mshilarious
Banned
Yeah, it makes all of my stuff a lot better, especially if I turn down the "It's Crap!" knob 
Jim Lad
New member
That's pretty well what I've decided on. They are $700 in Canada but an AEA Dual Ribbon Preamp would give me an astonishing 83dB of gain for all of my ribbons. Plus I can throw a phantom power unit into the line for my active mics.
My question would be, does high end preamp reduce the noise floor in budget microphones?
mshilarious
Banned
Depends on which microphones we are talking about. Generally, for most condenser microphones, the answer to that question is no. This is because the microphone's output noise is generally in excess of most preamps' input noise. Those two noise signals sum, but if the mic's noise is far enough above the preamp's noise, then the mic's noise will dominate and the preamp will make little to no difference.
For lower output condenser mics it can make a difference, and of course for any type of dynamic mic a very low noise preamp is critical to obtain the best possible signal-to-noise ratio. But even in the best preamp there are limits; you aren't going to get lower noise than the thermal noise of a 150 ohm resistor (in the case of a ribbon mic, the resistance of the element multiplied by the gain of the transformer), which is -133dBV (or about -137dBA). Nobody achieves that though; the AEA is spec'ed at -134dBA. So if you have a ribbon mic with -57dBV/Pa sensitivity, then the signal to noise ratio isn't going to be better than 77dB, which is equivalent to a 17dBA self-noise rating for a condenser mic.
With that in mind, even if 83dB of gain sounds great, in practice it is not useful. This is because once you raise your noise floor more than 10dB above the noise of the next stage (for most people these days, a converter), you don't get any further benefit from earlier-stage gain. For a typical converter, that noise floor is probably between -90dBV and -100dBV. So there isn't really need for gain in excess of 50dB. It might feel good to record a signal that ends up closer to 0dBFS rather than -20dBFS, but there is no difference in signal to noise in that case.
A few other types of "noise" that aren't noise in a specification: interference and phantom power supply noise. The AEA pre has a really good CMRR spec, so that might result in an audible improvement in a difficult EMI environment. The AEA doesn't have phantom power, but a preamp with a noisy phantom power supply can result in that noise injected into the audio with certain condenser microphones that have not been designed to cope with noisy supplies. It would generally not be noticeable with a dynamic mic, since the CMRR of the amp will cancel the noise in that case.
Jim Lad
New member
...................So... both?
Or just the mic but not just the preamp?
Or just the mic but not just the preamp?
Jim Lad
New member
I can't open that "Bagpipe" file. 
PhilGood
Juice box hero
Q: What's the difference between a snake squashed in the middle of a road vs. a bagpipe player squashed in the middle of a road?
A: The snake was on his way to a gig.
A: The snake was on his way to a gig.