DA Convertors.. Opinions?

I'm always curious about this but it seems like eventually you have to listen for yourself.

I'm also cautious about the realization that you can bump the upper mids on any signal and watch people say all sorts of intellectualized things about the perceived improvement in detail.

One thing I do know... if you want to assemble 16-32 tracks of the best stuff on earth... you will end up with a bunch of two track boxes and you will end up with a clocking nightmare.

I see some folks have a medium grade hi track count device and perhaps 1 or two 2 channel top of the line units.

I also see connoisseurs have multiple 2 channel high end boxes and select them for use just as a mic or preamp might be selected.

I use a MOTU 896HD and after a few more fancy mic purchases I will probably try to see if anything really does sound better... or just different.

One thing that is easy to accept... the top of the line units have top of the line analog portions and that has got to be good.

best regards,
mike

A whole can of worms here.  There is a difference.  Here at home when I went to TCK from PreSonus FirePod there was much more detail, but as Mike said a lot of it was mid/highs.  The mixes themselves didn't sound so much better as I recall.  Maybe I'm just good or have no ears to tell the mix difference ;-)  It does make it easier to hear some stuff, but "night and day?" 

Some of this is no doubt the placebo effect.  If you bother to buy something, even if it doesn't cost a lot, you feel like there should be an improvement.  That in itself can be helpful, if you are listening to your work closer because you think you hear stuff better.  Still, high end stuff is worth having, even if it is only a little bit better.  A mid-grade convertor and preamp and mic might get you to 90% - a new preamp or convertor might add a couple of percentage points to it.  If you have developed your skills (esp. on bottom level stuff) then you can use it.  Also bear in mind everything in the signal chain helps.  If you are mixing over computer speakers a Mytek convertor probably ain't going to help you too much.

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