Art MPA II a/d conversion vs. plugged into Echo Audiofire pres?

[slowlygrowl]

Anyone have any experience with the a/d conversion of the ART MPA II digital?....Would it be a big step down from the Echo Audiofire converters or do you think it would be somewhat comparable (or at least usable and not a huge step down)?....

[Old Goat]

I use that setup. Two into my MPA Gold to 3-4 in the A-4, and two into the Echo pres. The mics into the Echo are the 2nd guitar mic and the room mic, but I have no problem with the quality of the pres.

[piloto117]

I recently bought an ART MPA II digital. I'm using it so I can track 6 inputs at a time, through an Omnistudio/Delta 66 interface.
At first, I thought the unit was defective, because I had a hard time sync'ing the s/pdif. It is recommended to have the ART as a master and the card as a slave. Every now and then it won't sync up and I have to toy around with the settings on the ART unit or restart my pc. But once its sync'ed it'll remain that way.
Also, if you're using the digital output; make sure to check your levels/gain on the needle meters. If you're not careful you can get some pretty ugly clipping on your tracks, even if you're not getting any red leds on the digital meter.
It is recommended to change the tubes, although I have to say that I kinda liked the original tubes. This is very subjective and obviously your ears are the judge of it all. Because of this I won't discuss on how it sounds, also I have yet to try it with different mics and instruments. (But so far, I'm liking the high voltage setting with vocals very much.)
Overall, I think it's a great option to expand your setup without busting out your wallet. The sound quality might not be up there with a 1073, but it sure does sound good to me!

Good luck!

[Silent Sound]

It should be pretty comparable. I have a DMPA Gold and it's conversion is as good as the conversion on my Delta 1010. I also have a regular MPA Gold hooked up to the Delta 1010 via TRS cables. If there is a difference in conversion between the two, it is masked by the difference in preamp tubes between the two units.

That being said, I have the DMPA synced to the Delta 1010 via a BNC wordclock cable and am using the Delta 1010 as the master. That may be responsible for the similarity in quality. I tried syncing the DMPA to the 1010 just using the S/PDIF cable, but ran into problems. It may work if you play with it long enough, but I found the BNC cable far too convenient a solution for the price to mess with it further.

[silentsky]

I'd go for the Digital MPA II for the extra inputs. I doubt very seriously that there's going to be much (if any) difference in the quality of the converters between the two units. However, it looks like there's no Word Clock out on the Audiofire 4, so you'll have no choice but to clock it to the DMPA via its S/PDIF input, but again, that should be fine.