high end pre vs behringer

matskull · 28th May 2008, 03:54 AM

i might get burn for posting this but I did a search but couldn't find much precise info.

Did anybody here a/b'd behringer's pre to a high end one (api, neve....whatever)
Except the behringer's one sounding like shit lol, how do you think it compared.

I'll start.
I just did a a/b test, Behringer euro2442fx pro vs Ward Beck M480 (racked).

I found that the behringer had generally more "useless" high, more bottom and is lacking good mids.

On vocal, words were heard more easily on the ward beck and were smoother.

On Acc guitar, the picking was better heard, I could hear less room and more guitar (hard to explain better), the emphasis was more on the mids than on the lows and high and there was no harshness happening like on the behringer.

On miced bass amp (70's SVT) there was a little bit more bottom on the behringer which might be cool alone but in a mix I'd end up cuting those out, the ward beck had better mids so the attack was better and it didn't have as much high and made it sound more like the amp itself.

All those differences were pretty subttle though but in a mix it must make a pretty good difference.
I would definitely use the ward beck instead of the behringer anyday of the week.

I just got the ward beck unit at my place, I'm testing it now and will probably test it again with different op-amp to see what happen (let me know if you got a suggestion).

So, let's hear what you guys though when you compared your high end pre to those behringer.
Please stay polite so this thread become a good source of informations instead of closing.

Thanks

Roc Mixwell · 28th May 2008, 04:21 AM

Unfortunately, you will continue to find differences with all of these preamps!

Thats the best part!!!!

Its TOTALLY WORTH renting some esoteric gear to do this shootout if you can. I'd recommend Eclipse Audio in Atlanta if they are in your neck of the woods.

If your planning on buying a better pre, your money is better spent trying some high end pre's that you might also be interested in purchasing; This will be the only way to find out if its up your alley aesthetically.

Its really worth demoing a couple preamps from a dealer that will let you demo some units and return the loser, so as to make an educated choice about the purchase. I mean, you'll never really know which one sounds better for your music and your existing equipment and instruments until you try them both on the same source.

Some people LOVE dollar store audio equipment, mainly because its cheap and sounds good for certain stuff, like LO-FI destruction and effects. I don't think its very musical....but again I guess it depends on your music.

If you were asking me, without even hearing the Behringer pre, I know the other stuff sounds "better". But I'm not making your record, and If I was, I'd want to use a studio that didn't have racks of Ultra-Comps and "invisible mic pres". Maybe headphone boxes, but nothing else!!!

matskull · 28th May 2008, 05:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roc Mixwell

Unfortunately, you will continue to find differences with all of these preamps!

Thats the best part!!!!

Its TOTALLY WORTH renting some esoteric gear to do this shootout if you can. I'd recommend Eclipse Audio in Atlanta if they are in your neck of the woods.

If your planning on buying a better pre, your money is better spent trying some high end pre's that you might also be interested in purchasing; This will be the only way to find out if its up your alley aesthetically.

Its really worth demoing a couple preamps from a dealer that will let you demo some units and return the loser, so as to make an educated choice about the purchase. I mean, you'll never really know which one sounds better for your music and your existing equipment and instruments until you try them both on the same source.

Some people LOVE dollar store audio equipment, mainly because its cheap and sounds good for certain stuff, like LO-FI destruction and effects. I don't think its very musical....but again I guess it depends on your music.

If you were asking me, without even hearing the Behringer pre, I know the other stuff sounds "better". But I'm not making your record, and If I was, I'd want to use a studio that didn't have racks of Ultra-Comps and "invisible mic pres". Maybe headphone boxes, but nothing else!!!

Hey thanks for answering, I'm not really in the market of purshasing new gear, well not now.
I made this thread mostly to hear experience from other people, I'm also working on a racking/modding project of a couple ward beck M480 and I'd like some feedback on those too. What do you think they're best at, what do you think they lack?

I might eventually rent or borrow if I can a couple of pre to a/b them against the M480.

I recorded a acc/vocal song and the M480 is the winner, sounds more like an album to me.

steelyfan · 28th May 2008, 02:25 PM

I think it's cool you're doing a shoot out with a Behringer pre in the Highend, rock on!! Not only that, but you haven't been verbally abused yet. These guys must be intrigued. Thanks for sharing.
Steelyfan

reallyjake · 28th May 2008, 02:53 PM

I had a Shoot out with behringer and a Shotgun. It's hard to say who won. Humanity? The shotgun was a vintage Remington 12 gauge. It was semi-auto, not pump, if that makes any difference. The Remington had quite a bit of bass and high-end, as well as punch and kick. It blew the behringer to bits. I know many like to brag, "this unit smokes this one". But that is what happened here. There was a sort of natural reverb when firing at the Behringer and it sounded sweet to my ears.

matskull · 28th May 2008, 03:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reallyjake

I had a Shoot out with behringer and a Shotgun. It's hard to say who won. Humanity? The shotgun was a vintage Remington 12 gauge. It was semi-auto, not pump, if that makes any difference. The Remington had quite a bit of bass and high-end, as well as punch and kick. It blew the behringer to bits. I know many like to brag, "this unit smokes this one". But that is what happened here. There was a sort of natural reverb when firing at the Behringer and it sounded sweet to my ears.

lol

mdjice · 28th May 2008, 03:32 PM

Behringer ...just hearing the name scares me!!!

matskull · 28th May 2008, 03:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steelyfan

I think it's cool you're doing a shoot out with a Behringer pre in the Highend, rock on!! Not only that, but you haven't been verbally abused yet. These guys must be intrigued. Thanks for sharing.
Steelyfan

I'm by no means saying that behringer is high end, I'd have to be crazy to say such a thing.
I'd just like people to share their experience with high end pre compared to low end one like the behringer.
I did in the past record to tape with a console that had good pres and eq in it, I also tried universal audio, chandler and brent averill 1073 pres, but never at home next to my shitty pres.
Last night I had the chance to compare a ward beck M80 (which people seems to like) to my behringer and I could tell the difference, in a mix those differences would really help even if in solo it's not day and night.

Max headroom · 28th May 2008, 04:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matskull

I found that the behringer had generally more "useless" high, more bottom and is lacking good mids.

That is the answer ..... because they can not make a good sound itself , they eq it making more " finnished " hi fi sound .....

Try processing those track , compress them , eq them , and put some reverb on them .... and difference will be much more noticable .....

Another thing is .... You can drive hi end pres much more than B .... because it really easily clips on input ....

Gain driving is very poor sounding ....

.... also try to listen to transients ...... not very good sounding to my ears ....

I did A/B/C test on guitar amp .... B Ultragain 2200 , Api 512 c , ADesign silver ....

Cheers

Max

steelyfan · 28th May 2008, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reallyjake

I had a Shoot out with behringer and a Shotgun. It's hard to say who won. Humanity? The shotgun was a vintage Remington 12 gauge. It was semi-auto, not pump, if that makes any difference. The Remington had quite a bit of bass and high-end, as well as punch and kick. It blew the behringer to bits. I know many like to brag, "this unit smokes this one". But that is what happened here. There was a sort of natural reverb when firing at the Behringer and it sounded sweet to my ears.

Wickedly wonderful! lol!

azzzy · 28th May 2008, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reallyjake

I had a Shoot out with behringer and a Shotgun. It's hard to say who won. Humanity? The shotgun was a vintage Remington 12 gauge. It was semi-auto, not pump, if that makes any difference. The Remington had quite a bit of bass and high-end, as well as punch and kick. It blew the behringer to bits. I know many like to brag, "this unit smokes this one". But that is what happened here. There was a sort of natural reverb when firing at the Behringer and it sounded sweet to my ears.

Oh man! That's hysterical!!!

matskull · 28th May 2008, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Max headroom

That is the answer ..... because they can not make a good sound itself , they eq it making more " finnished " hi fi sound .....

Try processing those track , compress them , eq them , and put some reverb on them .... and difference will be much more noticable .....

Another thing is .... You can drive hi end pres much more than B .... because it really easily clips on input ....

Gain driving is very poor sounding ....

.... also try to listen to transients ...... not very good sounding to my ears ....

