Quote:
Originally Posted by
bestboxstudio
Exactly. I was disappointed. And I wanted to share my opinion. I can't see where I said anything horrible, though. But I did learn some things. In this strange rabbit hole we go thru with gear, the biggest thing we gain is knowledge. And we begin to build a preference to certain gear, certain work flows, certain settings, etc. I always read your posts and get good insights. I'm glad to know that you sent your Audient unit back, too. At least I'm not completely crazy. Maybe my ears are not completely blown out from loud tube amps at band practice! Thanks for putting things in perspective.
Compared to my expensive preamps, it holds its own pretty well. Everyone has an opinion on what they like, perhaps you just don't like clean. 95% of what I like is clean, which is why I usually gravitate towards clean preamps. I mostly like Dakings on drums, which tells me you might not like them.
The only time I really like a colorful pre is when I'm doing vocals or bass, and electric guitar, which in that case I'll use my Aurora Audio GTQC.
Most of the time if I want a particular sound I'll reach for a mic or first of all, the instrument itself to change that sound.
I understand not everyone has a big budget for expensive gear, I definitely started at the bottom and have slowly turned my studio into a much bigger facility. Which is why I claim that the sound you got from the Audient is BS.
As Monkey stated there is some emotion tied into the equipment, which is what caused your post of disappointment. I get it, but I'm also countering your statement because I honestly don't think it's a fair assessment. Of course it's no holy grail, it's an $800 8-channel preamp with converters. But I've seriously made great sounding records off of M-Audio interfaces using the generic preamps, and as said before, never got muddy, cloudy, garbage from it.