Yamaha HA8 mod?

[stefan]

I own two Yamaha HA8 micpres that has been in my studio since the time I actually considered the 02R to be a nice mixer, maybe 12-13 years ago. the 02R is gone but the HA8:s are still sitting in the rack as I still think they are OK, and it´s nice to have 16 channels of identical preamps just occupying 4U of my rack. They are OK but sounds kind of, well, boring is the best description. I never get that lowend punch I get from My Vintagedesign 1073 Clone and even though Yamaha claims that the unit goes up to 40K, I´m still missing something in the highend. Has anyone tried to mod one of theese? Does anyone own a schematic? The unit feels wellbuilt so I feel that it might be worth the time.

 

[Jim Zuehsow]

I had one of those a few years ago. I remember it being a quite "honest" sounding box. I have found that usually equates to the "boring" you describe. Most Yamaha stuff I've looked inside of had Yamaha chips, which didn't have the same pin-outs as more familiar chips. This makes it hard to upgrade. However, if you want to add some character (distortion), you could always add some cheap iron transformers to the output and drive it thru a series resistor, or maybe bias the add on transformer so it saturates sooner. That will give you a bunch of 2nd harmonic which should make the bottom end fatter. I don't believe you can have true "honesty" and API type "punch" at the same time, at least that's been my experience.
I replaced the Yamaha with a Presonus 8 channel box a couple years ago. They have a buttom which "scoops" the mid-range out to make it sound more bigger, and more exciting. Totally useless.

 

[stefan]

Yes, You are probably right when calling the HA8 "Honest" I owned an ch Presonus for a while too (portable1U with built-in ADAT ADconversion), but actually preferred the Yamahas soundwise. since I record a lot of acoustic instruments and also often need 16 chanels maybe I should just keep theese stock and build another pre for some crunchier stuff. And yes, clean and crunchy would be hard to get in the same box, what I was hoping to hear was more something in the style of: "Change to theese OPamps and caps and You´re in Millennialand" But I guess that´s not gonna happen. :wink: