Neve Portico 5016 or UA Solo 610?

[scrouch]

Any thoughts? For those unfamiliar with the 5016, it's a single channel with the same preamp that's in the 5012 and has a DI as a second channel.

[Middleman]

Get the 5012. You can rig up a DI cable and now you have two channels of stellar, transformer based preamps for the same price as a DI and one. That would be my suggestion.

[Dot]

Totally depends on what you're recording and what kind of sound you want.

[Colwarter]

By the way the 5016 is a lot cheaper than the 5012.

[dkelley]

never heard the 5016 or 5012, love to hear them both. who here has used them? the solo 610 is great for some things (works well with my tlm103 and does wonders for chinese mics, thicker than my mpa gold) but solo 610 sucks on some other things too. neve has some great designs, I only use knockoffs (api etc) but if the 5016 is reasonably priced it would be good to know what it sounds like.

Anyone experienced with 5016 or 5012?

Don

[Blue Groove]

5016, no doubt...

[dkelley]

well I did some research and read some very informative reviews of the 5016 (notably some blind listening tests involving great engineers), so I'm guessing that since mr. neve says the 5012 is hte same circuit on the mic pre side then it should sound identical.

Sorry for posting that last comment before doing more research on my own, thought it was an interesting question at the time though LoL

Now I'm looking for a dirt cheap deal on a 5012 or 5016... anyone have one that they absolutely hate and would like to trade for anything by behringer? (I don't have the behringer stuff to trade but would buy some if it was a gear for gear trade...!)

That's supposed to be funny, upon rereading it's not clever at all, sorry for being boring today. Just a bad brain day.

cheers,
Don

[Middleman]

I have seen the 5012 running between $1000-$1300 on ebay used. I have one, you won't be disappointed.

[scrouch]

Thanks for the responses. I've been leaning towards getting the 5016. I wouldn't mind having a 610 for some things but could probably get more overall use out of the 5016.

[kc riffs]

Originally Posted by scrouch

Any thoughts? For those unfamiliar with the 5016, it's a single channel with the same preamp that's in the 5012 and has a DI as a second channel.

I own the 5016 and the UA, la-610 they are both great sounding pres.
the la-610 has the bonus of the compressor built in.it is very warm sounding,I use it for vocals ,guitars and bass, it just take a little tweaking to get a great sound.The Neve requires no tweaking,has a high pass and just sounds big and complex, can be cleaner than the la-610,but also has the silk button to vintage it up. you really cant go wrong either way.
I've been useing the neve more lately because it's new.
great di box,now I dont have to reset the 610 to a vocal setting after useing it for guitar and bass.
la 610 = 1400.00
5016=1000.00