Been lurking on this thread with great interest for awhile. Many great concepts and sage advice presented
Here is my perspective and I acknowledge that I am preaching to the choir. Most would agree that what we hear and the sound that we are trying to capture/reproduce is for the most part subjective. Individual preferences differ. I tape for myself, usually only listen to my own tapes, share everything and often download other folk’s tapes to check in to see how their sound captures the same artist. Agreed, a different approach. One man’s mud is another man’s silk.
In recent times I have more often associated a specific Taper with their sound (which obviously is a reflection of their gear) rather than with how each venue’s acoustics/FOH displayed the artist’s performance that night [i.e. CCM4>V2>AD2K vs. DPA4021>ACM vs. DPA4023/8>V3>Mytek vs. MG210>722 vs. enter your own established respected taper here]. The downloader must accept our offerings as exact reproductions of what happened that night. Any multi-source night will tell you that is not necessarily true. Subtle differences that the average downloader and subsequent mp3 converter will clearly not appreciate.
Against that backdrop here is my take/observations having recently stumbled into the 4 channel arena:
1. Different mics capture a different sound which can be altered by different Pres, Caps, configurations and different A/Ds.
2. 4 channels of cards by two different mic brands can be complementary, redundant or even antagonistic depending how different the mics are.
3. 2 channel is superior to 4 channel if on mix down you find yourself weighing the contribution > 60:40 [i.e. 70:30, 80:20, etc i.e. favoring one pair over the other]
4. 4 channel gives you the option of experimenting [mics, caps, config, pres] with one source while bringing home the heat with the other.
5. The headache factor/cost goes up exponentially when you leap to 4 channel.
So the skinny for me: I love my DPA 4022 but at times I find them too exacting and not forgiving in the venues that I am forced to tape in. Their low and mid range is spectacular but for me the high is lacking. The converse is true for my MBHOs [high> lows] particularly in front of my V3. Together, on most occasions and by my ears, the sum is better than the parts. Not for everyone, but right now I am pleased with the results.
As was stated above, if you are happy with your sound, why change? If you aren’t, a 4 channel mix down may be one solution as long as you have identified what you are missing and have a plan for how to capture it.