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Will 788t and CL8 almost substitute 744t and 552 mixer?


RadoStefanov

How many people have experienced heat lockups and other related issues with the SD788t  

54 members have voted

  1. 1. How many people have experienced heat lockups and other related issues with the SD788t

    • I have on many occasions!
      5
    • I have once or twice.
      12
    • I have never experienced issues.
      22
    • I have other issues with it.
      4
    • No issues with the 788t SSD
      11


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No offence , my gear just work hard and 2 times more then average (rentals ) and yes it could be + 50 in the shade in some arias , and yes we are talking much more in the bag then on a cart .

By the way  my friends ssd  died ( the internal hd ) as well  while the current  summer (35 in shade , probaly 70 in the bag , ) .

and of course we forget how shy people say something bad about the gear they own

Zack remember , bad things with 788 happens only to people outside  USA , if you live in , i guess it wont ever :-)

Since you seem to have more experience using both the 788 and the Devas in really hot weather than anyone around here, could you list all the issues you've had again for us--it would help those of us on the fence to have them all in one place.  I mean the most common problems you and your rental clients have had that relate to high ambient temperature.

thanks

phil p

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The 552 is a great replacement, but as with many replacements produced by many companies as designs and technology changes, sometimes specific features are "upgraded" for one reason or another, but provide weaker performance.  Overall, the 552 is amazing, but I still believe the new limiters employed by the newer SD machines are FAR inferior to their old design.

That really, really disappoints me. I'm a long time SQN user and would remain so, but for the wealth of options that the 552 offers - not least the built in backup recorder. The one thing preventing me swapping is my lasting love of SQNs limiters which I've always found to be exceptionally transparent and solid. I even preferred them to the much more flexible ones in the 442. The idea that the 552 and 788 have a less reliable sysytem in place fills me full of woe...

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" a less reliable sysytem in place "

??

I don't think I'm being particularily unclear if you have been following the conversation. Perhaps you object to the term 'less reliable'. Robert has been blunt enough to suggest that both the 552 and the 788 limiters 'suck'. This is possibly not a terribly analytical assessment of their function, and no doubt open to personal taste, but it isn't the first time I have heard rumbles of discontent about the 552 limiters and as someone who would otherwise be keen to make the jump to Sound Devices it concerns me slightly.

Again, I consider SQN limiters to be astonishingly good and would rather not have to work with anything that might be viewed as less capable in that department.

In the interests of full disclosure I have yet to sit down and properly demo either device.

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The 552 is a great replacement, but as with many replacements produced by many companies as designs and technology changes, sometimes specific features are "upgraded" for one reason or another, but provide weaker performance.  Overall, the 552 is amazing, but I still believe the new limiters employed by the newer SD machines are FAR inferior to their old design.

  What don't you like about the 552 limiters?  Slow to attack? slow to release?  Compression is weak?  What?  I love my 5 yr old 442.  Zero problems so far.

Bud

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  What don't you like about the 552 limiters?  Slow to attack? slow to release?  Compression is weak?  What?  I love my 5 yr old 442.  Zero problems so far.

Bud

The 442 is transparent and lovely, as is my 302 and 744T.  The new limiters on the new machines are very harsh, in my opinion.  I can hear them immediately, so on my 788T I had the threshold set pretty high to avoid getting into them, which actually caused me to clip a few times on the mix in the last year since I bought the machine.  At the moment I am running the mix into my 744T and out into channel 1 of the 788T so I can record hot, which I like.  No problems so far. The ISO tracks are below enough to not worry about (usually), but now that I have the Solice it should solve that issue.

Robert

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I am also interested to hear what people do not like about the 788T Limiters. I have been completely satisfied with mine.. I do know that there were some issues with limiters on earlier firmware but after version 2.0 I think they were improved.

I have mine set at Hard knee 20:1, threshold of -4dBFS and 200msec recovery.. completely happy!

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I am also interested to hear what people do not like about the 788T Limiters. I have been completely satisfied with mine.. I do know that there were some issues with limiters on earlier firmware but after version 2.0 I think they were improved.

I have mine set at Hard knee 20:1, threshold of -4dBFS and 200msec recovery.. completely happy!

Same settings here.

They were indeed far worse before the new firmware, but I am still unhappy.  I even talked to the SD guru at one of the expos here in Los Angeles about it recently.  The machine was also in service checking out what I thought was a battery charging issue, but it wasn't.  All functions were checked at that time and found to be in perfect working order.

Robert

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Hey Robert

I am just setting the machine up to do a listening test again..It may be that I dont usually record that hot with 24bit, but I cant say I have noticed the limiters sounding too unnatural or harsh in the past.

Having said that I do very much like the limiters on my 442, I think I can notice a subtle difference there.

Also re the original topic, I did skip the 552 and went for the 788T/CL8.

Some concerns are: 788/CL8 is way more power hungry and it weighs a little more.. but the flexibility is fantastic.

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I don't use a 788 or a 552 so I have no personal experience with their limiters.

When I was testing the Solice mixer for a review in the 695 Quarterly, I paid considerable attention to the operation of its limiters. We ran several side-by-side comparison tests listening to how the Sonosax SX-ST coped with hot signals and comparing the results with a Cooper 106, the Solice and others. The Sonosax is generally regarded as the gold standard of limiters and they do work wonderfully well but only if the panel settings are chosen advantageously. And the Cooper, not normally considered a panel with top-grade limiters, performed very well to our ears. The Cooper had been set up in accordance with Glen Trew's recommendations.

