Topic: POLL: 722 preamp vs other

[Lil Kim Jong-Il]

Poll spawned by the posts in this thread.  I'm interested to know if there is a corelation between running the 722 hot and preferring another preamp in front of the 722, especially when I read comments like these from people I respect:

I do agree with trusting my ears...and why the 4022->722 is the last rig I will own

Sonically preferred.  The SD722 pre & a/d just has more of what I want as a finished product (the recording).

In objective listening tests there is very little difference between the 722 pres and the V3...IF...if you use the 722 pres in their sweet spot. It is below -12dB -- blinking yellow lights, never any red lights. The V3 has a different sweet spot -- up close to zero with blinking red lights.

[ghellquist]

Another thread pointed to this that pretty much sums up my personal experience.
http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=38430

Gunnar

[marc0789]

it bugs the living shit out of me when I put on a studio recording, and the goddamn thing sounds thin, harsh and brittle...and levels are pounding zero, no matter what the dymanics are. funny, I hear that much more in studio recordings than the stuff we do, most tapers have the sense not to pound zeros like that. I do strive for levels at -2 to -1 during the very loudest passages, but imo overdriven tapes sound like ass. I've made that mistake myself. When I first picked up an mp-2 several years ago to run in front of my adk, it took me awhile to figure out not to run it anywhere near hot....as soon as I started running it well below zero, the brittle harshness went away. Conversely, the v2 can be run quite hot. It's a good question whether a "one box" can be run hot enough to achieve near zero without undesirables. I did run the mme hot as hell as a preamp with no noticeable issues.

[terrapinj]

i  try to peak between -6 and -3db regardless of running onboard or external pre

with the v2 I would run the 722 at 0db gain line in and maybe adjust slightly on the 722 as needed, but did most adjustments with the v2

the few times ive ran with the psp2 i've had to have the psp2 set to 0db gain and the 722 at -6db

i haven't done any comparisons to see how the 722 sounds at different gain, but i did recently notice when running p48 on the 722 that the meters jump significantly when you have the gain maxed out at +55db

[F.O.Bean]

I ran 483>722 for moe acoustic the other night at borders bookstore and i did hit 0db at my peaks, but my peaks were the crowd inbetween songs. moe was pretty damn loud for playing acoustic too and the crowd was pretty quiet while they were playing and would cheer like hell inbetween songs and I am quite happy with the results, thats the hottest I think I have ran it too, but it worked out great in the end I dont plan onm hitting it that hard again tho, instead of slamming down my levels, they were just barely peaking at -1db anbd i let it go, at the LOUDEST peak it hit 0db once i think and i backed it down a hair and all was good. but 99 out of 100 times i add some gain in Wavelab 5.01b and usually add about 3-8db of gain most times.

For running 483>722 the first time indoors i am quite impressed with the 722's preamp and as an all-in-one, def gonna run it alot inside on its own and setup/teardown was the quickest ever!