A completely discrete, tube mic pre for under 250 dollars. Used correctly, it will give you years of service and tonal goodness. Used improperly, with crappy gear downstream, it will buzz and hum. used with the headphone foldback as the output, it will sound like the buffered IC based headphone foldback.toaster3000 wrote:Electro Harmonix 12AY7 Pre is a true tube design....
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I dont know of another pre for under 500 dollars, never mind for under 250 dollars, that is completely discrete, and really a tube mic pre. not "discreet" like the word is thrown around all the time... but a real DISCRETE, meaning discrete components rather than integrated circuits... If you put a good transformer on the in and the out of an EH 12AY7 you would have a really killer mic pre that would interface better with any mic or any converter. The concession made (for a price point) was to build it into a pre existing form (the case was already made for pedals, duh), and to leave out the I/O xformers. When testing the prototypes, I wished that there were transformers in there, but it would have made the price more than DOUBLE what it wound up selling for. It is a great pre. If you racked them up and wrote "RCA" on the front, people wouldnt even question it. Just put some big knobs on the front and some xformers in the back of a 4U rack case with a pair of these pres inside. People will think they sound WAY better than the Electro harmonix pre...