Overpriced Conversion options

[goldphinga]

Heres a thought i had today, fuelled by frustration i'm afraid.

Because so few retail outlets have decent convertors available to test or demo, this site is my only source of info. I'm making commercial releases but having to use crappy convertors at the mo as i refuse to buy any studio kit without first hearing it, especially kit as important as convertors which happen to cost nearly £3000. Also i need to earn some cash from my first album release to plow back into the setup.

Its a shame that the firewire options for apogee and mytek are so overpriced as well which leads me on to this thought....

A lot of smaller studios will never get the chance to test the likes of apogee before buying. Yet most smaller operations are the ones that would require daw integration with logic or nuendo for example.

So, I reckon the bigger studios with pro tools systems would have less need for the firewire option as they have the hd interfaces already for getting audio in to the daw (correct me if i'm wrong) and thus end up paying $500 to $700 less than a smaller studio setup with logic. So us low end guys are getting stung big time.

The big conversion companies may have the edge in sound but they need to look after the smaller professional project studios without big desks a bit better me thinks. At least drop the prices of firwire cards and take crappy usb off the likes of the mini me for a start. Thoughts please....

[moon_unit]

Rent.

[goldphinga]

Please elaborate.....

[Albert]

If you can't afford to buy high end conversion, then rent it for your mix down sessions. That way you'll have the advantage of the better converters and also be able to "try before you buy". You could rent different converters for differnet sessions and get to hear a few of them.

Just for the record, I recently purchased a UA 2192 and am very happy with how it sounds.

[goldphinga]

Hi Albert, thanks for the advice. I have a problem with renting gear here in the UK as all the rental companies are mainly London based. I'll make a few enquiries though.

[moon_unit]

Originally Posted by goldphinga

Hi Albert, thanks for the advice. I have a problem with renting gear here in the UK as all the rental companies are mainly London based. I'll make a few enquiries though.

Ah, I see.

What I generally do for things like microphones and other gear, is I'll buy used off ebay ... try it out for a while, and if I don't like it or I'd like to try something else, I'll just turn around and sell it -- sometimes for more than what I paid ... but sometimes for a little less (it tends to even out in the end). Even if you wind up losing 10 or 20 bucks off a deal, it's still cheaper than renting.