This thing has plenty of gain, a -20dB pad, 3 different input impedances, the usual polarity (phase) button, 3 different high pass filter options, and an instrument jack on the front (always an under rated feature in my experience).

Basically, they've got everything you need here. Case Closed

The Sound
In the shootouts for Killer Home Recording we had numerous preamps from all different price ranges from stock Presonus Firestudio preamps to Great River, Manley, Vintech, and more. While this preamp stuff is always a mega subtle affair, the ADL 600 stood out as being different from the aggressive Neve family stuff. The ADL 600 had a smoothness to it in the upper midrange that really none of the other preamps had. Granted, for most of the work I do, I prefer the kick you in the butt Neve-style sound, but there are certainly instances where “smooth” is a desirable thing particular on vocals.

The ADL 600 even contrasted with the tube preamp in the Manley TNT quite a bit. The Manley TNT stands up to a height of 30' feet and says “I AM GIGANTIC!”. The ADL 600 wasn't quite so big sounding, but it was more refined in the low mids. There was quite a bit more harmonic content in that lower region. Basically, I thought the ADL 600 was a nice step in between Neve family stuff and the Manley TNT tube channel. It had the nicest lower harmonics of any preamp in the shootout.

The ADL 600 is definitely a pro caliber preamp. When you plug this thing in, it doesn't take long to realize why this thing costs what it does. It does sound excellent. Even though the upper midrange was a bit tame on this thing compared to the more aggressive preamps, it still maintained a clarity that I really liked.

I'm not sure if the ADL 600 would be my first choice if I had to run all overdubs through one single preamp. This preamp is a bit too big sounding for that in an ideal situation. If you tried to cram too many big tracks into the same mix, you'd run out of room in a hurry. The importance of this track stacking effect remains controversial but it's a philosophy I generally adhere to.

Downsides
This thing ain't cheap. We knew that already so we can quit crying anytime.

While the preamp was as quiet as any other preamp in this price range, if you turn the ADL 600 all the way up you will get noise. This is a bit off for a preamp in this price range. In my assembly-line style preamp shootouts a person may not notice the noise, but any real audio engineering situation give the engineer ample warning to turn the gain down 2dB so the noise disappears. I reality, I guess it's actually preferred to have the option of squeezing every last drop of gain out of the unit and using your own noise tolerances.

Conclusion
For the pro studio, the ADL 600 has something exciting to offer. On sources where maybe the aggressive preamps are a bit too aggressive, the ADL 600 comes to the rescue. It's an excellent preamp and I recommend it to anyone who has the cash for such ventures. For high end home studios, I'd imagine this would be the perfect “contrast” preamp to other pres in your rack. Well done, Presonus!

Preamps
I liked the preamps in the D8. While a little research will tell you that they are super similar to the preamps found in the Presonus Firestudio (I believe their name for these is XMAX which I believe is a series of movies starring Mel Gibson.) I don't care what anyone online says, the preamps in Digimax D8 are clearly not the same preamps in the Firestudio. By adding the additional five dB of gain something clearly changed. This was reflected in every preamp shootout I conducted with the Digimax D8 in multiple blind tests for the Killer Home Recording Series. These preamps are a step up from the Firestudio and I have the proof in the Killer Home Recording shootouts .

The preamps sounded very good to me. They certainly weren't in the league of the Neve family stuff, Vintech 1272 and Great River MEQ-1NV; the Manley TNT, or Presonus ADL 600. Then again, the preamps in the D8 cost between 1/20th and 1/50th the price of the monsters they were up against. Regardless, the Digimax D8 preamps certainly did not sound cheap. I put this in the “nothing gained, nothing lost” category. We could call these “normal” preamps if we wanted to. If I didn't have access to my fancier toys (and the necessary credit to obtain those toys) I would gladly be able to use the D8 day in and day out without fret. Hence, the preamps in the D8 are ideal home recording preamps.

It's really tough to right anything overly sensational about D8 preamps. They didn't win any shootouts, but never did I not like the sound of them. If you are willing to sell your new car or skip six vacations you could get incrementally better preamps, but I can guarantee that if you are in the market for 8 preamps in this price range you will be more than happy with the Digimax D8.

