Recording - September 2015 - 40

Soundwise you get what you'd expect: a good sum of your
signals with the added depth, detail and presence of analog.
SSL is famous for making great consoles; for those familiar with
the SSL Duality and the AWS consoles, that's the sound we are
talking about.

In absentia: Neve 8816

The 5059 has two stereo outputs and the ability to assign
each channel to the second mix. This lets you, for example, create a stem mix of just the drums while also creating your main
mix. You can daisychain multiple units; in particular, by connecting a second unit to the insert outputs, the dual stereo outputs can be used to add 4 auxes to each channel.
As with the other two units under comparison, all connections
are DB25 in the back. Don't forget to budget for DB25 breakout snakes if your audio interface doesn't have a DB25 port. The
5059 has a cooling fan in the back and an IEC power plug with
automatic voltage sensing for use anywhere in the world.
Probably the single coolest feature of this unit is the knob
called Texture, which adds musical harmonics to both mix outputs by saturating the output transformers. That might be just the
ticket for a dull mix, and that is indeed what some analog consoles might do to your mix. However, in the example audio files,
I did not use this knob at all because I wanted to compare the
clean summed signals without added harmonic distortion.
Rupert Neve products are famous for their Class-A topologies and
transformers, so this is definitely a good choice for those who are
looking for "phatness" and sparkle. Just remember that you will have
to carefully reset those level knobs if you need to recall a mixdown.

There are of course many other summing amps on the market,
even some cheaper passive ones that require a preamp to work.
I would like to point out one unit that I would have loved to
include in my tests because of its great set of features and its
longstanding and well-deserved reputation for amazing sound:
the Neve 8816 Summing Mixer.
Rupert Neve is now doing his own thing under the name
Rupert Neve Designs, but after he left the company he founded,
Neve continued to make audio products, and this is Neve's flagship summing amplifier. The 8816 is one of the first of its kind
and already offered a lot of the same features that the Sigma
offered only years later. It's a 2U 16-channel summing amp with
pan pots, level trims, cue solo buttons, headphone output, and
a "stereo width" control for your final mixdown. You can daisychain multiple units, control them from Mac/PC, and recall your
mixes. Neve even makes an add-on fader pack that you can
connect to this unit to basically turn it into an almost full-blown
mixing console, albeit one lacking EQ and other channel-strip
functions.

What we're hearing

Solid State Logic Sigma

When discussing analog summing versus in-the-box summing
it's always hard to make precise scientific statements. Unless you
get into heady math that most of us (myself included) wouldn't
understand anyway, we can only really trust our ears.
One simplified way to explain why analog summing makes a
difference, in layman's terms, is as follows. When you run audio
through analog circuitry there is some stuff that happens that

The UK-made SSL Sigma ($4599 street price) offers the most
complete feature set of the compared units. It's the only one of
the three that offers 32 mono channels or 16 stereo channels,
so you get a lot of bang for your buck! This might be the best
choice for those who are replacing an analog console with a
summing amplifier, because it comes with things like talkback,
main/alternate monitor outputs, and remote control, which
means that if you are using this unit in a studio situation you can
connect multiple speakers and even headphones (something the
other two units lack) and use it as a monitor controller.
All of this is controllable via Mac/PC computer and/or iPad
or other tablet. This makes it a great purchase when it comes to
mix recallability; you can basically save and recall your routing,
monitoring section, and settings, but also control your monitoring experience without leaving your sweet spot.
As with the other two units, this 2 rack space unit comes with XLR
outputs for the two sets of speakers and the main mix output, plus
DB25 connectors for all the other I/O connections-inputs, outputs,
talkback, direct outputs, alternate mix output. It also comes with a
footswitch input (assignable to talkback, mono check or other functions), a USB connection for remote control, and an RJ45 connection so you can wirelessly control the unit from a tablet.

simply isn't there in the digital realm. We could call it harmonic
distortion, or something else... I suppose we could even call it
"magic" if you prefer!
This "magic" is very tiny, but it's definitely there. I hear it, and
I think you will too if you listen to my audio files with a friend
switching between them so you don't know what you're listening to as you listen. For the sake of argument, we can say that
one channel through an analog console sounds 0.5% better
than the same channel going through a digital bus. Nobody is
going to hear that 0.5% difference, really... and so we assume
that analog and digital are equal. But when you take that tiny
0.5% difference and you multiply it by 32 channels, you are
now talking about a potential 16% difference in quality, well
into the realm of what can be perceived by the human ear.
Of course these numbers are just purely for the sake of illustration and not at all realistic. But they serve the purpose of the
point I am trying to make-which, in the words of the great
Aristotle, is: "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
Analog summing does indeed sound better than digital summing, but you only start hearing that difference when you are
summing multiple channels at once. In a full mix, the punchiness,
depth, gloss, sparkle, and detail of analog comes to life in a

40

RECORDING September 2015



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - September 2015

Contents
Recording - September 2015 - Intro
Recording - September 2015 - Cover1
Recording - September 2015 - Cover2
Recording - September 2015 - 1
Recording - September 2015 - 2
Recording - September 2015 - 3
Recording - September 2015 - 4
Recording - September 2015 - 5
Recording - September 2015 - Contents
Recording - September 2015 - 7
Recording - September 2015 - 8
Recording - September 2015 - 9
Recording - September 2015 - 10
Recording - September 2015 - 11
Recording - September 2015 - 12
Recording - September 2015 - 13
Recording - September 2015 - 14
Recording - September 2015 - 15
Recording - September 2015 - 16
Recording - September 2015 - 17
Recording - September 2015 - 18
Recording - September 2015 - 19
Recording - September 2015 - 20
Recording - September 2015 - 21
Recording - September 2015 - 22
Recording - September 2015 - 23
Recording - September 2015 - 24
Recording - September 2015 - 25
Recording - September 2015 - 26
Recording - September 2015 - 27
Recording - September 2015 - 28
Recording - September 2015 - 29
Recording - September 2015 - 30
Recording - September 2015 - 31
Recording - September 2015 - 32
Recording - September 2015 - 33
Recording - September 2015 - 34
Recording - September 2015 - 35
Recording - September 2015 - 36
Recording - September 2015 - 37
Recording - September 2015 - 38
Recording - September 2015 - 39
Recording - September 2015 - 40
Recording - September 2015 - 41
Recording - September 2015 - 42
Recording - September 2015 - 43
Recording - September 2015 - 44
Recording - September 2015 - 45
Recording - September 2015 - 46
Recording - September 2015 - 47
Recording - September 2015 - 48
Recording - September 2015 - 49
Recording - September 2015 - 50
Recording - September 2015 - 51
Recording - September 2015 - 52
Recording - September 2015 - 53
Recording - September 2015 - 54
Recording - September 2015 - 55
Recording - September 2015 - 56
Recording - September 2015 - 57
Recording - September 2015 - 58
Recording - September 2015 - 59
Recording - September 2015 - 60
Recording - September 2015 - 61
Recording - September 2015 - 62
Recording - September 2015 - 63
Recording - September 2015 - 64
Recording - September 2015 - 65
Recording - September 2015 - 66
Recording - September 2015 - 67
Recording - September 2015 - 68
Recording - September 2015 - 69
Recording - September 2015 - 70
Recording - September 2015 - 71
Recording - September 2015 - 72
Recording - September 2015 - Cover3
Recording - September 2015 - Cover4
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