Big Preamp Shootout (9 Units - Heritage, Gap, Warm Audio, Black Lion...)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- Lion Audio B173 vs. Heritage 73jr vs. Warm Audio WA12-500 vs. Golden Age Project Pre-573 vs. Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 2nd GenBlack vs. Joe Meek PreQ vs. Art Tube MP vs. SPM5 vs. Fredenstein Artistic Mic Preamp
in a Fredenstein Bento 6s
I can hear subtle differences, but what I get from this is.... pick one, record, be happy!
Yup
This is exactly how ALL comparison videos should be. A++.
As a side note I think there might be something wrong with that warm audio unit. The bass sounds shockingly thin in the full mix. I can’t imagine it is supposed to sound like that.
Thanks! And yeah I agree with the Warm Audio. Not that something went wrong in my test (I checked all settings over and over), but that it sounds very thin!
First off, this is the best preamp comparison I've heard, no variation in performances, volumes, etc., and the most important thing; stacking some tracks! Individual tracks compared are going to give a more limited frequency range to analyze and will only yield very subtle differences. Very smartly done!
I think all of the preamps sound very good to my ears, but if I listen for the one that is closest to sounding like a mix with all the tracks compiled it's indeed the Heritage Audio. The highs, lows, and mids are really in a nice balance. All the other pres have me commenting in my head that they're either a bit thin, or I'm hearing a frequency bump somewhere that doesn't sound pleasing to my ear.
The Black Lion (a bit brighter) was probably my second favorite, followed by the Joe Meek (a bit darker). The rest of the 500 pres might as well be a coin flip for me, none really stood out for me.
The big take away for me, though, is the quality of the Focusrite Scarlett pres and ART Tube MP, they both sound excellent to my ears and I'd probably pick them over all the others not including my top three.
I'm just curious, are all these tracks going through the Focsurite converters or are different converters being used? Thanks!
Thank you for your kind words! To answer your questions: Yes, at that time I had a Focusrite Scarlett and used that converter. I now own a RME Fireface UFX II, check out my shootout of that if you like. My personal take away from that shootout was: you can do great stuff even on lower-budget stuff like the Scarlett.
The Art Tube MP is a nice sounding box (especially if you need a little bit of "grit"), but I wouldn't record main vocals on a great condenser mic with it. For me, it sounds a little bit to undefined for that.
If you want to know, I kept 2 pres from this shootout, the Heritage and the JoeMeek. The Heritage is overpriced, but it just gives a nice "weight" to things. And the JoeMeek was just a great sounding, very affordable pre, and the only one with a variable low cut.
Thanks for watching!
-Mike
I think for $55 the ART Tube MP should get a gold medal in this comparison!
I liked the art a lot too. The sound felt a bit warmer and full comprared to the others, but in the end they are just preamps.
If you want to get your mind blown on the topic of preamp’s, Google “sound on sound mic preamp shoot out blindfold test”. It really ruffled a lot of feathers in the high-end audio industry when it came out. The staff turned themselves inside out with a self playing piano and incredibly high end microphones and converters to do a test among high and some low end preamp’s. The people doing the recording literally didn’t know what the engineers in the other room were running the mics through etc. etc. just fanatical efforts to keep the testing blind.
I will end the suspense for you, a whole bunch of audiofiles and engineers who work at the magazine could literally not tell one preamp from the next. They liked certain ones, yes. But in some cases they were the far cheaper preamp’s, and there was no agreement on the idea that $2000 per channel preamp’s were any “better”.
They have come to the conclusion, preamp’s maybe one of the less important parts of the signal chain after you have reached a certain level of quality where bandwidth and noise are reasonably good. Heresy right? Oh my God, the screaming among snobby aficionados who have spent the farm on lux preamps was incredibly intense. It took a lot of courage for the magazine to stand up for its writers and they may have lost advertisers, but I subscribed at that point. Great mag w REAL reviews. I expect some screaming responses to this post, people love gear hype and mic pres generate the most intense gear hype of any item in the signal chain. (Worse than $150 bottles of wine). Bring them on! 🥸😎
issue is you can here it clip in the second clip. However levels were not fully balanced. hmm
Tube MP is an unsung hero of studio work. It also doubles as nice universal tool as the outputs are isolated.
Absolutely. especially when the MP's can be bought used for 15 to 20 dollars in a pawnshop.
The low cost pre's are really representing here. The Heritage sounds best throughout, but the Fredenstein is a close second and the ART Tube MP is punching 10x above its cost. Amazing times.
Set very clean these will all sound really similar, it’s only when you drive the preamp that you can hear major differences
surprisingly Fredenstein sounds a lot like Heritage 73, it's more like an API in design (discreet opamp and american transformers)
The scarlett holds up surprisingly well
Shocking, but true.
I was thinking the same thing
Thats exactly what I thought
mm from my monitors and my ears, it doesn't unfortunately! Very muddy compared to all the rest
The warm actually sucks lol
the settings are set so it is not as loud... louder sounds better in almost every shoot out. ha!
@@alexgordonepic often times loudness isn't just "volume" it's frequency response. The more harmonics a piece of gear passes, the louder something sounds. For instance... you can take a terrible home recording, limit the crap out of it, and it's not going to sound as loud as a professional mix/master that's not even as "loud" on the meters. Because... all the frequencies are there in the professional one. More bass, more treble, and that's on each instrument, not just a final part!
Wow, i could barley even tell the difference between each one on my studio monitors in a treated room. Nothing that couldn't be emulated with the tiniest bit of eq or saturation plugin. And all the fuss over preamps! I guess I'll just hang out with my scarlett 18i20 for a little longer.
The Heritage definitely stood out. Now the rest of them... yeah... I couldn't tell much, if any difference. I would get your hearing checked if you couldn't tell the difference between the Heritage and the rest.
@@BlackMan614slight differences. A few plugins could push any of those other interface to sound like heritage… just using slight tweets.
Agree
Was supprised to hear that the warm audio preformed so poorly. Theres no bottom end at all. Just ridicolously overpriced in my oppinion. All the other cheaper preamps sound fuller and would pick the art tube preamp over it anyday. Or 5 of them...
This is a great comparison, very well done. Really it's all about the song and not the gear most of the time.
Heritage wins, Scarlett holds up really well but I am REALLY impressed by the ART. Bit granular, but I think it can give some desirable distortion on certain things
Aunatar y
Fredenstein stands out on bass in final mix!!
dang... i like that cheap art for bass. :)
great shout out my man. its great howe I can hear the tube gives a nice saturation to bass part.... Heritage audio gives a super warm bottom, almost to where the low end is felt and not so much hurd...... and the black lion gave the bass the most clarity to me. like a good punch... but not fat. like a cleaner version of the tube pre. great shout out.
This is the way a shootout is done ✅ Thank you for putting the time to do this!
I would like to know if anyone would guess which one is playing and when the change occurred if this was a blind test.
For instrumental music there's no point choosing anything over the Scarlett IMHO. It does the job quite well. But If I would pick one, the BL173 or Heritage would be my go to.
all the bass is gone in the warm audio
Well done! In my experience vocals seem to be the big differentiator in pre-amps. With instruments it seems all sound good and similar.
Would love to see this shootout with only vocals and maybe a kick or snare comparison.
I think the Audient iD44 interface would sound great ... ART sounded as big as the big boys!! For most folk who listen to music, who don't know what subtle differences mean, the ART would get the ticket The playing and arrangement is the clear winner here, though. Thanks for saving folks a lot of ca$h.
Heritage is nice but adds some stuff that you may not want in some cases. If I had to pick one it's the Fredenstein.
Agreed, especially for the price.
I noticed its detail with the bass guitar especially
If you don't hear any difference, you'd better change your listening, with bad converters or monitors they probably all sound the same
4:00
4:14
4:27
4:40
4:54
5:07
5:20
5:33
5:47
Fredenstein and Joemeek and Heritage. Thanks!
BLA, ART, Heritage...Art was a kick in the pants, with A "are you kidding me" reaction. I swear i spend more time gear-heading than actual recording!!! Nice work Miike!!
The Heritage was like putting on my big boy pants! The warm did kind of disappear, not sure why. I have a pair of TB12's and I like them, but in this the Heritage was the pretty clear fav for me. Something diff may have diff results. Thanks for the vid
The warm was kinda soft in volume some times
quite frankly that's very subtle. Except warm audio, every thing would works in the mix
Yes, that's true!
They all sound good. The Black Lion Preamp surprised me. It has the biggest widest sound of them all. The bass was present in your face and even. I thought the warm preamp was shallow and thin. I was hoping for vocals just because you can here more big difference between preamps more so than instruments. I will say drums too. Great video.
I agree
Art Tube MP and Joe Meek PreQ sound more 3Dimensional, they sound like they already be mixed
That's how you do a preamp shootout!
Very impressive comparison video , nicely done
Thank you, it was exhausting to make that video! ;-)
Heritage. Hands down. Fredenstein was suprisingly good...maybe a bit louder than the rest?
For the electrical guitar... strummed
The GAP had the densest midrange and therefore emphasized this particular frequency region the best. Second was the warm audio. For the same reason people opt for the API 512 in the studio. But everything needs to be assessed relative to the elements of the drum kit. If you listen closely to how things behave dynamically and sonically to the snare drum, you'll realize that the 1073 is always a save bet
For picked guitar your need all the sensitive treble frequencies to contribute to variables like clarity which then will affect string separation and definition of tone.. The go to micr pre here is the Neve. but it's not the only option here.
For the bass.... The 1073 had the most impressive bass extension, hence managed to add weight and dimension
HA73jr sounds the best in my opinion.