Digimax D8 vs M-Audio Octane
I'm sure those of you here aren't really all that concerned how the 8 channel D8 fairs against a one channel Great River preamp. Minivan shoppers typically aren't overly interested in an 8mph Lamborgini. So how does the Digimax D8 compare to the Octane? I've owned an Octane for close to two years so I know it fairly well. They certainly had their character differences, but in the end I feel the exact same way about both of them. They both sound pretty good most of the time. Each seems to have strengths in different areas, but I consider the two to be entirely interchangeable. I've found Presonus to be a cooler company to deal with, personally, and the D8 is quite a bit cheaper.

Metering
One thing I did like about the Digimax D8 was the metering. It was four LEDs arranged in a way that makes adjusting levels super easy. I always set my preamp levels by the meters within Cubase, but I found their metering to most useful when dealing with retard drummers. (Yeah, I know. I'm stating the obvious. That's like saying “red blood”, “wet water”, or “tall skyscraper”.) No matter what you do, it always seems like drummers always play at ¼ intensity during soundcheck while setting preamp levels. When the real deal session starts, they always seem to make preamps clip and even though you compensated with relatively low levels already, they always seem to engage the autogain circuit in their brains to hit the drums just hard enough to clip. They think it's really funny, apparently. For some reason, I always feel extra uncomfortable when tom tracks are spiking through the roof. I found the metering in the Digimax D8 made me feel more calm. The metering made it much easier to see when clipping set in and gave a clear idea of how much headroom I had within the preamp. This may seem like a small detail – and I guess it is – but I found it worth noting.

Gripes
The only gripe that comes to mind is the ADAT cable was not included with the Digimax D8. I'm sure this an issue of hitting a price point and I really don't think it's a big deal. I could just imagine having to run to the local store to get the thing to work and paying 10x as much for a cable I could have ordered along with the Digimax. It's one of those small flaws of capitalism that no one is going to put a gigantic red sticker stating “ADAT Cable Not Included!”. So fair warning!

Conclusion
If you are considering buying a Digimax D8, just go ahead and do it. As an owner of the Presonus M80, Vintech 1272, M-Audio Octane, and Manley TNT I can assure you that the Digimax D8 is a screaming value. There are other options out there, but at this price point you aren't going to beat the D8.

For a rundown on all the features and a healthy dose of the usual propaganda, head here.

In Use
When I first got a hold of the PreSonus Studio Channel my rack was full. I had 4 pieces of gear in it and a combined price tag of over $10,000. I've always come from the school that the high end gear is a nice little luxury, but in the real world recording land, there are way too many other flaws to overcome for the gear to be as strong of impact as maybe be implied by a $1,000+ volume knob. So keep in mind that my review of the PreSonus Studio Channel was done when in the midst of some big time players. I think it held up pretty well! Better than it's price tag would indicate.a

My hope was the PreSonus Studio Channel preamps would not only blow away the stock preamps in my audio interface or M-Audio Octane, but also be able to run head to head with the big boys like the Great River MEQ-1NV, PreSonus ADL600, or the Manley TNT.

I can say without hesitation that the preamps in the Studio Channel are better on all sources than the stock preamp in my PreSonus Firestudio, but certainly aren't going to be putting the Money-Is-No-Object companies out of business. Then again, most members here at RecordingReview happen to be in the Money-Doesn't-Grow-On-Trees side of the fence.

The PreSonus Studio Channel was a step up in clarity, excitement, and low end tightness from the PreSonus Firestudio preamp, but I can't ever imagine myself choosing this preamp when a preamp from the A-list is available. There were certain specific shootouts where the PreSonus Studio Channel certainly snuck into high end preamp land and I mistook it for a preamp costing exponentially more. So there are some very desirable uses for the PreSonus Studio Channel.

I think it's safe to say the PreSonus Studio Channel preamps outperform the price tag and would be a welcome home in any budget oriented home recording studio. You certainly gain a point by upgrading from a stock audio interface preamp to the Studio Channel. Moving up to $2k preamps will give you another point. You figure out how much a point is worth to you. (We are talking NBA points here, not hockey or that dumb thing everyone in the world plays with their feet.)

As is illustrated in the upcoming shootouts for Killer Home Recording, the PreSonus Studio Channel has this way of being a little extra forward in the 1Khz region. This could be excellent for helping vocals cut through a dense mix. I'm not sure if I would want it on everything, but I definitely wouldn't mind having that feature around.

The Tube Drive Thing
I played with the tube drive thing considerably. It does add some gain and it does add some harmonics. I could be useful for some things. I have to admit that I never get too wound up about these sorts of things. It's never a life changing thing. I can't think of one source where maybe the sound wasn't quite right with the Tube Drive on 0, but changing it to 10 parted the Red Sea or whatever. However, the tube drive thing didn't hurt anything. I'm sure there are sources where I would say “Oh hell with it!” and crank it all the way up. In fact, on real sessions that's probably were I'd start.

