The sound-devices MP2 is a great preamp. It's the one I use. My only two
complaints are:
1. As Walt mentioned, the LED's are too bright. I turn them off, but keep my
eye on the overload LEDs when I am recording loud signals.
2. My biggest complaint is that the volume controls are continuous pots,
making it difficult in the dark to adjust the two controls and be certain
they are balanced (you need to use a little flashlight to do this properly).
I would much prefer click-stop controls that would hold their position. It
is very easy in the field to accidentally brush against one of the volume
controls, thus throwing off the channel balance.
Lang
evertveldhuis wrote:
> Which to buy?
> I would like to know if anyone can give me advice on how the preamps
> sound; do they color, is the self-noise audible at 'normal' gain
> settings?
> IF the AD20 would be comparable, soundwise, to the MP2. Then the AD20
> would have some major advantages; lower price, digital out, less
> settings to worry about.
>
> So my big question is; how good is the AD20 compared to the MP2.
I have the MP2. Have not used a AD20.
The MP2 does not color the sound to my ears. I have never, on any
setting been able to detect it's self noise, it's a very low noise setup.
The MP2 is quite easy to use. Settings you don't need you can ignore.
Set the appropriate switches and forget them. But, should you find at
some future date you need them, they are there. At that point the lower
cost of the AD20 will bite you as you would have to replace it.
The limiter in the MP2 is very good. Like all such things I try to never
need it by appropriate gain settings. The low freq filters work just fine.
There is a advantage of having headphone monitoring on the pre as well.
You can do setups and so on without having to even hook the recorder up
or set it on record. And, of course should you ever get into using M/S
setups you can monitor in stereo without having to decode the signal
that's being recorded.
There is one other trick associated with the M/S on the MP2. Since the
center mic is fed to both channels when decoded you can plug a mono mic
into the MP2 and feed it's signal to both channels for recording to a
stereo recorder by turning on the M/S stereo decoding and turning the
other input to zero. Not a big issue with your walkman, but it is with
the Portadisc.
The MP2 is putting out a line level signal. Since it's analog you would
be depending on the minidisc's A/D to convert it to digital. Minidiscs
have fairly good A/D. The newest models may be 24bit to match the bit
shifting of the ATRAC, I don't know on that. With a AD20 you are
depending on a A/D that's built into it. As I noted I don't know
anything about that. The specs sound ok.
The only thing I find wrong with the MP2 is that the LED's are too
bright in night work. They have two brightness settings, but the low one
is still very bright at night.
It's a point that the lack of metering in the AD20 is a very strong
disadvantage. It's going to be much harder to deal with, and since the
digital conversion occurs in it you will probably get lots of clipping
you won't immediately know about. The metering on the MP2 is pretty
decent. It will save you from most setting errors.
The MP2 is designed to handle the rough world of pro field recording.
Well built and solid. There are field cases available specifically for
it from PortaBrace as well. It's a established piece of pro equipment.
I bought my MP2 for $500. It was a new one returned by someone who
decided they wanted more channels after buying it. It took some time to
come up with one at that low a price.
If you want my recommendation, it's to go with the MP2, for the metering
alone, if nothing else. Even at half the price of the MP2, the AD20 is
not a good deal.
The one thing that makes me wonder is your statement that you don't ever
expect to need phantom power. Does this mean you are going to stick with
low end mics? If so, buying any pre is probably not going to help much.
These pre's help if you have high quality, low noise mics. With low end
mics you will just get to hear their self noise clearer at the sound
levels typical in nature recording. Just a thought about your priorities.
Walt
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service
<http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/> .
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|