Just like to add and remind:
A costly preamp is needed when you want low noise, low distortion and good=
headroom!
All three.
The cheap amps are good enough for naturesound recordists. We don't need
ultra low distortion and headroom. That is what I have said.
If you want to blow the trumpet into your mic, that is another story.
Klas.
At 19:53 2005-07-26, you wrote:
>No doubt people who can afford 722's and Lunatecs will tend to hear
>the improvement in quality they're dollars are paying for.Some will
>recall that I defended the pre in my 744T over every challenger--
>then I made and took some blind tests comparing it to the MP2 and
>Walt, Dan and I concluded, that once the gear gets to a high level of
>performance its pretty hard to discern. The recent tests I did
>comparing the 722 and the lowly NH-900 HiMD's internal mic pre seems
>to even question this conclusion.
>
>The common belief is that "premiere," low noise, high gain, good
>sound mic preamplification comes only at a cost either in a great
>recorder or a great outboard pre. It was possible to maintain this
>position because almost all of the lowly consumer grade recorders
>used PIP-- preamps that offer the ease of "power in plug" for running
>low voltage condenser capsules. Tests with PIP mics would show awful
>performance, that I and many others, claimed was noise introduced by
>the cheap, consumer grade preamp.
>
>Klas Strandberg insisted for years that the chips used in the
>consumer grade pres shouldn't be the source of this low performance--
>that indeed they are high quality in themselves and that the the
>noise and output performance of th mics _should_ be the limiting
>factor. I guess the folks who bothered to try low noise mics, using
>portable phantom power supplies on lowly consumer pres ran into the
>same circuit conflicts I did initially-- the performance with the
>phantom supplies I tried was nots ounding good,.. But guess what?
>The Rolls PB224 and the Art Phantom II have not yet shown these
>conflicts with the consumer pres I've tried this far.
>
>What could this mean in terms getting low noise/high gain performance
>from a pre? Take a listen to the most recent test I did (link below).
>In the first segment, the "noise" you are hearing is, effectively,
>95% noise just from the NT1A (I run maximum gain to show all the
>warts and this mic has 5.5dBA self noise). In the next two segments,
>the same mics are run through the phantom units and then directly
>into the lowly mic pre input of the HiMD recorder.
>
>http://www.uwm.edu/~type/Mic%20Preamps/PortPhantomHiMDReprtv01SorIMA.mov
>
>Okay, there's a tiny, tiny bit more noise at full gain with the pre
>in the $180 HiMD recorder, but note how similar it is between the two
>different phantom units. I did some EQ and found that I could notch
>out about 80% of the noise with fouror five, very skinny bands of
>parametric EQ. Note also that the HiMD pre actually outperforms the
>722's gain by 5dB!
>
>Of course, there are still good reasons to buy and use expensive
>gear, but can we accurately say its because of how shi**y the
>consumer grade pres are (if one knows that one can get around the PIP
>pre conflicts^ with a Rolls or Art unit)? There may be some
>combinations of mics with these two phantom units and different
>recorders that don't work as well, but even my manual gain video
>camcorder's pre is sounding great! Rob D.
>
>
>^ This is an assumption. I've not yet figured out the factors of why
>the other phantom units did not work.
>
>=3D =3D =3D =3D =3D
>
>At 8:44 AM -0700 7/26/05, umashankar wrote:
> >may be the analog circuits are a little simpler (not
> >necessarily noisier ) but i have seen similar akm
> >chips in my audio denmark a to d convertor and the
> >m-audio transit which has all its electronics inside a
> >small usb device. there is no need for the a to d
> >convertors to be large.
> >
> >umashankar
> >
> >--- Michael Raphael <> wrote:
> >
> >> >At 15:08 2005-07-26, you wrote:
> >> >>Has anyoen seen this:
> >> >>
> >>
> >>>http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/MicroTrack-main.html
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>I probably wouldn't want to used the analog
> >> inputs,
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >why not??
> >> >
> >> >Klas
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> I could be wrong , but I would suspect that the
> >> converters wouldn't
> >> be so hot, nor would the mic pres. Compromises have
> >> to made in
> >> something that small.
> >>
> >>
> >> "Microphones are not ears,
> > > Loudspeakers are not birds,
> >> A listening room is not nature."
> >> Klas Strandberg
> >> Yahoo! Groups Links
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >____________________________________________________
> >Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page
> >http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
> >
> >
> >
> >"Microphones are not ears,
> >Loudspeakers are not birds,
> >A listening room is not nature."
> >Klas Strandberg
> >Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>--
>Rob Danielson
>Film Department
>University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
Telinga Microphones, Botarbo,
S-748 96 Tobo, Sweden.
Phone & fax int + 295 310 01
email:
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
|