The First Pre Amp?

F

fishkarma

New member
I'm writing an essay on the way techonology has effected music production and recording based around pre amps.
I have covered some ground but I cannot for the life of me find where the original pre came from! who invented it and who first manafactured it? obviously they changed the face of recording forever but I cant find any history of the preamp on wikipedia, google, youtube, etc.

Does anybody have any scrap of info that I can use to google it a bit better?
I want to start from the beginning and work through the different designs.

So got any info?

Cheers
-Josh
 
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If you look for the term "preamp", you'll probably be frustrated, because that's a concept that doesn't exist until more modern usage. The earliest mics were before practical amplifiers existed--a carbon microphone was used as its own amplifier of sorts, as they could be chained with speakers as repeaters.

Once the valve amplifier comes into existence, then you have practical applications for other types of mics--dynamic and condenser. The first practical dynamic mic would have been sold with its amplifier. Here's a page with an example:

http://www.vintage-hifi.2itb.com/catalog_13.html

But the amplifier is not an invention in the same way the microphone was, because it would merely apply existing principles of amplification. You may notice that amplifier has power tubes, so you couldn't think of it merely as a preamp.

So you have to ask what you are connecting this microphone to--a PA system or a recording system. Tape decks don't come into use until years after the basic microphone types were invented, and when they do, they have their own amplifiers onboard.
 
Cheers for the help, it dawned on me to go down the telephone route about 20mins ago but the help is much appreciated. So I kinda picked up the paper trail from there. Cheers for the example though you really went above and beyond!
 
Ummmm checked out johnhardyco.com but didn't really have any useful info on pre's and where they came from just their pre amps and details on them...
I'm actually looking for the history of pre amps.

Infact I've hit another block...
I have the history up to the vaccum tube. Then I assume power amps came along and but I cant see how the pre came about (like Neve etc. pres) since to record radio you really needed pre's and power amps and I come to a chicken and the egg situation!!!

Basically I kinda need to know how it got from the vacuum tube to modrn pre (or its first incarnation in the audio industry)

Cheers for the help eveyone
-Josh
 
fishkarma said:
Ummmm checked out johnhardyco.com but didn't really have any useful info on pre's and where they came from just their pre amps and details on them...
I'm actually looking for the history of pre amps.
Click to expand...

oops! Sorry, I wasn't paying attention. I thought you meant the history of the popularization of stand alone pres instead of mixer pres. In that area Hardy was a pioneer, and there are some links to articles on that subject. Good luck on the quest.
 
Actually now that you say, I went back to check the links and there are some good articles there that may be of use. I actuall dont care wether its internal or external pres. Is a paper on pre amps in and how they have effected the music industry.

Cheers for the help!
 
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