ADAT HD24 with outboard pre's

[Tnglwd_Stu]

Just interested to know if anyone's tried their HD24 with outboard pre's.

I was looking at the Focusrite Octopre's and noticed they have a digital lightpipe output option.

[Track Rat]

Well my friend, that's the only way to use one as the HD doesn't have any onboard pramps. I use mine with stand alone pre's and console pre's too.

[Tnglwd_Stu]

Yep - you're right.

I've got an Allen & Heath GS3 24:8:24:2, which is a nice sounding British Board, actually made in Cornwall, not too far away from where I am in Devon. I also got a Focusrite Penta recently and the class A pre in that is really good for vocal and other acoustic stuff.

There seems to be a bit of a trend (in the UK) anyway to go something like this, nowadays -

Pre's feeding, say, a MOTU 2408 into, for example, a Mac running Logic (or SX). Then using a Houston or Makie or Logic control surface to mix and the usual, say Mackies or Yamaha monitors. Which is all ver well until the computer wiggs out.

Anyway's I was just wondering if anyone had gone exclusivly for all pre's (as in rack mounted pre's - not desk ones) feeding the HD24 - you know quality of signal path and all that. Mastering engineers usually hark on about it.

Mic - high quality lead - octopre with A/D - lightpipe - adat.

I suppose it would be good if you wanted to add the flexibility of having 96Khz and class A pre's without ripping the guts out of the HD24 to replace all that. Actually I wonder if the Focusrite A/D is better than the Alesis A/D??? Food for thought.