Okay, I just A/B tested my preamps, SM Pro Audio PR8E (8 ch preamp) and SPL Track One (1ch channelstrip). And yes, I've noticed that Track one is not only a preamp, its a channelstrip. It gets its extra price for the extra features it has compared to the PR8E. But I was actually quite shocked how close the preamps are to each other.
I bypassed all extra features on the SPL (except phantom power) and used a Röde NT5 to mic up me playing unplugged hollow body electric guitar (thats why it doesn't have that much bottom end on it, and sorry for the sloppy playing too), then split the signal to the preamps and then to RME Multiface.
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/smproaudiopr8e_vs_spltrackone.wav (~5.2mb)
But I do have to say that the gain control on SPL was so much more precise compared to the SM which was pretty non linear and should I say "wild", so I decided to put the level on SM to "something that wasn't clipping" and then match it with the SPL. I matched the gains as close to each other as I could, I think the difference was something like 0.1-0.2dB, so I think it was close enough. If I would've done it the other way around, it would've been very difficult. The input gain was set at 11.45 (o clock) on SM and at 3.30 on SPL.
Comments?
edit: I made a stereoversion of it, where the SM is on the left channel and SPL is on the right channel:
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/smproaudiopr8e_vs_spltrackone-01.wav (~2.6mb)
And here is a very precise zoom of 16 samples, so you can see that there is a difference, but it is very very minimal:
I bypassed all extra features on the SPL (except phantom power) and used a Röde NT5 to mic up me playing unplugged hollow body electric guitar (thats why it doesn't have that much bottom end on it, and sorry for the sloppy playing too), then split the signal to the preamps and then to RME Multiface.
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/smproaudiopr8e_vs_spltrackone.wav (~5.2mb)
But I do have to say that the gain control on SPL was so much more precise compared to the SM which was pretty non linear and should I say "wild", so I decided to put the level on SM to "something that wasn't clipping" and then match it with the SPL. I matched the gains as close to each other as I could, I think the difference was something like 0.1-0.2dB, so I think it was close enough. If I would've done it the other way around, it would've been very difficult. The input gain was set at 11.45 (o clock) on SM and at 3.30 on SPL.
Comments?
edit: I made a stereoversion of it, where the SM is on the left channel and SPL is on the right channel:
http://www.ahjteam.com/upload/smproaudiopr8e_vs_spltrackone-01.wav (~2.6mb)
And here is a very precise zoom of 16 samples, so you can see that there is a difference, but it is very very minimal:
