I finally took the plunge and sent my Digi002r to Black Lion Audio in Chicago for the Signature Series upgrade, and it was totally worth it.
As a guitar player, the first experiment I thought to try was to test several different mics on electric guitar thru only the mic preamps on the 002r, all of which was set to 3 0'clock, and guitar amp set fairly low at a practice room level. I used a Shure 57, a Sennheiser 421, a Bock U195, and a cheap ribbon from Shanghai, China to record a vintage 1977 Fender Starcaster, plugged thru Boss, Mxr, and EHX pedals and patched into a Fender 1965 Twin Reissue.
In terms of microphones… they were positioned about 3-4 inches off the grill, centered on the cone, and on axis. I've successfully used this setup for guitar overdubs in the past, but trying it out thru the Black Lion mod was kind of like hearing it for the first time.
Level wise, I chose to do a 3 o'clock position on the mic pre's as a starting point to see what they sounded like when fairly opened up. Still, the mic's output levels were obviously different and I compensated for this with the faders in my protools session. (Different trim settings on the mic pre gains will be another test another day.)
Over all, the Signature Series upgrades improved the results I was able to achieve above and beyond expectation, and I expect a lot. Upon playback, I immediately noticed that there is no more noise or hiss, and I was especially impressed with it's effect on the clean and dirty guitar sounds, as well as the reverb decays. Plus, I had a much higher impression of the ADs & DAs and of the mics themselves. Funny how an interface upgrade seems to upgrade everything else!
(pic source-)
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