I prefer knobs / processors that go overboard when I turn them all the way up. The ability to break is the ability to fix said Socrates. Okay, maybe he didn't, but somebody somewhere said something remotely close. If not, put Brandon Drury down in the book right next to Richard Lewis and “the blank from hell” (Curb Your Enthusiasm inside joke). The tube drive feature did not give me the ability to break. If I can't turn it up to “disgusting” and then slowly pull it back to reality, I have a hard time. So take that for what it's worth. Good big or go home, as they say.

More Headroom Please
On several occasions I had attempted to reamp a signal back through the PreSonus Studio Channel. In practically every situation I overloaded the unit. It's safe to say that the headroom on the Studio Channel is not near as high as other compressors I had used during the shootout (Distressor EL-8X and Spectrasonic Complimiter). This wasn't the end of the world, but it was certainly a pain in the neck. This hampered me from slamming the compressor as much as I would have preferred.

I like to use hardware compressors to add tonal color. Smashing a signal can bring it right to the front of a mega dense mix and can even add perceived excitement to a track. These things I like. Even with the threshold on the compressor of the Studio Channel set for maximum death, I never really felt like I could get this compressor to pump and slam. At least not to the extent I was used to.

I was also looking for adding harmonic content by reducing the release down to zero. While I was led to believe that all hardware compressors were supposed to distort any signal with a wavelength longer than the release time, I stand corrected. I just couldn't get any distortion out of this thing.

I've been through the recording forum war long enough to know that a bunch of you reading this aren't looking to distort the signal. However, when you take away the ability of the engineer to color the signal (particularly vocals) with compressors, you essentially cut off one his fingers....if not his whole arm. (Then again, how badly could that REALLY effect an engineer. So much for the ability to do keyboard shortcuts AND mouse clicks simultaneously! Big deal!)

I did find that the compressor was able to nicely control peaks. This certainly has it's place and I did find it useful in those situations. Of course, plugin compressors like the Waves C1, Waves Rcomp, or even the stock Cubase compressors perform in a similar fashion. There are certainly times where maybe my Distressor EL-8X is a little bit too loud at parties and I have to find ways to get him to quiet down without hurting his feelings. I'd never take my Distressor to a library and he really has to bite his tongue in funerals. He's always trying to scream “See you in hell, mother f*cker!”. The Complimiter 610 had a tendency to invite the other kids out to country roads to smash mail boxes. I didn't have any of those problems with the compressor in the PreSonus Studio Channel. It's a much more behaved compressor. So this compressor choice really depends heavily on whether you need Dr. Spock or Vince Neil. Both have their strengths. Personally, I'm looking for a compressor that resells hard drugs and kicks up the tribute to the producer. Let me know if you come across that one.

Of course, either the Distressor EL-8x of the Complimiter 610 cost the price of 5 PreSonus Studio channels and they don't do anything but compress. So I may be comparing an apple to a Ferrari. Regardless, a minivan is badass when the Swedish Bikini Team bus breaks down. You get the idea.

EQ
In a world where EQ plugins capable of robo surgery, turbo tone control, and everything in between are running rampant it does seem a bit odd to switch to an analog EQ with a high shelf, a low shelf, and one parametric band of EQ. You aren't going to save the world with this EQ. I guess a person could argue that you can do less damage on the way in with this EQ as well. That could be a plus for many of us.

I do have to say that there were specific situations where it certainly came in handy for solving slight problems. Adding a little bottom and top to a kick drum is pretty much a no brainer and it functioned perfectly for that. On vocals that had a bit too much 400Hz and 2k, I had to choose which problem I wanted to solve because this EQ couldn't do both. This isn't a big deal in modern computer land, but it's worth noting.

On The Way In
The more I've used the hardware gear, I've found that the benefits of getting the sound right from the very beginning are worth the occasional (and regular!) times I screw up a track with over compression or whatever. I do feel there is some merit to getting tracks closest to their final state as early on in the process as possible. As I said above, maybe we can't solve a 400Hz and a 2K problem with this EQ, but we can certainly solve the 2k issue. This is worth something. It's worth a lot! Every problem during a mix (or even tracking) uses a bit of RAM in your brain that could have been better used for cranking the Ass Kicking Gears (yes, this warrants proper noun grammar treatment). So depending on your style of working, you may reap big rewards for this alone.

