Safe Sound Audio P1

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mr. Moon
  • Start date Start date
chessrock said:
That's interesting, Crazydoc.

I can't think of any circumstances offhand, but I know a lot of techie geeks that would disagree with you and argue with you until they're blue in the face. :D But I have no idea if they're even right, or if they're just full of crap.

The whole "no wallwart" thing could very well be another audio myth, perhaps?
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The reason that the "wallwart" thing is a myth is the very reason you state in your post. You state that any unit with a wall wart is a cheap unit.

You are mainly right. Since wall warts tend to be much cheaper ($$$wise) to implement in a design, it is no secret that the pre-amps that utilize them are cheap designs.

But, look at the RNC and RNP. They are great designs and utilize the WW soley because the designer wanted to sidestep the UL approval process saving the consumer $$$.

So, the myth is more a reality with a few exceptions but not because of performance related issues.
 
chessrock said:
Wow. I didn't realize we had an industry giant amongst us. :D
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Nope, no "industry giants" here. I have not worked in the analog field for years. I worked for DBX in the late 70s/early 80s before they sold out. The products went way down hill with no innovation at all for a long time after that. I have no idea as to what they are up to now.
 
Update!!

Update:

I took the plunge and purchased a P1 last week from Front End Audio. The P1 arrived mid week, double-boxed and undamaged. I quickly browsed through the manual before playing with it and ran through a small easy procedure to set the output level. I began recording some bass and some vocals, all *without* being able to tweak around with the unit at all before the session (luckily they were just scratch tracks for a new demo!).

My findings? ...Well, I found out that I have a ground-loop issue in my house that was masked by my other preamps that either use wall-warts or are integrated into my soundcard's breakout box. DOH!!! DOH!!! AAARRRHHHGGG!!!

...Even so, the P1 (*without* using either the compressor or the expander) still sounded leaps and bounds better to me than my VTB-1 or the built-in pre's on my Aardvark DP 2496, especially on vocals. Yeah, I know the P1's in a different league than my old pre's, but it sure is nice to make a purchase and actually hear a huge difference! :D

Anywho, I'll post more comments/observations about the P1 once I get the ground loop issue resolved. To do this, I'm going to initially try out a product from EBTECH called the HUM X, which plugs into the outlet rather than in the signal path to resolve ground loop issues, so there's (supposedly) no loss of signal strength and such like you can get with line-filtering devices. Warren from Front End Audio has been a big help in figuring out and resolving the ground loop issue, he even got me in contact with the folks at Safe Sound Audio, who have also been great.

Anywho ...I'll let you know more when I know more.

-mr moon
 
Update!!

I decided to bump this thread rather than create a new one for a quick update on the SafeSound Audio P1 that I have finally been able to start working with, after nailing down a ground loop problem and having the band over to do some recording.

Most of the PR and reviews I've read regarding the P1 describe it as primarily a vocal preamp, and not so much as an instrument DI. Nonetheless, I used it tonight to record some bass tracks for some new tunes, and it really sounded nice! I played around with the input levels and, as Warhead suggested, I tweaked some compression into the signal, and man!! The bass came to life! Even though I didn't have it dialed in perfectly, it kicked so well that we ended up re-recording some of the previous bass tracks on some other tunes we had recorded a few weeks ago. The sound was very full and natural sounding, without the thin "disco EQ" sound that I get so often while trying to record bass.

Hopefully we'll be doing some vocal tracks next week, and I'll let you know how they turn out. I would write more tonight, but I am beat and I have to go to "real job" early tomorrow morning.

Later.

-moon
 
One very real advantage to wall warts is they are removed from the chassis, and thus removed from the endless stream of red tape and certification hassles of bringing a product into multi-voltage markets.

This results in a significant reduction in costs of production. Especially so, for low volume boutique products. Mass volume products spread the higher costs of in-chassis power supplies across a huge volume of units, i.e. your VCR.
 
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