Cheap Preamp test (for those that wanted to look at them)

W

warlock110

New member
I have on my hand right now some of the cheap preamp that people ask questions about, so i'm gonna proceed to write something short about them.

1) Beringer Mic800, real nice looking, sounds very similar to the beringer Euro mixer line, thin, sharp, totally stand out from the mix, not good.

2) Audio buddy: people complain about it's phantom power, i'm driving a mic that's probably using more than 3X the power of typical large condenser mic, it's not lacking phantom power people are just having faulty units, very thick sounding, fuzzy, better than the beringer Mic800 but not by much, for 70 bucks, it's so not worth it.

3) Art MP tube: the noise level is there, who says it's not (some does) is not cranking up the gain, it's thick sounding, but believe it or not, thiner than the audio buddy lol, also a little fuzzy, the noise is probably not usable in high gain application, but for 30-40 bucks, i rank it higher than the audio buddy

4) DMP3: the most expensive out of them all, better? yes, people claims it's "clear/transparent", don't let it misslead you like it did with me, it is not sharp sounding or tiny/thin, it actually has a full detail sound, and it's clear, it cut through the mix nicely but still sits in and not annoying like the other pre.

I didn't believe that the DMP3 was good, for 150, it's good, it's worth it, i don't have anything better to compare it to, so i have no idea, next unit i get is probably gonna be the Rane MS1b or the Joe Meek 3Q, they both use the same amp as the dmp3, same price too.

I hate how i can't test gears before i buy them, so my lost is ur gain, i have these 4 to test, i can't return them, so those that look into it, for the price difference the DMP3 is still worth it.

All is going through the CAD M177 for vocal. good luck, wow, this dam DMP3 sounds better the more i listen to it.
 
Thanks for those comments, made so much more valuable by the fact that you actually have the gear there and can compare side to side.

I suggest you sell the preamps you don't want to keep on eBay. You might lose money on them, but you'll still get something for them, and can apply that to buying something else.
 
This actually helps alot..i was considering getting the ART MP and the M-Audio..so i guess i will stick with my idea about getting the M-audio..is there anyway you could post your samples online though?
 
JPXTom said:
This actually helps alot..i was considering getting the ART MP and the M-Audio..so i guess i will stick with my idea about getting the M-audio..is there anyway you could post your samples online though?
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probably, i did some vocal not in english (that's why i didn't want to post them), i might not be good at regconizing the sound, but when u A/B them it really shows :). I feel bad selling the crappy stuff, cuzz someone's gonna have to eat it. I've also realize something, the low end unit that claims "full sound" is actually "fuzzy" it's not full like what you would imagine on a comercial CD, that's very misleading, the 2 unit that suppose to have "warmth/full" is actually "fuzzy" now that i've heard a couple of the other stuff.
 
great job....

you got the benefit of knowledge doing these tests yourself, great of you to share it too.

DMP3.... it was my intro to preamps. the first time I was like wow? that sounds good, then an RNC in the chain, and it was still a frkn sweet sound .... a very noticeable upgrade.

DMP3/RNC is a pretty good combo.

good post!

So are you going to try another against the DMP3? shootout....:D
 
COOLCAT said:
great job....

you got the benefit of knowledge doing these tests yourself, great of you to share it too.

DMP3.... it was my intro to preamps. the first time I was like wow? that sounds good, then an RNC in the chain, and it was still a frkn sweet sound .... a very noticeable upgrade.

DMP3/RNC is a pretty good combo.

good post!

So are you going to try another against the DMP3? shootout....:D
Click to expand...

probably gonna try the MS1B rane and the Joemeek, all 3 has the blur brown chip, same price, and "good reaction". i'm still looking for them cheap. What i do is i lay down background music tracks, and each pre get 2-3 take of 1 verse i sing in there (i sing for about 1-1:30 min at parts with reasonable dynamic range from soft to loud, making sure that i cover what i need). That way the project get save, and if i get something new to try i just add another track.

One more thing i noticed is that out of all the pre, the Audio buddy has problem with dynamic, it's very very hard to control the dynamic, something which initially i was suspecting because of me, turns out all the other pre don't have this problem, strangely, the dmp3 made by the same company is totally different from this pre.

Also I did listen to a few "sample" from people recording tracks, i thought that was all i need, but now that i see it, it's not the whole pictures. When i mute the background music, all 4 tracks sounds different but "similarly" good, i would say that they're fine alone, but when u start stacking the background music tracks, things turns to a different direction because now you have something that contrast, and the field is different (hard to explain, but if you have 2-3 pre, you should try this to know what i mean).

About dynamic problem when recording (thank you audio buddy!!!!), most people says to record at -18db because we're working in 24 bit, and it's fine to amp it up. However i don't like that method, my theory is that if it doesn't clip then there's nothing wrong with it, that means i'll try to record as close as 0db as possible giving a little headroom (-4 to -6db max), i can lower it when it's in the mix, compare to amping which also amp the rumble + w/e noise in the room that was small enough that you can't hear, now it's all there. People says "well you can use a noise gate blah blah", that's fine and all but i hate gates haha, the other method to absolutely decrease clips and still record at relatively hot level is to insert a compressor in the chain and use a light ratio (2:1), it'll work.

Ok i'm so tempted with the idea of the DMP3 + RNC haha, that sounds nice

BUT at the price of DMP3 + RNC we're steping into a very dangerous territory of The Brick, a mid level pre, compre to the start pre DMP3 (atleast that's what people usually consider them at)
 
I found this thread very interesting.Thanks for posting it.

