Purchased from Sweetwater Sound. My home recording setup needed outboard pre-amps and using a mixer just wasn't cutting it. I especially wanted a tube pre-amp because the mixers tended to leave the signal sounding harsh and brittle. These units pack a ton of features for the price: 1: vocal EQ switch. Granted the EQ curve is a preset, but every little bit helps. 2: Limiter switch to avoid clipping. 3: An enhancer switch to boost the high frequencies that may be lost by the limiter. 4: Phase reverse. 5: 10dB boost switch. 6: Phantom power (which should be a given but I just thought I'd mention it) 7: Lo-cut switch with a selectible frequency knob. 8: VU metering instead of a 5-segment LED display. It's backlit too. 9: 12AX7 tube to impart some warmth to the signal--with variable saturation control. 10: A/D converter to either 48kHz or 96kHz. I also like the fact these units are designed so that they can be stacked so the control panels are slanted upward at about a 15-20 degree angle--facilitating their use so they do not have to be set at eye-level to read the meter. What's not to like? Metal chassis/frame/shell. Reinforced i/o jacks anchored to frame. Detachable hard rubber feet to set the viewing angle. All in all, the best bang for the buck in a pre-amp with a street price of less than $100. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com
Its cheap and it works great, but it seems to color the signal somewhat. When running the cans through the 003 rack and then switching over to the Samson its like something’s missing. It doesn't seem to have the same depth as the 003. I know we are talking about $1200 equipment to $100 equipment, but I use the 003 for headphone monitoring and use the Samson for people are tracking in the studio. Its a great tool for tracking and being able to run 8 headphones off of this thing is great. It's 4 channel, but you got 4 outs on front and 4 on back. There is only one pair of ins so only one mix can be sent to all the cans mono or stereo. They have eight outputs each. If you buy the optional rack mount unit you can fit two of them side by side in one rack space, and they can be daisy-chained indefinitely. That gave me 32 stereo outs in just 2 rack spaces! Doesn't sound AMAZING, but for the price, and what I imagine most people need, it's great. Overall, It can drive any older studio phones (like the AKG 240s) and Wal-Mart Fodder (50 ohm Koss things). Its easy enough for any client to use in a recording booth too. No frills. But good sound. Here is something else that is important too: It can accept the hot levels that the Digidesign 192 IO can spit out. Many headphone amps cannot accept such a hot signal and they distort from the get go (only way around it is to solder 10db pads). So if you're looking for a little addition to your HD setup, this will give you clean volume for days. Once again you wont get 1000 dollar quality if you are only spending 100. But this will get your pretty close to that top quality for a very low price!
The feature are brilliant and all I could ask for regarding a DAW set-up. 4 source inputs, 2 speaker output selectors, mono and dim options, talkback, producer and musician cue outputs, talkback level adjuster for all UNDER $100. $99- The sound is enough to do what I do, that is get rough mixes together to bring to a better mixing enviroment and score to film, tv, and commericials. The only severe bad thing about this box is that I've noticed the sound to be a bit crunched or naturally compressed and a bit colored. This is not good, but you learn to deal and would rather use this than a mackie or another cheap console. The signal path seems simple, which probobly means better. This unit is the perfect size and a dream to use... Doubt I will ever contact customer support. I love this box and I think it's invention is genius. Originally posted on FutureProducers.com Posted by: Unknown (January 1-, 2003)
