Is the central station a weak link

[cmbsounds]

If your chain is all high end lavry converters adam 2.5a and your monitoring threw a presonus central station, is the central station taking away from the quality of the lavry cause even tho they said its passive..is it really.

[Teacher]

Originally Posted by cmbsounds

If your chain is all high end lavry converters adam 2.5a and your monitoring threw a presonus central station, is the central station taking away from the quality of the lavry cause even tho they said its passive..is it really.

Why don't you do a test with the lavry directly connected to the speakers/amp and one with it going thru the presonus...level match...if you don't hear a difference then it doesn't matter.

while your at it, you mine as well compare the presonus D/A, might be able to sell those lavry's....

[Revelation]

In spending that type of money, I would get the Cranesong Avocet. That is one of the top montoring units out there. In saving some money...with that being said, the Central Station is very good, and I am very happy with mine, with my Apgoee converters. But like everything you get what you pay for. But I have found no coloration with the Central Station. The D/A is decent but no Lavry or Apogee.

[Andrew Kinsey]

The Central Station is indeed passive and should not cause any colouration to the sound however the signal still passes through the units circuitry one way or another and therefore there is the possibility that some artifacts in the signal may change.

I personally think it wont make any audible differences however the only way to know for sure is to conduct a listening test. If you do please let us know the outcome.

[tedcrop]

Originally Posted by Teacher

while your at it, you mine as well compare the presonus D/A, might be able to sell those lavry's....

or sell the Presonus

[Adebar]

Originally Posted by cmbsounds

If your chain is all high end lavry converters adam 2.5a and your monitoring threw a presonus central station, is the central station taking away from the quality of the lavry cause even tho they said its passive..is it really.

A friend of mine compared the Central Station with the SPL Monitor Controller and said, the SPL unit was the better one because of less coloration.

You do not need a Avocet, a Grace Design, a Crockwood or a Meitner Controller. The small SPL unit should be good.
If you used a real high end monitor in a great room it would be a new story.

[joshelevator]

Originally Posted by Adebar

A friend of mine compared the Central Station with the SPL Monitor Controller and said, the SPL unit was the better one because of less coloration.

You do not need a Avocet, a Grace Design, a Crockwood or a Meitner Controller. The small SPL unit should be good.
If you used a real high end monitor in a great room it would be a new story.

dont forget the coleman audio line. i have the m3ph mkii and it is passive.

[Revelation]

Originally Posted by joshelevator

dont forget the coleman audio line. i have the m3ph mkii and it is passive.

Coleman is great, but it has less bells on it compared to the Central station. Talkback, dim, mute, are not all on any of the colemans with additional speakers you can switch back and forth to. Plus no remote, so you always have to be close to your rack. The SPL is a great piece, but for me, it's too big and it looks like something from the 1950's with it's design. But hey it is nice. But with a desk with a Mackie controller, the Central Station remote takes up very little room.

[Byll]

How does the Mackie Big Knob compare to the Central Station - in terms of sound and operating ease?

Best to all.
Byll

[GearGuy]

It doesn't....


The Big Knob is not passive and it has ICs and such in the signal path.... The Central Station is passive and what you would want at this price range... otherwise there is Coleman Audio, the Dangerous Music box, etc.

[warhead]

I keep forgetting to record the outputs of the Central Station, Mackie Big Knob, ATTY and others and post .wav files to help shed some light on the differences between these units! One of the problems is, no matter what kind of converter I recorded back through it would be to blame if somebody wanted to question the outcome. I keep Lucid stuff on hand in my place and that's not high-end-y enough for many folks (although high-end-y enough for most folks who would buy these low to mid-priced units I suppose).

Would this be helpful?

War

[severe]

Use to run my Apogee through a CS, noticed no coloration. As a matter of fact, I liked having the CS around. I've since purchased an outboard mixer and ended up selling the CS. Had I not needed the money, I would have kept the CS around to compare my ITB/OTB mixes on the fly.

Go ahead and pick one up, don't worry about it muckin up your monitoring.

[Byll]

Hi, War...I am new to the board, but very old to the business. This discussion began in the High End section of the board...My gear is decidedly mid-priced...But if the discussion is to continue here, sobeit...

There are a number of sanely priced monitor controllers out there. I am interested in a neutral sound, but also in anomolies in the operating features. For one simple example: The Samson C-Control has interlinked monitor switching, which makes switching between two sets of nearfields a one button operation - very easy. The Mackie Big Knob entails the pushing of two switches to do the same job. To instantly switch from one monitor set to the other requires perfect timing on the two switches. Minor? Perhaps, but annoying - especially hours into a long mixing session...

I am sure there are other issues that make some of these units either a pleasure or a curse to use, long term. I find the best gear I have, is ergonomically transparent. This gear kind of just 'does its job', and does not draw attention to itself. This is what I am looking for in a monitor controller.

