Preamp to ADAT help

73*

73*

Listening is Paramount
I'm hoping someone can help me. I currently own a Tascam FW1884 and a Focusrite Voicemaster Pro (without the digital out option) and plan to pick up a tube pre and probably a solid state in the near future. Currently I run the outputs of my VMP into two of the analog inputs on the FW1884 with the gain turn right down. Now I don't believe that is actually giving me a true hardware bypass of the tascam pre's.What I'm wonering is if anyone knows of a piece of gear that will allow me to bypass the tascam pre's (high quality, and preferably offers digital and line level inputs). I'd like take advantage of the ADAT conection that the FW1884 offers but all the pieces of gear I've seen either have crappy A/D Converters or provide preamps (a la Presonus Digimax FS, or Focusrite Octopre LE). I know the digital output option on the VMP would solve the problem for now but I don't like the idea of having to send anyother preamp I buy through another preamp.Thanks
 
If you're going into the Tascam's line inputs at unity, you are, by definition, bypassing the preamps.

If you're plugging your preamp's line outputs into the Tascam's preamp input, you are, by definition, very confused and you should read your manuals.

I won't go into the whole "toob" preamp thing right now... Not enough time...
 
Thanks.

After posting my question I re-read the FW's specs....The Line inputs are wired parallel to the Preamps (how I missed it the first 3 times is beyond me). I believe my real confusion was in assuming that since the trim pots of the FW allows me to apply gain to the line level signal it was doing so through the preamp.


Massive,

Please get into the "toob" thing if you don't mind...
 
To put it very simply, "cheap" and "tube" in the same sentence generally leads to "crappy sound" in the next. There's a recent "marketing push" toward tube preamps for their "warm" sound (which is a load of complete hogwash in the first place). 90% of them sound terrible. And almost every single classic preamp ever made in the last several decades is solid state. It's the transformers that make "warm" - Not starved-plate crappy "toob" circuitry.

Manley, Avalon - Good tube designs. Anything under $2-3k, probably a "toob" design. Don't bother.

And again, in any case, a solid preamp with quality transformers is going to give you what you're looking for. Great River, API, Langevin - The good stuff.
 
I prefer a few others - API, Great River, Neve, etc. But they're certainly very nice preamps.
 
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