SSL makes great gear
So why does their sales guy have to resort to misleading misinformation to get us to buy they stuff?
Last night I went to an SSL 'seminar' where they had set up most of their gear, all the way up to the flagship Duality. We also got to look at a production truck with a C200. I got to play around with both of those for a while and I like!
But then the VP of sales starts talking about the hybrid digital/analog approach and why you need an analog summing box. He talks about dither and blames it for why digital summing is bad--all the while completely misrepresenting what dither is and does. Then he plays a mix that was done in the box, and then one that was sent out to an SSL analog mixer--I forget which one, and their
website isn't very friendly for finding stuff.
The OTB mix was obviously better than the ITB mix. (even so, someone in the audience preferred the ITB.) The OTB was a lot wider and had much greater clarity. Now, I've done some summing box tests of my own, using all sorts of mixers from a Dangerous to a Mackie. (SSL guy specifically said not to use a mackie for analog summing) I could not make my ITB mix sound worse than the OTB mix. Different, of course, but one was never conclusively better or worse than the other. (and of course, some will say I'm deaf if I admit that...) The differences just outlined the tradeoffs between the approaches.
This SSL ITB mix was obviously inferior. (to most of us there, with a few exceptions) So either SSL is incompetent at doing an ITB mix, or the sales guy is shoveling something and blaming it on dither. Dither! And he also brought up the classic "analog is infinite but digital has steps" lie. I have my opinion on the matter. What you y'all think it is?
I mean really! SSL gear is top notch. Why must the sales guy do that? Is he so poor at sales that he can't sell the stuff on its own genuine merits?
The worst part is that there were a bunch of students there from the local university recording program. I can only hope that their teacher is knowledgeable enough to counteract this pack of propaganda.