Lavry Engineering Blue 2 Channel Mic-Pre

I own the Lavry Blue frame with stereo AD and DA. This has easily been the best sounding converter I've ever owned (I have used/owned SSL Alpha Link, RME Fireface, Mytek 8x192, Lynx Aurora 16, Motu 828, m-audio, focusrite...)

the sound: clean. what you put in is what you get. Dan Lavry believes there is no reason for sample rates above 96k and after using this, i don't ever record at anything other than 44. Even at 44 it sounds better lower end converters at 192.

features: 2 channels of conversion over AES. The toggle switches on the front allow for changes in sample rates, 44, 48, 88, 96. word length, 16, 20, 24 bit. and "analog" or "digital" saturation. though the terminology can be a bit confusing...

"Analog" saturation is basically a soft limiter. i've never been a fan of brick wall limiters going in as i've learned to just carefully monitor my levels and leave enough headroom.
"Digital" saturation is a tape overdrive emulation. according to the manual, with this engaged with signal below -12 dbfs, your levels are raised by 6dbs. Above that level, there is a tape saturation applied to the waveform.

i prefer to use it without the saturation switches engaged during tracking. but i have found it useful and fairly pleasant for bouncing back down when summing in analog.


One of the biggest things i've noticed with tracking through the lavry converters has been the separation after layering multiple tracks. Although i haven't done any scientific experiments of A/B'ing of all the previous converters i've owned. The mixes i've done tracked through the lavry have come together so much easier than say sifting through the haze of the Motu 828 converters.