I have seen quite a few users reviews that say its not that great ...

If you have never heard all l the pres it is supposed to emulate, you will probably think it's pretty cool.

If you have heard all the pres it is supposed to emulate, you will probably not care much for it.

That's the the line the different opinions seem to be divided at

Thanks Kurt. . That's disappointing. Such a great idea and so much hype.

I've heard a lot of different opinions. Some people really love it, some people really hate it. Most seem to be somewhere in the middle.

I just read Lynn Fuston's review in EQ. He seemed to be very impressed with it, and probably has as much experience with a huge number of preamps as anyone. I've also seen quite a few comments from people who have a certain preamp and tried out the Liquid Channel and thought it didn't sound like the preamp they were familiar with. Then again, I've heard of a lot of people who have vintage Neve 1073's and hear another one and don't think it sounds like theirs.

It seems to me that it may be a good investment for a studio who primarily uses one microphone at a time to overdub and wants to have a variety of sounds at their disposal, or for a studio that has a decent assortment of preamps already and wants to pick up a few more. I don't think it would be a good replacement for existing high-end analog preamps, and I don't think that Focusrite does either...after all, they do manufacture a few themselves...

-Duardo

Sounds tempting..

For a beginner like myself, I haven't heard very many pres, so I wouldn't know the difference, however I'd still want to get what I paid for (who knows, down the line I might hear many, many pres and will start to compare) The pre I'm familiar with is a Focusrite and the mic was a u87. The sound was great so when I saw the Liquid Channel I thought "wow".

So whether it matches exactly or not, are the options you have at least quality sounding? It's a good concept though, have got to give it to them for that.