Which to upgrade first? A/D or D/A converters?

[Brad McGowan]

I am starting to do some research and save up some cash to fund a converter upgrade for the studio. However, I'm having difficulty deciding which part of the chain to upgrade first--recording or playback.

Which would you upgrade first and why? The A/D converters on the front end or the D/A on the back end?

thanks,
Brad

[pan]

Upgrading your A/D - Chain seems to be the bigger improvement, that has also benefits in other Studios (when giving away material for remixes and such), even your D/A will benefit from a better clocking involved in an A/D upgrade.

n

[NathanEldred]

I'd say A/D also, but it's important to hear what really coming out of the other end with great D/A. But on a budget, the closer the improvement to the source the better.

[MIKEHARRIS]

Both together...otherwise you might not hear the improvement

[Mastersonics]

do you think i need this with my 192 I/O?

please let me know
thanks,
Charles

[Bob Olhsson]

It really depends on exactly what you are doing. If you are just recording the flat output of microphones, yes, a good A to D makes sense. On the other hand, if you are eqing, limiting, mixing, etc, I'd go for the D to A provided you can afford the Benchmark.

While this sounds counterintuitive, the right settings using a cheap A to D are likely to sound lots better than the wrong settings using an expensive converter. You may also have some surprises which of the A to Ds you currently have sound better.

Recording engineering is about listening. Bad sound is frequently the result of buying all the right stuff but not having a good enough monitor chain to really respond to what sounds good and what doesn't.

[blackcatdigi]

Well put, Bob!

I couldn't agree any more...

[Brad McGowan]

Originally posted by Bob Olhsson
It really depends on exactly what you are doing. If you are just recording the flat output of microphones, yes, a good A to D makes sense. On the other hand, if you are eqing, limiting, mixing, etc, I'd go for the D to A provided you can afford the Benchmark.

Yes I will be mxing, EQ, compressing, etc. I should be able to afford the Benchmark DAC1. For A/D conversion I was looking at the Mytek, Benchmark, and Lucid, etc.

While this sounds counterintuitive, the right settings using a cheap A to D are likely to sound lots better than the wrong settings using an expensive converter. You may also have some surprises which of the A to Ds you currently have sound better.

Recording engineering is about listening. Bad sound is frequently the result of buying all the right stuff but not having a good enough monitor chain to really respond to what sounds good and what doesn't.

I was kind of thinking along these lines when I first posted my question. I have been upgrading primarliy my monitoring chain in the last year and have been noticing great improvements in my mixes because I've given attention to things like digital clocking, acoustics, cables, etc. Thanks for your articulate response, Bob!

Brad

[Geosync]

If you pick the right gear, you could have both A/D and D/A that are matched.

It's all about signal chain. Garbage In = Garbage out, Headroom to properly capture dynamics, Stable clock, then monitoring what you've captured.. Each component "colors" the sound to some degree.

If you do more tracking than mixing, A/D would be my choice. If you do more mixing/mastering then you have little control of the source A/D and I would concentrate on the D/A.

We at Kurzweil, felt that both were important enough to design them different enough to get a patent..

In short, you should balance the quality of both

[NathanEldred]

A great monitoring chain is essential, just remember one point when breaking the decision down between the two; a great monitoring chain is not actually in the signal path. If what comes before is substandard, all the best monitoring path in the world will do is reveal, in a very accurate and transparent way, how substandarad that path is. Perhaps I'm in the minority, but a cheap recording and processing chain backed up by a multi thousand dollar monitoring chain doesn't make sense to me, it's about a balnce, and it takes a sizeable investment to get there. If you have a great ADC and DAC you are a significant amount of the way there.

[Brad McGowan]

So far it seems like the concensus here seems to be that A/D converters should be the priority. Any other opinions?

Brad

[atticus]

Brad,

What are you using right now? That would help in offering advice. My gut instinct is to say D/A, as that way you can hear any improvements that you would be making with any other tweaks in your signal path. Thanks.

[Brad McGowan]

I am using the using my Panasonic DA7 for both A/D and D/A right now. So it's just the onboard converters. The board is clocked to a Lucid GENx6. Monitoring is through a pair of Mackie HR824's through a pair of Tara Labs RSC Ultima cables.

