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Cooper 208 vs 106 preamps


larry long

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I know that some of you have experience with each.

My buddy just bought a 208 and put it up at work and noticed that the mics sounded boomier to him on the 208 than the 106. I brought the 208 home and ran a 40hz tone through the mic pres of each and noticed subtle differences but nothing dramatic other than the 208 looked cleaner. I used an osc through the mic pres then came out a main out so I wasn't really just looking at the pres specifically but the whole chain.

Does anyone have any opinions on the sound of each unit?

TIA,

LL

Thanks to Take and his BR for the Analyzer.

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I love the use of Take's spectrum analyzer --- nice to see these things posted here. The wave forms do exhibit some differences but quite similar overall. I can't give a technical answer although I do know that Andy made some changes with the 208 model, specifically to the mic preamps, making them somewhat different to the 106's (and of course he said they are better, cleaner, smoother, etc.). I was a long time 106 user (I had serial no. 001 which I used for about 15 years I think, or more, and when I got my 208 it did sound slightly different. I was obviously quite used to the sound of the 106 and probably my hearnig had changed more over time than Andy had changed the mic preamps. So, I didn't really pay any more attention to it --- the 208 still had the Cooper sound so I was happy.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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Jeff and Crew,

Yea I was comparing my 106 to his 208, from what I hear in my head they sound about the same with the 208 being quieter. I love my 106, but that is practically all I've know for the past 11 years. I think I would have to use the 208 on a job to really tell any difference, unlike the state of the art scientific testing methods I employ at home ;).

I told him to run with it, hell he bought it, it's a cooper, great routing, flexibility, comm and features.

Maybe next year I'll get one =)

LL

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I have also tried the new Sonosax and if I were younger and had the money to spend, the Sonosax is the only board I would consider to supplant my Cooper 208. Comparing the Sonosax to the Mix 12 is not really a valid comparison as far as I see it. The combination of the Deva and the Mix 12 (a necessity since the Mix 12 uses all the power of the Deva to do its thing) puts you in the digital domain right after the only analog stage, the mic preamps in the Deva. The Sonosax, on the other hand, is true analog refined with flexibility of routing that is not possible with any other analog board. The Sonosax, of course, can be used to feed ANY recording device, digital or analog, or NO recording device, like a P.A. system for example. This is not the case with the Deva / Mix 12 setup. The other thing that does not work so well for me is the fact that if some part of the Deva should fail, or some part of the Mix 12 should fail, the whole system could go down without even the facility of being able to route a signal to a backup machine of some sort. In all fairness, the Devas, my Deva I, Deva II and now the Deva IV, have never failed, so it is possible that I am pointing out something that COULD occur but typically has not. If I were using the Sonosax and feeding my Deva, and the Sonosax failed, I would of course put my Cooper 208 back in the chain and carry on. If the Deva should fail, I would put another recorder in its place or just carry on while relying on the backup recorder (which did not fail and was being fed an identical signal in parallel with the Sonosax --- something that would not work using the Deva / Mix 12 setup.

What the Sonosax would provide for me is the routing flexibility that the Cooper 208 still lacks. The original Cooper was always OUTPUT bus-centric and still is, with the only access to individual channel strips being the Pre-Fade listen or solo function. The Sonosax has 8 outputs and is highly configurable in that respect, allowing more options in terms of monitoring and routing of the input signals than the Cooper can provide.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

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