Review: Universal Audio 4-710D
AT goes to Twin-Finity and beyond in search of a cost-effective multi-channel recording solution.
By Greg Walker
19 February 2012
When the original Universal Audio 710 ‘Twin-Finity’ mic pre came out I thought, ‘Hmmm, probably not for me’. The idea of twiddling between valve and solid-state preamp gain stages didn’t excite me all that much; I prefer my pres to do one thing well and leave it at that. I should probably state that I’m a committed Universal Audio hardware user with a UA6176 and a UA2108 unit in the racks that see service pretty much every day, so it was nothing against the company — just my feeling about it. However when the 4-710d arrived for review my interest was piqued. Here were four channels of Twin-Finity preamplification with some basic 1176-style compression and eight channels of analogue to digital conversion thrown in at a very competitive price. Universal Audio is certainly no slouch at making preamps or converters so I started thinking that if the quality of all these goodies was up to scratch we could have something pretty tasty here.
FOUR EYES!
Cosmetically the 4-710d harks back to units like the UREI LA4 and 1178 with its 2U high brushed silver faceplate and black plastic rimmed silver rotary knobs replete with the little black circles to denote settings. Overall the layout is clear and fairly easy to navigate with the four channel Hi-Z inputs over on the left hand side, the four preamp modules’ controls in the middle with their generous diamond-shaped backlit meters, and basic digital metering and converter controls as well as a power switch over on the right of the unit. A preponderance of smallish silver toggle switches greatly enhances the versatility of the unit. The caveat is it sometimes makes the unit fiddly to work with quickly; I often needed more than a cursory glance to make sure I was flicking the correct switch, especially when phantom power-averse ribbon mics were involved!
Each of the four microphone preamp sections features the ‘Twin-Finity’ topology allowing users to choose between, or blend to taste, vacuum tube and solid-state preamplification stages using the smaller ‘Trans–Tube’ knob. Standard input and output gain controls allow for cleaner or more driven gain structures.
A quick look under the bonnet of the unit reveals a great deal of PCB action in a busy but tidy layout and, unnervingly, only two JJ ECC835 tubes! How all four channels can be tube driven by these two suckers is admittedly a matter of electronic or perhaps even religious speculation for the layman such as myself, although as it turns out there is a rational explanation [see ‘Two By Four Tubes’ box item — Ed]. Let us move on then and suspend disbelief for the time-being while we look at the functions and real-life performance of the unit.
FOUR PLAY
When I initially plugged the 4-710d into my rig and somewhat reluctantly bypassed my RME converters and go-to mic pres, my main concerns were whether the Twin-Finity pres could do a good job in a variety of contexts and whether the conversion would be on par with the dedicated UA converters I’d heard. I’ve spent a lot of the last six months writing and recording music for a TV series, mainly using a handful of mics (namely an Octava ML-53 ribbon, a Beyer M88 and a Neumann U87) so when switching to the Twin-Finity pres I had a very good sense of what sounds I’d been getting with various instruments previously and I was able to do some very accurate comparison tests with instruments in the same rooms and positions.
My first impressions were positive, I wasn’t exactly blown away by the 4-710d pres but then I wasn’t expecting to be, given the cost per channel difference. Importantly there were no nasty surprises when making the switch and I rarely felt a strong need to switch back. On strings, drums, hand percussion and accordion I mainly used the ‘tube’ setting for slightly more lower harmonics and smoother top end, or went for a 50/50 blend of tube and solid-state to get a little of the latter’s transparency. While I missed a little of the 6176 tube preamp’s dimensionality and roundness, the results were very useable with clear detail and a nice sense of air on percussive instruments and solid bottom end on cellos and double basses.
Switching to the solid-state topology for piano, the results were similarly pleasing; the transimpedance design produced good tone, fast transient response and lots of gain for quiet parts. Blending the two topologies was kind of fun and I did get some good results on the in-between settings but I generally tended to go for one or the other in most situations. Time is money when you’re tracking and, unless you’re in a separate control room situation (which I’m often not), the graduated range of options is not something you’ll necessarily want to explore every time.
NEED TO KNOW
Universal Audio 4-710D
Microphone Preamplifier & A/D Converter
FOUR TO THE FLOOR
One thing I disliked was the low output of the mic pres and converters on ribbon miked sources such as violin and brushed cymbals. To get a mic input level consistent with my 6176 pre wound up to about three quarters of maximum gain — I had the 4-710d going flat chat. With my RME converters in that situation I would simply switch to a higher input level setting without introducing too much noise into the circuit, whereas with the UA’s converters I missed the flexiblity of escaping the lower standard digital I/O levels, with a bit of noise creeping in at high gain settings.
The compression circuit adds pleasing zing to dynamic signals when set to ‘fast’, and allows you to get some nice 1176-ey squish going on drums while the much gentler ‘slow’ settting delivers more transparent control on sources like vocals and acoustic instruments. Importantly for a dynamics processor with very limited controls, it is quite forgiving at modest settings meaning you’re more likely to give it a guernsey during tracking on the right source. While the manual is a bit vague about what exactly the ‘1176-style’ compression circuit consists of, rest assured it’s not a trademark gimmick, but an analogue process based on the 1176 circuit design sans transformers (as indeed are the digital output limiter circuits). Most importantly, in practice it is quite useable and capable of a fair range of compression effects.
One other gripe is that the preamp gain controls are very ‘jumpy’ at certain points in their play, both in mic and Hi-Z modes. Unfortunately this speaks of cheap potentiometers and I’d lay hefty odds this is where some of the component cost cutting has occurred with this unit.
On a more positive note I did some testing of the digital converters, shooting out between the 4-710d and my trusty RME ADI-8 DS and the results were good. While the RME beat the UA out in terms of bottom end and low-mid weight and wallop, the UA was tighter down low and had a bit more air and detail up high. Stereo imaging was a dead heat and my eventual conclusion was that it was a matter of taste as to which was ‘better’, although neither of these sounds quite as good as UA’s high-end standalone units. Admittedly the RMEs are quite a few years old now but they are a standalone unit whereas the UAs are part of a much bigger and very keenly priced package so I was favourably impressed by their performance.
PROBLEM SOLVER
So what exactly is the 4-710d? An affordable device that covers an awful lot of ground; offering four mic pres with two styles of preamplification, basic but vibey compression, digital output limiting and eight channels of good quality A/D conversion. How’s it sound? Pretty good. I’ve been tracking with it for about a month and I’ve got no real complaints about the sound. It hangs together very nicely thanks. Is it a truly high-end device? Probably not. There’s been some corners cut, it’s only got two valves in it, the pots are a bit flakey, the onboard compressors lack fine control, and the conversion isn’t quite of the same lofty standard as UA’s high-end flagship devices. So while the gear snobs all walk away muttering about PCBs and the lack of point to point wiring, I’ll wager that people are going to make great recordings with this thing, and that what the 4-710d lacks in old-school chic it makes up for in versatility and bang for buck. If you’ve been poring over mic pres, digital converters and compressors looking for a simple front-end solution to digital recording, Universal Audio might have just solved all your problems in one go.
RESPONSES