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Sale Price: $349.99
Today's Bonus:
- Vintage Style electronics with no integrated circuits in the signal path
- 80dB Max gain easily handles passive ribbon mics with quiet sound sources; -20 to +10dB Gain range on the Line input
- Switchable 1200 or 300 Ohm impedance on the mic input
- Switchable phantom power and absolute phase
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I mainly record voiceover, violin, and other acoustic instruments. To give some context, I use a Focusrite Saffire Pro 24 DSP as my primary audio interface. The Focusrite has decent pre-amps but they lack somewhat in terms of gain. And while they sound generally transparent, they often seem sort of sterile and the higher frequencies sometimes distort slightly--not obviously, but enough that the discerning ear can pick it out on an individual track. In terms of microphones, I'm working with a Rode NT1a, Rode NTG-2, SM-58, and a Golden Age R1 Mark iii active ribbon.To further disclose, while all of this is pretty low-end gear for recording, I have worked with some slightly higher-end gear including a Universal Audio channel strip, Digi 003 interface, Neuman TLM-103 and a few boutique tube microphones. These are not my regular tools but they have given me a frame of reference.
The Golden Age Pre73 Mk ii fixes both of the issues I cited for my recording projects (gain and high frequency harshness/distortion). It definitely adds some color--nice warm lows without becoming boomy, and retains clean, clear highs without adding any harsh high frequency distortion. To my ear, this sounds as good as the UA pre-amp. And while it will not fix the deficiencies of my low-end microphones, it cleans up my signal chain quite nicely and makes working with the deficiencies of the mics easier to manage. For example, the Rode NT1a is a very harsh sounding mic in the higher frequencies and has this nasty tendency to over-emphasize higher frequency sounds (like most relatively inexpensive large diaphragm condenser mics). Those issues seem to have mellowed nicely with the Pre73, without loosing intelligibility or clarity because it handles the higher frequencies more gracefully when I keep it at -50db gain which is still on the first gain stage.
The additional gain allows me to record with dynamic mics much more gracefully. Additional color is added on the second gain stage but it still produces a very clean, warm sound.
There are several people that will also upgrade the electronic components in the Pre73 claiming an even cleaner sound though I'm hard-pressed to imagine how that could improve this stock unit. Even after listening to a lot of sample files comparing the stock and upgraded units, I'm still not hearing the difference on decent monitors (KRK Rokit 8 G2s) or good headphones (Beyerdynamics DT 770). But the option to upgrade the components always exists if I find that becomes an issue in the future.
Overall, I'm very happy with this purchase--it was worth every penny!
Buy Golden Age Project Pre73 MKII Microphone Preamp - (New) Now
I'd like to start this review by saying that this is a WONDERFUL preamp for those of us who are not made of money! You can look anywhere you want for as long as you want and I can guarantee you will not find a better quality/price match than the one you get in the Pre 73. It seriously is amazing. It has the potential to color the sound basically as much as you want, with an input knob as well as an output knob, allowing you to push the transformers inside of it as much or as little as you please.For some reason a lot of people think this is a tube pre, but it's a transformer pre. Still gets you that classic "warm" sound if you want it to though! One final plus to this pre is that it can lay down 80 db of gain--that's enough to effectively drive an sm7b or ev re20 EASILY if your current preamps are struggling! The best part is that the gain is clean from one end of the knob all the way to the other! Go ahead and buy this. I promise you won't regret it! :)
If you've got any questions, just comment below!
Read Best Reviews of Golden Age Project Pre73 MKII Microphone Preamp - (New) Here
I got this based on all glowing reviews I found on music gear forums and here on amazon. I was not disappointed!PROS:
I read many reviews or people saying this is the best preamp you can get for under $2000. I suppose they must be right. This thing makes my $100 AKG microphone sound 100x better than I've every been able to get it to sound before. I also have a Blue Dragonfly, and I can finally use it and feel it is being used to its full potential!
It has phantom power.
it is quite.
Has a lot of gain. Which is handy for some microphones which require a lot of gain in order to work well.
CAVEATS:
Most of the reviews I read were geared more towards rock/grunge music artist. That being said, I partly realize now why that demographic likes it so much. When you turn the gain up high on this preamp it will add a slight overdrive distortion on your low frequencies. It is a clean Overdrive, but it is an overdrive. I am not fully accustomed to how to use this to my advantage yet, but I can see where it can be a disadvantage to some people. With a moderate gain setting you can get a very rich sound without too much distortion.
CONS:
I have not found any yet, except my unit was shipped by American Musical Supply and they totally failed on the packaging. My unit was in an over sized box and it had no lining to prevent it from crashing around during shipment. It is not a product fault, but a warning if you are considering ordering from AMS. Luckily my preamp was fine, I figured it must be because they have a good build quality at GAP(or the UPS guys were concerned about the contents of the box crashing all over so they were extra careful with it:/)
Info:
I use this to record acoustic instruments and vocals in my home studio. The only external preamp I used before this was a PreSonus BlueTube, which does not even come close to this GAP.
CONS:
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I like this pre a lot, and use it primarily on male vox, acoustic guitar, and alto sax. I also record electric guitar through the DI with great results. I purchased the MKII version a year or two ago and liked it so much that I got a second one so I can record in stereo. It gives what I would say is a vintage sound, with more depth and clarity than I've heard through other pres in this price range. I performed a DIY mod to one of my two pres replacing the input and output transformers as well as the output transistor and I can definitely hear the difference between the two. This mod fills out the depth of the sound a little more, which is noticeable on some sound sources more than others, such as voice and sax. Bottom line, however, is that both the stock and modded versions are worth every penny. I recommend both. As for me, these days I concentrate more on getting a good musical performance than worrying about my pres and recording chain. Thats the name of the game as far as I'm concerned.
my vocal dynamics going in to the box. So I tried the under $100. mic pre's (Art, Rolls, Samsung) and all of them were very noisy and just didn't work for any quality recordings. I didn't want to buy a $200 mic pre, just to find out that it too wouldn't be good enough, so I hunted the forums and it was almost a unanimous chorus that this Golden Age Pre was the ticket to a super high quality mic pre without going overboard. Well, the forums were right, this Mic pre is so clean and cool sounding I am a super happy with my choice. I now have a completely clean signal with no audible noise at all. It's wonderful!!!!
My sound recording chain is
Shure SM7B Microphone
Golden Age Project Pre73 Mic Pre
ART Pro VLA II Tube Compressor (It's dual channel, so I have them in series)
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interface
Mixcraft Pro Studio 6 on my Windows 7 i7 Intel system.
My next upgrade will be a new audio interface, but it's very clean right now.
Great choice for a mid range mic pre.
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