I did A/B/C test on guitar amp .... B Ultragain 2200 , Api 512 c , ADesign silver ....

Cheers

Max

Good to know you share my opinion.
When "a/bing" them, did you hear a big difference in solo (not in the mis), was it really day and night compared to the api?
I might be moding the ward beck to give it more tone/attitude but before I do it I prefer to get some opinion on how different high end compares to low end.
thanks again

FirstLoveStudio · 28th May 2008, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Max headroom

That is the answer ..... because they can not make a good sound itself , they eq it making more " finnished " hi fi sound .....

Try processing those track , compress them , eq them , and put some reverb on them .... and difference will be much more noticable .....

Another thing is .... You can drive hi end pres much more than B .... because it really easily clips on input ....

Gain driving is very poor sounding ....

.... also try to listen to transients ...... not very good sounding to my ears ....

I did A/B/C test on guitar amp .... B Ultragain 2200 , Api 512 c , ADesign silver ....

Cheers

Max

Could you post up some recordings so we can hear the difference???

Max headroom · 28th May 2008, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matskull

Good to know you share my opinion.
When "a/bing" them, did you hear a big difference in solo (not in the mis), was it really day and night compared to the api?
I might be moding the ward beck to give it more tone/attitude but before I do it I prefer to get some opinion on how different high end compares to low end.
thanks again

On the dry recording .... not really big difference ......

But when You start processing .... even a good reverb don't sound that good :)

try for Yourself :)

Cheers

Max

Max headroom · 28th May 2008, 05:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FirstLoveStudio

Could you post up some recordings so we can hear the difference???

Not the dry channels ... because we were doing aditional guitar recording at my friends flat ( he has only B Ultragain 2200 ) an I brought my LB with API 512 c and Adesign silver ......

But ....

MySpace.com - Nenad Gajin - 31 - Male - Paris, FR - www.myspace.com/nenadgajin

there are 3 songs ..... solo guitar ..... one of them is B ultragain , half of one is Adesign , and the rest is UA 610

Cheers

Max

matskull · 29th May 2008, 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Max headroom

Not the dry channels ... because we were doing aditional guitar recording at my friends flat ( he has only B Ultragain 2200 ) an I brought my LB with API 512 c and Adesign silver ......

But ....

MySpace.com - Nenad Gajin - 31 - Male - Paris, FR - www.myspace.com/nenadgajin

there are 3 songs ..... solo guitar ..... one of them is B ultragain , half of one is Adesign , and the rest is UA 610

Cheers

Max

So the first one is B ultragain, second is Adesign and third is UA610?

A LaMere · 29th May 2008, 05:18 AM

I've never a/b'd Behringer gear against my higher end pre's per se...

But I used to take a small allen and heath board on the road with my band in order to replace any behringer board that we would see attempt to be used on FOH.

The problem with Behringer gear that people had tried to use on us was always inconsistancy as much as poor, poor sound quality.

The parts that they use in the board are so poor that the values tend to drift to and fro while in use... causing it to sound ok for half a second... then horrible the next. Your monitor mix will instantly go from "yes, my vocal is loud enough in the monitor" to "Dude, did you turn my vocal off in the monitors"

it really plays hell with acoustic anything as mics will be properly set, then all of the sudden peaking on the board and feeding back in the mains.

This is the exact same problem I've had with almost every piece of gear with the Behringer name that I've ever used... they seem to drift to my ears.
I'm not a technical person so I can't tell you whether or not the values/power supply/capacitors whatever are actually drifting or full of phase or???

But I can tell you that every time I replaced a Behringer board with the Allen and Heath the switch was meant with some amount of initial resistance by the club or church that we were playing at....

I also can't tell you how many times I left the venue with the soundman or church or clubowner telling me about how he was going to pick up an Allen and Heath board in the next week or two... Often times they thought that I'd fixed all of the sound problems that they'd ever had in a single evening...

matskull · 30th May 2008, 05:27 PM

What would you expect from a high end pre, tonewise?

If you could choose between awesome lows, awesome mids or awesome highs, what would it be?

