Looking at DA's

[Dan Fulton]

I eventually want to go with the aphex 188's for my mic pre's

Looking at getting my stuff back out of Sac going with aphex 141's for my outs

anybody use these before or have a better suggestion for sets of 8 DA's?

[gdougherty]

My thought on Aphex was to use them as pres and then go motu for the interface. A 2408 would get 24 channels of Aphex in and 8 line outs. Could also go 24i/o and cable analog instead of adat. Or a few 2408's for the Aphex in and a 24i/o for more analog outs. Would also give more line inputs in case you need them.

[HapHazzard]

I eventually want to go with the aphex 188's for my mic pre's

Looking at getting my stuff back out of Sac going with aphex 141's for my outs

anybody use these before or have a better suggestion for sets of 8 DA's?

I have but with only 4-188 and 2-141

You want to go to 64ch in and how many out? 2 RME RayDAT cards.

If you use the RayDats you'll need to add the WCM to the first RME card to clock the 188's

Hap

[Dan Fulton]

for now it would be a 24 channel system never ran in to a situation yet that i would that many channels maybe a 36 to have to inputs and outputs to spare.

so i was thinking
3 188's
3 144's

to the raydat

[RBIngraham]

The 141 units work just fine. Very simple to use, plug them in, turn them on. Nothing to accidentally press or switch off. The only down side really is that you need to buy those DB25 patch snakes to hook up the outputs. They can be a bit pricey but it does make connections really compact. 16 analog outputs in a single rack space.

My question to you would be, do you really need 24 outputs for a system that only has 24 inputs? If you only need 16 or 8 outputs there is no reason you need to have the same number of inputs as outputs. You just don't plug anything into the ADAT Optical Outputs. Just something to think about. I guess if you have a lot of Stereo In Ear Mixes to do, then you might need that many outputs.

[gdougherty]

If it's only 24 channels then you could easily go MOTU with a 24 i/o and DB25 to TRS snakes for the 188 to 24i/o. At ~$400/DA, you could cover the cost of a 24i/o new.

[Dan Fulton]

Far As the out puts i ran in to a band a 5 piece where i ran 5 monitor/IEM mixes and where running the foh processing from the sac rig. was getting close on that with 2 ada8000 and art tube pre's where I lost the inputs of the art unit.

so now i carry 2 extra ada8000's with me. so adding the extra 144 was just a fail safe in the rack ready to go.

as far as the motu stuff just not fired up on having to tsr snake everthing into the rack.

was just gonna get a whrilwind to make a rack panel for the outs and ins anyways. so that would take care of the db25 needed on the outputs.

big question i was looking at is if there was a better unit like the aphex 144 for the DA process.

[NoFear13X]

Quick thoughts -- if you use a 24i with "good" mic pre's, aren't you still limited by the A-D converters of the MOTU? Also, if I recall correctly, the input and output banks of the 2408 are identical, so if you use ADAT in for the three banks of inputs on the 2408, the outputs would be ADAT also, not analog. If you wanted to use a set of analog outputs, that input bank would need to be analog also. (I believe -- I could be wrong, I'm not in front of my rig)

[Butch Bos]

Far As the out puts i ran in to a band a 5 piece where i ran 5 monitor/IEM mixes and where running the foh processing from the sac rig. was getting close on that with 2 ada8000 and art tube pre's where I lost the inputs of the art unit.

If you lose the inputs on an ART try powering off and on
sometimes they do not sync correctly at start up
same for outputs

Butch

[Dan Fulton]

try that also. It is going in for RMA. Nothing came back up. Rebooted the whole system powered everything on and off. This all happened as the intro was playing to start the show which was on the the ada8000.

The unit work good thru sound check 3 or 4 songs 1 to eq then listened as they practiced a few since we had time. System worked flawlessly. about 1 hour before the start of the show the unit was up. sac was still live for the whole time. played intro nobody had moniters besides the 2 guys that were on my first ada8000

Something internally went wrong. Stopped at the local shop tested the tubes. they where at 90 percent on the tester. different mics and cables nothing. tried it with out the adat hooked up to see if i could get levels nothing. I had more problems with the art stuff since i got it then i do with berhinger equipmet fron the outputs not releasing to it coming up the first night with the same issue. Gonna try to get away with the low end products. Can't have that happen again. I understand anything will fail. But you get what you pay for also.

once i get that unit back from rma it will be for sale.


