ART DPSII Digital Preamplifier System

Plug into 2 channels of tube mic preamp, dial in your sound with variable input impedance, and record at up to 96 kHz/24-bit via S/PDIF or ADAT digital outs.

Overall User Ratings (based on 18 ratings)
  • Overall:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Sound:
    4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Features:
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Quality:
    4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Value:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Manufacturer Support:
    5 out of 5 stars
  • The Wow Factor:
    5 out of 5 stars
Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
(18) (see rating details)
Submitted October 11, 2004 by a customer from yahoo.com

"Great deal for a nice preamp with 24/96 ADC"

Overall: 5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
No need to change it very soon. It fits my needs very well (recording mics and guitars for myself ).
Sound
Warm and clean sound, of course need at least extra Eq and compressor. AD converter better than expected. Worth the money, i think i did a good choice for features and price.
Features
Presets are not my favs but it's better that they are, and in combination with all the other features is enough room for settings when think it's only a preamp with AD converters...well in fact it's not. The pre ADC faders can be very useful when using other analog effects or even some other preamp before the converter
Quality
Looks excelent (as in pics ) maibe some cheap knobs for V3 settings. Mine is Made in China (bought from competitor ) so there's been a little misleading there...
Value
It seemed the best deal for all features (and i really wanted an external ADC )
Manufacturer Support
Never needed. And hope never will cause i'm a little to far form US.
The Wow Factor
I said it looks excelent. It sound excelent for it's price. Since i bought it (6 months already ) it's my favourite "toy". Think it's clear enough. There might be better choices outthere but i'm satisfied with it.

Musical Background:

musician

Musical Style:

Rock, metal
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Submitted October 31, 2004 by a customer from hotmail.com

"How can a Review of the Art DPS III not include it's Digital Out capability?"

Overall: 4.5 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.
Features
The DPS II includes Digital Outputs which are worth the purchase price alone. The Digital outputs include S/PDIF, TOSLINK or ADAT.
Value
I think the first reviewer forgot that the DPS II includes Digital Outputs. Just because you don't use a major feature of the preamp doesn't mean it has no value. How can you compare two Presonus TubePre's without Digital Outputs for $100 each to it? Two PreSonus Digitube Single Channel Tube Microphone Preamps with Digital Outs would cost twice as much as the DPS II $250 each).

Musical Background:

Musician, Recording Engineer, Producer and Software Developer.

Musical Style:

Various
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Submitted June 1, 2004

ART DPSII Digital Preamp Customer Review

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
This review has been selected by our experts as particularly helpful.
This a very flexible product. It's not a super high end product, but for the price is really good. It can be used as a mic pre, a DI, or a stand alone A/D/A converter. I've used the inserts for compression, etc, and also inserted my Focusrite mic pre (the ART as an A/D converter) to run digitally into my portable 16 track workstation. Many other options as well.
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Submitted April 8, 2004

"FIRST IMPRESSIONS are very very good"

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars
(see rating details)
as i said this is a FIRST IMPRESSIONS REVIEW. more later... so far so good though.
Sound
I just got the DPSII and promptly connected it up to my mackie 24/4. I wanted to see just how noisey it was based on the other post in here. So i connected up an Audio Technica condenser into channel one and ran it into the mackie will all other channels and FS returns down. I had the +20dB gain in and total gain around +35dB. Output on 0dB. The mixer rail trim was all the way down. It was a very hot signal and there was not appreciable noise - this was with headphones on. Now, this is with the mic off. I haven't had the chance to really try this preamp out but when I do I will post another review. Consider this one a FIRST IMPRESSIONS REVIEW. As for the sound, it appears clean, dynamic and maybe a little dark. Im not a big fan of the V3 sort of feature - I prefer a purist approach. However the presets can be used to spruce up an otherwise dull microphone or imedance miss-match. I am used to using a DBX 376 and this will be my reference.
Features
The feature set looks good. I like the imedance control - so many problems are because of imepedance miss-matches and this helps to rectify that. The meters are also useful. The AD section is icing on the cake. I'll try it out later.
Quality
construction is very good. I opened it up and its clean and well laid out. the circuitry looks decent although there are some low end opamps in there. changing those with less noisy ones would help. there appears to be an opamp front end and then a discrete transisitor gain stage and then into the tube. it also has a toroidial transformer in it which is a nice bonus. the knobs on my unit are fine and point where they should.
Value
my god so far for the price its amazing. time will tell however. but my first impression is wow - great value!
Manufacturer Support
no idea.
The Wow Factor
it looks good.

Musical Style:

electronic/acousit
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