Dani Paige Band:

So we're getting ready to make a new album, and I've decided to do most or all of the tracking myself. We'll probably hire a mixing engineer at the end, because we really like the guy we worked with last time (shout-out to Chris Chase/Chasesounds).

I did some of the tracking for our last project with the equipment that I had at the time, and the results were fine but there was definitely room for improvement in the mic and preamp department. Since then I've upgraded that stuff, and like any good gearhead in 2010, I'm now on to worrying about converters.  Currently I have a Presonus Firepod, which I suppose is regarded as the Honda Accord of 8-channel Firewire interfaces: Presonus sold a bazillion of them, they get the job done, and at the time of release it was an unbelievable value. (Obviously there's more competition now.)

In considering whether I'll wish I had better converters after the project is done, naturally one possible course of action is to buy a couple of other units and do a shoot-out.  But then I thought of another option. I loaded a professional stereo mix into my DAW and ran it through the DAC/line outs on the Firepod, and then straight back to the ADC/line ins.  Then I took that re-recorded stereo file and looped it out and back in again, and again, a total of 6 times, so the stereo AIFF that I ended up with had gone through the Firepod's DAC and ADC 6 times each, for a total of 12 format conversions (and, I would assume, 12 trips through the unit's analog line amp circuitry). 

My thinking is this: if the Firepod is adding any audible distortion or coloration during conversion, it should be totally obvious by the time the track has gone through the process so many times.  Kind of like making 6 successive generations of tape copy back in the analog days.

I'm not going to tell you my conclusion.  Instead, I've posted the original clip (which hasn't gone through the Firepod at all) and the "looped" clip (which has gone in and out 6 times). One is labeled A and the other is labeled B and I'm not saying which is which.  I'm looking for all of you fellow sound enthusiasts to listen to both and give your opinions.

The song I used is "Fight Outta You" by Ben Harper, because I like the way it was recorded. The files posted here are uncompressed AIFF format, about 16 megs each. You'll probably want to right-click on each and select the option "Download linked file," or something like that.

Test A

Test B