I'l look forward to other comparisons.
 
I got a whole toilet full of turds, and here's my breakdown ...

Turd number one: Softer and smoother in texture. Runny.

Turd number two: Foliage and other non-digestible materials make this one a bit sturdier and thicker in texture.

Turd number three: Mostly peanuts; but overall a decent enough balance.

.
 
I noticed no difference in sound between the Audio Buddy and the DMP3, except I hear very little-to-no noise from the DMP3 even at high gain. The audio buddy seemed a little "grainy" as well but that could just as easily be my imagination. Also, I don't have the luxury of honest studio monitors.

Thanks for the honest reviews.
 
chessrock said:
I got a whole toilet full of turds, and here's my breakdown ...

Turd number one: Softer and smoother in texture. Runny.

Turd number two: Foliage and other non-digestible materials make this one a bit sturdier and thicker in texture.

Turd number three: Mostly peanuts; but overall a decent enough balance.

.
Click to expand...

But how did they sound?
 
You know chess, for someone in the market for turds, a review like that WOULD be helpful....just like this thread is for someone looking for cheapo pres.
 
Guitarer said:
Thanks for the review! I almost bought the ART.

So the DMP3 is worth taking a look at, you think?
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yeah, i think so, the ART mp is a little noisy, i think it's usable if you apply something like the "noise removal" function of software such as adobe audition, it basically just record the noise without any input, then attemp to remove those freq at that level, i've never tried it because i find it too much trouble. But if you consider the "looks" of the unit, the Dmp3 looks expensive compare to the art MP, looks doesn't matter much except for the "feel good" when u look at it, but it's just something to consider :) But at the price of the dmp3, there's also the rane MS1b which is a deffinite better but not much better in many people review, they consider the MS1b not worth it because it's only 1 channel for similar price, but for my use, i probably choose the 1 channel MS1b, the Joemeek 3Q also fall in this range, and it comes with a comp + EQ, i'm pretty sure the comp will get some use.

Chessrock: i know you from reading this forum, and i agree with some of the stuff you've said (even though it was quite provocative and to the point of annoying to the target intended). But for this i have to disagree, I understand that pre at the 100 dollar range are "not worth it" in alot of people's mind because they can have more expensive stuff that's better, but there's a reason it's manufactured, there is deffinitely a market for these, why do you think so many people buy these amp, not everyone can afford 500+ dollars amp. And 90% of the people is not gonna throw 500 out to test the water, so most people will end up with a cheap pre as a starter.

From what i can hear, the Buddy is much darker than the Dmp3, and as someone refer to the "grainy" which i call "fuzz" it can get quite annoying fast.

I'm not posting this to avocate the Dmp3, i thought it's something worth a look at, but as far as i can see, that's the only one out of the bunch that's "usable", the others have one-two flaws that render them to be very hard to use in most cases.
 
warlock110 said:
I have on my hand right now some of the cheap preamp that people ask questions about, so i'm gonna proceed to write something short about them.

1) Beringer Mic800, real nice looking, sounds very similar to the beringer Euro mixer line, thin, sharp, totally stand out from the mix, not good.

2) Audio buddy: people complain about it's phantom power, i'm driving a mic that's probably using more than 3X the power of typical large condenser mic, it's not lacking phantom power people are just having faulty units, very thick sounding, fuzzy, better than the beringer Mic800 but not by much, for 70 bucks, it's so not worth it.

3) Art MP tube: the noise level is there, who says it's not (some does) is not cranking up the gain, it's thick sounding, but believe it or not, thiner than the audio buddy lol, also a little fuzzy, the noise is probably not usable in high gain application, but for 30-40 bucks, i rank it higher than the audio buddy

4) DMP3: the most expensive out of them all, better? yes, people claims it's "clear/transparent", don't let it misslead you like it did with me, it is not sharp sounding or tiny/thin, it actually has a full detail sound, and it's clear, it cut through the mix nicely but still sits in and not annoying like the other pre.

I didn't believe that the DMP3 was good, for 150, it's good, it's worth it, i don't have anything better to compare it to, so i have no idea, next unit i get is probably gonna be the Rane MS1b or the Joe Meek 3Q, they both use the same amp as the dmp3, same price too.

I hate how i can't test gears before i buy them, so my lost is ur gain, i have these 4 to test, i can't return them, so those that look into it, for the price difference the DMP3 is still worth it.

All is going through the CAD M177 for vocal. good luck, wow, this dam DMP3 sounds better the more i listen to it.
Click to expand...
Thanks a bunch man for doing that. hope you manage to get of the ones you don't like without making too much of a loss. :)
 
This is a pretty useful test for those people looking into these preamps. Sure it's subjective, but seems pretty honest. On thing I would consider though, for the preamps that you found to be noisy you are not giving them a fair shake. There have been countless endless threads about this lately, but the way you say you have been tracking is NOT proper gain structure. As a result you are not running within each preamps optimum range. Adding a compressor is NOT the solution to get full range tracks. It does help you raise your lower levels though, but the noise floor will come up with it. If however you are trackng that hot with or without the compressor than you are certainly not running your equipment the way it was designed. As a result I find it sort of unfair to compare things in this scenario, at least if the comparison was meant to be a general overview. It is quite possible that the things you do not like about the Audiobuddy for example might not exist if you tracked at a proper level. What this test would be fair for is creating opinions of preamps when they are pushed to the level you are pushing them to.
 
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