Questions for you ULN 8 users.

[Marlan]

Saw one in action and was blown away. I have experience with the ULN 2 only.

I am seriously considering scaling down my small location rig and love the idea of having almost everything in one box.

I am used to using pre's like Millennia, DAV, Grace, etc... along with Mytek and Lynx converters and racked computers/HD24XR's in the field.

My question is this:

Are there any of you who have lot's of experience recording acoustic music with top of the line gear, who have switched to, or regularly use to the Metric Halo ULN 8 and believe that quality has not been sacrificed in the name of portability??

I am not too naive to think there is this one magic box (maybe there is?!) but the ULN 8 has been praised by many for having preamps and converters which rival the likes of makers I mentioned above, and I am eager to hear from those of you that have used it on several projects.

Mind you, the ULN 8 doesn't have to be the best pre's and converters in the world, but good enough (pretty damn good) to make classical recordings for commercial labels.

I know the only real way to make this decision is to test it myself on location in a hall but I wanted to hear from some folks who have used it before I get a demo unit.

Many thanks!

[Larry Elliott]

Marian,

Whilst the ULN8 might not be the Ultimate in preamp/converters it is very good and saves carrying a lot of stuff around. The Record Panel app is first class and the DSP available in the mixer is second to none.

Unless you have unlimited budgets and many helpers to carry and set up your esoteric gear some compromises are inevitable. The ULN8 in my view is a very viable compromise.

I have used one for the past year as a beta tester - now the work I do can be managed by a Nagra VI, which is even less to carry to locations.

There are several folk that have made recordings for major labels on ULN8's

Larry

[mh_bj]

Marlan,

You may want to post this question on the MIO List:

https://mail.music.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/mobileio

as there are likely more folks there that will see and are prepared to respond to your question.

In any case, there are a number of classical recordists who have replaced multi-box recording systems (Grace, Millenia, etc. into Lavry, Prism, etc) with a ULN-8 and consider it a step up in sound-quality and workflow as well as portability.

Here are a some quotes from some users who have done that:

http://www.mhsecure.com/ULN-8Collage/getquote.php?id=9
http://www.mhsecure.com/ULN-8Collage/getquote.php?id=11
http://www.mhsecure.com/ULN-8Collage/getquote.php?id=13
http://www.mhsecure.com/ULN-8Collage/getquote.php?id=28
http://www.mhsecure.com/ULN-8Collage/getquote.php?id=35
http://www.mhsecure.com/ULN-8Collage/getquote.php?id=40
http://www.mhsecure.com/ULN-8Collage/getquote.php?id=41

[JonesH]

In no way am I a full-fledged professional, and I haven't had any major releases, but I just invested in a ULN-8 as it seemed to fit my personal bill of great quality, expandability and at least as important, portability. Against my originally planned setup with different preamps, A/D converters and audio interfaces, this 1U solution is also very priceworthy. For me it was (might not be for you, I dunno) a hefty investment but instead of buying a lot of separate units, I get one that can do the trick quite well.

And if you find that the ULN-8 preamps+converters are just baseline good and you still want to use separate pre's and AD's, just plug them into the AES inputs and maybe use the ULN8 internal for spot mics or so. Should you find that it really is a perfect match for your applications, the system can be expanded with more boxes for more ULN-8-style inputs. Best of two worlds?