Topic: Warm Mod UA5=Grace Sound, Presence Mod UA5=Apogee

[marc0789]

v3 is as tight as Pamela Anderson, and as accurate as Mark Bulger.  

[Joe w.]

the sky is blue.


Let's see if you disagree with that one.

[Nick in Edinboro]

dude the sky is most definately grey here.

[Joe w.]

bastards.

[marc0789]

grey here for sure. and 20 degrees, with a bitchin' 20 mph wind. And it's way above normal.

[Nick in Edinboro]

I'd call the sky warm and tight, with colored mids and white highs..  There's snow falling so it might not be bit perfect, I'm not exactly sure until I'm done with my testing.

Marc, it's -7 here with the windchill.  A warm +6 without the windchill.

[marc0789]

you know, it's cold to me, but really unusually warm here, high around 24 today, some wind chill, but not bad. Pretty wimpy so far, and I guess that's the trend here over the last several years. Being from Phoenix, still freezing my nuts off, until I moved here, high of 60 in the winter was worth bitching about, and anything below 40 at night, cold!!!  

[Brian Skalinder]

The distinction makes sense to me:

Warm-mod UA5 / Grace sound
overall feels smoother across the range
full, extended low end, but not as tight as below
nice meaty mids with an even transition to highs
extended highs, soft on attack but long on decay

Presence-mod UA5 / Apogee sound
overall feels punchier across the range
slightly rolled-off low-end, more "shape" to it in the mid-upper lows
mids more up front, punchier
more pronounced highs, brings out the attack in the highs

To my ears, this sort of mirrors the differences I hear between the Grace V3 and Apogee Minime.  I find the Grace warmer, smoother, and fuller, more extended, while the Apogee has more "shape" to it, feels punchier in the deep lows and more pronounced in the upper bass and upper mids/highs.

Some people prefer the warm and smooth (some would say boring) Grace sound.  Some people prefer the punchier, more up front (some would say edgier) Apogee sound.

 :twocents:

My ears hear what I wrote and I know which I prefer.  Use whatever single-word descriptor you want: warm = this, presence = that, doesn't matter to me.  However, I think we'd all have a better time understanding each other's opinions on how these devices sound to our own ears if we used more than a single word to describe each.

[Craig T]

Brian,

I completely agree with your descriptions of the warm & presence mods.  I think maybe we should just quit trying to equate them to the "Grace" or "Apogee" sound - they really don't sound like either, certainly not close enough to be a cheap replacement if that's what people are looking for.  The UA5 mods give us 2 more flavors to chose from and great sound and features for not so much $.

[MattD]

Scott Brown. And I do have a POS home system. But not POS enough to make a warm pre sound bright.  

Um, that wasn't Scott.

[Brian]

Brian,

I completely agree with your descriptions of the warm & presence mods.  I think maybe we should just quit trying to equate them to the "Grace" or "Apogee" sound - they really don't sound like either, certainly not close enough to be a cheap replacement if that's what people are looking for.  The UA5 mods give us 2 more flavors to chose from and great sound and features for not so much $.

well put. +T

[pfife]

Brian,

I completely agree with your descriptions of the warm & presence mods.  I think maybe we should just quit trying to equate them to the "Grace" or "Apogee" sound - they really don't sound like either, certainly not close enough to be a cheap replacement if that's what people are looking for.  The UA5 mods give us 2 more flavors to chose from and great sound and features for not so much $.

wasn't there a couple of polls that demonstrated that people couldn't tell the difference between the v3 and wmod, or guessed which one was which incorrectly?

Maybe I was interpreting the polls incorrectly...

I agree that the wmond sounds great and is cheap, which unfortunately is my most prevalent concern...  

[Craig T]

wasn't there a couple of polls that demonstrated that people couldn't tell the difference between the v3 and wmod, or guessed which one was which incorrectly?

Maybe I was interpreting the polls incorrectly...

I agree that the wmond sounds great and is cheap, which unfortunately is my most prevalent concern...  

True.  I guess I have the advantage of frequently using both the wmod and v3 over the last few years so I can easily tell the difference between them.  has anyone done a wmod/mme or a pmod/v3 comp?  I bet the results are similar.  And actually, people guessing incorrectly not only tells me they sound different, but also that people don't truly know what a v3 sounds like (with A mics in B config at C location for D band at E venue...).

[Sean Gallemore]

and schoeps are muddy, right?

[Nick's Picks]

what strikes me as odd is that nobody mentions the fact that the stock UA-5 sounds great on its own, w/o the upgrades.
It'll be my next pre/AD, and i'll attempt the digi-mod myself dagnabbit!
probably end up w/Doug bailing me out or catching the silly thing on fire.