OK, stupid question about the 400F

[Dimebag]

Hi all...

I've been looking at the 400F lately, to make the switch to firewire, and basically get a "worthy" upgrade from my old Gina24...

One thing I've been wondering about, is those Onyx pre's...
Can I (just to get that nice Onyx-color) connect my PodXT Pro's balanced XLR outs to these Onyx Pre's (using the XLR connections, and thereby the actual preamp) without overloading them or something???

I mean, with the gain all the way down, they amplify by 0 db, so the Onyx will be hit by a line-level signal, right??
Can that harm the unit, or is it ok?

...or am I totally off track here, and in reality it doesn't matter if I use the TRS or the XLR, both is Onyx'ed???

Dime, Denmark...

 

[therage!]

I've ran modelers into preamps before with no problem. Just watch the gain and don't let it clip. When modelling I now use S/PDIF except for some Bass work I do then run it straight into a preamp on my console.

The 400F looks great and it's working great for some but others are having problems with it. It looks like Mackie needs to do a driver update and they haven't. Personally I would pass on it until Mackie gets all the problems worked out with it. Check out the Mackie forums and the Craig Anderton 400F review thread at HC.

Your Gina is an excellent card with good specs. You are not going to be making some quantum leap with a 400F over the Gina. You would have to go up to Apogee, Lynx, Lucid etc to do that. Me personally I would keep the Gina for now and upgrade to a nice pre and or do room treatment or whatever. The A/D converter in the 400F is good but they sort of cheapen the unit with the D/A they use. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm sure they were able to keep the cost down by using what they did.

Another nice unit (but there are reports of people having problems) is the Yamaha i88x. You can get these for $400 US.