F76 vs Sound Skulptor CP5176 on vocals, tiny-shootout...

[taliska]

Hi all, first time posting to the brewery. Thought it was best not to clutter up the dynamics section with this crap...

Anyway.

I found myself listening to some old counting crows today, so thought I'd record one of their songs for fun, and while I was at it, did two vocal takes with different comps for kicks...

Each track is one/first take only, but I apply the comps on the way in, so they are unfortunately different takes. All settings remain the same with both versions, but the F76 is grayhills vs the CP5176 pots, so I had to eyeball the settings on the CP5176. Path was C214 -> SSL 9K -> EQN -> F76/CP5176, in a crappy (untreated) room in a noisy neighbourhood. Additional high pass and reverb added in LogicX with adaptive soft limiter on overall output. Guitar is an identical F76 based take in both versions, so only the vocal differs.

Not the first time I've done this with these two comps, as I'm selling the CP5176 in the black market at the moment, so keep checking that I'm making the right decision doing that... (starting to backtrack on that though!)

Anyway, I did it just for my own curiosity, but I figured I might as well share it in case anyone is considering building either module. Which one I prefer differs in this instance on whether I'm listening though my ATH-M40xs or my laptop speakers or my earbuds.

In previous tests, CP5176 sounded more coloured and F76 sounded more open.

In this test, it's almost the opposite, but not quite.

It's not coloured(CP5176) vs open(F76) as much as it's present(CP5176) vs muddy(F76)...

Anyway, here you go:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/u132xkiv4jbpbn9/AACTRxlgYUjSvP4a6xccWx-Ua

Cheers,

Kaz

P.S. Added wav format in case aiff or m4a is problematic...

 

[useme2305]

thanks so much for doing this. the F76 sounds alot rounder to me while the CP5176 ist kind of upper mid heavy and slightly harsher.

 

[taliska]

thanks so much for doing this. the F76 sounds alot rounder to me while the CP5176 ist kind of upper mid heavy and slightly harsher.

I'm glad you found it useful!

Yeah, your description sounds fair to me. The only thing worth mentioning is that the EQ was initially configured with the F76 in the chain, so the rounder sound is probably a reflection of that too. When I put the CP5176 in the chain I didn't change the EQ settings so that the ability to judge the relative character was preserved. Of course, that's not really a good indicator of how well the CP5176 could be made to work, but still I found it interesting regardless.

FWIW, the freqs that were configured on the EQN were: 70hz HPF, 4.8khz boost (around 2 o' clock), 16khz boost (between 2 and 3 o' clock).

Other general thoughts: the C214 is a fairly crisp sounding mic. If I were to use my K2 which is my normal go to mic for my voice, I'm sure both results would end up smoother. It could be that my EQ adjustments were compensating for a mid-dip in the F76 vs the CP5176, or maybe not, who can say. I agree that the CP5176 is mid-forward relative to the F76, and think that has a lot to do with the DOA involved (SK25, a 2520 clone I believe). I haven't tried using other DOAs in the CP5176 or the F76 (which I built with the cascode DOA).

I'm in the middle of building some of Laz Pro's 525s, so hopefully those will be ready in a couple of weeks time, and if I get time I might do another pass as the 525 is said to be a little bit 1176-eqsue, even though the topology is quite different (just repeating what I've read...I don't have any previous experience with the 525 myself).

I've also got a JLM LA500 (opto) which might be an interesting unit to test also, just to round out all of the major food groups!