Cheap Mic Pre's-What Am I Missing?

  • Thread starter Thread starter crawdad
  • Start date Start date
Mark H.---My meaning was to put the recorded signal through a line input on the Mackie, not the mic pre. Would that degrade the signal a bit?

Also, what did you conclude from the CD's? Did a price/performance mic pre emerge to your ears in your listening?
 
Anytime you send a digital signal back thru the DACs and any analog circuitry you are going to change the original signal by some degree.
 
Harvey,I believe you're right about the Audio Buddy not meeting specs on phantom power.I haven't had any problem powering an AT 3525 (which is supposed to require 48v) but I remember somebody on this forum measuring theirs and it was 43v(I think).But I myself have had no problem whatsoever.

I don't know if the gain measures to specs but there seems to be plenty of it.It is one quiet little mutha.

Actually i don't think M-Audio suplies a phantom power spec anywhere so I guess technically there was no misrepresentation.i've also heard that most other cheap preamps like the Art MP and the Blue Tube don't deliver a full 48v.

Screw it!I wanna RNMP!!:D :D :D
 
Speaking of cheap mic pres... Has anyone heard or know anything about these?

http://www.paia.com/tubestuf.htm

It seems like a pretty good deal if the sound is decent and you don't mind a little effort to put it together. A friend of mine got the Theremin kit and it worked out pretty good.
 
I'd love to try building some of the PAIA stuff. I'm not sure, however, that $160 for two channels of fake tube preamp is that good of a "deal", necessarily. Fun though I'm sure.

This one looks interesting and is very cheap, though:

http://www.paia.com/phantom.htm

I've also been looking at some of the opamps over at opamplabs.com . $50 for a Class A discrete amplification with input transformer seems like a pretty good deal...but of course then you throw in a power supply, output transformer, case, and all the other stuff you'd need and it's like....maybe it would be best to just buy a prebuilt preamp. Argh, but it looks so FUN!

Slackmaster 2000
 
There is one tube isn't there? I think it's similar to the ART Tube MP and other "fake" tube preamps, that use a single tube to add dirt to the signal....whereas a real tube amplifier actually uses tubes for amplification.

I don't mean to imply that it's bad though. It might sound just fine in fact. It's just that on the website they simply say "tube microphone preamp" which is kind of misleading.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Slack,

How do you figure them to be "fake tube"? If there aren't tubes involved, they certainly went out of their way to make it seem like there are. Although I notice they don't mention what kind.
 
Haha, I went back and looked at it again and then deleted my post!

So that's what they mean by being able to dial in solid state sounds or tube sounds I guess... because it really is solid state.
 
I was wondering what happened to that post!!!! :)

All of the cheap tube preamps on the market are technically solid state. That doesn't mean bad though.

Slackmaster 2000
 
I'm still waiting for someone to report back on the Davisound TB-6 (4 channels for $650). RE, the mic forum moderator, swears by Davisound pres, and his is one opinion I have a great deal of respect for.

www.davisound.com
 
Laem Thrower--I built the Tube Mic Pre from PAIA in my search for something better but still cheap. Its about like a Tube MP. Its a fun project but probably not going to take you to that high echelon. What they do is starve the tube with low voltage to approximate a driven tube.
 
Hey RE,

Do the discrete Davisound mic pre's share any characteristics with the classic Neve/API units?

I know they're based on ICs, so I wouldn't think they'd distort as nicely...


I'm still thinking about the DIY mic pre idea we had going a while back. The Davisound MP-2, API 2520, and John Hardy/Jensen 990 all seem to be good candidates.
 
S2K and Crawdad...

Thanks guys, that was exactly the info I was looking for.
 
Crawdad,

I'll try to give you the short version, but it needs a bit of context.

Sue and I have two CD playback systems: one for those CDs that are so well mastered that they sound wonderful on an extremely (some friends say "irritatingly") revealing stereo, and a second system for the rest of our collection that is more forgiving but still quite musical (a Sony CDP707ES into EVS stepped attenuators to a Muse Model 100 amp to Rogers Studio 1a speakers with upgraded internal wiring, caps and binding posts on lead-filled steel stands).

