I've got a question for anyone in the TS community that has experience using or listening to R4-based sources...
I've been averaging 1-2 recording per week since I got heavily into taping (audio) about a year ago. I've been through a bunch of different gear in that time period (immediate gear slut, which I guess comes with the territory, in fact just bought a pair of 481's a couple of days ago, whoo hoo!), and last night I was critically listening to the original sources of many of my AUD's (excluding the many, many matrixes I've made, excluding anything that was stealthed, and listening only to the ORIGINAL source, not the "produced" final versions). I found myself in awe of a couple of recordings that I made with my original C4 > BM2+ UA5 when compared to some of the others.
Now I know that the C4 are pretty low-end (but I know own 481s!!!), nor was the UA5 a V3 or something, so take this as all relative of course. I also know that these two recordings were made close-in on acoustic sets in somewhat ideal rooms, so that is obviously playing a role. I also know that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE my R4, the two extra channels have made such a difference in so many recordings I have made (mostly small acoustic with no PA, so being able to spot mic a piano that was low in the mix has worked wonders on many occasion) and the ease of matrixing at the venue and ability to mix the matrix in post has been just AWESOME. But that said, I just got the feeling that when I used the same C4 mics, the R4 sources, before being "touched up," sounded a little flat when compared to the BM2+ UA5 sources.
This is something I guess I never really noticed until now. I'm wondering if it had more to do with the different situations (ideal recording setups) than the preamps, but I'm not so sure. So, I guess I'm asking what other people think about the R4 in this regard. There can be no mistaking how nice it is to have 4 channels, and the matrixing potential, and for those two reasons, I don't see myself giving it up anytime soon, but I'm a little more concerned about the quality now than I was before -- but maybe that is misguided? It always seems to work out great after a little post work, but it got me wondering...
Thoughts?