KVR Audio

e-modic · Post by **e-modic** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 10:11 am

http://www.record-producer.com/learn.cfm?a=2838

"Ahh... the lovely glow of a vacuum tube, warming up my beautiful music. How wonderful it is to switch on a piece of equipment and see the tube gradually come to life with its soft, unique, translucent light."

multree · Post by **multree** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 10:26 am

oh come on you can see those LEDs even when you look inside from the front.... it doesn't even look like a glowing tube.....

DuX · Post by **DuX** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 11:49 am

Now this is called Funny!

ozinexile · Post by **ozinexile** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:00 pm

It's funny how the discovery of some fake optical trickery has made this guy question the unit, and made him feel duped. Has the sound of the unit changed since this discovery? Of course not. This guy is obviously more interested in the way it looks than the sound. But then again priority in sound quality and buying behringer don't really match anyway.

rockstar_not · Post by **rockstar_not** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:01 pm

From what I've been told, all of these rather cheap 12AX7 mic pre's aren't proper tube pre-amps. The tube is there as a side chain to add various amounts of distortion, mixed in with the solid state gain stage that is present in all of these little $100/channel mic pre's.

I have a dbx mini pre, and the 12AX7 hardly glows at all, but I don't expect it to, it's not seeing much voltage in the first place.

Check it out. ART, Behringer, Bellari, PreSonus, dbx, you name it - supposedly all of these rather inexpensive 'tube' pre-amps are not proper tube gain stages, but rather solid state, with a parallel path through the tube to add in some distortion as you increase the gain. That's what I've been told.

I wrote an e-mail to dbx asking about this on my unit (circuit diagram is not available in the manual), whether the tube circuit is the actual gain stage or if it is just a distortion circuit, and I received no response.

-Scott

LBN · Post by **LBN** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:03 pm

This is nothing new. Korg pulled the same crap with their Electribe EMX1. Whether or not tubes actually add anything in such devices is one argument but I think it's outright disingenuous to engage in such gimmickry. Oh well, it's not my money.

rockstar_not · Post by **rockstar_not** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:05 pm

ozinexile wrote:It's funny how the discovery of some fake optical trickery has made this guy question the unit, and made him feel duped. Has the sound of the unit changed since this discovery? Of course not. This guy is obviously more interested in the way it looks than the sound. But then again priority in sound quality and buying behringer don't really match anyway.

I agree with the first part of your post, but the last comment about Behringer doesn't necessarily hold true. In a certain budget range, some of the best sounding gear comes from Behringer. Their IMP mic pre's on their little under 200$ mixers are some of the cleanest pre's available for that kind of money. You can't even get into used Mackie stuff for that kind of money.

-Scott

putte · Post by **putte** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:14 pm

.. bathtubes rule! ..

ozinexile · Post by **ozinexile** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:20 pm

rockstar_not wrote:
ozinexile wrote:It's funny how the discovery of some fake optical trickery has made this guy question the unit, and made him feel duped. Has the sound of the unit changed since this discovery? Of course not. This guy is obviously more interested in the way it looks than the sound. But then again priority in sound quality and buying behringer don't really match anyway.
I agree with the first part of your post, but the last comment about Behringer doesn't necessarily hold true. In a certain budget range, some of the best sounding gear comes from Behringer. Their IMP mic pre's on their little under 200$ mixers are some of the cleanest pre's available for that kind of money. You can't even get into used Mackie stuff for that kind of money.

-Scott

Actually you are right insomuch that some of behringers' range does perform quite well for the price.

And your example of the IMP preamps raises another thought. What performance gains are there in the rack mount pres over the pres in the their mixers? I doubt there would be much.

I had a behringer mixer a few years ago that did the job but I've been looking for the next step up or two in quality and don't see much point in their stand alone pres.

duncanparsons · Post by **duncanparsons** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:27 pm

I connected a 3bar eletric heater tomy preamp, and the signal's lovely and warm now, as is the transformer whick takes the mic signal and ramps it up to 250V

Who needs LEDs when you have the real thing?

DSP

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:31 pm

<JP22>

Ha! Ha! You dont have a tube preamp!

</JP22>

Voidoid Surrealist · Post by **Voidoid Surrealist** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 12:35 pm

duncanparsons · Post by **duncanparsons** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 1:04 pm

..speaking of which, have you seen BobYorden's got a plug which is a compressor and EQ in one plug - by JP22 verse 3, we should be able to get out the same signal we put in by compressing and twiddling the EQ.. cool eh?

DSP

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 1:08 pm

The manual of the behringer gear states that the tube is there as an effect, and that it is run at low gain to prolong its life. I have 2 behringer units with tubes, the tube ultragain and the tube composer. I bought them becase they were 100 bucks, and that is all I can afford. They are decent, all that I need now, but I never have heard a difference when I turned the "tube effect" to maximum on either unit. I presonally dont really care tho as long as they keep working.

Ahh... the lovely glow of a vacuum tube / Behringer