On the forgiving system, basically all 33 of the preamps that Lynn Fuston and a group of engineers in Nashville tested sounded very good. Sue could hear differences among the best of them that I could not.

On the more exacting system, about a dozen of them were simply outstanding. However, out of the dozen only three made me start tapping my foot and bobbing my head like an idiot. After extensive listening, I finally went to the key to see which three I had found "beyond" excellent.

They were 1.) the Earthworks Lab 102 -- totally neutral, and with a rhythmic drive and realistic presence that was just breathtaking; 2.) the Grace Design 201 -- very, very slightly euphonic in comparison to the Earthworks, but with the same incredible drive and presence. On the test disc, the male vocalist is (not to be unkind, but sort of) grating. The Grace was the *only* preamp that made his voice tolerable (my wife had long since fled the living room ). 3.) Neve 1081 -- not as clean or neutral as the Earthworks or Grace Design, but even through a touch of graininess it still had that wonderful drive and was very musical. (I don't even know what a Neve 1081 is -- is it an outboard preamp, part of a console, something made 30 years ago? I'll leave the answer to my betters here.)

So those were my picks on a blind listening test. I'd be more than happy to live with any one of the "simply outstanding" dozen for the rest of my life, but I found it interesting that these three triggered something I couldn't necessarily "hear" in the sense of critical listening, but evoked a feeling of engagement with the music that was absent in all others.

But don't take my word for it. If you can get the discs, listen for yourself. Ideally, if you live in a less rural area than I do, you could audition preamps before you buy them. There's no way to do that in Eureka, California, 285 miles north of San Francisco.

Best wishes,

Mark H.
 
And if you're curious...

Here are the 33 preamps that Lynn Fuston assembled for the mic pre shootout:

Amek 9098 Dual Mic Amp
Aphex 1100-Tube
API 512
ART Tube Channel
Audio Upgrades High-Speed Mic Preamp
Avalon VT-737
Buzz MA-2
Cranesong Flamingo
Daking 52270
dbx 386
dbx 786
D.W. Fearn VT-2
Earthworks LAB 102
Focusrite Red 1
Focusrite ISA 110
Focusrite 430-Producer Pack
GML 8300
Grace Design 201
Great River MP-2MH
Hardy M-1
Langevin
Mackie 1604 VLZ Pro
Manley Dual Mono
Martech MSS-10
Millennia HV-3B
Millennia M-2B-tube
Neve 1081
Oram MWS
Presonus MP20
Sytek
Telefunken V-76
Vac Rac
Vintech
 
Mark H. --- Thank you for the very detailed response to my question about the pre's. I found it it enlightening and interesting. The range of products and the wildly varying price points proved, that at least on your forgiving system (which probably sounds like most peoples high end system) that there was negligible difference between the 33 pre-amps. Surprising.

Yet on your critical system, the differences began to emerge. I liked hearing that the Neve and the Grace impressed your ear and soul because those are two on my "possible" list.

You got me thinking. I once had a great producer/engineer--Ed Seay--take me to Georgetown Masters in Nashville because I was dying to see what this "Mastering" business was all about. Up until then, I really didn't know. When I got there--wow--talk about your super kill-all ultra stereo setup! Giant monolith speakers where the highs, mids, and lows were all separately powered, etc. For the mastering, they had two rooms--a digital room with a special desk to do all the leveling and eq. The other was the analog room, which had all kinds of eqs, compressors and limiters--vintage and modern--which could be switched in and out of the chain.

Let me cut to the chase. I would imagine that in that room, the differences between those pres would be easy to discern. These days, though, what does most of the music get PLAYED on? Boomboxes, computer speakers, car radios and cheap stereos. Sounds to me like maybe the Mackie VLZ pro may be all we really need. (That won't stop me from buying a Neve or Grace anyway!)