I would go for awesome mids and get an eq that has good high and low.

u b k · 30th May 2008, 05:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matskull

If you could choose between awesome lows, awesome mids or awesome highs, what would it be?

gotta have all three, otherwise i question the 'high end' moniker.

gregoire
del
ubk
.

matskull · 30th May 2008, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by u b k

gotta have all three, otherwise i question the 'high end' moniker.

gregoire
del
ubk
.

Let me ask it differently, what is for you the most important frequency range in a pre?

JOliver · 30th May 2008, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matskull

Let me ask it differently, what is for you the most important frequency range in a pre?

this is an absurd question. all frequencies are equally important and are dependent on the frequncies in the sound being recorded

matskull · 30th May 2008, 08:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JOliver

this is an absurd question. all frequencies are equally important and are dependent on the frequencies in the sound being recorded

It's not absurd, you're just not understanding it.
If an API pre has awesome mids it doesn't necessarily means that it's lows and highs sucks.

A LaMere · 31st May 2008, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matskull

It's not absurd, you're just not understanding it.
If an API pre has awesome mids it doesn't necessarily means that it's lows and highs sucks.

It is a strange question a little... but yes...
If I can count the times that I've heard someone say 'the magic is in the midrange'... about api pre's. If I've got to choose one... I'd say that strength in the midrange of material that I work with is absolutely crucial.

it's worth mentioning that I mostly work in rock, indie, pop fields and rarely if ever venture outside of that.... so yes, API pre's rule part of the world in my world...

musaee · 31st May 2008, 12:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reallyjake

I had a Shoot out with behringer and a Shotgun. It's hard to say who won. Humanity? The shotgun was a vintage Remington 12 gauge. It was semi-auto, not pump, if that makes any difference. The Remington had quite a bit of bass and high-end, as well as punch and kick. It blew the behringer to bits. I know many like to brag, "this unit smokes this one". But that is what happened here. There was a sort of natural reverb when firing at the Behringer and it sounded sweet to my ears.

LMMFAO

area51recording · 3rd June 2008, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reallyjake

I It was semi-auto, not pump, if that makes any difference.

Yeah it makes a difference. The pump action's gonna be tons warmer, fatter, beefier, more "in your face", thicker....did i leave anything out? Oh yeah, "vibey"

JTC111 · 3rd June 2008, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by area51recording

Yeah it makes a difference. The pump action's gonna be tons warmer, fatter, beefier, more "in your face", thicker....did i leave anything out? Oh yeah, "vibey"

And wouldn't the rifle shaft make it sound nice and "toobey"? The shaft is, after all, tube-like.

sja · 4th June 2008, 03:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Max headroom

Not the dry channels ... because we were doing aditional guitar recording at my friends flat ( he has only B Ultragain 2200 ) an I brought my LB with API 512 c and Adesign silver ......

But ....

MySpace.com - Nenad Gajin - 31 - Male - Paris, FR - www.myspace.com/nenadgajin

there are 3 songs ..... solo guitar ..... one of them is B ultragain , half of one is Adesign , and the rest is UA 610

Cheers

Max

I don't know which is which, and hopefully this doesn't take things too off topic, but this music is very very impressive.

Care to spill the beans?

sja

desol · 19th June 2008, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by matskull

Good to know you share my opinion.
When "a/bing" them, did you hear a big difference in solo (not in the mis), was it really day and night compared to the api?
I might be moding the ward beck to give it more tone/attitude but before I do it I prefer to get some opinion on how different high end compares to low end.
thanks again

Depending on which version of the 480 you have, i wouldn't fuss with it too much. Many if not all of the opamps in the a and b versions of the 480 are feedfoward compensated, which means there are a bunch of ceramic capacitors helping the slew rate of the opamps to be very fast. If you go changing opamps you will have parts in there not designed to work with the new opamps. Plus the opamps are soldered dual sided so they're tough get out.

They sound great as they are. Did a project a little while ago completely tracked with 480's and we were all very happy(shocked actually), considering the room and other less than steller equipment involved.

Luckily we had the 480's and some decent mics.

