Two different leagues really, I have the Eureka and had a tubepre for some time and A/B'd them once and you could clearly hear the difference between the two. The Eureka was much more clean and clear.

jonnyc wrote: Two different leagues really, I have the Eureka and had a tubepre for some time and A/B'd them once and you could clearly hear the difference between the two. The Eureka was much more clean and clear.

Yeah, the Eureka's a channel strip with a transformer-coupled preamp. No tubes. It does have a "saturation" knob, but I think it just adds a smear to the sound. Someone might find it useful though.

Anyway, it's a nice, clean pre-comp combo for the price though (at least mine was since I got its A/D i/o card for free). I use mine in my project studio to line-in bass guitar and lay down scratch vocals via my NTK. It definitely sounds better than the Tubepre.

thanks for the help guys. i think i'm going to save up and get one. i want to get the best sound possible, and i'm also becoming a gear junkie, so now i have to have one. thanks.

meadows83 wrote: thanks for the help guys. i think i'm going to save up and get one. i want to get the best sound possible, and i'm also becoming a gear junkie, so now i have to have one. thanks.

Make sure it best suits your needs first. Do you need a full channel strip or just a clean pre? Or would you prefer a pre and a separate comp, each with their own characteristics? What's the best bang-for-buck purchase for you? Those are some of the questions you'll want to ask yourself.

basically, i want to be able to achieve the best quality/most professional or near pro sound that i can. especially with micing guitar amps with a sennheiser e906 and an sm57, and also for tracking bass direct. do you think this would a good choice over the tubepre??

If you're looking for the best out of the two then there isn't even a question which one is better. The tubepre is just about the bottom of the preamp line, there are very few pieces worse. The Eureka is great but honestly if you're going to spend 500 bucks on a single channel I think it would best to get something like a grace101, its not a channel strip but neither is the tubepre, however the grace101 is a super clean, fantastic sounding pre. If you really think you want a compressor then maybe look at FMR's RealNicePre(RNP) and RealNiceCompressor(RNC) you can use those in conjunction with each other and its not much more than a Eureka. Honestly if I had to do it all over again I wouldn't have bought the Eureka.

meadows83 wrote: basically, i want to be able to achieve the best quality/most professional or near pro sound that i can. especially with micing guitar amps with a sennheiser e906 and an sm57, and also for tracking bass direct. do you think this would a good choice over the tubepre??

The Eureka's a better choice than the Tubepre, yeah.

As the previous poster mentions, you might want to check out the Grace 101 and an RNC. That's a good combo.

I like my Eureka, especially for tracking bass. But, to reiterate, I got it with a free digital i/o card (which usually runs around an additional $300 I think) and use it in my home project studio where I compose, but don't do a lot of live recording.

yeah, as far as compressors go, i don't mind using plug-ins, and i probably need to use far less compression anyways, because some of my tracks are really boomy. so, i definitely don't need a compressor or eq built in to the preamp. i think i will check out this grace101 you guys are talking about. if it's not a channel strip, that's even better because i would have to buy a new rack for the eureka anyway. thanks again for the help guys. i'm off to read hundreds of reviews on the grace101!

The TubePre is good for it's price, but I have to agree that the Eureka Pre is much cleaner. Now whether or not you need the comp and eq is a whole different story, but it is nice to have sometimes. I wouldn't really worry about the rack issue, b/c at some point you'll end up getting one. They really make life easier, and you'll get to the point where you won't want something unless it is rack mountable. IMHO some kind of hardware comp is a "must have" for vocal tracking...well at least it makes life easier. If you do go with the Grace you should probably look into picking up a RNC.