I know my example is simplistic, but while knowledge of the sound (or lack of sound) of the unit is important to me, positive or negative operating parameters are important also.

I lurked around this board for a long time, and have learned to respect your comments. Any light you can shed will be helpful...

Best.
Byll

[Teacher]

To thread starter don't take this the wrong way BUT

if you sucked at Tracking/Mixing/Mastering with the presonus you'll still suck with the cranesong, dangerous, custom etc.... monitoring solution

basically monitoring thru the presonus shouldn't effect the final outcome that much...except maybe mastering....

[warhead]

Byll, my personal tastes run closer to using what works and sounds good, vs high end high budget spending. At the end of the year, the time I spend dedicated to recording others for pay I'd like to have some left anyhow.

I bought the Central Station. Saying much negative about the sound quality of this unit is picking nits, as Teacher mentioned. I was simply amazed by the ease of use (you can switch with one button, and the remote is a God-send) and the sound quality really is clean and the onboard conversion? Not bad, not bad at all and compared fine to my Lucid DA9624.

Very small drawbacks? (like anything there are a few)

The first 2 markers of turn (out of 20 marks) on the volume pot there is a slight shift between left / right levels. This is a volume range that typically you would not even monitor at anyhow and is not any real issue. Beyond the second mark on the pot the levels pull together fine.

The pot tracks left to right MUCH better than the Lucid pot!

The headphone amps on board are "eh". Nothing great but they're there if you need them and they work and get pretty loud.

That's really about the only issues I can think of with this unit. I love the meters, the sound is clean and it makes working easier so...I'm a proud owner of one.

War

PS: For what it's worth, the A Designs ATTY2'D was what I was using before but had to mute one and un-mute the next to switch between pairs which isn't what that box was really made for. The ATTY also has a slight float between left and right early on in the turns, but puts out a similar clean sound. I switched to the Presonus for features mostly, but it really surprised me all the way around.

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Adebar

A friend of mine compared the Central Station with the SPL Monitor Controller and said, the SPL unit was the better one because of less coloration.

I did a fair bit of testing and ended up going for the SPL- based on price vs features vs audio quality it came out on top.
I wasn't testing Avocet's but compared to Big Kob, Central Station and the like the SPL just sounded like it wasn't there.
Both the Big Knob and Central Station had their own sound- and I didn't like either.
I would have preferred a rackmount solution- but I can live with the ergononic inconvenience- to be honest I hardly touch it except to A/B/C between different speakers.

JR

[jdg]

as said, the passive section, is passive, colorless.
i've done the "tests"
but, the other sections, are not.
just the monitor selection in/outputs.

so, if u want great sound from those other parts, the aux input, the other outputs besides the speaker outputs, etc etc... might be worth looking elsewhere.

in retrospect, i would not purchase it again but it gets the job done. YMMV

[severe]

Originally Posted by Byll

The Samson C-Control has interlinked monitor switching...

FWIW, I owned the C-Control for a minute...before the CS. Things did become noticeably clearer after losing the C-Control. The C-Control came after the Apogee conversion in this case as well. Now..you wanna talk about the possibility of fvcking up your signal chain!?

Originally Posted by Byll

I find the best gear I have, is ergonomically transparent. This gear kind of just 'does its job', and does not draw attention to itself...

thumbsup

[TML]

I found the Central Station to be the biggest piece of junk I ever had in the studio....not cause of options but because the build crap garbage.
Tim

[Sizzleboy]

Originally Posted by cmbsounds

If your chain is all high end lavry converters adam 2.5a and your monitoring threw a presonus central station, is the central station taking away from the quality of the lavry cause even tho they said its passive..is it really.

Just buy a new one from a reputable dealer. that way, when it breaks in a week, they'll ship you out a brand new one no questions asked.

The CS is a great idea, has great features, and it's main passive signal pass is of good quality, but you get what you pay for, and that thing is CHEAP!

[Byll]

Thanks, War, and all who have helped to educate me on this issue.

Be well.
Byll

[HiRaX]

Is it just me or does it seem hard to calibrate the Central stations meter when using the digi 192 i/o? I've done it a bunch of times using the instructions on presonus's site and have found that the presonus meter hits red wayyyy before the 192's. Is this just because it's more accurate than the 192's meters?

[squeegybug]

Originally Posted by cmbsounds

If your chain is all high end lavry converters adam 2.5a and your monitoring threw a presonus central station, is the central station taking away from the quality of the lavry cause even tho they said its passive..is it really.

I'm using M 149 and C48 among others, to Gordon preamps to Lavry Blue, with Bel Canto amp and PMC monitors.

The Central Station is used to attenuate the volume and switch to reference CDs. I use it to toggle to a small Fostex fullrange speaker in mono for mix comparisons. I also use it to switch in a Hsu subwoofer when I want it. I don't use its onboard DA converter for mix audio, I use the Lavry DA for that. I like the headphone amps, and use those a lot.

I'm with War. Too many other things for me to spend $ on than $2500 switcher/attenuators.

Here are 48/24 .wav pink noise samples. In no particular order,
One is the "baseline", simply looped through Lavry Blue DA/AD.
One is LavryDA-to-CS "TRS1" input to "A" Output to-LavryAD.
One is LavryDA-to-CS "TRS1" input to "MAIN" Output to-LavryAD.

Analog cables are Teflon Belden 89207 with Neutrik connectors. Digital cables are ordinary Monster 75-ohm video cables. Using Canare 110-75 ohm transformers for AES-S/PDIF adapters.

Sample_A
Sample_B
Sample_C


So which one(s) are so degraded they are unusable, compared to the others?




Just for reference here are the difference files. The signals do not completely null, whether from internal wiring, connectors, switches, or just heinously negligent intentional signal corruption....
One is Lavry-Loop vs. CS-A output, the other is Lavry-Loop vs. CS-MAIN output:
Difference_1
Difference_2


Steve

[Bruce Keen]

The passive part of the central station is Ok. I don't like the scale of the volume control and as mentioned before it doesn't track properly in the lower part of the scale. The headphone outs are not very loud at least with my beyer phones and I hardly use them. The day I compared it's DA to the benchmark DAC1 was quite a shock. I found a benchmark for 750€ on ebay and that's what I paid for the CS. To me there is no comparision. And the benchmarks headphone out is great. In comparing the CS to the samson and the mackie, I found the samson to be very obnoxious and the mackie to change the signal. I haven't compared the CS to the coleman but my small experience with the coleman is that it's transparent. Nice features on the CS (compared to the DAC1) are the mono buttons, 3 speaker selection, LR cuts, dim, and aux input level for matching levels.

[squeegybug]

Originally Posted by Bruce Keen

I don't like the scale of the volume control and as mentioned before it doesn't track properly in the lower part of the scale.

Don't know whether you did this.... all controllers have to be calibrated for proper SPL through their entire travel. The trims must be used to attenuate the amplifier signal, if the amps don't have them. The CS pot will track fine if 83 dB reference is set to 70% of the sweep. If you are only using 9 or 10 o'clock for full volume then there is much greater chance of mistracking. The Colemans do not have output trims.

Steve

[Sui_City]

i wouldn't trust the CS for shit.

we did converter comparisons through it as well as through an old mixing desk.

what was night and day through the desk, was completely obscured by the CS

[clipgod]

I don`t know the CS, but there was an pretty big difference switching from the SPL ( the 5.1 controller, forgot its name ) to the API 7800 Master section.

[warhead]

Originally Posted by HiRaX

Is it just me or does it seem hard to calibrate the Central stations meter when using the digi 192 i/o? I've done it a bunch of times using the instructions on presonus's site and have found that the presonus meter hits red wayyyy before the 192's. Is this just because it's more accurate than the 192's meters?

I don't know what your situation is, but my clip lights on the CS go off at like -.4dB...but I cannot attribute that to the CS or Nuendo / RME's internal meters being wrong. So mine light up ever so slightly before actual 0.

War

[Bruce Keen]

My max volume is about 3 o clock. I'll adjust it to 5 but so far i'm not comfortable with the log. Splitting hairs but it's important to me. It's still a good useful box.

Rearding peaks I found this in the manley slam manual:
"In pro audio there are few measurement standards (or even de-facto standards) that exist and peak meter calibrations and digital converter I/O levels are more prime examples. With digital peak meters that are married to digital converters, one at least expects that an 'over' in the A to D over would light the top red LED. Wrong - the better meters use 4 samples over and the best allow that number to be user set. 4 samples over is about the threshold of where we hear a clip"

[Revelation]

From the Sound on Sound review which i happen to agree with. Hey this review list the good and bad points.

This unit doesn't add anything to or take anything away from the sound when using the balanced analogue inputs, which is all you can ask of a monitoring controller.

The Aux input isn't quite as clean, although you need very good monitoring to be able to hear the difference. However, given that this input is designed for domestic-level unbalanced sources, the negligible quality loss is all but irrelevant, completely outweighed by its usefulness and convenience.

Finally, the icing on the cake is the optional CSR1 remote controller. This is the ideal size for a remote controller, and provides the core functions in a very neat and stylish form. I was concerned at first when I realised that the main analogue monitoring signal was being routed all the way out to the volume control in the remote box and back again, but when I realised that the signal is high level and balanced I realised that this isn't likely to be a problem at all. To test the point, I listened extremely carefully to the output while switching between local and remote control, and could hear no significant differences at all. The ultimate purists may choose to spurn the remote control, but for the rest of us the ergonomic and practical advantages far outweigh any theoretical disadvantages. Having said all that, if you choose to wire unbalanced sources to the Central Station's TRS inputs and use the CSR1, the results may be rather disappointing.