I also have been auditioning a Prodigy Anima 8 channel pre that is insanely amazing sounding on just about everything but it is currently discontinued and no longer serviceable and the owner Chae Ham is no longer interested in doing anything with the line so I'm told.
Though each pre in and of itself is upwards of $500 each in some cases over a grand so if $400 is your price per pre then the 500 series route may not be the best for you at this stage.
My favorite part of the 500 series is that I can mix and match pres, EQs, Comps, etc to my liking and as I continue to grow with it I will be able to swap out specific pres for specific recordings and tailor the sound to the artist. But he spent a hair over 2K for the hand made clones whereas I spent $6500 for the rack and pres in the api rack so there is a big difference in the cost. The great river had a more solid low end to it and the MA5 with the 28k button depressed had a nice high-end shine that the hand made clones lacked. We both preferred the MA5 and the great river over the hand built neve clones. While the seventh circle pres sounded absolutely great and are a very usable pre we both could hear a difference between those and the neve clones in the api rack. I picked up an API 500V ten space 500 rack and filled it with a mixture of neve clones (great river NV-1 and Avedis MA5) and api clones (BAE 312, VP-28, VP-26) I also have a pair of grace M501s that I will sometimes use for when I need very transparent gain.Ī friend of mine decided to go the seventh circle handmade route using 8 of their neve clones and we had the opportunity to try them out side by side with both male vocals and bass guitar. In it's place I decided to go with the Apogee Symphony and the 500 series route.
I also have the Liquid 56 and the octopre and I just relinquished them to my portable recording rack and sold my digi 003+ that was serving that purpose. Like Eyal from audio hammer ( sorry I mostly know metal recording studios as I'm biased towards metal myself). If anything I wish I got a bigger box then just a 6 space.Įdit: Also I know a few people that sold their api 3124+ because they like the vp28's more.Īnd I have seen some more starting to use them to. I got my first 500 stuff less then a year ago and did so for mic preamps as well and I'm definitely able to say I'm glad I did so. Bottom line I like that a 500 series gives you room to grow and choose the next piece of gear from many options. Not to mention you may eventually expand into 500 series compressors or eqs later.
Im not sure you could do much better price wise if you want more then one preamp and eventually want 8 and it gives you the option to get different sounds especially if you only want it for certain instruments like api for drums and say maybe you want neve for vocals or just about anything else really. I do know though that most prefer the vp28 and I certainly plan to make at least 2 of them. I believe they are meant to sound like older api pres from the 70's. I haven't built any of the capi premaps myself yet but I own 2 vp 25's with the red dot opamps and I really like them a lot.They definitely hold up to my api 512c too but they are a bit different of a sound.