I won't stick my neck out and say the USB Pre sounds great, because that
would just be my subjective opinion anyway and there are bound to be
some audiophiles who would differ. But I will say that I think it
offers a great value. It offers a lot of functionality at a low price.
It seems to be well-built and noise seems to be quite reasonable. It
carries a CE mark and is RoHS-compliant, so it should be available in
Europe.
I was very interested in selling these as an accessory to our
hydrophones, so I brought one into my shop a few weeks back for
evaluation. I didn't do any objective tests. I just played with it a
bit, listening and taking it apart and putting it back together. I was
favorably impressed overall. I chose not to bring any stock into my
shop for the following reasons: (1) I wish it offered more gain. It
might be fine with sensitive mics, but for hydrophones I was wishing for
another ten dB. (2) There is no ability to pan or switch a single mic
into both channels. This may not be a big deal for many nature
recordists, but again, for hydrophones, it is nice to be able to monitor
a mono source on both channels of a headset or amplifier system without
Y-adapters. (3) The the 9V battery gets stuck in its holder. This
could easily be resolved with a short loop of dental floss or anything
to grab onto, but it doesn't make a favorable first impression.
It is supposed to be compatible with Windows software without any
proprietary drivers. I could play music though it right after plugging
it in, but I tried to monitor a signal though it using Spectra Plus and
it didn't work immediately. This may have had nothing to do with the
hardware. I didn't take the time to look into it.
Again, I'd like to reiterate that it seems like a nice piece of gear for
the money. We shouldn't expect perfection from a device that costs less
than a hundred dollars.
If anybody wants my brand new evaluation unit, I'd be willing to sell it
at a nice discount. Contact me off-list if interested.
Regards to all, Robb
Emanuele Costantini wrote:
>
>
> Hi Paul,
> I don't have the USB Pre, but I like the ART stuff in general.
> I just downloaded the manual and I should say it wouldn't be the
> perfect thing for field recording.
> It has usb 1.1 instead of 2.0 but we can live with it.
> It has only 44.1 or 48 but we can live with it.
> It has just 16 bit ADDA and I'm not so sure I can live with it.
> Potentially is a great thing, I would couple two or more of them with
> Aggregate device on Mac for multitrack recordings but I don't know how
> it sounds,
> the specifics are very good but experience is telling me not to
> believe in manufacturer specifics too much.
> If somebody has it, please tell us it sounds great!
> :-)
>
> Emanuele
>
> >
> >
> > Has anyone used the new ART USB DualPre as a very affordable ($80)
> > battery-powered preamp? Ignoring the USB component, it looks like it
> > might
> > work out perfectly for field use. (Ideally I'd buy a MixPre, but
> > bringing
> > one of those home would probably result in "camping" in my back yard
> > for,
> > say, ten years.)
> >
> > Is the self-noise reasonably low? Are there any issues which would
> > disqualify it for hobby-level soundscape recording?
> >
> > Thanks!
> > -Paul
> >
>
>
>
"While a picture is worth a thousand words, a
sound is worth a thousand pictures." R. Murray Schafer via Bernie Krause
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