I don't usually buy gear without playing with it first, but Craig at Sweetwater is helping me out a bit on this one. I needed at least 4 more channels of pre, so I special ordered another Benchmark pre. Of course, it kept getting delayed more and more and more. I need it for Saturday, so I cancelled the order and bought the Precision 8. All the reviews are amazing and the specs are great too. (Though, I'd like a slightly better slew rate - theirs is nothing to sneeze at though.)
I'm just wondering if anyone has used these and has any words of wisdom before I stick it in the field the first time.
I have 16 channels of Precision 8 and my only beef is lack of a pad, which I did not think I needed until tonight. I had a loaner DPA 4041 that was the hottest output mic I have ever run across. With minimum gain it was STILL overloading the A/D, and I did not have an inline attenuator. I ended up substituting a 4006 with a 50mm ball. With some judicious EQ it worked almost as well.
Concerning Precision 8 sound, I did a shootout with my Benchmark 420 and I preferred the Precision 8, but not by much. The Benchmark does not do quite as well with my Royer SF12, and you will learn to love the M/S matrix on CH 1&2. The option of having the lower level LEDs stay lit is a really boon for location work, especially if you put the micpres near the mics.
If you do not care for TRS, American Recorder just made me a 1m DB25 to XLR breakout with Mogami AES cable for under $100.
There are so many cool features in addition to the sound that I went for a second unit rather than getting something slightly different to "have a choice".
Thanks Rich. Yeah, the lack of a pad and a minimum gain of 16 dB does frighten me a little, but I can work with in-line attenuators. I'm kinda stoked about the dual outputs. Now I can run my back-up system (the Alesis HD24) from it's TRS inputs and the my main system (AD Converters -> Sequoia PC) from the XLR inputs at the same time.
I'll know how much I like it or not tonight - Major orchestral gig tonight!! (woo-hoo)
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