I would desribe the sound of the preamp as favoring the high mids, and "soft" in a Neve type way (but the tone is very different from a Neve, almost the anithesis). The EQ is very nice. Good Luck.

I have and love the Daking but I only use it for EQ. I prefer Neve and API Pre's.

I actually prefer this EQ over the Neve.

I think if you took the pre out of the daking and stuck a 1272 in it, it would be cheaper and better than the Neve 1073.

Anyway Jeff Daking told me to think of it as getting the Pre for free.

While the preamps don't suck they don't always blow me away either. The EQ is great. Very smooth and musical. I use mine for tracking kick and snare and in various places while doing overdubs. If I were getting a pair just for the preamps I might think twice about it because I'd probably get more milage out of an API but overall they're very cool and I'm glad I have them. Overall they tend to favor the high mids but aren't overly bright. It's almost a 180 from a good Neve.

I don't know if it was the same studio Bob was talking about...but there was a studio in Hoboken, NJ that had an A-Range that I spent a lot of time at...and this happened to be the studio where Geoff borrowed a couple of A-Range modules to come out with his own version.

I still us an A-Range on a regular basis (not the same one...the one I use is in N. Brookfield, MA), and I still bring Daking modules to the sessions I do there.

The equalizer seems to actually have a tad more headroom in the mid bands than the original. Very sweet, very musical sounding.

As for the pre's running out of headroom...I've never had a problem with it, though I have done some very weird shit with those pre's intentionally. If you ever have a chance, open the pre wide up, put a 57 out in the room, and whack a cowbell in front of the 57. If you have the ability to vari-speed what you're doing you can actually get the effect in time with the song...I can't really describe it, but it's an amaziningly cool sound. Sort of like you hear the cowbell hit, then like a 32nd note later the distortion shows up...it's a really cool effect (ah, maybe it was the drugs...but I remember loving it at the time)...

Perhaps these things suit ADATS I dunno, but I have heard some stunning accoustic/drumkit/band recordings made in a small apartment in NYC with Daking pre/eq's..

:)

Not just Adats. I've tracked with them to tape before and been just as happy if not happier. If I was buying something to offset an Adat it would be a Neve or maybe the Tube Tech pre. The VMP-2 is pretty good too.

I just had a chance to use the eq following a DW Fearn on a DI coming from a Kora. It, as Jules might say, "worked a treat". Never did get to use the pres on the darn thing, I figured nothing else I had around was going to get as much wood out of that bf gourd(than the Fearn).

Now why am I tracking Senegalese pop in a cow town in Colorado? Beats the fuck out of me... :D :D