pre sonus tube pres

  • Thread starter Thread starter tsl92802
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tsl92802 said:
i would appricate real world comparisons of some sort, and not hearing about hamster cocks.

How about donkey penis, then?
 
The Ironic part is that Fletchers favorite pres are on a Yamaha mixer.:rolleyes:

I use an outboard 8 channel yamaha pre and I find it to be very useful.
 
whooa

the Yammie pre's I reffered too...where on a used MD8, mini disc..
probably not Fletch's Yamaha...

it's funny all these companys without pride, seeling crap and high end in the same breath.

like old schollers will go ""ooohh TEAC...fhkn STATE OF THE ART QUIALITY MTHR's"....some young kid things if Teac as a Clearance sale $100 audio crap equalizer company....

gerbalcock hamsterass
 
lol, dude, it's a message board, get over it. and as far as "no one wants me here"...half the people on this forum don't know/don't care that i exist enough to have an opinion about wether or not i should be on this board. get over ur post number. i've never seen u write one useful thing in all the articles i read. and i appolgize to the people on this board that i may have pissed off with the post number...if there were more people like bruce on the site it would be great....but sorry i had to take up your valuable berhinger bashing time...maybe i'll try and make it up to u and tell u how i used a speaker to mic a kick that i found in a dumpster that was worth 9 million dollars, laying next to a u47 and u87 with some neve pre's under it. i'll be waiting for u to bash my "newbie ass." and again, i appoligize to the many people on this board that offer real advice, u guys are great.
 
tsl92802 said:
but sorry i had to take up your valuable berhinger bashing time...maybe i'll try and make it up to u and tell u how i used a speaker to mic a kick that i found in a dumpster that was worth 9 million dollars, laying next to a u47 and u87 with some neve pre's under it. i'll be waiting for u to bash my "newbie ass."

I've never mentioned Behringer on this board. I don't bash them. You're obviously talking out of your ass. I told you that the Presonus "tube" pre that I used to have was dark and noisy, that it was much worse than the DMP3, and that is an OK bass DI, but obviously that wasn't good enough for you. You want me to write a thesis about piece of crap toob pre 1 versus piece of crap toob pre 2.

You're an idiot. And not because you're a newbie, but because you're an idiot. The reason I said that no one wants you here is because no one want more idiots wasting the bandwidth on this site.
 
I like the PreSonus.
You're not going to use it for boy band music, classical or country. You want to use it on music that requires some dirt and warmth.
Slap a Telefunken tube (or a Groove tube from Ebay for 10 bucks) in that thing and give it a go. The tube replacement will remove most of the noise.
But keep the tube drive dial below 12 oclock. That's all.
It's a good, retro-sounding pre for the money.
And let that tube heat up for 1/2 hour before recording to prevent fluctuations in sound between takes.


http://www.mountainmirrors.com
 
Hmmm.. I was just about to suggest that the Blue Tube might sound a little better with a real tube - or a fresh one, but yer beat me to it.

Fletcher's just cranky because people call things powered by wall warts "tube-driven" and he lives with the real thing - which the Blue Tube jes' ain't gonna compete with, no matter what you put in it. But for a hundred and a half and as long as you don't overdrive it, mine isn't bad. . . said the newbie.
 
So, after reading this yesterday, I though, "why not?". So I went and got a 12ax7 Groove Tube, and swapped the tube in the TubePre this morning before I went to work. I haven't gotten a great chance to test it out yet, but I tried a couple of things. These were both done with the Gain (tube) knob at 12o'clock, and the level knob as high as it needed to be to get the signal up to about 0dbu.

I plugged in my bass guitar, and put it up on the monitors. This definitely sounded better! Not amazingly better, but an unquestionable improvement. Warmer, smoother sound, and more bass frequencies as well. In fact, I had never thought so before, but now I can acctually see using this thing for a Bass DI. It definitely sounded better than a lot of the sounds I've been able to get out of the POD.
I plugged in an AT4040, and just stood about a foot back playing guitar and singing. Again, nothing amazing, but the new tube did take away the unpleasing harshness, and it acctually sounded quite pleasing on my voice. Again, much smoother. Mind you, the smoothness was borderline muddiness, but that would probably just be a matter of slightly more scrutinizing mic placement, as I didn't spend any time on that at all.

My verdict: I might acctually end up using this thing more often now that it's a bit better sounding, although I'll need to check it out a bit more. I also have an A Designs MP-1 on the way, so it will be interesting to compare it to a REAL tube pre.
 
I think we'll be seeing another Presonus Tube Crappo thingy on Ebay as soon as Smatty's A-Designs arrives. :D I'd guess within 48 hours of it's arrival.
 
Hahaha, yeah I hope you're right! But, I thought it would be fun to try for the $10 it cost... Hey let's put it this way: If you have one of these unit's, and you're going to be using it for a while, it's definitely worthwhile to change the tube ;)
 
Look at the prices. It's really apples and oranges when you compare a $129 preamp to one that costs $1,150. It's not a fair comparison, as far as audio quality. The TubePRE is meant to be a budget mic preamp for the home studio, designed to offer the best quality *at the price point*. The A-Designs is intended for the pro user with more money to spend, and has a more all-out design. Each piece is intended for specific and differnet market segment, and the only true *value* comparisons are between units in the same market segment in my opinion.