I have done mixes on Tannoys that were incredibly detailed, present and punchy--until I played them in the real world. Then, they sounded like mud. I decided that mixes should be able to translate from the studio to the cheap boom box on up to the decent stereo system, figuring if I could achieve that, they would only sound even better on the real high end systems. Thats why I mix on NS-10 M's. They may not be the best, but they work and do translate well to the real world.

So, it leaves me feeling like the song, performance, mics and mic placement, along with mixing and mastering may all be more important than the mic pre used. I'm not saying that I am right--I am just trying to add this up and make some sense out of it.

I am able to hear differences between microphones. I can hear differences between guitars, amps, basses etc. Pretty obvious stuff. All my mic pre's sound about the same. YET-I have heard a guy record my Martin with Neve pre-amps and Neumann LD mics, and it sounded clearer and better than anything I ever got at home. So, my gut feeling is that the better pre's help make better sounding records, but the economic Scott inside me keeps saying "See, Lad! Ya don't need those expensive doo-dads! get a Mackie VLZ and get it over with!"

Of course, if I had $10,000 invested in Neve pre's, you know I'd be calling Mackies and ART's junk! I guess I'm gonna have to spend some dough and answer this question for myself once and for all.
 
Crawdad,

Your thinking very closely parallels my own. My little Mackie VLZ isn't bad, and it clearly brings out the differences among the mics I have. I don't just want "different" if I'm going to change it; I want something truly better.

So next I'm getting a Davisound TB-6, which I bought last December and is due within the next month. It may very well be ALL I'll ever need. On a cost per channel basis ($750 for 4 channels = $187.50 each), I suspect it will be a genuine bargain. I'll let you know in a month or so. If it weren't for the Davisound, I'd definitely be saving for the Earthworks or the Grace Design.

I'm also pulled by the all-in-one boxes: I'd love to try out the JoeMeek Twin VCQS and the Manley Voxbox, for instance.

One good "filter" for equipment on line is Mercenary Audio. If they carry it, they truly believe in it. I visit their site often just to learn, even though most of their equipment is completely out of my reach. Here's their gear-by-type page:

http://www.mercenary.com/gearbytype.html

I wish you were in Eureka; I'd invite you over for a Saturday morning listening session! (I'd invite you ALL over for a Saturday morning listening session -- I'd love to get your opinions on Lynn Fuston's 3 test discs.)

Best wishes,

Mark H.
 
Mark H.---Wish I was near Eureka--I'd take you up on your offer. Where IS Eureka anyway?

One other thought. Everybody seems to be looking for that magic LD condenser microphone these days. Yet, noise and output levels aside, the differences between most of these mics that get talked about are EQ differences. I bet that a patient man (maybe with the help of SpectraFoo) could match EQ curves of a bunch of different mics to sound like a Neumann U87. Or take that excessive top end out of an AT 4033. After all, with mics we are talking about frequency response. Heck, you could even take an SM 57 and give it a flat frequency response with EQ by looking at the frequency graph that accompanies it.

So when I hear someone talk about pre amps that color the sound, a little light comes on in my head that begs to ask "what is colored sound?" Isn't it just a sound in which certain frequencies are boosted or attenuated slightly or greatly?

If you analyze a sound (say a guitar string vibrating), there is a fundamental tone and a bunch of harmonics on top of it. These harmonics actually extend beyond human hearing. I would venture to guess that the best mic pres accentuate these harmonics in a pleasing way, and have some slight EQ curve employed. Or maybe its the lack of circuitry which allows the sound to come through unmuffled and unpadded in all registers.

Whatever. I know that some of my favorite records were recorded on very simple systems and they didn't have $3000 mic pre's. They sound great because the instruments were in tune, the performance was fabulous, they used good mics, had clever mic placement and maybe some tube gear--but the same stuff recorded through a Mackie would have probably sounded just as good.

OK. Don't you think some rich benefactor should mail us some Neve pre's--just to prove me wrong?! I'll submit the dare...and dream on:-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top