Re: [ARSCLIST] Balancing Amps?

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi, Andy, I have eight Aphex 124As. Four are in the patchbay (letting 
me use my Tascam 238 Syncasette), two are dedicated to the left 
Dragons and close to them under the worksurface, one is on top of the 
refrigerator for the refrigerated Dragon, and the eighth is a spare. 
I got all of these used or NOS on eBay (except the first one which 
was NOS from where I worked before). Average price was about $100. 
THey show up often on eBay and I haven't gotten a broken one yet. 
I've also bought four Aphex

I have also bought four Aphex 120A http://www.aphex.com/120A.htm 
distribution amplifiers. One was for my church, one was an on-hand 
spare and two were if/when I need a "stereo" distribution amp--I got 
rid of a whole bunch of card-mounted DAs. I really like the Aphex 
gear and think it is well made, robust, and does the job well. The 
fact that it has line cords and not wall-warts is an attraction to me.

The performance of the Aphex 124A is way above the performance of the 
Dragon/tape combination, so I don't think it's an issue.

The Henry does not have the extended bandwidth of the Aphex which 
might be a consideration for those who digitize at 96,000 samples per 
second. On the other hand, I'd rather put the narrower-bandwidth 
Henry near an AM radio transmitter. Also the Henry is DC coupled 
which might or might not be a problem. I would again prefer the AC 
coupling of the Aphex.

While I also like RANE gear, they do often use wall-warts. The item 
you mentioned, however, uses audio transformers for the conversion 
and the Dragon has a high, non-standard output impedance which is 
above the input impedance specified by the Rane BB44X, so I would nix that.

The RDL FP-UBC series is typical of RDL gear in that it requires an 
external supply that you have to attach to a barrier strip. RDL gear 
is good and flexible. In this case, however, the distortion and noise 
performance is inferior to the Aphex 124A. It does have a bandwidth 
adequate for 96 ks/s digitization. I have used RDL gear and while it 
works, the powering is always another step to worry about.

The RDL ST-UBA2 is spec'd inferior to the FP-UBC and has more 
difficult interfacing (I buy pre-fab cables from Hosa and the like, 
so I prefer plug-in these days). All other RDL comments apply.

The one device that I find interesting for your application that you 
didn't mention is the 8-channel IHF-Balanced only (unidirectional) 
Aphex 228 http://www.aphex.com/228.htm -- it's specs are more than 
adequate (though the -3 dB at 16 Hz is a bit scary for organ 
recordings with the DPA4006s) and it is a one-box solution. I was 
looking at one, but I needed bidirectional and buying four 124As on 
eBay was about the same price as buying this new.

FYI, I did install the two dedicated 124As since you were here at the 
seminar. I found that the longer run of the left Dragons to the 
patchbay degraded their signal slightly compared to the right Dragons 
and they got a little more hum -- well below tape noise with a tape 
playing, but we have to make it as good as possible. Having separate 
units would increase the ease of collocation of the Dragons and the 
balance boxes.

As an aside, Dragons and 124As seem to work very well on 
computer-style (APC) UPSs. I have the A810, APR-5000s, Dragons, Aphex 
124s and the computers all on a couple of APC 1200W tower-style UPSs, 
so I don't get glitches in the transfers if I have a power hit. The 
A80s do NOT like the APC flavour of power.

Cheers,

Richard

At 11:19 AM 2007-09-23, you wrote:
> Folks,
>
> After a long (and hopefully not foolhardy) struggle our new 
> studio/lab space is nearing completion.  Now that I'm finally ready 
> to get down to setting up my junk and starting work again, I need 
> some advice from my fellow ARSC Members.
>
> In addition to putting in a new space, we've also made several big 
> technical upgrades around here, and one of the major ones was our 
> jump from a DAL CardDeluxe to an Apogee Rosetta 800.  This stated, 
> I'm in the market for a balancing amp to connect my Dragons to the 
> Apogee.  I've looked at some, been directed to some and now I want 
> to see what people in our field are actually using.  Can anyone 
> share the gear they've been employing?
>
> The gear I've been investigating is all below.  We need between 4 
> and 6 channels total, but I don't mind achieving this through the 
> use of several two channel boxes--nor do I mind spending $125-$200 a 
> channel for clean pass through.  I also would greatly appreciate 
> opinions on passive vs active systems for this application.
>
> Thanks in advance!
>
> andy
>
> Aphex 124A
> http://www.aphex.com/124A.htm
>
> HE Matchbox
> http://henryengineering.com/matchbox.html
>
> Rane BB44X Balance Buddy
> http://www.rane.com/bb44x.html
>
> RDL FP-UBC series
> http://www.rdlnet.com/product.php?page=49
>
> RDL ST-UBA2
> http://www.rdlnet.com/product.php?page=53

Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.