Are the 7xx series pre's that hot too? Same pre's right??
the usbpre2 uses the same preamps as the 788 (at least thats what SD says, I'm inclined to believe them).
The difference comes in the max input before clipping values. I can throw just under +10dbu at my 722 in mic-in mode and clip it, that would clip the usbpre2 though (which is -10dbu and +4dbu if you use the pad). Yes, the pre2 sounds the same as it's bigger brother, but the 7 series have a series of features that other boxes in the SD line don't have.
Anyway, here is how I figured out what to do before showing up at a concert:
- I know the max input before clipping on the pre2 with out pad is a paltry -10dbu
- With the pad, it's +4dbu (or really close, that's the official printed spec)
- Based on the mic transfer chart (half way down), and the official beyer 950 literature, they have a max output before clipping of +3dbu. The 930s max out at +4dbu because of a slightly higher headroom and mildly lower output rating.
- While very loud, I've never clipped the mics in this room for a similar act before based on post-prod/backwards calculation of SPL from older recordings I made with my 722 and it's printed gain ratings (which I was really good about writing down for a while)
So given all of this information, I knew I could turn the gain all the way down, and the mic and preamp would crap out at roughly the same time (which in theory is optimum as long as you know you won't hit that, but will come close).
It's an awesome box, case in point, today I was at a friends house who had a DAC that accepted SPDIF (RCA) and I didn't have that out of my macbook, so I fed the optical to the pre2 and a spdif out of that. SD said it doesn't resample so it acted like one of the older Hosa276 converter boxes. It just has some quirks that people need to keep in consideration is all.