In other words, of course the A-Designs will beat it. So will probably any preamp that costs over $1,000. But the TubePRE is not competing against them in the marketplace, it's competing against the VTB-1's and DMP3's and the ART stuff.
 
SonicAlbert said:
it's competing against the VTB-1's and DMP3's and the ART stuff.

I don't even know if that's a fair comparison. Maybe it's competing against the built-in pres in a multitrack recorder. And it might even be in over it's head there. :D I'd say it competes against plugging a mic directly in to a sound card with no amplification. That might be a more apples-to-apples kind of thing.
 
SonicAlbert said:
The TubePRE is meant to be a budget mic preamp for the home studio, designed to offer the best quality *at the price point*.
But it fails miserably at that. For a similar price you can get the VTB-1, which stomps it. For $50 more you can get the DMP3 which, IMHO, kills it.

Actually, I'm basing all of this on the BlueTube. I don't know if the TubePRE is better.
 
But seriously -- and not that I have anything at stake in this, because I don't even use this thing anymore -- but seriously, it makes absolutely no sense to base your judjement on one product by your opinions of another! Hmmm... let's see, what's a good example. Here's one: I tried the AKG C3000, and therefor, have decided that all AKG products are garbage.... Obviously, I would be sorely mistaken...

I've heard some bad stuff about the BlueTube, so I totally understand why people might be sceptical. In fact, lots of bad stuff. Even the salespeople that talked me into the TubePre told me bad stuff about the BlueTube. So... I don't know, I've never used one, but I'm 99% positive that this thing is better... Just from looking at it, I can see that there are like 6 knobs on the BlueTube, which is ussually a good indication that they've tried to pack way more functionality into it than is possible for $145...

The only reason I'm so adement about saving this products rep, is that it might acctually be good, and it is possible, that there are people out there that would acctually benefit from using this pre. I'd hate to thing that there are budget minded people out there who are missing out on something that is acctually decent. I've never used a VTB1 or a DMP3, and rightly so, I would have to before making any comparisons. But honestly, sitting next to the RNP, it really doesn't sound that bad, and it absolutely destroys the sound coming out of a Behringer UltraGain2200, which I've seen recommended umteen times on various boards. On top of that, it's only $99, which is cheaper than most other budget pre's. Anyways, I ain't no cheerleader, but I've yet to hear from anyone that has acctually tried this product... just a lot of people who hate the BlueTube. I just think we should all be as objective as possible, and assume nothing....
 
SmattyG said:
But seriously -- and not that I have anything at stake in this, because I don't even use this thing anymore -- but seriously, it makes absolutely no sense to base your judjement on one product by your opinions of another! Hmmm... let's see, what's a good example. Here's one: I tried the AKG C3000, and therefor, have decided that all AKG products are garbage.... Obviously, I would be sorely mistaken...
Good point. I guess I just assumed they'd be similar. My bad.:o
 
Sounds good to me.
I like to keep the tube drive at about a 2 or 3. The Electro Harmonix 12AX7 tube is nice and quiet, too.
We all know it's about the performance and song anyways, right? :-)
 
Good point about offering opinions on gear you've actually used! :-)

I can say that I've used the Blue Tube (even bought one for my brother as a birthday gift a while back), and I've also used the TubePRE in a number of situations (checking it out as a reviewer of the unit). For the money it's a decent preamp, it surprised me how clean and detailed it was. Am I going to toss my Grace 201? Heck no! But for someone looking for a $99 preamp for their home studio I still think it's not a bad deal at all.

However, I dont have a TubePRE sitting next to a VTB-1 or DMP3 or ART, so I can't make that comparison. But neither can anyone else unless they've done the direct A/B thing. And to really offer a meaningful opinion you have to have them next to each other or extensive real-world experience with both units.

A more fair comparison between the A-Designs and a Presonus product might be for some of their future stuff. Presonus has announced that they will be creating some gear in collaboration with ADL (Anthony Demaria Labs). I would expect that gear to be more expensive, but also more competitive with mid range units like the A-Designs stuff.

My point again is just that for comparison purposes it's necessary to compare products in like categories both in function and price. Because in *most* cases the more expensive product will stomp on the little guy. The reality is that quality parts and design cost money and time, raising the end price. I've come to the conclusion that except in rare circumstances it costs the end user at least around $750-1,000 per channel for truly noticably better sounding analog audio (new street price). That's based on my own experiences buying gear. Gear under that price limit has compromises of one sort or another.
 
I still believe that this particular case might warrant a rare exception. And that there is at least :

a very high likelihood . . .

a strong inclination . . .

a statistically significant probability . . .

and perhaps even a strong likelihood . . .


That it indeed does blow elephant penis.

And while I run a small, rather miniscule, infintesimal chance that I may, in fact, be missing out on a worthwhile piece of gear . . . the much higher risk of it sucking is just too great for me to consider taking a chance on it not sucking.
 
Heheheh, yes Chessrock, I would agree that you should not take a chance on this peice.... and yes, you would probably be dissapointed. But I say that under the understanding that you've got some really nice gear, and you're no longer shopping for stuff in this category ;) Yeah, I also agree, that if someone is not going to get a chance to test stuff out, they should go with something that has a more authenticated reputation... but hey, if you're in a store (any of you that is), might as well plug one in and see... Maybe you'll be surprised (or maybe chessrock is right)... I couldn't say for sure.
 
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