"Scott Dorsey" wrote

Anyone have a good recommendation for a warm, tube,
2-channel mic preamp for around four hundred clams?

Art MPA Gold - www.artroch.com
http://www.zzounds.com/item--ARTMPAGOLD

No. This is exactly an example of what is wrong with the
whole "fake tube mike pre" thing.

How would you know?

I had one for audition. Same thing as the original Tube
MPA inside, really. IC front end, cheesy tube stage with
50V on the plate. Very smeary sounding... totally
eliminates midrange detail.

" I had one for audition"... ok.

I've used the MPA Pro for over a year with Sure KSM 27's
for voice over work only. In that environment I found the
combination to be quite accurate. You can back off on the
tube gain with the low efficiency KSM 27's and still achieve
a satisfying flat frequency response when recorded digitally.

First you wrote "Why not get a preamp that sounds good,
and not worry about what technology it's built with?" Now
you've put in biased qualifier to it "IC front end, cheesy tube
stage with 50V on the plate." And now somehow the
component parts "IC front end" and "cheesy tube stage" make
a difference.

So, which is it "preamp that sounds good" or "not worry
about what technology it's built with" or IS IT the
technology "cheesy tube stage?" All mixed signals to
the consumer (original poster).


With a real tube preamp, the tube stages actually don't have
much coloration and most of the actual coloration is the result
of the audio transformers.

"With a real tube preamp"... what "real" anything? The
discussion is the sub $500 pre-amp price point, BTW.

"coloration"... all manufactured audio equipment has a
sonic signature. Your equating "coloration" to you own
biased preference and stereotype about equipment design,
which is uniquely your own.

Consumer don't have companies like Audio Research,
CJ, VAC (tube examples) or Levinson, Krell, Classe (ss)
to choose from. With few exceptions, the base of electronic
of manufactures building microphone pre-amps produce
shoddy goods (SS/Tube). I think the real question at the
sub $500 price point is how does it sound? The proper
implementation of electronic components is the
manufacture’s constraint not the consumers.

If you make a solid state box without any transformers
in it and add a tube stage running in starvation mode,
it doesn't sound very much at all like the real thing.

Well, that's nice. What are your recomendations on
specific makes and models of mic pre-amps under
$500 price point?