Quote:
Originally posted by Neve Sucks!
The Vintech X73 sucks about 100%! The X73 preamp sounds like it has built in chorus.....
Yeah, I suppose Geoff Tanner, Chuck Ainlay, Eddy Kramer, Gary Paczosa, Dave Martin, Toby Scott, me, and every other engineer who owns and/or has used them is lying or deaf...but what do we know? The Vintech has a money back guarantee, so the public should decide for themselves instead of letting someone ruin a very viable solution for their studio before it even gets a fair chance to be heard.
To the original poster, all three of the one's you mentioned are high quality products. There are also other brands that aren't claiming to be exact copies of a 1073, or don't sound exactly like a Neve (but do have a lot of the "Neve" vibe) that are extremely high quality such as the Great River NV and Phoenix DRS-2 (particularly the DRS-2 who's design is built completely from scratch).
IMNSHO engineer's shouldn't base decisions on a romanticized notion that a Neve 1073 is the 'holy grail' of microphone preamps (or API or EMI or Helios for that matter). When at this level of quality (which encompasses a pretty large area of the industry both vintage and new) I personally feel that choices should be made only on sonic characteristics, especially when options are limited based on finances. Of course a 1073 is a great preamp, but you may find that it works for your needs or not.
For instance I like various manufacturer's microphone preamplifier interpretations of a 1272 (including Vintech's and Brent Averill's) better on certain sources than a 1073 because of the general way I have found the interpretations of the 1272 circuit to sound...it amazes me that people badmouth a 1272 of quality build when that preamp has it's purpose and place in a high quality production.
I don't care how fine a quality a filet mignon is, I sure as hell wouldn't want to eat it every meal, or have it encompass my entire meal at one sitting. And I personally wouldn't want to track everything on just a Neve 80 series board, or just an API Legacy, or exclusively anything. Or you may find that a variation on the theme works better for you that is neither a 1272 interpretation or a 1073 copy. Or you may find that something total un-"Neve"-esque works best for you like an API, or Pendulum, or Telefunken or whatever. Use your ears and don't worry about the rest.