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Sound Devices 633…What do you think?


Jim Feeley

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Just a note - in the US this retails for $3095 + VAT. In the UK it retails for (at todays exchange rate) nearly $1000 more! - $4023 or £2500 + VAT

Why?

There are various threads here contemplating this very issue. There are various opinions about the reasons. Mine is, it is simply more expensive to bring a product like that onto the heavily regulated European market. Many more legal requirements, shipping from the US, import tax, and so on. Plus, all the guys in the middle (the main representative for SD in each country, then the actual shops where you buy it) would like to earn a bit, too.
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I understand that global market forces are different, as are trading laws etc and can understand a price difference. But 25%? That seems excessive; put it this way, i could book a return flight to NY from London, get a cab to Gotham Sound, buy a 633 (or as many 633's as UK mixers want) stay overnight in a moderate hotel, fly home and then pay all custom and import duties AND STILL SAVE MONEY. 

 

Christmas in NY anyone? I know a few guys here who would put an order in for that. 

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I understand that global market forces are different, as are trading laws etc and can understand a price difference. But 25%? That seems excessive; put it this way, i could book a return flight to NY from London, get a cab to Gotham Sound, buy a 633 (or as many 633's as UK mixers want) stay overnight in a moderate hotel, fly home and then pay all custom and import duties AND STILL SAVE MONEY.

Christmas in NY anyone? I know a few guys here who would put an order in for that.

why don't you? I'd be surprised if you could do all that for $1000.

maybe if you get all those friends together and you buy in bulk you can reduce the $1000 difference?

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Been doin that for years now....so +1

 

I understand that global market forces are different, as are trading laws etc and can understand a price difference. But 25%? That seems excessive; put it this way, i could book a return flight to NY from London, get a cab to Gotham Sound, buy a 633 (or as many 633's as UK mixers want) stay overnight in a moderate hotel, fly home and then pay all custom and import duties AND STILL SAVE MONEY. 

 

Christmas in NY anyone? I know a few guys here who would put an order in for that. 

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" I know a few guys here who would put an order in for that. "

while I suspect it would typically cost more to shop that way,  you are welcome to do that...

and when it needs service, you'll have to deal with that, too...

I clearly, and fondly remember numerous electronics and camera shopping trips to Aki Habara and Shin Juku...

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I already send my SD products back to Wisconsin for service and repair as the UK appointed SD outlet - Shure Distribution - have a poor reputation; slow turnaround (7 weeks to fix some LED's on a 744 last year), poor workmanship (they didn't replace all the LED's that needed replacing) and bad customer service (they weren't too bothered about LED-Gate and i had to pay for it to go back a second time). 

So no change there. Ambient in Germany are good too, and they don't refuse to service a machine bought in the US - why would they?

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The 633 is a great little addition to the SD family, but I won't be giving up my 552/744T combo anytime soon.  The 744T is still has amazing pre-amps and my sound recordings are beautiful.  I use the 552 for Stereo Mix backup but when I compare the recording quality, the 744T gives me a lot nicer quality of recording.

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The small knobs aren't that bad, they pop up the same way the balance and the gain mini knobs do. I bought my 633 yesterday at Location Sound and I love it. Excited to leave the 788T on the cart and have a very capable fly away bag at the ready. Also saves a bit of work for travel jobs and should work out great for the 2 wires and a boom simple shoots.

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$80 or $100 hotel (maybe it's cheaper).

$50 or $80 for dinner

The rest for air tickets.

At least one-two day vacations to the capital of capitalism. Not bad.

 

Actually is not $1000. Is $1.400+

And order from Nashville, delivered directly to your NY hotel room, sales tax free (about 9%), and save another $300 or more. Like getting the hotel free.

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Regarding the knobs on the 633:

 

From my perspective as someone who has done a lot of bag work, I think the 633 fader knob design is a brilliant balance of usefulness in a compact device.

 

What may be overlooked by some at first glance is that the small knobs (inputs 4, 5, & 6) can be pushed down out of the way, or pressed to pop up so they are easy to control. The video on the Trew Audio site (3min, 10sec in) shows this function (http://www.trewaudio.com/audioflow/introducing-the-sound-devices-633/#).

 

While the video also shows and comments on what seems to be a crowd of knobs when the trim and small knobs are all popped out, the trim knob would normally be down, out of the way, until an adjustment is needed. With the trim knobs down and the small knobs up, all six of the large and small knobs are very easy to control. Also, and added benefit of having three large knobs and three small knobs is that it's very easy to reach in the bag without looking down, quickly knowing which knobs are which simply by feel. Not only is this something that can be appreciated on a daily basis when working from the bag -- and especially when working in the dark as we often do -- it's actually much easier to identify the knobs by feel than it would be if they were all the same size and evenly spaced. I've previously said the same thing of the 8-knob arrangement on the Deva 5.8, 16, and Fusion... because the 8th knob is below the 7th knob, it's much easier to quickly feel which knobs are which and control them with one hand, while holding the boom with the other hand while keeping looking straight ahead.

 

I'm not sure this was a design consideration, but it definitely has this benefit. So take another look at the 633's unique knob arrangement with this in mind.

 

Glen Trew

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Regarding the knobs on the 633:

 

From my perspective as someone who has done a lot of bag work, I think the 633 fader knob design is a brilliant balance of usefulness in a compact device.

 

What may be overlooked by some at first glance is that the small knobs (inputs 4, 5, & 6) can be pushed down out of the way, or pressed to pop up so they are easy to control. The video on the Trew Audio site (3min, 10sec in) shows this function (http://www.trewaudio.com/audioflow/introducing-the-sound-devices-633/#).

