With all of the chatter about this iRig Pre, and following Raimond's
favorable comments (thank you again, Raimond, for continuing that
recorder list), I decided to plunk down my hard-earned $36 and buy one
to check out. I just put it back together and thought I'd chime in with
my comments--for whatever they are worth.
Bottom line: it seems like a nice product for the price and a great
overall value. But, don't think that you're going to buy one of these
and cheat the price difference of buying a good preamp or a recorder
with great preamps built in. It is great for bumping up the signal
level with the low-gain, noisy amps that are built into a smart phone.
And in my case, using hydrophones with much lower sensitivity than
standard mics, it does a very adequate job of bringing the signal level
up to increase dynamic range and lower quantization errors with low-cost
digital recorders. I've already called the factory to inquire about
stocking these. That gain doesn't come without a fair bit of noise
though. I think for hydrophone recording, the iRig Pre's noise will be
below sea state in most applications, but for nature recording you won't
want to have to crank the gain up too much.
I haven't measured anything yet--I just listened then took it apart for
a look. As you'd expect, it uses an op amp and a gain pot that cost
pennies and the signal path is all coupled though tiny little
electrolytic surface-mount capacitors. Again, I think it is an
excellent value, but be assured that the inside of a Sound Devices pre
will look a lot different.
Be aware that it can only supply 6 mA of phantom power. That should be
enough for most mics, but it is only about half of the IEC P48
standard. I did measure current draw and their claim that it will have
a battery life of 10 hours with phantom power on seems reasonable.
Lastly, I made a comment about using it with digital recorders. Note
that you'll need to change the output plug or buy or make an adapter to
use this with something other than a phone or tablet.
Cheers! Robb
"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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