Conclusion
The preamp on this booger is an improvement of preamps found in stock audio interfaces. The compressor and EQ are not life changing, but they certainly ain't bad. I didn't get my first hardware compressor until I had been recording for 7 years and I still don't own a hardware EQ. So I'm not exactly going to tell you that hardware is absolutely required in these situations. However, as I've documented above, having these gadgets around is pretty much always beneficial.

At $300 (street), the PreSonus Studio Channel is a nice, well laid out channel strip that will definitely serve it's purpose to anyone in the market for a $300 channel strip. I'd expect it to very competitive and I think it's an excellent purchase for the home recording market.

To hear how this thing competes with the gear costing exponentially more and drastically less, make sure to check out the Killer Home Recording shootouts today.

To stimulate tourism in the region and raise money to maintain the palaces, the Tourism Authority of Thailand is sponsoring a series of special events, the first of which was the recent Chom Wang Fang Phleng Banleng Tai Saengchan festival, held on April 25. The Chom Wang festival featured a parade of classic cars and palace-style Thai food, but the highlight was a huge outdoor concert near the Cha-am beach. There 10,000 music fans enjoyed the music of such popular Thai stars as Groove Riders singer Burin Boonwisut, Saksit "Tor" Vejsupaporn, Koh Mr.SaxMan, Flure singer Suwira "Q" Boonrod, and Jennifer Kim. The artists performed a variety of their hits as well as popular songs rearranged as pop-jazz covers.

Clearly, this was a very special concert that deserved to be recorded for posterity. That meant recording 58 tracks of high-quality audio into a computer. To accomplish this, audio engineer Pruchayar “Art” Chaiyasothi combined five PreSonus DigiMax FS preamps, one PreSonus FireStudio 26x26 audio interface, and one FireStudio Lightpipe interface.

“PreSonus equipment is very easy to use, and the mic preamps have a big, clear sound,” Chaiyasothi explains. “It’s very important to us that the price is reasonable, and the quality is very good. We connected the hardware as shown (see image) and installed the drivers for the FireStudio and FireStudio Lightpipe, After that, we opened the FireStudio Control Panel to check the mixer and make sure that everything was working. We then closed the Control Panel and launched Cubase Studio 4 to check the I/O in the Device Setup. Then we were ready to record.”

Chaiyasothi offers an important tip for those who want to record with a multi-FireStudio system. “If the system shows 58 Inputs, you are ready to record,” he says. “But if the system does not show the inputs, you need to turn off the FireStudios, restart the computer, and turn on the FireStudio Lightpipe only. After the computer syncs with the FireStudio Lightpipe, turn on the FireStudio 26x26 again and recheck the inputs in Cubase Studio 4’s Device Setup. Now everything should work. But do not open the FireStudio Control Panel during recording!”

Chaiyasothi also had a request: “I hope you will release the new control panel and drivers for the FireStudio Lightpipe and FireStudio 26x26 to make visible all channels of the mixer and support daisy chaining.” That’s a request we’re delighted to honor: the new FireControl Universal control panel and 64-bit drivers will be in public beta next week, and a final release will be available very soon!

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About PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc. - Founded in 1995, PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc. is a leading designer and manufacturer of audio-recording software, hardware, and related accessories. PreSonus's software, microphone preamps, signal processors, digital audio interfaces, mixers, control surfaces, and other products are used worldwide for recording, sound reinforcement, broadcast, sound design, and Internet audio.

Product - Old Price - New Price!

FireBox - $299.95 - $249.95

FireStudio Lightpipe -$649.95 - $499.95

FireStudio -$699.95 -$599.95

FireStudio Tube - $799.95 - $699.95

DigiMax D8 - $449.95 - $399.95

DigiMax FS - $649.95 - $599.95

Eureka - $599.95 - $499.95

Central Station -$599.95 -$499.95

FaderPort -$199.95 -$129.99

These prices are in effect immediately at your authorized PreSonus dealer!

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About PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc. - Founded in 1995, PreSonus Audio Electronics, Inc., is a leading designer and manufacturer of audio recording and processing tools. PreSonus’s award-winning microphone preamps, signal processors, digital audio interfaces, mixers, control surfaces, software, and other products are used worldwide for recording, sound reinforcement, broadcast, sound design, and Internet audio. For detailed information on PreSonus and its family of products, please visit www.presonus.com.