Presonus Digimax Lt

[ODARELLMC]

im thinking about buyng one next week. has any of you guys used it? if so whats you opinion. i could REALLY use some advise.

[BradLyons]

Hello and welcome to the forum. I am a HUGE fan of the regular Digimax so I must say I was anxious for the release of the Digimax LT. The problem with the Digimax is that many users out there own products like the Digi001 and MOTU 2408... all of which are considerably less money than a Digimax. I feel Presonus made all the right choices (then again, who do you think had some big persuasion on how to make this! haha) with what they left off on the LT. One big advantage to the LT that is not on the full Digimax is LINE LEVEL inputs on every channel. In other words, this is also a full 8-channel converter and not just mic-pre. Okay, so you do not have the EQ circuit (big deal) or the Limiter (yeah, those are good) but you have 8-PRES for $750 going digitally into any system supporting ADAT lightpipe, what could be better.... okay, besides a FREE Grace 801 but hey ;-)

[jamie garner]

yeah, had i know the digmax lite used exactly the same pres and a/d converters as the 'full' version, i'd never have paid twice as much as i did!

the lite has two things that make it more useful imo- the phantom power buttons are on the front, and as brad said, you can bypass the mic pres and use just the a/d converters. i wouldn't have needed to buy the rosetta then!

ohmygod- not only did i pay twice as much for the full digimax, i also had to pay almost that amount again for a/d converters!

geez, go for the digimax lt! it's a great deal!
but i really do think my 'full max' is excellent- the limiters are a real treat, tho the 'eq' is kind of a waste- at least i've never found anything they're good for. if i had it to do agin tho, i'd go 'lite'.

[ODARELLMC]

Thanks for the info guys. i know EVENT is going to release a product to compete with the LT but im not sure if the mic pre are class a. any words on this brad?

[BradLyons]

Trust me, get the PResonus... it's worth every penny.

[soundcloset]

i recently used the digimax with a digi001 for a live recording .. it's absolutely beautiful .. most of the channels i used for drums .. and i'll tell ya, it sounded so good i almost mixed the whole album as one big drum solo .. i say go for it!

[mastahnke]

Did presonus shoot itself in the foot with the LT? Why would you buy the full version now? Sure EQ and Limiter are nice, but how nice? 700$ nice? I doubt it. I guess the big one does have AES/EBU stuff, but ADAT out is probably good enough for most of us. Plus, having the power supply on the unit rather than a straggler is much better in my opinion.
--MIKE

[Ted]

I don't think they shot themselves in the foot with the LT...sure, they may have taken away a few sales from the "regular" Digimax, but I think they'll sell enough more of the LT's to make it worthwhile.

The limiters in the Digimax are very useful and musical, and are great for adding character to instruments...for example, you can "hit" them hard with drums to make them sound fatter, kind of like you can with analog tape ("kind of like", not "the same as" before I get attacked for that one). It's also great for getting things set up in a hurry...you don't have to be quite as picky about your levels (not that you should have to be anyway in most cases with 24-bit recording). The EQ is nice for adding color as well, and the two direct inputs on the front are really handy.

Like you said, there's also the AES/EBU and S/PDIF capabilites, not to mention the direct outs...great for bypassing your computer entirely for monitoring through a mixer. Sure, you can do that with the inserts on the LT as well by pluggin in halfway, but that's not quite as elegant. I'll concur that having the phantom power buttons on the front is a nice advantage, and while the internal power supply may be more convenient, it is nice to have it as far away from your audio signals as possible (I'm sure PreSonus as done a good job of isolating it, though) and it makes the rack unit itself smaller. Plus, there's always the snob appeal..."my preamps require an outboard power supply".

Sure, there are people who will purchase the LT who may have otherwise purchased the normal version...people who really want line ins as well, people who already have a lot of nice outboard gear and will use the inserts...but there are still many valid reasons to go for the original.

-Ted

PS Jamie, why don't you try an A/B test between the Digimax converters and those
in your Rosetta? Just record a signal digitally and run it out of the analog outs
into your Rosetta at the same time. I'd be interested in hearing what kind of a
difference you hear.

[jamie garner]

ted-

me and my asst engineer are having our own 'mic-pre shootout' this sunday using all of the pres we have access to. i'll be sure to throw in an 'a/d shootout' in there too!

we just did our own 'mic shootout', and it was very eye-opening, to say the least. for example, both of us rated (in a blind playback test) the at4041 as outstanding, while the neumann tlm193 didn't fare as well- the biggest surprise was the mca sp1- a $70 street-price chinese large diaphragm condensor... we both thought it was great! granted, we were using the langevin dvc as the mic pre, which makes just about anything sound great, but the mca was really added to the list of test mics as a joke!

the preamps we'll be testing sunday are:
langevin dvc
art tubepac
presonus digimax
mackie 1402
digidesign 001 (i've heard these are pretty good pre's)
motu 828
mackie 408m
yamaha promix


the a/d converters will be: (thx for the idea, btw!)
apogee rosetta
presonus digimax
digi 001
motu 828
flying calf
m audio quattro
roland ua-30

question-
how would you set up an a/d test yourself? should we use a live acoustic guitar, pre-recorded cd, ??? is there any way to really examine the results technically using (for example) bias peak? how about sample-rate conversion? inquiring minds want to know....

[Ted]

Wow, that's pretty overwhelming...I have no idea how I'd go about testing all that stuff out. I just did some testing with some cables to see what kind of difference I could hear, and I just compared them two at a time since I had two matching microphones. But I only listened to four cables, so it wasn't too hard. Probably the most scientific way to do it in your situation would be to record a CD playing through a loudspeaker...it may not be the best source, but you'll probably get the most consistent results that way (we've got a Yamaha acoustic piano here with a disk drive, which is great for this sort of thing...wish I had one at home). I wouldn't worry too much about analyzing stuff in Peak...I'm sure you can find specs on everything you're trying out, and I'm sure it'll all spec out well...you're mainly looking to find out how things sound, right?

If you want to get the best idea of how the preamps really compare to each other, I'd probably try out the Digi, 828 and ProMix preamps first since they're married to the converters in their boxes. I'd pick the best one of those and then run everything else through those converters. Then, when you've picked your favorite preamp, I'd use that one with the different converters (hopefully your favorite preamp won't be one of the first three...but you may be surprised). I think for the A/D converter test at least I'd probably do acoustic guitar, or both if you've got the time...

These are just a couple ideas, there's really no "right" or "wrong" way to do it...good luck!

-Ted