This is really one of the two most asked questions on any board, along with the "What mic under $100 for rap vocals" question.
If I step up to mic pre Y, will I hear a "significant difference" over mic pre X?
And it's a totally legitimate question worth asking ... but unfortunately, one of the trickiest to answer ... because really, there is no answer. You might, or you might not, and a lot of it depends on your definition of "significant." Now I'm going to tell you the God-honest truth here; probably more than 95% of the people at your level of recording experience won't hear a "significant," if any difference at all, between the lowest-end Behringer pre and a high-end pre like a John Hardy ... let alone a difference between a dmp3 and an ms1b.
A lot of people think they do, but a good deal of the time, it turns out to be merely psychological, based on that individual's expectations ... and this has been supported in numerous double-blind listening tests.
And speaking of double-blind listening tests, one of the finest recording engineers of our era actually took a Rane MS-1B -- originally as a joke -- to a listening test among some of his peers, and the Rane was actually picked almost unanymously in every sample over some of the most expensive boutique competitors. Similarly, there was a mic pre comparison posted on the Gearslutz board not too long ago where people were asked to guess which mic pre was the "nicer" one and which one was the cheaper one. Anyway, a whole slew of self-proclaimed audio geniuses (including our friend, Dan Richards) gave all of these long-wined resonses as to why sample A or sample B was just night and day different/better than the other sample ...
Anyway, as the test went on, it was revealed that the guy posting the samples made a mistake and wound up posting two of the exact same sample.
So what does that tell ya?
But anyway, I am digressing, big-time here. In answer to your question, you probably won't
hear a significant difference ... but that doesn't mean that there isn't a significant difference, if you catch my drift. It's taken a lot of time for me, personally, to make heads and tails out of what I perceive to be differences in mic pres ... and for what it's worth, I think there's something kind of unique about the MS1B, from a sonics standpoint. I really do. It's not very practical in a lot of ways; doesn't rack easily, has almost no features, and the power cord is just weird for lack of a better term. But I've gotten some pretty stellar results with one on occasion, and I can see where it would surprize people in that listening test Roger Nichols took part in. I wasn't shocked, or calling bullshit on his account of things. If that means anything to you. Whether it was done on accident or whatever, I think the guys at Rane stumbled on something.
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