Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

[ratherdashing]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

Nice. Now I want a Pre-73 and an RNP. And maybe also an RNC.

There goes my tax return!

[Animal]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

If it helps, I've read that the Pre-73 is very coloured and the RNP is very clean. Almost opposite ends.

The Black Lion Auteur is apparently somewhere in the middle-ground between the Pre-73 and RNP.

I'm also in the market for the same thing; a simple no fuss pre of professional quality for the most competitive price. I've sifted through numerous threads at gearslutz and you can go crazy trying to reach a consensus. Someone is always going to chime in and state that you could spend more money for that extra sparkle, clarity, thump, punch, detail .etc.

If you're obsessive enough to care about that hairs difference in the grand scheme of your recording chain, then the Great River ME-1NV is apparently exceptional quality without having to shell out 2-5K for serious high-end gear. I've seen them on ebay for under 1K used. Though, I'd personally save more of my cash towards some great microphones.

[James Rock]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

The cheapest and highly recommended at pro audio forums would be the M-Audio DMP3 much better then the starved plate tube designs (as the money goes into good preamps not gimmicks) and can be had under 200 US. Better then that the MPA Gold or MPA Pro 2 (i think thats what it is called) are ART preamps but run at proper voltage with 2 12AX7s I think and have an input impedance control.

Above that the RNP and Grace Designs pres are in that level and then beyond that your in the higher end (from 1500 upwards). You can get some great pres second hand for around 1000 I would think but if your looking well under that I wouldn't go for less then the DMP3.

[Virtual Kevorkian]

Re: Good bang-for-buck mic pre?

Most of the recommendations so far (save for the Auteur, Golden Age, or RNP) will be perceivably better than your stock pres.

How handy are you with a soldering iron? SCA makes some of the best mic pres period, and happen to be dirt cheap.

The GAP-73 isn't a straight 1073 clone, but it's got that flavor. You'll have to replace the transformers and do a couple component swaps to get it in the right ballpark, but it's certainly not a bad preamp.

I'd personally look into SCA, though. For $400, you can get the chassis/PSU and one of their T15 kits, which is a transformerless, ultra-clean preamp (similar to RNP, Trident S20, etc). Or, for $600, you could get the same setup but with their API 312 clone (which comes pre-built, actually). After the initial chassis/PSU/1channel, it's about 300/channel for API/Neve/Millenia clones, and $100/channel for the T15's I mentioned. Everything is kit-based except for the API pre, which now comes pre-assembled.

They also have a dual DI module and a DBX-style compressor module that are really cheap and sound great, which makes it really easy to set up some channelstrip style chains on a single unit.