Well the closest I have come is standing next to a stack of 7 of them! But they were all switched off! :)

Can you not just get an extra digital i/o card for your desk then another ADAT bridge?

BTW - is your ADAT bridge the newest 24 bit model? Cause the old ones were only 20 bit.

:w:

Hey Jules - thanks for the response - I have learnt a LOT from you and your esteemed posters.

I will probably follow up the FX rentals solution unless I get some negative feedback.

My desk (Spirit 328!) cannot be extended further regards digital i/o though I have considered this might be the weak link in the chain. Feel free to comment.

My most successful (or least dismal) mixes definitely involve 'lifting' key elements via analog inserts - to hell with the converson 'loss'.

Two of my specific constraints are space and time so I am not keen to have to purchase separate digi + converter interfaces + word clock distribution when everything is compact and bejou.

Repatching time can then be saved by having preamps, DIs, keys hard wired in presumably as you have with the AD8000s.

I like the idea of the modularity of the Prism unit - can be 16 DAs or 8 of each.

How many more analog i/o's do you have?

Perhaps a Apogee DA16 and another ADAT bridge i/o to hang it off would be cool, just a quick idea..

See what turns up here...

:)

Hi Robb,

I don't actually own a Prism ADA-8. I've got 2 888|24s and a 1622. But a couple of times I've hired one from FX when I had some critical tracking to do.

The clocking on the Prism is excellent, certainly good enough to act as a masterclock, providing you distribute it correctly. It does support digi superclock, it's on the PT card if I remember correctly.

Sound wise I haven't heard anything to touch it, not even the AD8000SE. I really liked some DB Tech converters I tried once but given the choice I'd still have the Prism. BTW, I've only ever used the Prism with PTMix so I've never heard what it sounds like at 96kS/s, I've only ever used the Prism @ 48kS/s.

I haven't heard digi's 192 converter yet but I would be very surprised if it's even in the same league.

Although the Prism requires a considerable investment I think in the long run it will hold it's worth quite well. It seems like most of the components and the software are designed with future upgrade capability in mind. I'm not sure how this will work in practice but I've usually been very impressed with the support and upgrading of most of the purely high end audio manufacturers.

Greg

Greg, I feel the answer to your "investment saftey" hunch might come in the form of future Firewire cards for all these interfaces (Apogee / Prism)

From trade gossip native / firewire will rule in a year or so.

It's not such a stretch to imagine Prism already having or making a FW interface soon, call em and see!

Apogee have a FW card planned for the AD8000 already.

:)

Hi Jules,

<< From trade gossip native / firewire will rule in a year or so. >>

I agree, although I think it will be longer than a year as far as native taking over. If someone has the money to buy a Prism, I'd assume they'll probably be wanting to use it with a system that doesn't have the latency of a native system.

Greg

I actually using Prism Dream ADA 8 for more than 4 months now. It become our master interface to 888/24 and 2x 888. It ROCKS, our mixing room never been sound more depth and good images. We using AD-8000, RME DS-8 for long time. They can't compare to Prism. But it was double the price of AD-8000. It also our reason not to upgrade to HD. HD is close the doors to make PT sound better. We hard to believed 192 will sound as good as Prism.

Hi all,

I managed to secure a demo Prism ADA-8 unit from my dealer and have had it for a week now and wanted to share some thoughts:

The demo unit has the Protools i/f. Connected the Prism as the master clock. I previously used a PSX-100 as masterclock and for all AD and DA via an ADAT bridge, but disconnected these.

First off, played some largish 30-40 track mixes
straight out from Protools mixplus. There are stereo monitors out (digital and analog) on the Prism. Also, you can pan and set volume independently on each of the 8 monitored channels.

Jaw dropping moment! Holy F*cking Shit!
I did not expect to hear too much of a difference purely monitoring out compared with the psx-100 but there it was.

Now improvements in sound are so hugely subjective, all I can say is whether it was a 5% or a .01% improvement, it was the IMPORTANT bit that was previously missing. Compared to the psx-100 it was somehow more relaxed,less aggressive - like how I imagine changing from a low headroom mixer to a high end mixer would feel.
The bit I really liked was the extra harmonic content that somehow seemed to come back - especially on distorted synth leads and mic'ed guitars - lows and mids were much tighter, controlled and much much more musically satsifying. I had a literally sleepless night listening back to various mixed projects.

