Emil,
I've had my eye on the RME Quadmic too. Unfortnately I don't own one so al=
l I can give you is speculation.
RME spec the Quadmic as having noise ein of -129 dB. Unfortunately they do=
n't say dB with respect to what! Or at what gain setting that spec if vali=
d. Presumably it's either dBV or dBU which makes about 2.3 dB of differenc=
e. Why am I focusing in on that? Because noise is one of the primary dist=
inguishers of performance for nature recording. For example, if you use a =
Schoeps Mk2, one of my favorites, it has a sensitivity of -36 dBV and an SN=
R of 83 dBA which means that the noise is at -119 dBV. Making the generous=
assumption that the Quadmic noise is -129 dBV, it's 10 dB quieter than the=
microphone. That's good, but maybe not good enough. If you rms those two=
noise sources together that gives you a 2.4 dB increase in noise relative =
to the microphone with a 'perfect' preamplifier. OK, 2.4 dB isn't a substa=
ntial hit in performance. But you pay a lot for those quiet microphones!
I have enjoyed using the Earthworks ZDT1024 in the past, and it has input n=
oise of -143 dBV at a gain of 60 dB, 14 dB better than the Quadmic. On the=
other hand, it's $3200 for four channels as opposed to $550, and that's a =
huge price penalty. And it doesn't have facilities to be battery powered.
There's a review of the Quadmic here:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/dec03/articles/rmequad.htm
Eric Benjamin
----- Original Message ----
From: emil klotzsch <>
To:
Sent: Thu, June 10, 2010 12:06:23 PM
Subject: [Nature Recordists] RME quadmic
hi everyone,
has any of you used the rme quadmic as a pre amp for outside recording?
its an interesting preamp, and sounds close to the sound devices 7
series pre amps, and better-in my opinion- that the mix pre or mm-1
for instance.
and its cheap (4 pre amps for 370=E2=82=AC).
sounds very good, but i=C2=B4m not reading about anyone using it with
batteries. but you can, and thats great..
any opinion?
all the best
emil
------------------------------------
"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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