Alto rack gear

R

rickster

New member
Hi everyone, I'm a newbie here. I'm considering buying some rack gear made by a company called Alto. Does anyone have any feedback on their quality, etc. Thr price is certainly right and they look good.

The units i'm interested in are the Betaverb; Altocomp; CLE2.0.

Thanks in advance.
Rick
 
Alto is about the same as Behringer. Designed for entry level applications where budget is the prime constraint. You get what you pay for, especially in ths price range. Don't expect robust build quality. Always check it in the store before you take it home. Make sure you understand the warranty provisions. And see if it sounds good to your ear.

Gear snobbery is rife around here - I'm certain that if it all I could afford I'd still try to get the best results I could on it. But as a first choice, I've found every quality piece or rack gear I buy I feel really happy with - because it seldom presents problems. Cheap stuff dies and lives in your garage for years.
 
Alto gear is built to a very small budget, and so it sounds and performs like low budget gear. If that's what you want then that's fine, but you won't see me or many others endorsing it.
A friend of mine bought 3 dual comps for his live rig. 2 of the 3 were DOA. That was enough to convince him to give them all back and shell out a bit more for some Yamahas.
You can't complain about Alto's QC, because it obviously doesn't exist.

I'm no gear snob. I have one high-end piece of equipment which I obviously love, but the rest is only low-mid level at best. But even with low level gear, you should be able to expect that it will at least work out of the box ;)
 
I've used a lot of cheap gear and I think our friend before summed it up best when he said that you get what you pay for. However in saying that I haven't been dissapointed by my CLE2.0 yet. I use it in conjunction with a Studio Projects B2 running through a Phonic T8100 and then into the CLE2.0 and to my ears it sounds okay for most studio applications. I know there's a big element of personal taste that comes into liking gear but even a self-confessed amatuer like myself knows the difference between crap and quality. The Alto CLE2.0 at least sits on the fence.
 
I bought their little 2-channel "tube" mic pre. It is just awful. Noisy, noisy, noisy. Not pleasant at all. I would look elsewhere for cheap gear.
 
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