Kore's owner and chief engineer, George Apsion was at hand to ensure that all of the mic pres had a fair hearing. Units from Millenia, Avalon, Focusrite and Amek, all kindly donated by FX Rentals for the day, were compared directly with the Audient ASP008. Audio professionals were then invited to pass comment on the sound quality of each, with source material provided by an excellent female vocal and acoustic guitar duo.
Luke Baldry, sales and marketing director for Audient, comments: "The most interesting aspect of this test was that there was little evidence of the difference between mic pres being subjective, there were clear winners and losers in this test. I'm pleased to say we were amongst the winners!"
"The ASP008 is a lot closer in terms of the sound quality to the more expensive units tested," adds George Apsion." In one case it easily out-performed a mic pre that I assumed would be in a different league. The clarity and definition of the ASP008 is remarkable given the price of the unit."
Those present were also given the opportunity to audition the Audient Sumo for the first time. The Sumo provides a high quality, analogue sum of the individual D/A converters of a workstation, with the addition of a buss compressor and peak limiter. This provides clear benefits over mixing within the digital environment of a workstation. Luke Baldry says: "There has been a lot of discussion recently concerning the adverse effects of mixing within workstations. What we have demonstrated today in a simple no-nonsense test, is that the tried and tested method of summing in the analogue domain is still by far the best. For many of our customers the buss compressor and limiter will be viewed as the icing on top of the cake."
(Lee Baldock)
