Hooray for a real gear designer

[joel hamilton]

Jc from electro harmonix just emailed me tonight (he designed the NY2A), and I guess he finally has a tube mic pre design that he wants me to try out the prototype. This is the cool part: it is an actual tube mic preamp, with actual voltage going to actual tubes, and he says he came up with some interesting ways to make it transformerless but still rock like a big boy, but keeps costs down.
Here is the really good part: it should be LESS THAN 300 bucks street price.

If this thing is as good as the NY2A, this new mic pre will be a steal. I hope they actually hit that price point squarely in the ass, as there is a bunch of bullshit that promises this or that. Screw all the cheapo shit for around 300 dollars. If this thing kicks ass as a REAL mic pre with good performance, I hope it sends all the other companies scurying to catch up.

JC and the crew over there are coming up with some amazing designs for working engineers. I think that is really awesome. Not just esoteria that costs a billion dollars, but useable, quality pieces of professional grade gear for a reasonable price!??!?!?!? Is that allowed in this business???

I will report here when I get the prototypr for sure.

[Spiderhead69]

Whoa, sounds good..or should I say, I hope it sounds good...

[soundguy]

Will it have big knobs?

I heard on the internet that if it has small knobs it cant sound good.

dave

[psychicoctopus]

that's uncommon, right? a tube preamp w/o transformers.

[soundguy]

when talking about real tube amplification stages in a stand alone preamp, yes, somewhat uncommon.

dave

[DavidATX]

Joel, hows about you just send it to me?

[cgarges]

Joel's not real good about sending stuff to people.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[nacho459]

Wow a tube pre with a step up transformer so the tubes aren't starved with a 15VDC B+ What a concept! It's like someone realized tubes like high plate voltages.

Remember kids tubes don't like wall warts!

[DavidATX]

Yeah, what a dick! haha, actually, as yall know, great guy. He sends me stuff...good advice! And he was cool enough to want to work with us on Book of Knots.




But other than that, you suck!

[Girl Toes]

I was planning to buy GT's The Brick next weekend. Should I hold off, how long will this take???

[cgarges]

And he was cool enough to want to work with us on Book of Knots.

Funny you should mention that...

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[DavidATX]

How is it funny?

by the way...I didnt mean that in a dick way...just wondering

[cgarges]

No problem. I was hoping Joel would see this. Joel's been promising to send me a Book Of KNots CD since before it was relased. Time after time, he's dropped the ball on it. I've been harrassing him for months about it and he still can't seem to put a CD in the mail. It's just comical at this point, but I'll keep razzing him anyway because I can. He seems to be taking it well.

I've heard it's a really good album.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[joel hamilton]

David ATX:

Will you or mauro please send chris a BOK cd....

That would be great....

Here is more about the pre from the email (i took out brand names as not to start a ruckus) :

"if i could ask you to give it a spin? the point of it is to make a lower cost gadget that actually uses tubes, instead of the faked out tube in an opamp box that [xxx], [xxxx] and[xxxxx] all make. it uses a 12AY7 and a 12AU7 each with a real 200 volt B+ supply. it has a clever fet current source trick to force balance in the tubes to cancel out ground and common mode crap (the only way to get the?crap rejection?without a transformer). I......"


Sounds pretty awesome to me, even the ethics behind it.

[KennyLusk]

If the output isn't tranformer balanced doesn't that kill all of the tone?

That's just been my experience.

Opamps are great for transparency and "faithful reproduction" but it's my antique, all-tube (w/tranformers) equipment that gives me the chub.