Brad

[jobi7]

Using my small potatotes set up of PTLE with an AMIII card to my Mackie Mixer, I've still managed to come up with some half way decent demos. But I can't tell you how many times I've had to remix after listening on other systems so a new DAC is very near in my future. I have this feeling that even with a good ADC I'd still have mixing troubles. Plus I hope to be in a better position to evaluate different ADC's with a better DAC than vise versa. Looking forward to a life of more (audio) clarity...

[Brad McGowan]

That's a really good point about being able to better evaluate ADC's with a high end DAC in the chain. In addition, being able to hear things more accurately will most likely translate into better sounds being captured to begin with regardless of the A/D converter quality--in other words mic placement would improve if I can better hear the nuances in position.

Atticus, what's your take on this?

thanks,
Brad

[atticus]

Originally posted by Brad McGowan
That's a really good point about being able to better evaluate ADC's with a high end DAC in the chain. In addition, being able to hear things more accurately will most likely translate into better sounds being captured to begin with regardless of the A/D converter quality--in other words mic placement would improve if I can better hear the nuances in position.

Atticus, what's your take on this?

thanks,
Brad

Well my company builds both A/D's and D/A's so I hope that I can be at least temporarily relieved of any perception of bias for sales' sake. I would go with a DAC first probably 99.9% of the time simply becasue you can not only use it in your recording process but you can also use it to evaluate other known good recordings. This is one of the reasons that our DAC1 has a three way digital selector switch on it, so that you can switch between three different sources to gain perspective on what you're doing. What Bob said earlier is exactly right, recording is about listening. It doesn't matter if you've recorded the most pristine tracks in the world if you can't hear them wel enought to do anything with them. That's just my humble opinion.

PS - We are going to be selling the DAC1's and ADC1's in sets just to alleviate the problem of choosing

[NathanEldred]

Originally posted by Brad McGowan
That's a really good point about being able to better evaluate ADC's with a high end DAC in the chain.

A high quality DAC is critical to evaluating minute details between high quality ADCs. It's like trying to look at a painting through a piece of dirty glass. Even through a dirty piece of glass a Picasso is going to stand out far above a 3 year olds drawing, and even much more so through a clear piece of glass. Same with ADCs.

[flexoffset]

Mr. Seymour

I am also interested in the DAC-1 as I am undergoing a considerable (yet slow) upgrade in quality of equipment.

I imagine you're aware of this, but just in case .... the benchmark site has a broken link to the online pdf manual for the DAC-1.

I have other sem-technical questions but will put them in a new thread later on.

[atticus]

Originally posted by flexoffset
Mr. Seymour

I am also interested in the DAC-1 as I am undergoing a considerable (yet slow) upgrade in quality of equipment.

I imagine you're aware of this, but just in case .... the benchmark site has a broken link to the online pdf manual for the DAC-1.

I have other sem-technical questions but will put them in a new thread later on.

Feel free to e-mail me and I can send you a pdf of the manual and answer any questions you may have. Thanks.

[Teacher]

hey atticus...isn't it about time for another DAC-1 give away??!

or should we get mike from mytek..?!

either way seems win win...

[atticus]

We might have something in the near future but I can't reveal anything specific. Keep tabs on the Benchmark site and we'll see what we can cook up.

[Teacher]

Originally posted by atticus
We might have something in the near future but I can't reveal anything specific. Keep tabs on the Benchmark site and we'll see what we can cook up.

do i smell a ADC and DAC-1 give away?!?!

[Brad McGowan]

So I think you guys have sold me on upgrading my D/A converters first. It sounds like the right way for me to go at this point. Not to mention that it's slightly cheaper than investing in a high end 8 channel ADC.

Brad

[flexoffset]

You can always add more DAC-1's, right?
You could use 3 DAC-1's for a surround setup.

[thethrillfactor]

Originally posted by Brad McGowan
So I think you guys have sold me on upgrading my D/A converters first. It sounds like the right way for me to go at this point. Not to mention that it's slightly cheaper than investing in a high end 8 channel ADC.

Brad

I also vote for the A/D first.

If you want to do both at the same time, than check out a HEDD unit.