pre amp shopping

[jake the snake]

im shopping around for a decent single preamp for vocals/cabs, and an 8 input preamp for drums etc. looking to spend no more than $1000 total if i can help it.

looking for wire plus gain...i dont really care about digital outputs, or fx (comps, gates etc) but zero latency and headphone cue monitoring is a plus

early candidates are: golden age pre-73, art pro mp, presonus studio channel tube
and the focusrite octopre mk11 8 channel.

any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[aaronmcoleman]

I've used the RNP for years and loved it. $400 for two awesome channels that will be great for pretty much any application. No real "character", but it is crisp, clear and I've loved using it.

As far as the 8-channel, I'm in the same boat and searching.

 

[phrygian68]

The focusrite octopre mk11 is great!

 

[jake the snake]

The octopre mk11 is the only one I am interested in at this point. Does anyone know if its class A? I can't find a review on it, how would you rate the sound quality of the preamps?

 

[c7sus]

None of those amps mentioned are "wire plus gain".

Earthworks, Davisound, Millennia, John Hardy come to mind as offering "wire with gain" designs.

BTW, analog amps don't have "latency". The signal travels through them at the speed of light. In order to monitor some of these amps with zero-latency in a DAW setup you may need a mult or patchbay to split the signal, unless they have multiple outputs already.