Building a Pre Amp

er do not really think a digital 9088 will sound anything like what is required nice idea though. I do not like digital kit too much I prefer analogue. we bought a lot of FDS388 when they first appeared on the market sounded awful sent them back or sold them on removing them from hire stock. tried many others as well Dynacord XTA now use FDS360 DDA500 all heavily modded nice warm analogue really see little point in doing like a pal does takes Analogue to LS9 or MC7L then sends it analogue to XTA or KT then analogue to his Labgruppens  pointless!!! keeps changing domains a very bad n sad thing to do

depends what you mean by "More than a match"...it is still digital so loses some of the information as it can only achieve 72% oof it no matter what sample rate or bit depth you use Nyquist will tell you that.
It may be clean with a low noise floor etc But analogue well designed is always more pleasing to the ear. Music is not all about specs but about Timbre or character hence wrong is sometimes more right than right which often sounds so wrong.
My analogue FDS DDA sound really good using Burr-Brown upgrades not cheaper TLO or NE devices FDS give you a good level of control over a band with the breakouts I have dynamic feedback integration on mine an idea I nicked from Bruce Howze after having too much grief with the dodgy SC22 controllers we had and not finding the DSC's not much better

I have given a fleeting thought only fleeting mind to building a simple line driver using valves just to give a signal a "Valve" sound. Perhaps I will get around to it at some future point. just have so many other project on the drawing board at present that it gets pushed to the end of the queue. there is absolutely no reason why a Valve would not or cannot put a "Solid State" circuit to shame if well designed with a good PSU it can perform with excellence. I have also seen MOSFETS used in a similar config Topology to Bottles in Class A auddio amps with good results. came across a Japanese Bespoke Builder some years back building transformer coupled types running on Battery power using just one or two power devices thus arranged producing very valve like results. do not recall his name only knew him as "Bay" a friend of one of my Mentors the late Dennis Tryckett a great Valve man who thought me a great deal about bottles

so crack on I say give it a go you may like the results as well as the journey

Hey Nitz...has that berry got a tube in it then?

SMP wrote: Hey Nitz...has that berry got a tube in it then?

Yes it has 12AX7 in the preamp section but the eq and hp filters are solid state. Sounds good and is very clean suited for both studio and live work. But I need a unit for on sub to add that growl im looking for!!!!

Edited by Nitz V1505 - 15 May 2013 at 7:37pm

Greetings Nitz V1505 and SMP....