Spyder, you couldn't tell a difference between busman's samples? I listened to those 'Althea' sample and tho it wasn't huge difference, the bass was definitely looser with the busman's mod. The highs were a little exaggerated, at least the ride of the cymbals were more 'sustained' and washed out. Mind you, from what I remember of my old stock UA-5, a big improvment....but not in the same league as the Oade T+ mod. FYI, Oade is NOT using the Burr Brown OPA 2134 chip, as Doug has said himself.
A fine score, none the less. If I wasn't nickel and diming busman, I would have probably been running that myself by now.
Never said it was in the same league as the Oade. No sir, that never left my finger tips. But seriously, I couldn't really tell the difference. Squinting just makes me dizzy. I set up both tracks, one in Adobe Audition and one in Total Recorder. Kept going back and forth, it was really close as far as I was concerned. I even zoomed in on both tracks w/ Adobe, looking for any noise that would deviate the wav length. Not much at all, if any. Bottom line, its a big improvement over the stock UA5. And its only the transparency mod upgrade. Warm mods and presence mods are not available right now as far as I know. Chris did a extremely nice job on this preamp and he should be commended.
Doug only supports those UA5's he modded. The UA5 is no longer in production, so Doug won't upgrade any off-the street UA5s. Since people have fallen in love w/ their Oade and are keeping them, some of us on the outside, who can't afford a V3, must make do. Also, just because Doug is not using the Burr Brown OPA 2134 chip, doesn't mean that its an inferior chip to his. Doug has not released, publicly, what chip he is using. So we don't know what he's using or whether he ever considered this chip. We don't even know what exact parts he used for the PLUS mod stuff. At least I don't, maybe someone here knows more and wants to share. We may never know with the way technology is changing in our field. Either way, Doug is also commended for making a sweet upgrade to this box. Excellent job Doug, with great sincerity!
I'd love to shell out $1300 for the V3. But $300 I spent for the Busman2 UA5, matched with the 414-XLS and the Bumblebees, I think I can get some good sound quality out too. Of course, one still has to consider: mic location and technique, sound quality of the stacks/monitors, the SBD mix, the room, drunken ass-clowns, and whether the band is "On". I could be running $20,000 worth of equipment, and if any of these things become a bad factor, I might not have a good recording or a good time at the show for that matter.
Topic: Busman2 UA5 mod - demo (Read 7238 times)