Is this true?

[jrmintz]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23790&item=7335602910&rd=1

They are claiming that this Ward-Beck mic pre is a 1081 clone. Is that true? The seller is Guitar Center, BTW.

 

[Gus]

I have two m460a modules I don't know what they sound like I have not racked them yet.

I just opened one up its a mix of ICs and transistors.

 

[jrmintz]

I thought I remembered them being IC based. It seems a little tacky for GC to be misrepresenting items on ebay. Gus, are they transformer in and out?

 

[soundguy]

I owned a pair of those a while ago.

The only thing ward beck and neve have in common are the fact that they were both companies that made consoles. end of story.

the 460 is a nice eq but if you know the sound of a 1081, think "exact anthesis" and thats about the sound of a 460, literally. Its a really nice airy and open sounding EQ that has an interesting sorta saturated edge to it, hard to describe, but its defintely a "lite and airy" type of EQ and it definitely uses chip opamps, not poorly though, its a nice sounding EQ. The mic pre in it is quite nice as well. Its nothing nothing nothing nothing like a 1081 sonically and obviously not similar on a topological level either.

saying its a 1081 clone is not unlike saying a fork is a clone of a spoon...

dave

 

[Gus]

The microphone amp is transformer in. The output looks to be transistor out no transformer.

 

[jrmintz]

I reported them. It really pisses me off.

 

[Emperor-TK]

I was once playing a "vintage" '65 Fender Jaguar in our local guitar center. It sounded really good, but then I began to look at little closer at it. It was a fake, through and through. The decal on the headstock was an inkjet decal that bled when it was laquered. The dots weren't clay. The fretboard radius was nearly flat. The body color was also wrong. I told the salesman it was a fake and got no reaction of course. The next day I saw it on the guitar cener vintage web site for sale. I emailed asking about some of the details mentioned above and got no response of course.

Schmucks.

-Chris

 

[asm]

i hear ya. GC=certified assclowns.

they are always using cheap tactics of name dropping like this on ebay, which i have to say is VERY VERY unprofessional. especially for an individual but for someone repping a company its just distasteful

 

[quadwould]

after reading the original post only, and checking the auction.. my first though was..

What a load of Bollocks!!!

the GC crowd never cease to amuse me. HA!!

Ward Beck = Neve... er what Commission Driven Delusions dreamed that one up???

 

[BYacey]

I have half a dozen of these sitting on the shelf someplace, transformer driving an opamp. I never did hook it up and try it. Came from an old Canadian Broadcasting Corporation console. I have the EQs and compressors as well. Someday...

 

[Tungstengruvsten]

yeah outta all the WB's, I don't think any of them are remotely comparable to Neve gear - in topology, quality or tone. I've used 460's, 470's, and the older M44x series, which IMHO are the only ones worth paying attention too- the M441 is a decent pre, same military opamp input(709?) IC as the Studers with a nice hammond output, but even in that series the EQ was TL072's..nothing special. And i'm pretty sure all of the gear is bandwidth limited, either by transformer or circuitry or both.

This Canadian Neve stuff is bullshit originating with Canada's BS tech specialist Dave Thomas(not the Wendy's guy) ...also the guy turning a buck off the Telefunken RFT/APEX 460 dilemna.

 

[CJ]

too much stuff to build to be playing policeman.
none of my bizz anyway.
life too short.

 

[desol]

"yeah outta all the WB's, I don't think any of them are remotely comparable to Neve gear - in topology, quality or tone. I've used 460's, 470's, and the older M44x series, which IMHO are the only ones worth paying attention too"

The earlier 441 preamps are wonderful units...as well as the later 460/480 preamps. Any of these units sound excellent. I have some 480's and i've experienced the exact thing as Soundguy says above...couldn't have made a better description. Here's another guy i talked to...i told him he was crazy for selling his Neve 33114's:

"Hi there,
I know it sounds crazy, trust me I had a hard time parting with my Neves. After I got the console I A/B'd the Neves and WBs and just found muself favoring the WBs on most things. I gave a couple clients blind comparisons and they also picked the WBs, as well as other people whose ears I trust. I still think the Neves are a little smoother and prefer them on acoustic guitar, but the Ward beck preamps just kicked their ass on male vocals with my Pearlman mic.

After selling the Neves I got a DW Fearn preamp and the only person who listened to both so far still picked the Ward Beck. It has a sort of saturation thing going on which sounds exciting, it can capture breathy/raspy vocals really well. I think it also captures a little more transient detail than the Neves did. I can't recall the model mixer, but I believe an almost identical one is on sale now at primal gear, except mine has 10 channels and theirs has 8. Also, I modded mine with direct outs for tracking drums (which have turned out great!!!).

I just run a personal home studio, so while the Neve name meant a lot to me I didn't really make any more money because of it, so when these things ended up being so nice I figured I could get a some other needed toys and I haven't really missed the Neves since.

At any rate, I HIGHLY recommend them."


D.