I reviewed all of these observations with Ron Meyer, the CEO (and chief engineer) at PSC. He used my findings to retune the limiters in the Solice to act very much like Sonosax limiters.

Ron told me that all of the panels use pretty much the same components and circuits to make a limiter. The differences we perceive come from how they are set up and adjusted rather than from any fundamental design differences. Any one of these limiters, he said, could be made to sound like any of the others.

Ron was specifically addressing the panel mixers in his observations; I'm not absolutely certain that his observations would apply to the little 788. And, the 552 is a new product and could, possibly, use entirely new components in the circuit. Everyone may use the same "latest technology" components but the latest technology is a constantly moving target.

Still, I would be inclined to think that greater attention devoted to tuning might yield performance from the 788 and 552 that would be more to your liking. It's a tricky business getting all the factors to work together just right.

David Waelder

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Maybe it is a settings issue. Ron and I talked about the limiters on the 552 specifically.  Perhaps he will share his opinions. I don't believe he did any extensive testing. Just a first impression.

I have tried many settings on my 788T, and find I can soften the affect at the expense of clipping, record at a lesser level, or deal with sound of the limiters engaging more than I would like.

But I seem to be the only one here with this opinion, so I'll just let you draw your own conclusions based on all the posts.

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Do some limiters work in the analog domain and some work in the digital domain? My impression has been that if that's true then the ones that I think work in the digital domain actually run out capability to handle overloads beyond a certain point. For example a gross overload on my Zaxcom Fusion will punch through the capability of the digital limiter with very clearly nasty results whereas I have never experienced such nasty punch through with an SQN or with 442 limiters. Anyone else think this might be correct or nonsense :)?

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Some clarification . . .The limiters in the 442, 744T, 302, 788T and 552 are all different designs.They are all analog domain limiters (i.e. pre A-D conversion) designed to prevent digital overload distortion. This is essential - there is no point limiting post AD because the damage will have already been done.They are not designed to provide dynamic compression.When used as they were intended i.e. as limiters, the sonic differences between the different designs will be subtle.When used for dynamic control (compression) which they were not designed for,  the sonic differences will become more noticeable.Setting levels and limiter settings so that the limiters only engage on excessive peaks will offer sonically effective results. If the limiter indicators are illuminating regularly, it might suggest that levels are set too high or limiter threshold is set too low.  Paul

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Some clarification . . .The limiters in the 442, 744T, 302, 788T and 552 are all different designs.They are all analog domain limiters (i.e. pre A-D conversion) designed to prevent digital overload distortion. This is essential - there is no point limiting post AD because the damage will have already been done.They are not designed to provide dynamic compression.When used as they were intended i.e. as limiters, the sonic differences between the different designs will be subtle.When used for dynamic control (compression) which they were not designed for,  the sonic differences will become more noticeable.Setting levels and limiter settings so that the limiters only engage on excessive peaks will offer sonically effective results. If the limiter indicators are illuminating regularly, it might suggest that levels are set too high or limiter threshold is set too low.  Paul

Thanks for the clarification, Paul.  I have just had a really tough time adjusting to the different behavior of the 788T limiters over the 744T/442/302 which I was quite used to.  I know I don't need to record so hot.  Just trying to fill all those bits!!

You know I love your machines, and this opinion has not changed.

Robert

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which brings us more to the subject of using a little bit of compression on the mix...

of course there are very few quality compressors available that run off of DC, which is an issue for some folks and situations.

but as Paul indicates, limiting is supposed to be a last resort, brick wall sort of protection...

so what our niche market is missing is a small, high quality, great sounding compressor, that runs off of 12VDC; single channel units, perhaps, with capability for linking...

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which brings us more to the subject of using a little bit of compression on the mix...

of course there are very few quality compressors available that run off of DC, which is an issue for some folks and situations.

but as Paul indicates, limiting is supposed to be a last resort, brick wall sort of protection...

so what our niche market is missing is a small, high quality, great sounding compressor, that runs off of 12VDC; single channel units, perhaps, with capability for linking...

One of the best of the best (12VDC power!)...

5043-h-mk2-web.jpg

http://rupertneve.com/products/portico-5043/

Not DC powered, but uses a relatively small wall wart and more economically priced (available soon)...

PBCTopPic.jpg

http://www.fmraudio.com/pbc.htm

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which brings us more to the subject of using a little bit of compression on the mix...

of course there are very few quality compressors available that run off of DC, which is an issue for some folks and situations.

Tom posted two, including one from FMR Audio.

I was going to post the FMR RNC1773 "Really Nice Compressor". It's been around for a long time, is inexpensive, and highly regarded as a great sounding budget compressor in the music recording world.

http://www.fmraudio.com/rnc.htm

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Tom posted two, including one from FMR Audio.

I was going to post the FMR RNC1773 "Really Nice Compressor". It's been around for a long time, is inexpensive, and highly regarded as a great sounding budget compressor in the music recording world.

http://www.fmraudio.com/rnc.htm

Absolutely great unit, I was hesitant to mention it to this group, though, because it lack balanced inputs, as it is typically wired into a console's inserts.

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