At 9:30 PM +0000 9/19/09, Max wrote:
> In
><naturerecordists%40yahoogroups.com>
>"Paul Thomas" <> wrote:
> >
>> Hi Folks,
>>
>> I bought an ART Dual Pre a few months ago, and the results were decidedly
>> mixed.
>>
>> On the plus side, the build quality is solid, with one profound exception,
>> (more on that below,) and it is compact and discrete. Though I don't have a
>> way to quantitatively test self noise, it certainly seemed reasonable, on
>> par with my Mackie (110-V) mixer. Until I discovered the fatal flaw, I
>> thought this would be a winner for hobby-level field recording where the
>> performance of a MixPre is not required or justifiable.
>>
>> On the minus side, the unit has an unacceptable design shortcoming. Though
>> it is indeed battery powered, (9V) the battery "compartment" is simply a
>> cardboard sleeve (!!!!!) that wraps around the battery, then the whole works
>> is jammed into a too-small slot in the case where it comes to rest against
>> the internal circuit boards. (Hence the cardboard, for insulation purposes.)
>> If this affront isn't bad enough, the slot is too small, making removal of
>> the battery simply impossible. There is no way to grab it, so once
>> installed, it's there forever. I called ART to make sure the cardboard
>> sleeve was supposed to be used, ("Yes") and whether they had any suggestions
>> for removing the battery ("No"). Perhaps a loop of strong thread around the
>> battery before installation would help, but I suspect it would be cut when
>> the battery was stuffed into the slot. The fit really is that tight. I took
>> it back to the dealer and made an offer; "If you can show me how to get the
>> battery out, I won't return this." After half an hour of profanity-laced
>> struggle, he refunded my money.
>>
>> Unfortunately, this design flaw renders the unit utterly useless for field
>> work, or for any other use that requires battery power. It's a real shame,
>> for otherwise the DualPre would have been a dandy field mixer.
>>
>>
>> Regards,
>> -Paul Thomas
>>
>
>Thanks for this rather extraordinary story Paul! Perhaps this is why
>it's gone out of production.
>Anybody else?
>Max
>
Hi Max and Paul--
Thanks for the heads up, Paul. I suppose one could restrict powering
to the use of a battery sled with 6- 1.2 volt AA NiMH batteries
connected to the DC coax jack. One would need to be careful about the
battery polarity though. I see the polarity is not marked by the jack
on the case or in the manual either.
http://www.artproaudio.com/downloads/manuals/omusbdualpreps.pdf
Hard to be certain about the input noise performance without a side
by side comparison with very low noise mics or a 150 ohm input noise
measurement. Art specs the input noise as " -120 dBu typical (XLR
balanced, gain @ maximum)" I'm not sure whether this is A-weighted
or unweighted, Should the unit check-out to be acceptable in terms
of noise performance, recordists who record ambience in quiet
locations might be disappointed with its maximum gain of only 48dB.
This low gain would be further compromised if one's mics were not
particularly sensitive, like under 10mV/Pa. Rob D.
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