On the brink of getting an Orpheus

[SammyD]

Hi people,
I'm new here, a long time lurker though. I would like to see if anyone can guide me. I'm on the fence for getting a prism sound orpheus. I have a well treated room, and small set up, very small compared to some of you guys, but its high quality gear. Well everything but the converter.

Behringer ADA 2000

My pres:
API 512c x 2
LaChapelle 992 EG
A-Designs Pacifica

Eq:
A-designs EM-PEQ x 2

Compressor:
UA 2-1176

Monitors:
Dynaudio BM5a

And I'm fine in the mic department with a large assortment of mics.

The reason I want the orpheus is because I have a crappy converter right now. And they are known for their converters, and it has a bunch of I/Os, and 4 mic pres. Would it be worth it for me to get it, or should I get a better stand alone converter, and put the rest of the money into something else?

Recording is a hobby for me now. I'm an engineer by day(the non-audio kind), and I love recording my acoustic jazz based band on the weekends. Drums, upright bass, electric guitar, and sax.

[creative.control]

If you can afford it, I can highly recommend it, it will really complete your setup and is worth the money!

You have some pretty serious outboard for a hobbyist and BM5as are great monitors.

If you have good monitoring environment it will be a massive improvement, the pres are also great and will be a slightly more neutral option, if you want something different from your character pres.

What kinda daw do you have? The Orpheus wouldn't be a good choice for Pro Tools, but great for Cubase and Logic etc.

[mrickaby]

I recently went on tour with Prism while they were demoing the Orpheus and I can't recommend it highly enough - it's above and beyond all of it's competition. The preamps are the most pristine I've ever heard and the dither is phenomenal on the unit. The clocking is fantastic too. In one test, Prism were able to show that no artefacts were added to the audio and that everything coming out of the Orpheus is about as close to perfect as you could hope for.

If you've got the money for it, I guarantee you won't be disappointed!

[magibatalla]

Go for it, don't hesitate.
Don't be afraid of the price, you're not only paying for the latest ADDA technology but for 4 super high-end preamps. My preamp collection is quite similar as yours, and I can say the Orpheus' onboard pres beat all my other pres in lots of situations. So I'd dare to say this unit is a bargain, considering its features.
I just purchased a used Behringer ADA8000 to increase my channel count and, due to Orpheus' clock technology, this piece of crap is completely usable

[tommy_asakawa]

Do it!

You have great gear to surround the Orpheus with!

Prism converters are AWESOME!

[Keith_EFK]

go for it!
i got mine from mercenary audio last summer, (thanks adam!)
after i got load of recommendations like above...
imho, the built-in mic pres are somewhat soft sounding to me,
but it's crystal clear and i believe it's the best 'built-in pres' of audio I/O.
there's not much things to say about conversion...simply the best.
the control software and firmware is very good,
still imho, it's not that rock-solid enough like RMEs.
i'm using this on cubase, nuendo and logic studio,
and it's rocking with all of'em. :D
yes, worth the money.

btw, i know this is out of point but imho, i guess
if you're using Behringer ADA as your main converter,
then even a half-price-of-Orph audioI/O units like RME FF
will bring a big difference.
of course, it is clear that Orpheus will bring you bigger difference... :p

[bonne]

If you are in a small country it may be cheaper for you to jump on a cheap flight to e.g. London or another place with good prices.

I bought mine here in Norway straight from the importer at "a good price", but still paid £ 1000 more than the shop price in London. These middle men can be very greedy. No point in supporting that kind mentality.

JB

[Ackman]

I agree with most opinions on here - the sound quality of the converters and pre-amps are great. I'm not a fan of FW though (using MacPro quad 8). Make sure that you are okay with the format. I would prefer if a pci interface so that I can use my other FW ports for other stuff. To ensure the best stability, the Orpheus is my only FW connected - I'm using my Lexicon PCM96 audio but would like to connect via FW to use effects ITB, but that causes issues.

That's my only knock on it, but should be considered before you pull the trigger.

[SammyD]

Yup running Cubase. No PT for me, I've never even used it. Anyway, thanks guys. That was exactly what I was thinking. Thanks for helping me shit instead of getting off the pot.

[brokemusician3]

Best sounding converters I ever heard really in a league of its own, having said that it will not make people like your music anymore than if you record straight through a 003 or something like that. 5k is a lot for not really improving your music.

[Ackman]

Originally Posted by brokemusician3

Best sounding converters I ever heard really in a league of its own, having said that it will not make people like your music anymore than if you record straight through a 003 or something like that. 5k is a lot for not really improving your music.

So are you saying the quality of production has no affect on the end product - so why arn't all songs produced on the cheapest possible recording gear. The profit margins will be so much higher.

[brokemusician3]

Unless your playing back music through an excellent playback system all that extra money spent gets unnoticed. Besides that most peoples ears are so unsophisticated that all they hear are hooks and the lyrics etc. less than .1% of music listeners hear the things we hear and are as passionate about audio quality. That doesn't even count music being played back through MP3's cheap computer speakers etc. I'm the biggest Hi-fi audio-file nut you ever met but an honest one and I'm sorry to burst peoples bubble but at this point the extra big bucks are largely wasted.