If you lose the inputs on an ART try powering off and on
sometimes they do not sync correctly at start up
same for outputs

Butch

[RBIngraham]

Quick thoughts -- if you use a 24i with "good" mic pre's, aren't you still limited by the A-D converters of the MOTU? Also, if I recall correctly, the input and output banks of the 2408 are identical, so if you use ADAT in for the three banks of inputs on the 2408, the outputs would be ADAT also, not analog. If you wanted to use a set of analog outputs, that input bank would need to be analog also. (I believe -- I could be wrong, I'm not in front of my rig)

Nope, you're wrong. :p (well partially anyway)

You can have the analog outputs mirror any of the digital output banks. So lets say you set all three banks to ADAT Optical input. The ADAT Outputs will then be active on those banks. But you can also tell the analog outputs to mirror any of those 3 banks.

That is how I use mine all the time. Although I usually use the analog inputs and outputs on bank A. Since I usually have a good number of wireless mics, I just set the analog inputs to be at the -10 level and that gives me plenty of gain without clipping on most wireless mic receiver outputs. (this is which 2408 MK3 units) Then I have my Presonus preamps hooked up to Bank 2 and 3.

Anyway, you don't lose the use of the analog outputs if you have all three banks set to ADAT Optical use.

You are correct that no matter how nice the preamps if you use a 24 I/O you are using the MOTO A to D converters. But I don't see that as a bad thing unless you want to spend money on some really nice A to D frankly. I mean sure if you're comparing it to Appogees or Lavrey or something, I'm sure it would fall short. But I wouldn't expect that to be a downside in comparison to what most here are using, Behringers, Presounus or M Audio. The MOTUs would hold their own against that gear any day in my opinion.

[gdougherty]

The other pre to consider is the Profire. $400 NIB and they're a definite step up from the Ada or art units.

[jlklein]

Nope, you're wrong. :p (well partially anyway)

You can have the analog outputs mirror any of the digital output banks. So lets say you set all three banks to ADAT Optical input. The ADAT Outputs will then be active on those banks. But you can also tell the analog outputs to mirror any of those 3 banks.

That is how I use mine all the time.(snip)

You are correct that no matter how nice the preamps if you use a 24 I/O you are using the MOTO A to D converters.....The MOTUs would hold their own against that gear any day in my opinion.

Same here. I've got two 2408MkIII using all ADAT to support 48 mic inputs from our stage jacks via six ART TubeOpto8 units so I can get rid of our external patch panel and just use SAC's internal patching. In an effort to separate mic ins from line outs to the greatest extent possible (simply for neatness and organization) I have the 2408 analog outputs mirrored to Bank A on each unit to use as house and monitor feeds.

A 3rd 2408 (MkII though) is currently used for wireless mic inputs and they sound fine, if being a little weak gain wise. But, I boost the Sennheiser G3 receiver outputs to about +12dB and that lets me run the SAC digital gain anywhere from 0 to +9dB as needed with no noticeable hiss addition. I'm going to be replacing the 3rd MkII with either a 24i or 24IO to allow supporting our 8 mics, line level playback sources (vice using the ARTs as we do now) and guest wireless mics or submixers as needed. The nice thing about direct inputting to the MOTUs without an external ADAT preamp is that with no external MOTU gain settings, all gain adjustments are internal to SAC and therefore save-able.

HTH,
Jeff

[HapHazzard]

for now it would be a 24 channel system never ran in to a situation yet that i would that many channels maybe a 36 to have to inputs and outputs to spare.

so i was thinking
3 188's
3 144's

to the raydat

1 RAYDat
1 WCM (clocks the 188's with the host. Nothing required for the 144's)
3 open ports in the net switch for the 188's

At far end (FOH), a laptop running XP for the remote control of the 188's and as a option SAC remote. I run my Master/subs and Aux sends with a Fader pack from this laptop. (see video below and my photo album).

If price is not the concern, you'll find them to be the best pres you will ever own.

Hope this helps

Hap

[Dan Fulton]

thanks for reminding me about the word clock!


1 RAYDat
1 WCM (clocks the 188's with the host. Nothing required for the 144's)
3 open ports in the net switch for the 188's

At far end (FOH), a laptop running XP for the remote control of the 188's and as a option SAC remote. I run my Master/subs and Aux sends with a Fader pack from this laptop. (see video below and my photo album).

If price is not the concern, you'll find them to be the best pres you will ever own.

Hope this helps

Hap

[Cary B. Cornett]

as far as the motu stuff just not fired up on having to tsr snake everthing into the rack.

was just gonna get a whrilwind to make a rack panel for the outs and ins anyways. so that would take care of the db25 needed on the outputs.
I'm running with a Motu 2408 mkII and a couple of the Presonus Digimax FS. Not wanting to run the fanout of my stage snake to both front and back of the rack, I got a rack panel made up with 8 male XLR's, which plugs in to TRS outs in the rack. If you do the rack panel for I/O, does it make any difference whether it internally connects to DB25 or TRS?

I have only two cables from the back of my rack: the main power, and the Audiowire to the computer.