What pre amp/di box for k&k mini

[rcboals]

I have a Collings CJ35. I have been mainly an electric guy and wanted to put together a solo gig with an acoustic. I had a K&K mini installed in the Collings bought the K&K little belt clip preamp which was just ok. I did some research on here and was surprised to find that the Boss GE7 EQ has a perfect impedence match and work great shaping the tone with the 7 band EQ. If you research it you will hear that the GE7 is noisy and needs modded that is really old information from over 10 years ago, Boss has long since corrected that. Just posting this in case someone else is checking out pre amps for the K&K mini. Couldn't be happier with the Boss GE7.

[lt20dbl]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi Justin…

They do sound better to me with a preamp, enough better that when we are running sound and someone shows up with a K&K Pure Mini and no preamp, we loan them one. I don't use effects (or compression etc) but many preamps has an effects loop so you can run them through the loop instead of before/after the preamp.

There is a long list of preamps which work well with the Pure Mini. They range from $30 to $2500 each…

• Baggs ParaDI
• Baggs Venue
• Baggs Belt Pack preamp
• Fishman Platinum
• EDB-II
• Radial PZ Tonebone
• Behringer ADI21
• K&K's preamps (in my opinion over priced and under featured with no better sound)
• UltraSound UltraDI Max (2 separate ins/outs)
• Fire Eye - RedEye
• quite a few others…

It boils down to the list of features you are going to want/need, and how much tweakablity it takes to make you happy.

Here's my minimum list of what I want and expect…

• XLR out for connecting to PA systems, and ¼" out for connecting to amps. These need to be available simultaneously…
• Ground lift
• Separate Gain (input volume control) and Master (output volume control)
• Tone control over every frequency spectrum (the RedEye doesn't)
• Phase reverse (not every preamp has this)

So while there is no simple answer to your inquiry, there are a lot of us who are very happy with our preamps in combination with a K&K, regardless of what they are.

Larry, your posts on this subject seem spot on. I started using an old metal box, belt clip Fishman Model G with undersaddle pickup. When I switched to bridge plate, (McIntyre and K&K) I continued with the model G, getting great sound, especially compared to the thin line pickups.
when the model G died, I got a Fishman pro eq II as it was less money than the platinum. This was maybe ten years ago and still getting great results. That's why I don't get all the fuss over impedance matching. the K&K preamp is overpriced for what it is ( fishman pro eq was $100) .

[bnjp]

I have a new K&k pure XLR I would make you a great deal on if interested. I bought it to use with a Pure but decided to use a different pickup. PM or email me if interested.

Until this week I had been using my PADI with my K&K equipped guitar to notch out some offending frequencies. However, It occurred to me that my multi f/x box (Zoom G1Xon) also includes a parametric eq. So I figured, why not? Sounds great and results in less to carry.

[KevWind]

One not well known but enjoys a stellar reputation among a small cadre of enthusiastic users is FRM Audio's ARC

http://www.fmraudio.com/arc.html