Most transparent - Grace M101 or True Systems P-Solo?

dickiefunk · Post by **dickiefunk** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 11:42 am

Has anyone tried both of these pres?

Which of these has the cleanest most transpartent and un colored sound?

hogfish · Post by **hogfish** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:03 pm

dont know about the P solo, but the pair of Grace 101s I have get used alot. They are about as transparent as you could get. A nice acoustic instrument pre....

Producer/Engineer · Post by **Producer/Engineer** » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:30 pm

dickiefunk wrote:Has anyone tried both of these pres?

Which of these has the cleanest most transpartent and un colored sound?

+1 and bump !

Great question! I've often wondered about this too. Does anyone have experience with BOTH ?

accordion squeezist · Post by **accordion squeezist** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 7:58 pm

This won't answer your question but I would like to comment.
A lightning strike took out the inboard power supply of my M101. Sent it back to Grace and they fixed it no charge. Nice folks.

Producer/Engineer · Post by **Producer/Engineer** » Fri Apr 15, 2011 8:02 pm

accordion squeezist wrote:This won't answer your question but I would like to comment.
A lightning strike took out the inboard power supply of my M101. Sent it back to Grace and they fixed it no charge. Nice folks.

WoW ! That's great! Good to know.

alexdingley · Post by **alexdingley** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 4:55 am

Having used all the different grace units and the p8 from True systems: I'm fairly confident in saying Grace all the way. Cleaner at any gain setting and built a good deal better.

Also, great company to deal with for support.

Jim Williams · Post by **Jim Williams** » Sat Apr 16, 2011 8:21 am

Grace is Burrbrown INA103/163 based designs. True uses MAT 02 input transistors into a BB opamp. I reworked both of them for the same customer. The Grace is what it is, I replaced some caps, output opamps, etc.

The True P8 allowed me to install machine sockets for all the opamps. I set it up with 8 different chips so the customer could pick favorites. One channel was set up to run transconductance with current feedback opamps. Unfortunatley, the servo is the first stage, not the second, so there is still DC offsets on the outputs.

I found neither to be truly transparent, they both have a solid state sound with a bit of glassy top end.

joel hamilton · Post by **joel hamilton** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:55 am

Jim:
The "solid state sound with a glassy top end" seems to be what people perpetuate the "transparent" myth all over the interworld.
I super agree with you about the pre's in question, but people seem to hold on to misinformation beautifully...

--like transformers are dark and "colored" and that they saturate no matter what and basically will "build up" if you use them on more than just the ribbon mic'd cymbal overdub.

Also, tubes will make things warmer, and they also do stuff like the above comments about transformers.

I wont "re-rant" for the 9 millionth time about the "transparency" concept in regards to recording gear, rather I will offer a useful suggestion for once:

Telefunken V72.

Properly maintained and with good tubes in them, you will have on your hands one of the most musical, TRANSPARENT mic pre's ever made. I know it seems like utter madness.... how can something made before IC's even existed be Accurate?!?!
How could something so warm and saturated and gritty and vibey and vintage and old be transparent!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

The noise specs are amazing, the thing sounds amazing, and for accurate reproduction of whatever you think transparency is at the other end of the wire (measurement mic?) it will rock.

Jim Williams · Post by **Jim Williams** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 7:57 am

Different horses for courses. Old German broadcast gear I find to be very colored and euphonic, but not at all accurate. The THD, noise, slew rate, etc, are all lacking for my purposes.

The reason I do what I do is because that older gear I found lacking. For transparency, I found I have to look forwards, not backwards.

casey campbell · Post by **casey campbell** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 2:55 pm

There is no such thing as a "transparent" mic pre...and you know what, that's ok!

*ducks*

you knew someone would say it...

eeldip · Post by **eeldip** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 4:05 pm

if you define "transparent" as "accurate as possible" (accuracy defined like jim does above), you could easily classify many pres as transparent.

i think what mixes people up is that people use "transparent" to mean "how i want it to sound".

dickiefunk · Post by **dickiefunk** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 5:10 pm

Jim Williams wrote:
I found neither to be truly transparent, they both have a solid state sound with a bit of glassy top end.

Hi Jim,

Which did you find to be the closest to transparent? Is there anything in the sub $500 better than these for transparent?

joel hamilton · Post by **joel hamilton** » Wed Apr 20, 2011 6:51 pm

eeldip wrote:if you define "transparent" as "accurate as possible" (accuracy defined like jim does above), you could easily classify many pres as transparent.

i think what mixes people up is that people use "transparent" to mean "how i want it to sound".

... which is exactly the rant that I got on in some thread a few months back...

To me "transparent" means " such a perfect part of the process that nobody questions its use in that process."

Thats the simplest, most direct way I have found to describe the concept. beyond that there is plenty of semantic interweb-wizzing contest ding dong sparring examples available all over the net.

I use the pre that I know will get me in the ballpark, then I do whatever else I have to do to get the element in question to sit well relative to the other choices I made.
Nothing about that process is "transparent" to me, or EVERYTHING about that process is trasparent, depending on how I look at it.

I could have just as easily suggested something that looks more futuristic, and STILL sounds like a recording and not the source , like say.... any of the GRACE pre's, or even the hardy stuff, or jensen stuff, or a sytek, or any number of more esoteric gear like the original earthworks LAB pre, which claimed insane specs, and then I treied it and everything I recorded with it made no sense. The sound certainly didnt fool anyone into thinking it was "live and not memorex"...
Weirdly, I HAVE had those moments where the peaks and valleys and dynamic response (slewing AND headroom and overall histrionics of the circuit) just "take the glass down" between me and the source, even with things that get passed off as "colored and slow" or whatever interworld jargon is being used to describe a Neve mic pre this week. It literally sounded JUST like the person was in the room with me.
Much like the fit of a pair of shoes... your old boots would be anything but a "transparent" experience for me, but I dont even think about mine because they perform flawlessly within the parameters I need them to, that are specific to my feet and lifestyle and needs as a shoe-wearer.
A car is a "transparent" part of a suburban commute to work every day.
A glass is a "transparent" part of getting water from the faucet to your mouth.

Jim Williams · Post by **Jim Williams** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 8:16 am

Everything is transparent until you hear something more transparent.

For me, it's when I hear things that are missing listening to other designs.
Whether it's the tick if a wood stick tapping a cymbal, or each tap sounding like a bell with each note sounding different, whether it's a bell tree actually sounding like a bell tree. Whether I hear the hands of the musician on the instrument is also missing from most other designs. Those are subtle sounds usually passed over in common audio gear. Electrolytic capacitors, transformers and slew restricted amplifiers are the usual cause of that.

Modern rock/pop with fuzzy guitars and pounding drums is not the best venue to hear those differences with. For that stuff, almost anything will do, as all those classic rock records using measley console mic preamps will show. In that case, it's the performer, not the mic preamp that makes it all work.

Producer/Engineer · Post by **Producer/Engineer** » Thu Apr 21, 2011 4:01 pm

My reference point: Millennia HV-3 - Transparent

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Most transparent - Grace M101 or True Systems P-Solo?

Most transparent - Grace M101 or True Systems P-Solo?

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