Mylithra · 19th June 2008, 06:37 AM

I have and still use a DDX3216 for my primary A/D conversion (AKM a/d converter) and digital routing device but Ive stopped using the pre's in it. I have compared them to all the other pres I have and here was the results.

SCA N72 V ddx3216
The DDX3216 was much darker and sounded like it had some sort of light compression on it that muddied up the low mids. Very Grey sounding. By comparison, the N72 was smooth, had detailed highs and a nice round silky low end.

SCA T15 vs DDX3216
The T15 was significantly brighter and seemed to have more bandwidth available to it. Where the pres in the DDX3216 seemed dark and muddy, the T15s were bright and clear with a slight excentuation in the mid band (say around 600-800Hz)

Meek TwinQ vs DDX3216
The pres for the DDX3216 were a touch quieter than the TwinQ but the TwinQ's bandwidth and clarity were tons better. The Iron switch added a little to the noise floor but I thought they also added some nice harmonics and color the you wouldnt get otherwise with a transformer.

Presonus Digimax LT vs DDX3216
These were the closest in comparison that there was but there still was no comparison. The Digimax's pres were cleaner and a little more open. They didnt sound as nearly grey to me as the DDX3216. The Digimax's pres were very colorless but they didnt darken whatever I put through them like the DDX3216 did.

Hope this was what you were looking for.

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28th May 2008, 03:54 AM	#1
matskull Gear maniac Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 261	high end pre vs behringer i might get burn for posting this but I did a search but couldn't find much precise info. Did anybody here a/b'd behringer's pre to a high end one (api, neve....whatever) Except the behringer's one sounding like shit lol, how do you think it compared. I'll start. I just did a a/b test, Behringer euro2442fx pro vs Ward Beck M480 (racked). I found that the behringer had generally more "useless" high, more bottom and is lacking good mids. On vocal, words were heard more easily on the ward beck and were smoother. On Acc guitar, the picking was better heard, I could hear less room and more guitar (hard to explain better), the emphasis was more on the mids than on the lows and high and there was no harshness happening like on the behringer. On miced bass amp (70's SVT) there was a little bit more bottom on the behringer which might be cool alone but in a mix I'd end up cuting those out, the ward beck had better mids so the attack was better and it didn't have as much high and made it sound more like the amp itself. All those differences were pretty subttle though but in a mix it must make a pretty good difference. I would definitely use the ward beck instead of the behringer anyday of the week. I just got the ward beck unit at my place, I'm testing it now and will probably test it again with different op-amp to see what happen (let me know if you got a suggestion). So, let's hear what you guys though when you compared your high end pre to those behringer. Please stay polite so this thread become a good source of informations instead of closing. Thanks

28th May 2008, 04:21 AM	#2
Roc Mixwell Lives for gear Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Foxboro, MA Posts: 1,453	Unfortunately, you will continue to find differences with all of these preamps! Thats the best part!!!! Its TOTALLY WORTH renting some esoteric gear to do this shootout if you can. I'd recommend Eclipse Audio in Atlanta if they are in your neck of the woods. If your planning on buying a better pre, your money is better spent trying some high end pre's that you might also be interested in purchasing; This will be the only way to find out if its up your alley aesthetically. Its really worth demoing a couple preamps from a dealer that will let you demo some units and return the loser, so as to make an educated choice about the purchase. I mean, you'll never really know which one sounds better for your music and your existing equipment and instruments until you try them both on the same source. Some people LOVE dollar store audio equipment, mainly because its cheap and sounds good for certain stuff, like LO-FI destruction and effects. I don't think its very musical....but again I guess it depends on your music. If you were asking me, without even hearing the Behringer pre, I know the other stuff sounds "better". But I'm not making your record, and If I was, I'd want to use a studio that didn't have racks of Ultra-Comps and "invisible mic pres". Maybe headphone boxes, but nothing else!!! __________________ Adam Brass Mercenary Audio adam@mercenary.com ________________ "Any opinions expressed above are worth exactly what you paid for them." Anonymous "Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude." Thomas Jefferson "If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. Thomas Edison

