually normal on most OSA preamps, pre serial #400. I realize you have later models, but later models were modified with a simple capacitor in the path so the unit doesn't do what you are describing. And it looks like one unit didn't receive the modification and slipped through the cracks. And it wasn't decided to modify the unit because anything was broken (Dale could describe to you why it does this, but there is a technical explanation that makes sense), but because of the fact that it may look like a problem in the unit we decided to eliminate it even though it adds more electronics in the path (the extra cap). I can go ahead and swap out the unit with one that doesn't do that, but when I test the units I don't crank them to 65 db because the output will distort any analog device because it outputs +32db(!!) which is 28db past normal nominal level/normal gain structure so I didn't view it to be an issue (sort of like driving a car @ 165 miles per hour and the check engine light temporarily comes on).

But either way, I just wanted to let you know that they were checked and that the build quality is fine and that this is in the window of normalcy, and if you need the full 65 db of gain with phase flipped we can replace it right away."

As you can see, Nathan was very cool about the explanation and his willingness to exchange the modules. I just personally felt that between the concerns I voiced earlier and this issue, I would be more comfy with a pass at the time. I'm glad to hear that this was down to an employee dropping the ball, as I love the idea of buying some OSA's in the future. My first experience with them just left me a little concerned. Again though, SO many people have had good experiences, I have every expectation that if I bought in the future they'd be fine additions. Their upcoming compressors sound yummy too, so I'm certainly keeping a sharp eye out for their release.

[DaveH]

Originally Posted by not_so_new

Hummm.... Well I guess it is your money but the build quality of the unit pictured would not be enough to make me send them back. If I were really concerned about it I would have sent them back to Nathan and let him know why they were returned then ask him to ship some new ones just to see what they looked like.

Either way I would judge my gear purchase on how something sounds before how it "looks" like it is built, after all the construction of a Mackie board sure looks impressive if you don't know anything about electronics.

I agree that it is best to judge pro-gear by how it sounds.
But it is also important about how long the gear sounds that
way.

I did not have the units in my hands. But there are signs of
solder not being heated long enough. Also excessive solder.
There are wires where the insulation is melted at the solder
connection. It can take a few years for excessive flux
or a cold solder joint to show itself. (Well past normally warranty of most
companies). IMHO this is just an outward sign of potential problems.

I started repairing radios and TV’s when I was 14 at the shop
in my neighborhood. And after a few years I could tell which
sets to recommend people to buy and which ones would end up
causing problems down the road. Most of the people cared about how long their
TV’s would last. Truthfully, others came in asking about the
“best” wood cabinet so it would look good in the living room.
(That IS the customers choice).

My biggest hope is that Gearsluz remains open to talk about both the
good and the bad. That we don’t fear being flamed if we show
some pictures of something we didn’t like. This information
can be used by OSA to change something in the QA process or
they can ignore “picky” customers.

not_so_new, maybe I am TOO picky after all the years I spent being in
solder fumes.

Best,

[jebjerome]

Looks and sounds great.

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by DaveH

I agree that it is best to judge pro-gear by how it sounds.
But it is also important about how long the gear sounds that
way.

I did not have the units in my hands. But there are signs of
solder not being heated long enough. Also excessive solder.
There are wires where the insulation is melted at the solder
connection. It can take a few years for excessive flux
or a cold solder joint to show itself. (Well past normally warranty of most
companies). IMHO this is just an outward sign of potential problems.

I started repairing radios and TV’s when I was 14 at the shop
in my neighborhood. And after a few years I could tell which
sets to recommend people to buy and which ones would end up
causing problems down the road. Most of the people cared about how long their
TV’s would last. Truthfully, others came in asking about the
“best” wood cabinet so it would look good in the living room.
(That IS the customers choice).

My biggest hope is that Gearsluz remains open to talk about both the
good and the bad. That we don’t fear being flamed if we show
some pictures of something we didn’t like. This information
can be used by OSA to change something in the QA process or
they can ignore “picky” customers.

not_so_new, maybe I am TOO picky after all the years I spent being in
solder fumes.

Best,

Hi Dave

I agree and no flames here... it's all good.

I was just pointing out that threads like this can start allot of rumors, cause hurt feelings and lost revenue.

I think it is fine if someone speaks out when they have a problem with a unit, it is actually a very good thing to keep the manufacture on their toes.

I just hate when things get blown out of proportion. Not sure this is the case here just hoping that people keep the conversation civil and take into account that most of the stuff we talk about here at GS is produced by small boutique companies that 9 times out of 10 really do care about their product and only have their reputation on this and other boards to go by for marketing.

Most of these companies will do right with the gear no matter how long the warrantee in the owner manual states. And most of the time these companies will come clean and say things like "The "new guy" that you speak of did indeed exist - he worked for OSA 9 months ago, and also got fired very soon after in June." That is how small these companies are, one guy can change the way the product is viewed by all unlike a larger company with 100's or 1000's of anonymous workers.

Again it's all good and our hard earned money should only go toward gear that we are comfortable with....

[w2w]

I just got my Bae 312A's & rack today!!! I am VERY impresed with the build quality of the modules & the rack,Im glad I decided on these.Dont worry,those empty slots will be filled this Thur when my new API 512c's arrive!!You really cant go wrong with a 500 Series rack these days.

[ImJohn]

Originally Posted by w2w

I just got my Bae 312A's & rack today!!! I am VERY impresed with the build quality of the modules & the rack,Im glad I decided on these.Dont worry,those empty slots will be filled this Thur when my new API 512c's arrive!!You really cant go wrong with a 500 Series rack these days.

Hi,

I have the same BAE rack and one of the new BAE 312 modules and I think their attention to detail is awesome! Really nice stuff!

[ImJohn]

Originally Posted by DaveH

I agree that it is best to judge pro-gear by how it sounds.
But it is also important about how long the gear sounds that
way.

I did not have the units in my hands. But there are signs of
solder not being heated long enough. Also excessive solder.
There are wires where the insulation is melted at the solder
connection. It can take a few years for excessive flux
or a cold solder joint to show itself. (Well past normally warranty of most
companies). IMHO this is just an outward sign of potential problems.

I purchaced an OSA L3 late November 2005 and was a little disapointed as well regarding the soldering workmanship. Here are a couple pics from my unit ;