DMP-3 or the Black lion?

[kenoflife]

Looking for the route to 2 clean stereo channels

And the choices seem to be:

The M-audio DMP-3 ($169? - less somewhere?)

or

The Blacklion mod of the Motu 828 ($215)

http://www.blacklionaudio.com/motu_firewire_mod.html

Wonder how much that will affect the 2 existing mic-pres......
certainly looks helpful for the big picture.

[Adam P]

I think the price for the Black Lion MOTU mod is just the price for them to perform the upgrade. You'd have to factor in the cost of the unit, unless of course you already own one. You didn't say so I can't be sure.

[kenoflife]

Yes, I have one, almost - eBay purchase w/ tracking # showing arrival on Friday, use it for recording on Saturday....then....next stop on its journey is back to Motu to get the backlight fixed (it was never registered, so I may still be in luck) - and then the plan is on to Black Lion....this Motu is going places.

[jonnyc]

I use the dmp3 and of all my pre's its the cleanest, great deal at under 200 bucks.

[chessrock]

The Black Lion mod appears to be a small upgrade to the converter section, and not the mic pres. And it's not likely to be a very significant upgrade at that. You'd likely get more mileage with better mic pres ... but then again, I'm not sure what the MOTU uses for it's mic pre stages. If it uses the Texas Instruments INA chips, then it's likely to be very similar to the dmp3 already.

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[kenoflife]

The Black Lion mod appears to be a small upgrade to the converter section, and not the mic pres. And it's not likely to be a very significant upgrade at that. You'd likely get more mileage with better mic pres ... but then again, I'm not sure what the MOTU uses for it's mic pre stages. If it uses the Texas Instruments INA chips, then it's likely to be very similar to the dmp3 already.

Interesting....and refreshing anyway to hear some other opinions about the mod not being very significant....what do you base your view about that on?

from what I've heard the mic pre isn't half bad, probably is similar to the dmp3.

[blazingstrings]

Dont know bout the Black lion mod but I can say my friend uses a DMP3 for alot of stuff and it sounds pretty nice.

I plan to get one myself.

-Blaze

[puff]

Sorry to barge into this thread. I know I don't typically post here, so forgive my behavior. I just wanted to clarify some things.

The Black Lion mod appears to be a small upgrade to the converter section, and not the mic pres.

It's actually the other way around. It's a large upgrade to all of the analog stages, and the converters are left alone. There's a tweak for the clock circuit that's in development right now.

If it uses the Texas Instruments INA chips, then it's likely to be very similar to the dmp3 already.

Only the 896, 896HD, 1296, and HD192 use the INA163. The rest use an opamp based front end. The MOTU's that use the INA stage get a different preamp upgrade with a discrete (and IMO much better) version of the INA163 circuit.

You can hear samples of the MOTU mic pre here. It's a MOTU Traveler, but the Traveler and the 828mk2 use the same mic preamp. The samples are all tracked at 44k 24 bit, so you get a pretty good idea of what all of the units will sound like post mod. You also get comparisons of the mic pre against a Great River preamp.

Thanks for your time,

Matt
Black Lion Audio

[chessrock]

Thanks for the clarification, Matt.

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[puff]

Not a problem. Hey, if you're in Chicago, you're welcome to stop by sometime. I have tons of these MOTU's in here at any given time. You can listen to units before and after the modification, and judge for yourself.

[chessrock]

Very cool.

Say, on a related note ... I have a few Symetrix 528's I'd like to muck around with. Are you familiar with Monte McGuire's mods to the Symetrix mic pres that he posted/published on the R.A.P. boards about 5 years ago?

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[puff]

Are you familiar with Monte McGuire's mods to the Symetrix mic pres that he posted/published on the R.A.P. boards about 5 years ago?

Yes. I get asked about them quite a bit for some reason, so I decided to finally take a look at them myself. It's obviously a pretty solid upgrade, though I would have approached it a little differently.