Great River, Old School Audio, or Phoenix Audio UK. They all offer one channel versions of top shelf gear that in the overall scheme of things is quite cost effective. Good Luck.
Nathan Eldred
atlasproaudio.com
If you want to avoid the "vanilla" offerings presented by many of the "box" stores, and you really want to get to the good stuff, I suggest pieces from Great River (NV), Old School Audio (MP1-C, MP1-L), and Phoenix Audio UK (DRS). These companies offer preamps that can provide character and...
You'll need better monitoring, and even 16/44.1 isn't really the greatest. I'll guessing you don't have an audiophile DAC? The jitter alone in your DAC can destroy differences. Combine that with a MP3 and it's useless. Also, try using a cheap mic preamp over 16 or more tracks, and then use...
No offense, but this couldn't be more untrue. Want Clean? Remove the transformers from a "colored" design. It will become quite uncolored (or mostly clean) very quickly. Just because it's a discrete design doesn't mean that it will have character. The type of capacitor used can actually...
I don't agree about the RNP being extremely colored. It's not extremely clean, but it's about 95% of the way there, it really depends on where the gain is too. If you are driving the input until the yellow light comes on, well yeah, it's not as clean.
Nathan Eldred
atlasproaudio.com
Great River MP-2NV (or now the 1 channel NV identical to the 2 channel...er...except one channel), and the Phoenix Audio DRS-2 which is somewhat based on Neve sound, but is a new fresh start. Both compliment each other very well. YMMV.
Best Regards
Nathan Eldred
atlasproaudio.com