28th May 2008, 03:32 PM	#7
mdjice Lives for gear Join Date: May 2008 Location: Houston/Paris Posts: 707	Behringer ...just hearing the name scares me!!! __________________ Multi Platinum...because it's better then gold;) www.mickaelmusic.com http://www.openlabs.com/mickael.html Live Web Cam from the Studio

29th May 2008, 05:18 AM	#17
A LaMere Lives for gear Join Date: Dec 2005 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 705	I've never a/b'd Behringer gear against my higher end pre's per se... But I used to take a small allen and heath board on the road with my band in order to replace any behringer board that we would see attempt to be used on FOH. The problem with Behringer gear that people had tried to use on us was always inconsistancy as much as poor, poor sound quality. The parts that they use in the board are so poor that the values tend to drift to and fro while in use... causing it to sound ok for half a second... then horrible the next. Your monitor mix will instantly go from "yes, my vocal is loud enough in the monitor" to "Dude, did you turn my vocal off in the monitors" it really plays hell with acoustic anything as mics will be properly set, then all of the sudden peaking on the board and feeding back in the mains. This is the exact same problem I've had with almost every piece of gear with the Behringer name that I've ever used... they seem to drift to my ears. I'm not a technical person so I can't tell you whether or not the values/power supply/capacitors whatever are actually drifting or full of phase or??? But I can tell you that every time I replaced a Behringer board with the Allen and Heath the switch was meant with some amount of initial resistance by the club or church that we were playing at.... I also can't tell you how many times I left the venue with the soundman or church or clubowner telling me about how he was going to pick up an Allen and Heath board in the next week or two... Often times they thought that I'd fixed all of the sound problems that they'd ever had in a single evening... __________________ www.myspace.com/aaronlamere

28th May 2008, 02:25 PM	#4
steelyfan Gear maniac Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 254	I think it's cool you're doing a shoot out with a Behringer pre in the Highend, rock on!! Not only that, but you haven't been verbally abused yet. These guys must be intrigued. Thanks for sharing. Steelyfan

28th May 2008, 02:53 PM	#5
reallyjake Gear nut Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Fort Worth Posts: 96	I had a Shoot out with behringer and a Shotgun. It's hard to say who won. Humanity? The shotgun was a vintage Remington 12 gauge. It was semi-auto, not pump, if that makes any difference. The Remington had quite a bit of bass and high-end, as well as punch and kick. It blew the behringer to bits. I know many like to brag, "this unit smokes this one". But that is what happened here. There was a sort of natural reverb when firing at the Behringer and it sounded sweet to my ears.

30th May 2008, 05:27 PM	#18
matskull Gear maniac Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 261	What would you expect from a high end pre, tonewise? If you could choose between awesome lows, awesome mids or awesome highs, what would it be? I would go for awesome mids and get an eq that has good high and low.

19th June 2008, 06:37 AM	#29
Mylithra Gear maniac Join Date: Mar 2008 Posts: 164	I have and still use a DDX3216 for my primary A/D conversion (AKM a/d converter) and digital routing device but Ive stopped using the pre's in it. I have compared them to all the other pres I have and here was the results. SCA N72 V ddx3216 The DDX3216 was much darker and sounded like it had some sort of light compression on it that muddied up the low mids. Very Grey sounding. By comparison, the N72 was smooth, had detailed highs and a nice round silky low end. SCA T15 vs DDX3216 The T15 was significantly brighter and seemed to have more bandwidth available to it. Where the pres in the DDX3216 seemed dark and muddy, the T15s were bright and clear with a slight excentuation in the mid band (say around 600-800Hz) Meek TwinQ vs DDX3216 The pres for the DDX3216 were a touch quieter than the TwinQ but the TwinQ's bandwidth and clarity were tons better. The Iron switch added a little to the noise floor but I thought they also added some nice harmonics and color the you wouldnt get otherwise with a transformer. Presonus Digimax LT vs DDX3216 These were the closest in comparison that there was but there still was no comparison. The Digimax's pres were cleaner and a little more open. They didnt sound as nearly grey to me as the DDX3216. The Digimax's pres were very colorless but they didnt darken whatever I put through them like the DDX3216 did. Hope this was what you were looking for.