Rane MS1-B?

[Chip Hitchens]

I've heard a lot about this pre lately (especially from Chessrock) and I had a couple questions if anyone knows anything about them.

- Chessrock has desribed is as being "of the transparent variety" of preamp. I'm confused about what the Burr-Browns are supposed to do. For example, I believe that Sytek claims that the Burr-Browns that they'll put in their pres are for warmth, which leads me to believe that they add color (probably good, musical color, but color nonetheless). Are they leaning towards pristinely clean or are they trying to approximate a tube-y kind of clean?

- What's up with the case? It looks like it's something you'd mount to a workbench. Think it'll fit in a 1U rack tray?

As always, thanks for your help.

 

[Booda]

Hey Chip, I just thought I'd try and help by saying, you might get more responses in the Rack section...

also if you happened to miss this thread it's a pretty good review of a few of the Mic Pres that are talked about so much here... Sytek, RNP ect...
http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?threadid=105161

Good Luck,
B.

 

[chessrock]

Chessrock has desribed is as being "of the transparent variety" of preamp. I'm confused about what the Burr-Browns are supposed to do. For example, I believe that Sytek claims that the Burr-Browns that they'll put in their pres are for warmth, which leads me to believe that they add color (probably good, musical color, but color nonetheless).

That's actually a really good question. The Sytek uses a completely different type of opamp. They use what's called a JFET, and yea, it's reputed to have a little bit of an old-school kind of sound to it -- about as much as you could expect from a chip, that is.

The INA 163 is used in a few very popular mic pres, including the Grace Design, the dmp3, and a few higher-end consoles although I don't recall which. It's actually more of an instrument amplifier than a traditional opamp, and performs a lot more of the actual gain functions. It's very much of the clean/uncolored variety.

If you go to Texas Instuments' web site, you'll see they make a lot of different kinds of chips.

As for the case, it appears they've found a good cost-saving measure. In most mic pres, believe it or not, it's the case that's often their greatest cost (or at least a major cost), and it's nice to see a manufacturer putting their money where it counts.

 

[Chip Hitchens]

Thanks guys.

Booda: Yeah, I can never tell where to put my posts. As for that thread, I actually posted in there, asking a similar question about the Burr-Browns.

chessrock: So all Burr-Browns don't have the same goal? (i.e., they're not all trying to replicate tube or old-school vibe?) How convenient! Thanks for getting back to me.