runamuck wrote on Mon, 08 May 2006 07:00 |
Of course, it's never a good idea to bow down to authority. But me thinks it's an even better idea - at least in this case - to know who you're arguing with.
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True, I suppose, and that goes both ways. The internet does tend to be something of an equalizer among its participants. In any event, my only goal here was to report my own direct experiences with this pre - isn't that what the original poster asked for? It's a good pre - I just think that its reputation has overreached its actual capabilities to some degree. Others are free to form and hold their own opinions. As I said before, YMMV.
I liked the Brick. It's extremely well built and will probably last damn near forever. The tubes are run conservatively enough that you can probably run it for 10 years without worrying about replacing them. It sounds fine, nothing magic about it, nothing wrong with it either. It's not a "boutique" mic pre. And while it does have tubes and transformers at each end, they don't create a huge "stamp" on its sound. At its price point, I don't think it's a bad buy. But there are a lot of other tube pres out there in the same price (per channel) range.
I also like my SP828s. On the sources that I tested, I didn't find significant difference between them and the Bricks. So perhaps that's what you should take away from this - that the SP828s are really quite a nice bargain, very good sound for very little money. They're probably not as rugged as the Bricks, though I've certainly had no trouble at all with mine (and I've got three of them). Also, they won't serve as a DI. They are really quite dissimilar from the Brick, which is why the comparison is interesting. What I take from it is that the tubes and transformers aren't a big part of the Brick's sound. So someone who is looking for that sound may be better served with a different pre.
I'd like to post some sample mixes for comparisons sake, but I'm out of town this week (and sadly, I probably won't have much time even when I do get home). So that will have to wait.
Later edit: I was just thinking a bit about how and where the differences might show up between units like the two that I've been comparing. There are a couple of obvious examples:
1) Some dynamic mics are likely to produce different results when connected to a transformer-coupled input than they do when connected to a solid state input. So an SM57 or SM7, or a ribbon, might show more differences than the condenser mics that I tested.
2a) If you drive a tube pre hard, it will behave differently than a solid state unit. And since the Brick has only 55db of gain, you are more likely to drive this unit "hard" than you might with another pre. So that "tube sound" that some may be looking for may show up in the Brick when you push it hard enough.
2b) On the other hand, as I observed above, the Brick uses its tubes pretty gently. It may not be easy to drive the Brick into the range where the tubes start to produce harmonics. That may be why I didn't hear much of that "tube sound" when I auditioned the Brick.