I have a friend who owns a small project studio who was looking to improve the audio quality in his mixing room so he could get better mixes. Rather than spend $5,000 on an ear training course or spend $500 to $1000 on bass traps and diffusors, he fell into the electronics trap. He purchased a new DAC called the Antelope Audio Zodiac (even the name makes me vomit a little bit).
Here is the DAC on Sweetwater:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ ... dio_zodiac
So, for $2,000 he though he was going to vastly improve his ability to get great mixed in his studio. Who sold him on this thing? Well, just about everyone. People have become more ignorant than ever before and he had at least a dozen well trusted professionals telling him that this $2,000 was the best money he could spend to improve his studio's output.
So, he got it, installed it, and started bragging about it to anyone who will listen. This weekend I finally gave in and agreed to come hear his "new studio," as he liked to call it. He still had some pretty decent nearfield monitors (Adams) and good audio interfaces for his recording rig (MOTU), but he had done nothing with the acoustics, tuning, or other common aspects of every great studio.
He beamed proudly as he put on his latest recording project for me to hear, and it sounded alright. After politely listening for an hour, or so, I asked him if we could compare the sound quality of his new toy to his old playback DAC, the built-in outputs of his audio interface. He excitedly agreed as he was convinced the difference was going to be "like night and day."
After routing all the audio channels for simultaneous output to both the Zodiac DAC and the main outputs of his MOTU 196kHz Firewire interface, we put a simple mechanical A-B switch between his speakers and those outputs. We calibrated the output to within an imperceptible level (well less than 0.01dB) and he put on some reference material he downloaded to learn how to use his 192kHz system.
I never said a word, we just sat their listening to song after song while switching between DACs. After about 20 minutes he got up and left the room, I assumed to pee. When he returned he had the box the Zodiac came in. He whipped out his iPhone, snapped a few photos of the DAC and then turned everything off and disconnected the Antelope Audio DAC and put it back into the original box. He was visibly angry and the tension in the room was hard to handle. His ignorant "sound engineer" friend who often worked for free was there and genuinely looked frightened.
After he put it away, he got on his business laptop and posted the DAC on Craigslist for $1,650.
Finally, I got uncomfortable and was going to leave and he turned to me and proceeded to used every swear word in the English language to describe how he felt about the people who advised him. He even took a ton of liberties on his "sound engineer" friend who had been really pushing him to buy that thing.
It was classic!
I still didn't say anything, because this guy tends to be a know-it-all who won't listen to reason. However, this morning I found an email from him in my inbox and he wanted to pay me help him with his room acoustics. Of course I will help, but it will be a simple job. He modeled his mixing booth on those he saw in magazines and websites, so all he needs are the traditional bass traps and diffusors.
It is amazing what just small amount of empirical knowledge can do!
Here is the DAC on Sweetwater:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ ... dio_zodiac
So, for $2,000 he though he was going to vastly improve his ability to get great mixed in his studio. Who sold him on this thing? Well, just about everyone. People have become more ignorant than ever before and he had at least a dozen well trusted professionals telling him that this $2,000 was the best money he could spend to improve his studio's output.
So, he got it, installed it, and started bragging about it to anyone who will listen. This weekend I finally gave in and agreed to come hear his "new studio," as he liked to call it. He still had some pretty decent nearfield monitors (Adams) and good audio interfaces for his recording rig (MOTU), but he had done nothing with the acoustics, tuning, or other common aspects of every great studio.
He beamed proudly as he put on his latest recording project for me to hear, and it sounded alright. After politely listening for an hour, or so, I asked him if we could compare the sound quality of his new toy to his old playback DAC, the built-in outputs of his audio interface. He excitedly agreed as he was convinced the difference was going to be "like night and day."
After routing all the audio channels for simultaneous output to both the Zodiac DAC and the main outputs of his MOTU 196kHz Firewire interface, we put a simple mechanical A-B switch between his speakers and those outputs. We calibrated the output to within an imperceptible level (well less than 0.01dB) and he put on some reference material he downloaded to learn how to use his 192kHz system.
I never said a word, we just sat their listening to song after song while switching between DACs. After about 20 minutes he got up and left the room, I assumed to pee. When he returned he had the box the Zodiac came in. He whipped out his iPhone, snapped a few photos of the DAC and then turned everything off and disconnected the Antelope Audio DAC and put it back into the original box. He was visibly angry and the tension in the room was hard to handle. His ignorant "sound engineer" friend who often worked for free was there and genuinely looked frightened.
After he put it away, he got on his business laptop and posted the DAC on Craigslist for $1,650.
Finally, I got uncomfortable and was going to leave and he turned to me and proceeded to used every swear word in the English language to describe how he felt about the people who advised him. He even took a ton of liberties on his "sound engineer" friend who had been really pushing him to buy that thing.
It was classic!
I still didn't say anything, because this guy tends to be a know-it-all who won't listen to reason. However, this morning I found an email from him in my inbox and he wanted to pay me help him with his room acoustics. Of course I will help, but it will be a simple job. He modeled his mixing booth on those he saw in magazines and websites, so all he needs are the traditional bass traps and diffusors.
It is amazing what just small amount of empirical knowledge can do!
