DBX Silver Series vs Onyx preamps

[Cult_Status02]

Out of curiousity, I just listened to my old bands recordings that I did on my Lexicon Omega desktop...and they sound good, expecially the vocals. In fact, the vocals in particular sound much better than the vocals I've been recently recording for a band on my Onyx 1640. So I checked out the info on the Lexicon site about my preamps and it said "Two dbx Silver Series® mic preamps with 48V phantom power provide a pristine front end for high-end condenser or more common dynamic microphones, insuring premium sound quality from the first take to the last." I was suprised because I thought they had stuck some no-name preamp in there.

My question is: in what ways do you think the DBX preamps are better than the Onyx ones?...by the sound I've gotten (though the source may be the problem) I'd say there's no competition.

 

[chessrock]

Unless you're comparing recordings of the exact same singer, tracked in the exact same room using the exact same microphone on the same day, etc. etc.

... I think it would be a major stretch (to say the least) to isolate the mic preamp as the main variable between the quality of one versus the other. In fact, I'd be baffled as to how one might arrive at that conclusion, other than by pure ignorance or wishful thinking (or some combination of both).

The whole "dbx silver" thing, by the way, is mostly a marketing / co-branding kind of thing. The dbx silver stuff uses a Texas Instruments INA-2017 instrument amp at the front end, but as far as I know, they never had any sort of patent on it. Most likely, it's based on the same chip, and a few of the engineers over there helped them out with the schematics, and then their marketing teams got together and saw a co-branding opportunity. I wouldn't look any further in to it than that.
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[xstatic]

That really surprises me. Every preamp I have ever seen in the DBX silver series has been a tube preamp. I have owned several different silver series pieces over the years and personally, I found the preamps to be pretty horrid. In fact, I would have preferred to use an older Mackie vlz preamp. The good news though is that the DBX silver series stuff is really easy to find used because most people don't keep them for long.

I would hesitate to guess that something else is to blame for the differences you are noting, and not just the preamp.