 

While the video also shows and comments on what seems to be a crowd of knobs when the trim and small knobs are all popped out, the trim knob would normally be down, out of the way, until an adjustment is needed. With the trim knobs down and the small knobs up, all six of the large and small knobs are very easy to control. Also, and added benefit of having three large knobs and three small knobs is that it's very easy to reach in the bag without looking down, quickly knowing which knobs are which simply by feel. Not only is this something that can be appreciated on a daily basis when working from the bag -- and especially when working in the dark as we often do -- it's actually much easier to identify the knobs by feel than it would be if they were all the same size and evenly spaced. I've previously said the same thing of the 8-knob arrangement on the Deva 5.8, 16, and Fusion... because the 8th knob is below the 7th knob, it's much easier to quickly feel which knobs are which and control them with one hand, while holding the boom with the other hand while keeping looking straight ahead.

 

I'm not sure this was a design consideration, but it definitely has this benefit. So take another look at the 633's unique knob arrangement with this in mind.

 

Glen Trew

 

Great but I want my Google glasses to give me a head up display of metering..... maybe in a decade's time? :)

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Just wait for the North America/EU free trade zone agreement coming next year, then you just buy online or someone buys it for you and then ship to the EU. No customs nuisance anymore. I do suspect and hope prices will drop in the EU for US products, and vice versa, then.

I suspect uk resellers will drop their prices as slowly as they possibly can should this trade agreement reduce the costs importing.

Buying elsewhere, shipping and tax currently costs less than the uk price on many things. What do you get for the extra?

Dan

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I only received my 663 yesterday and so far only played with it in my living room.   That said I have to agree 100% with Glen Trew's accessment of the fader knobs.  They are very easy to use and distinquish.  The ribbed sides of the smaller fader makes it very easy to adjust with just my thumb.  The small fader is easy to pop up and adjust and using my thumb was the most natural for me.  I also noticed that I was naturally adjusting the small fader at the bottom part of the fader which kept my fingers out of the way of the big fader so inadvertently hitting the larger adjacent fader is not likely.  In fact using my index finger and thumb and can adjust the large and adjacent small fader simultaneously.  Although I am not sure that I will be doing much of that.  Adjustment of the trims for the smaller fader is also very quick and easy.  Just toggle the cooresponding switch to the right and adjust the trim via the encoder knob.   I think the fader design is brilliant and very well thought out. 

 

Andy

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I only received my 663 yesterday and so far only played with it in my living room. That said I have to agree 100% with Glen Trew's accessment of the fader knobs. They are very easy to use and distinquish. The ribbed sides of the smaller fader makes it very easy to adjust with just my thumb. The small fader is easy to pop up and adjust and using my thumb was the most natural for me. I also noticed that I was naturally adjusting the small fader at the bottom part of the fader which kept my fingers out of the way of the big fader so inadvertently hitting the larger adjacent fader is not likely. In fact using my index finger and thumb and can adjust the large and adjacent small fader simultaneously. Although I am not sure that I will be doing much of that. Adjustment of the trims for the smaller fader is also very quick and easy. Just toggle the cooresponding switch to the right and adjust the trim via the encoder knob. I think the fader design is brilliant and very well thought out.

Andy

I know its early days, but have any early 633 recipients had a chance to assess RF spray?

Dan

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...

I still maintain that for a 3 channel mixer, there is really no significant need to record ISOs - if you can't commit 2 mics to a mix, one could question your title as "sound mixer".  Plus, these little jobs that are typical on a 302 level gig are not the type of productions that have a lot of money for post sound and for the most part, the camera mix is king.  We are jerking ourselves off if we think that all these ISOs we are recording are ever going to be of any use to anyone - Or recording is important because they are using a DSLR, in which case they really just want a Mono or LR mix track separately recorded.

...

 

Tom, 

 

I think most of your insights and impressions were dead-on, but I strongly disagree with the paragraph above. I consider myself a semi-decent mixer and semi-decent "lav placer", but I've had clothing rustle or other interference on one lav mic ruin a multi-lav mixdown often enough that I always prefer ISOs, even on a 3-channel recording. As a post engineer I always prefer ISOs over mixes. If the location mixer (who may be me on smaller jobs) did a good job mixing the initial levels, great. Dump the ISOs OR the mix track in and leave them alone, BUT, if something needs to be tweaked or repaired, it is 9372 times less time consuming to work with ISOs than it is to surgically dismantle a mixed track.

 

You are right that there are many productions that may never see real audio post, but when there is (and it could VERY easily be on a job that only needs 3 channels), I can guarantee you that I, your audio post engineer, want, and will use, your ISOs (if I can get them past the picture editor in the workflow).  

 

633 - SD quality (sound, build, reliability), mix and record what I most often need (a boom and couple of lavs) cleanly, reliably, intuitively in one small small light unit. Feed a couple more channels in on those occasions where I need a couple of extra mics. Timecode. Without actually having had one in my hands, this sounds exactly like what I need.

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The 633 is a great little addition to the SD family, but I won't be giving up my 552/744T combo anytime soon.  The 744T is still has amazing pre-amps and my sound recordings are beautiful.  I use the 552 for Stereo Mix backup but when I compare the recording quality, the 744T gives me a lot nicer quality of recording.

 

Thank you! That is what i was meaning

 

I will buy a 302 soon (now they are going to pop up every day at WTB/WTS section), and for "my use" it will be better and cheaper than a 663. And no, i will not use a Maxx

 

I´ll say it forever....wish some day SD realease a 744T MK2 with 4 preamps

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" they don't refuse to service a machine bought in the US - why would they? "

One possible issue would be warranty...

 

" And order from Nashville, delivered directly to your NY hotel room, sales tax free (about 9%), and save another $300 or more. Like getting the hotel free. "

see what he did there..?

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