dbx 386 Dual Tube Preamp

This is one of the easiest products I've ever used for recording, period. Granted, I did read the manual online before my unit arrived. I hooked up the coax cable, plugged in a mic, set the buttons to output the correct digital signal, and set all the knobs to 12 o'clock. Levels were nearly perfect right away and gave some very nice results with virtually no tweaking. I would've given it a 10 here, except for two points. One, the buttons reset everytime you power it down, forcing you to go through a little selection routine at start-up, and two, the power switch in on the back which causes minor issues in my studio.

I'm using a variety of Shure and MXL LDC's and Octava SDC's for overheads and some instruments. I found the 386 to be very quiet when interfacing digitally. (I haven't tried the analog outputs.) That great tube sound is definitley there, but I have heard units that have a more pronouced effect and are easier to overdrive. However, the 386's sound quality is hard to beat with anything under $1000. It's extremely detailed and sooo super smooth! I couldn't believe how much it smoothed my voice out when I re-did some vocal tracks for my latest album. I was able to A/B it against the older tracks and was very pleased with the results. You get the really clean and accurate sound of a nice solid state pre, with the breath and warmth of the 12AU7s. I've not gotten any of the overwhelming tube saturation you get on cheaper units, but rather a very nice, open and round sound that stays detailed overall. I'm giving it a 9 because there are certainly better sounding pre's out there. But for two great, tube fronted, digital channels at this price, it's hard to beat!

Haven't had it too long, but I do have some dbx products I bought in the 90's that still work like new.

I'm a blues artist, and most of the recording I do is pretty strait forward, electric or acoustic guitars, bass, drums, ect... I've been recording seriously for about 12 years, playing music for a living for 14.

The best feature of the 386 is the digital output options. With my M-Audio cards, it has very low noise and a nice, robust sound. You've also got dithering and noise shaping options. I love this unit!

Straight forward operation, easy for experienced users. Manual doesn't help much, little explanation on noise shaping, dithering whatsoever, in some parts its unclear, hard time for unexperienced users. It doesn't have presets or memory recall, have to set it up all over again every time I turn on the unit. The LED is attractive tho, it colours my otherwise boring rack gear

A useful piece of gear, nothing special, clean. I use it mostly for drum overheads together with my Rode NT-5, I use the SPDIF outs and connect it to my M-audio 24/96, okay sounding for drums, but not for vocals. It is just plain boring on vocal, no character, lifeless. Nothing great about them, I use my UA M610 if I want to record vocals. If I scale from 1 to 10, 1 being behri*ger onboard mixers preamp, 10 being my M610, I give this unit 7.

Pretty reliable, never had trouble with it, hopefully it stays that way.

Never had to deal with them.

For AUS$520 used, this unit is okay, but I'm not gonna buy this one new for AUS$1300. It comes handy if you want to have extra audio channel, especially with the digital outs, its really useful for home recording enthusiast.

The 386 is very easy to use and the metering is great! The ability to set seperate analogue and digital levels and switch the meters between them is great. The A/D is fantastic and supports up to 24/96 with dither all user selectable. I wish the pots didn't have detent to set critcal balance.

The peak indicator is fairly accurate. There is some mis-balance between the channels as verified by using test tones however it's not easy to get balance to less than 0.1db with tubes. It is easily adjusted out with the gain and output controls.

Sound quality is excellent! I ran a number of tests after reading the problems people had with transient response. I didn't do technical testing, just subjective but i ran a number of highly transient signals through it including test tones and drum solos and it reproduced them flawlessly in terms of reproducing the transients.

The sound is warm and cushy and smooth. It imparts a very pleasing tube tone that is controlable to some degree with the gain. the tube response gives it a nice rolled off compression on transients if you push the tubes. The tubes in mine were ECG/JAN which aren't the best. I have a pair of telefunkens i am going to try. If you get one you should consider trying some different tubes in it like telefunken, mullard or NOS US brands.

so far so good

i called dbx about some other things and they were very friendly and informative.

The 386 appears to me to be great value for the money in that its a high quality tube front end with a very high quality A/D back end. amazing!

Simple use. The multi-functions on selector buttons can be a bit eye straining, but not a huge deterent. If your paying attention---as you should be---there should be NO PROBLEMS with operating this pre-amp. However, if you're not "detail oriented," this may not be the unit for you.

I have used pre-amps that cost two and four times the price of a DBX 386 and don't preform as well. I work almost exclusively in classical music, and my clients are HIGHLY CRITICAL! This pre-amp has NEVER failed to meet the demands of my clients. It is warm, rich, clear, open and QUIET. It is often my first choice to drive stereo pairs of Neumann KM184, AKG C-414, AKG 451EB/CK1, Beyer MC740, Oktava MC012, Groove Tube AM30.

The digital output is highly impressive, and the amp is not being put to its best use in analog mode...the diffenece is quite appreciable. The noise level on the digital output is contingent only upon the self-noise of your mics and the quality and length of your cables. (Anyone who complains about noise from this unit either isn't operating it properly and/or has crap mics on long runs of crappy cable.)

The unit has held up well to road use. Most of my recordings are on-location: concert halls, empty churches and vacant warehouses. I do always carry a spare set of tubes, just in case, but haven't need them yet.

Haven't had to deal with them, yet.

The most bang for the buck I've ever got from a two channel pre-amp...and even more bang than I've got from higher priced units. I and my clients---who have finely tuned ears---are very pleased with the preformance of the 386: warm, crisp, clear, open, quiet, accurate and transparent. I wouldn't trust my Neumanns, Beyers and AKGs to just any pre-amp: this one deserves such quality mics.

Plug your mic in turn the knobs - it's pretty straightforward. However you must remember to select the correct sampling rates when connecting this thing to other digital gear or else you can get 'clicking & pop' issues; something which spoilt a whole afternoon's recording for me, but hey, i won't do that again! The previous reviewer said he couldn't get enough gain out of this thing. I can only assume that this chap is trying to record something with a cheap dynamic mic at 100 feet through unbalanced cables. I use a range of condensors, XLR cables & find that the gain is more than adequate on this thing. On some occasions I've even had to use the 20dB pads.

Unlike the previous reviewer I thought the sound quality was good, and I also have a Joemeek twin Qcs to which it probably has the edge in comparison. I use this as a preramp before going into my Akai DPS 16 & it has really improved the quality of my sound. It sounds warmer & more accurate, but then it should do for the price!

I've had this for 4 months now & it's still going strong, though this thing does get hot. You really do need to separate it from your other rack gear if you are recording for any length of time.

Never had to enquire

Overall I think this is a decent bit of kit in this price range, especially as you have the added bonus of a digital SPDIF output. This is the machines selling point, and the one feature that makes this bit of gear slightly special in this price range.

It was a fairly direct unit but I was unimpressed at what it could do. The manual was overly simple and small, really only a few photocopy pages stuck together. It did not really talk much about tweaking etc. Some of the uses were a bit unclear as to when what was a desired setting. It could be that i did not really read much on it but then again there was not much there.

Hmmm, now I gotta say for any serious boosting I was pretty disappointed. I was trying to go into a roland 1680 and I hate the preamps built in as they are rather junky. I figured I could boost my amp mic signal without having to kill the neighbors but I often found it did not boost as much as I had hoped, maybe 15-20db max. It also tended to distort badly and low. Was it noisy? I suppose given the distortion I would say so. I was pretty disappointed. I had previously used a 586 with excellent results but this time it was not the same situation. The digital direct was no better. Thumbs down. This unit is underpowered.

hmmm I did not keep it long enough to find out so I will pass here.

No idea.

I play a lot of different styles, ranging from progressive alt to ambient and jazz. I have been playing 20 yrs or so, i forget. I returned the unit within the 30 day return policy so I suppose that answers that, no? I really did not like anything about it save that it was compact and looked cool. I have no ideas what to compare it to as I am shying away from the cheaper units and looking at the nicer units. I think I would like a Manley Labs but they are pricey.