I got back the vibe of each track since originally laying it down into Protools, the exciting colours that had been missing. I began to think that the Protools mix bus problem that I had perceived for some time, could not be as serious as first imagined since submixed tracks were coming back as pure as they went in.

Over the weekend, I completed tracking an album's worth of material for a great female singer songwriter and was able to compare tracks already tracked using the PSX-100 and then with the Prism, otherwise identical environment.

I certainly do not have the same level of experience as many of you pro engineers, but after 5 years recording digitally I feel that I have at last found a quality of basic sound with which I am completely happy. No HD for me, though I'd be happy if it sounds as good as this. The tracks don't sound particularly analog or digital - just the sound of a great performer in a reasonably nice room.

v. v. cool. my psx-100 and adat bridge are up for sale as well as my digital mixer. I know the word 'expensive' appears in every sentence on these forums connected with the Prism but I'll be happy to sacrifice plenty of other goodies. I haven't heard any of the other top of the range converters. I shall be v. content to keep this unit and get on with making some more music rather than worrying about the HD upgrade etc etc ...

cheers
Rob

Robb,
I'm using the Cranesong HEDD 192 as a front end to ProTools and have been very pleased also. You may want to compare this to your Prism as I bought it based on engineers here on recording.org that A/B'd the two and liked the HEDD better than the Prism at a fraction of the price. Both A/D and D/A with tape saturation effects. I paid 2700.00 at http://www.soundpure.com from Todd.
Either way enjoy your new sounds.
Allen

Wow! Interesting! Good to get the follow up report thanks...

:w:

"Prism as I bought it based on engineers here on recording.org that A/B'd
the two and liked the HEDD better than the Prism at a fraction of the
price"

I was one of those guys that posted(I own a Hedd 192 and on occasion rent the Prism ADA-8). About a year ago we did a shootout with the Prism Ada-8, Hedd 192K,AD8000SE,Mytek, and a host of others. Everything was recorded at 24bits 44.1K and 48K on ProTools. The consensus was the Prism was definitely the best(it should be its almost double the price of the others). The HEdd came in second and there were certain types of music were I prefered it(and stil do). The Prism is a great unit. If I had $8,000-10,000 to throw around I wouldn't mind getting it. And it is a bargain when you consider you get (4) pairs of stellar AD/DA or 16DA for around $2,000 a pop(the HEdd is $2700, the Apogee PSX100 is around $2300?). The other great unit I tried lately was the blue line DB technologies unit. Another contender and very flexible. You can build it up how you want it. The Prism stands by itself.

"Prism as I bought it based on engineers here on recording.org that A/B'd
the two and liked the HEDD better than the Prism at a fraction of the
price"

I was one of those guys that posted(I own a Hedd 192 and on occasion rent the Prism ADA-8). About a year ago we did a shootout with the Prism Ada-8, Hedd 192K,AD8000SE,Mytek, and a host of others. Everything was recorded at 24bits 44.1K and 48K on ProTools. The consensus was the Prism was definitely the best(it should be its almost double the price of the others). The HEdd came in second and there were certain types of music were I prefered it(and stil do). The Prism is a great unit. If I had $8,000-10,000 to throw around I wouldn't mind getting it. And it is a bargain when you consider you get (4) pairs of stellar AD/DA or 16DA for around $2,000 a pop(the HEdd is $2700, the Apogee PSX100 is around $2300?). The other great unit I tried lately was the blue line DB technologies unit. Another contender and very flexible. You can build it up how you want it. The Prism stands by itself.

"you get (4) pairs of stellar AD/DA or 16DA"

EH? :)

"you get (4) pairs of stellar AD/DA or 16DA"
EH?
Run that past me again?

You can have two different kinds of configs. 8 AD and 8 DA outs=4x2=8 right? Or you can have 16 ADs or 16 DA's only.

I'm curious, could a user hop between the styles of configurations by ... swapping cards or something?

:eek:

Throw this in the mix .......

B E N C H M A R K . . . . . . . :D

Just food for thought ... Polyhymnia Int (Phillips Int) ... No 1 Classical Label; with far more critical requierments than most of us need be concerned about, uses none other than Benchmark. Along with Lucas Films who can certainly afford anything they desire. They are eagerly awaiting the 192 version due out soon.

So ... in that hunt for the ultimate ... check out a sleeper ... little known to our side of life. :cool:

Kyle Ober

I recently read some cool rock PT guy uses Benchmark. it perked my interest. Kyle also keeps their name from slipping my memory!
:D

:w:

Hey Jules ... :cool: