"jnorman" wrote in message
om...
for those of you who are not able to get your hands on lots of preamps
to compare, perhaps this may assist you a bit. over the past few
months i have had the opportunity to do some comparative testing of a
pair of grace 101s, an RNP, a millennia media HV3B, a vintech 1272,
and a sytek mpx-4aii (with two channels of burr brown opamps). i used
a mackie vlz pro mixer as the baseline for all comparisons since
almost everyone is familiar with those units. i tested the preamps
using pairs of schoeps cmc64s and akg c480s, on a kimball baby grand
piano, a gold powell flute, and an old gibson j40 (thanks, bob). all
tracks went straight from the pre to a roland vs1880, and monitored on
tannoy active reveals with no eq and no effects. here were my results
- take 'em with a grain of salt.

I did a similar shoot-out last night with a buddy. We took four Oktava
MC-012s and wrapped them into a bundle, and then ran each one through a
different preamp. We used an RNP, a Sytek with stock and BB channels, and an
Avalon U5 DI preamp. Since the Avalon isn't a mic pre we took a direct out
from the RNP with a little gain to drive the DI.

We then cleaned out the percussion cabinet and rattled, clanged and plinged
everything we could find and recorded the results of all four mics into a
VS-1680, using a set of Mackie monitors for playback. We also did some tests
with a lovely Martin guitar, and a couple of DI tests through the instrument
jack on the RNP compared to the Avalon (without RNP) using a Smith bass and
a Fender fretless bass. Note that we're both new to this realm of outboard
mic pres and are still trying to sort out what are the differences that
we're hearing.

Not having time to write this to any level of detail, I'll have to
summarize:
Sytek stock channel - very detailed and a maybe a little fuller on the low
end than the RNP. Still my first choice for cymbals.

Sytek BB channel - whatever this circuit does well, it doesn't seem to do it
in this test. It always sound clear and clean enough, but to our ears it's
just missing "something" that the non-BB channel has. Next time we'll get a
few LD mics up and try some vocals, so we'll see how that works out.

RNP - Very detailed and clean, a little punchy in the midrange, and a nice
low end. Very similar to the Sytek stock channel.

RNP to Avalon DI - this was really a tone test of the Avalon, although we
kept the tone control bypassed for all tests. The rule seemed to be if it
was made of wood, it sounded best through the Avalon. It has a noticeable
roll-off in the high end which nicely took some of the edge of the
percussion.

DI tests: Avalon vs. RNP - This was the big surprise for me, since we've
been very impressed with the sound of the Smith through the Avalon recorded
and live. A lot of the same attributes that I had picked up from the Avalon
could be heard on the RNP also, a really nice fat bottom with a little sense
of growl from the strings. The punchiness of the RNP brought out some of the
tone that my buddy was using EQ to get from the Avalon. Still there was a
subtle "phat" sound that the Avalon had that just couldn't be pulled out the
RNP.

At the end of the night we had two conclusions. First that we collectively
are starting to pickup some nice sounding gear. Second was that the RNP is a
pretty versatile unit. It's like the RNP was in second place by a small
margin on everything we ran through it, where the other units either sounded
great or not-quite-there. Since the RNP is my only outboard pre, it's good
that it can cover a wide range of uses.

We're going to do a follow up session at some point with a variety of mics
and some vocals, so it's not over yet.

Sean