Dual Mic Pre's Recommendations?
 

So you've got some amazing KM184s or some vintage Schoeps or some other ridiculously expensive stereo pair of mics - small or large diaphragm. What dual mic pre do you run them through? Anybody have a favorite dual preamp?

Price Range 1 - less than $500
Price Range 2 - more than $500

My audio interface can accomplish the same thing, but likely with less warmth and/or clean tone. Looking for a cool piece of outboard gear, wondering what AGF thinks.

Might I add that 1/4" output is preferred.

I posted a preamp shootout a while back, and others weighed in with some of their favorites and observations. I use either a Great River MP2H or an Apogee Ensemble. Just what I have, both in your category 2, as well as the little Zoom H6, which is in your category 1 for the entire signal chain.

https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/...d.php?t=526149

There are dozens, if not hundreds of options that will all sound good for this purpose and with the mics you mention. There are differences in preamps, and you may hear the differences in my demo, if you look at that post. But in general, my experience is that there's less difference between most preamps than you'll get by moving the mics by an inch, or using different guitar strings. Everything matters, but in certain cases, maybe not as much as you think :)

Price Range 3 = dirt cheap.

The half-rack Symetrix SX202 or 302. Get one with mods, they are even better.

You're probably thinking .... "these are not at the level of my mics". Well, you might be surprised. There are plenty of reviews around the 'net.

What are you using for an audio interface?
I ask because I'm wondering about the quality of those pres.

These are all well over $500...

For a clean tone, the Hardy M1 is great.
If you want some color, the Sebatron Axis 200 VU or the Demeter VTMP 2b or 2c are nice choices that will show up on the used market for a good price occasionally. Another good choice is the Hendy Rembrandt but I don't see those up for sale very often.

Thanks for the tip! I will look into them. I'm a poor and uneducated home studio guy, so I am never above any gear or any recommendations. Appreciate help from peeps like you!

I have a Steinberg UR44. I've only used it for maybe 100 hrs or so, so I'm still getting used to the built in preamps. I think they are decent (?) but it'd just be fun to get an outboard piece of gear.

The thing is, I have several different kinds of preamps. And if one of them's not sounding right on something I change it. So I don't have any "bad" recorded examples. I bet everyone here is more or less in the same boat.

My experience is that you'll need to spend approx. $500 a channel to get a significant difference over what you have. What's your budget?

On Reverb, there's a Sebatron Axis for $1400 and a Demeter VTMP 2b for $1100 (Demeter review here). Both are excellent mic pres.

What's your goal in getting an outboard preamp? Is there some specific use or target sound, or maybe a specific feature set, or maybe a preamp with a range of tonal options? The more details you provide, including range of budget, the more useful response you'll likely get.

If you're looking in the direction of a clean preamp with a flexible feature set the Speck 5.0 could be something to check out. It's a single channel pre so you'll need a pair for stereo. It has both transformer and solid state output, adjustable high pass filter, send and return, balanced inputs and outputs as well as a DI, stepped gain setting, and lots of clean gain. Good used deals can be found. I bought my demo pair directly from Speck. They are in your price range 2.

I have the Focusrite ISA Two which is rather coloured and warm. The other one is a Lake People F633. The latter is super neutral preamp and my preferred one. The F633 (meanwhile new numbering) is four channel amp. There is a two channel version which is reasonable priced and gives lots ofGerman value for money.

i use a cloudlifter. sure does open up the sound.

https://www.cloudmicrophones.com/cloudlifters

play music!

Without having heard it, I think the UR 44 is going to have pretty decent clean preamps. I still use an M-Audio DMP2 as my clean pre. I haven't found any dual pre in the $500 range that smokes it, so I have resisted spending money on a better clean pre until I can afford something like a John Hardy. Instead, I purchased a colored pre, a Sebatron. Now I have a pretty darn good clean pre and a great colored pre.

So I suggest you seek a 2-channel colored pre, or two single channels. Maybe look at stuff Warm Audio and Golden Age.

I'm not sure that counts as a preamp. Yes, it boosts the mic signal but I'm pretty sure you have to run it into a preamp that provides phantom power for it to work.