AudioBanter.com - View Single Post - Fred Forssell JMP-1 micpreamp

In article writes:

And the reason for putting xfmrs. on the input of this very quiet
transformerless unit is...?

It's those pesky microphones. Golden ears in non-blind, totally
biased, but just plain "feel good sound good" testing have shown that
there are more microphones in the world that sound better when loaded
with a transformer than when loaded with a capacitor and a few diode
junctions. The preamp manufacturers who care that the customer hears a
definite improvement in "sound quality" (whatever that means, other
than lower noise), since they don't know what microphone(s) the
customer will use, can often improve their odds using a transformer.

And what's the point of having a mic preamp if you aren't going to
connect a microphone to it?

Not to say that this "principle" hasn't been mis-applied, that preamps
have been made with not-so-hot transformers at the input, and that
they might sound better without the transformers. But we're talking
quality products here, where the designer will take as much care in
selecting the transformer as he does in selecting every other
component.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )