TubePre V2 - wow! Horrible!
Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2015 6:56 pm
I was anxious to try out the TubePre V2 to boost my acoustic guitar signal, as well as add some tube warmth to vocals. Wow, what a giant dissapointment! All I got as I turned up the gain was hissing and humming. Just horrible! I had to turn the gain down to 3 to make the signal "OK" not great, but the hissing and hummng was lower. Not gone though, just not "as annoying" But not being able to go past 3 on the gain is unacceptable. It makes barely any difference at all at that level. It doesn't even register on the VU meter it's so weak of a gain increase. I'll tell you what did register on the VU meter....turning up the knob for the so-called "tube" gain. The pot is such junk, that the noise created by just turning the knob sent the VU meter into the clipping level!!! I've had 30 year old amps with scratchy pots, and know how to easily get them to be noise free. It's really very easy. This pot won't cooperate, it's noisy no matter what I do. And the worst part of it is that I cannot tell one bit of a difference in sound with it all the way up or all the way down. The manual claims it can change your signal to "smokin' hot" and it can change your tone from subtle to extreme. Ok, I suppose that it does the subtle part well, very well. It's so subtle I can't even notice anything, at all. And as far as the "extreme", well...maybe the insane sounds from the junky pot is what they meant by extreme. Becasue it sure is. I'm not new to audio gear, and I've spent all day with countless cobinations of cords, amps and instruments with no positive results. It's just beating dead horse at this point. There is nothing I can do to make the sound any better. Oh ya, there was one thing I did that improved the sound dramatically. I put that crappy TubePre back in the box, ready to ship back for a refund. All of the sudden the tone of my guitar was great again, and the unwanted noises magically dissapeared. I've read countless reviews where people say you have to change the tubes because the Chinese tubes they use are noisy. No thanks! I refuse to throw good money after bad on a product that even though it's brand new, I have to replace things just to make it sound how it should right out of the box. That's Presonus' job to put working, good soundng tube in it when it's being made. Not after the consumer buys it. After 27 years of buying and using audio gear, I've yet to encouter that problem. With the exception of buying a drum kit and upgrading the heads, or buying a new guitar and changing strings. But it certainly isn't neccesary to use right way, it's just personal preference. Plus those are wear and tear items that need replacing on a regular basis anyway, and there's no way around that. And that's not even addressing the tube gain knob not even doing anything but creating horrible noise. That being said, if the tube is one of the major sellng points of this POS and it needs to be replaced because the quality is so poor, what other parts in ths unit are just as cheaply made? I'll bet quite a few. I've never bought something new, and told that I need to immediately replace a major part just to get it to do what it is already supposed to do, Hey Presonus, use quality parts and the poor consumers that buy this junk won't have to spend more money replacing parts that you should have used in the first place. Pathetic quaity control. I'll never touch a Presonus product again. It is just a headache. I should have known better....if someone says it "sounds noisy unless you replace the tube" should have been a serious red flag,
Lesson learned. You get what you pay for, sometimes (in this case) much, much less. I wouldn't pay $20 for this. I wouldn't even use it if it was given to me free. It's that bad. Maybe I got a dud? But I am just severely unimpresssed. I'll just run the signal through my mixer with built in preamps and I'll be better off. It keeps my signal crystal clear without all the headaches of trying to get a good sound.out of it. Plug and play. Just like I thought the TubePre would be. Plug and troubleshoot for two solid days with no positive results was my experience with this overpriced paperweight.
Hey Presonus....use quality parts to begin withm and the poor consumers that buy this won't have to replace them with actual quality parts. That is your job. But I guess it isn't? Pass it along to us to take care of.
You can polish a turd, but it's still just a turd,...and I'm done poilishing this turd. . .
Lesson learned. You get what you pay for, sometimes (in this case) much, much less. I wouldn't pay $20 for this. I wouldn't even use it if it was given to me free. It's that bad. Maybe I got a dud? But I am just severely unimpresssed. I'll just run the signal through my mixer with built in preamps and I'll be better off. It keeps my signal crystal clear without all the headaches of trying to get a good sound.out of it. Plug and play. Just like I thought the TubePre would be. Plug and troubleshoot for two solid days with no positive results was my experience with this overpriced paperweight.
Hey Presonus....use quality parts to begin withm and the poor consumers that buy this won't have to replace them with actual quality parts. That is your job. But I guess it isn't? Pass it along to us to take care of.
You can polish a turd, but it's still just a turd,...and I'm done poilishing this turd. . .