The Trident mentioned at the beginning of this post is not a Toft, but branded under the Tridnt name by John Oram. There is a lot of contention concerning Oram and his actual designs with Trident as a company. Oram seems to make a lot of claims about what he actually did and what he designed at Trident which seem to be refuted by most everyone else at Trident. My experience so far has been that the current Trident offerings really do not sound at all like the older Trident stuff that it is "supposed" to sound like. On the other hand, the Oram stuff still sounds pretty good. The actual Oram designs consoles in my opinion sound much better than the Soundcraft Ghost as well as typically offereing more and better features. They are also at a different price point though. The Trident 8t may be a great little mixer in it's own right but I would not buy it thinking you are getting "that Trident sound" that most professionals refer to. For that matter, I probably would not view the Toft ATB that way either. Both consoles may be great, but are certainly no series 80 or A range desk. If you really want that classic Trident sound, I would just look for an old Trident. Even amongst the old Trident desks, there are still some pretty wide sonic differences between the different models. The A range and the Series 80 are typically what is referred to as the "Trident Sound". Short of buying an actual vintage Trident console, if you really want that sound, or at least a pretty close representation, you may want to give Geoff DaKing a listen.