Excellent shoot-out, especially putting a single track and full mix through them. Obviously there are tons of pres out there. I am curious if you or anyone commenting here has tried a Golden Age Project Pre-73 MKIII Mic Line Preamp?
i did a shootout too with a design pacifica , heritage 1073, focusrite isa and avalon and i must seriously say that micpres have the least impact on your sound unless you really crank it. for example if you take a high gain preamp like the pacifica and you engage the pad + pumping the gain you got some colour but yeah, invest your money in other things audio related XD
The Warm is too flat on bass or guitars, I prefer Focusrite
This is a beautiful piece of music
Mike please respond. I hear a significant volume loss at the Warm12 pre at 3:34 ... other commenters are saying it sounds tiny in comparison and i agree but there is significant volume loss here. Can you comment on that please?
Hi. The Warm Audio cuts bass frequencies, that's why it seems quiter (pro side: it sounds "punchier" and snappier on things like snares or guitars). Check out the JoeMeek PreQ, great pre-amp
Made by Miike hey Mike! I think you have a faulty unit. I loaded the video into logic pro and anything under 100 was effectively gone in the bass guitar.. definitely something wrong. My friend has the warm and it definitely doesnt behave like this. Cheers
Thanks for doing this dude. Great effort and nice to hear this. Sound a lot closer than expected. That said, only when driven hard will character start to show through, but depends if you are going for character or transparency. I recently purchased the DAP 73 mk iii. I'm happy with it.
One thing you will not notice on this test is low noise floor. Cheaper preamps can sound good but when going 40db gain and above can introduce noise which with digital post production can stand out a lot more, which is why I made my purchase to help with using the sm7b.
Hapoy recording 😀
Heritage sounded the best by far, rich, thick, sweet on the top end. I’d use that for drums/bass and maybe the warm API clone on the guitars. Cool example.
None of them sounded bad. My favorite was the Heritage Audio pre. It had the big lows and low mids (which may not work on everything) which you expect from a 1073 style preamp.
I could hear the biggest difference between the interface preamp and the ART. The rest sounded fairly similar.
Thank you so Much Heritage wins for Harmonics, not as Clear as the Warm but its Thicker with Harmonics.
Good video ! The ART and the Black Lion ! Heritage Audio in third
Thank you
Heritage
agreed. the heritage sounds great on all independent sources and the whole song. better separation and low end harmonics.
I like the Focusrite a lot - I have the Saffire Pro 14 so I'm pleased about that! I'm in the market for an outboard preamp - based on this shootout I would choose the Black Lion
Consider the GAP Pre-73. It's cheaper, built better and has more tonal options. Thanks for watching!
I've got the B173 and I'm delighted - it's opened up a new world really!
all around I'd say the Heritage wins the prize, the big disappointment here is the Warm audio WTH? a couple of surprises here too, the ART and Meek are sleepers
The warm was softer on some parts
But he never used the warm audio ?????
Liked Heritage and JoeMeek the best.
Heritage is the best for my liking, that weight u would expect from a Neve and I feel the huge difference compared to the Scarlett on my system, also the music is great!
Such little difference. I'd buy the cheapest.
Focusrite interface is enough.
Impressed with the Heritage and the Joe Meek. Also, ART MP sounds great for the value. I paid 30 bucks for a used one.
Can you indicate Black Lion Pre amo by livestreaming and Gospel Voice over?
Greeting from São Paulo.
IMO transformer tube preamps do sound very different from one another, solid states really don't. Just putting a vintage-style tube preamp on a signal introduces all kinds of transformer response and frequency phase shifts that can make or break a signal. Solid states don't have nearly as much coloration.
Im glad you added a cheap interface like my focusrite red solo. There isnt enough difference to be fancy and overspend. I can use what I have until the day comes where I can afford creme de la crem like expensive vocal chains. My plugins are killing it already so its just a luxury at this point for me.
The takes are so similar I have wondered if this was a prank. I can hear differences, but yeah super slight.
Everyone sounds the same to my ears. I´m almost 50, and 25 years recording... maybe that´s it ;)
Wow the Heritage is gold!!
The only one that sounded noticeably different was the warm audio...thin, no bass.
The only one I really didnt like was the Studio Projects, it's kinda stiff. That being said, the WA12 low end bandwidth is extremely poor in this shootout by comparison. Heritage, Gap, Fred stand out to me. The others aren't exactly terrible either.
He didn't have the levels of the Warm Audio set the same. No fair to the Warm Audio family.
I've got a Warm TB12 and find the low's sound the opposite to how they WA12-500 sounds in this shootout? Something doesn't sound quite right here?
Yeah I was suprised by the lack of low end as well! On the other hand it is very punch-y sounding!
Sure, you would have to compare all these preamps at different gain settings as that has big influence on the sound (in my experience if you drive an anlog preamp on the hot end it tends to sound more warm). And you need to take into account the RUclips compression and you need to know what to actually listen for.
But either way: I wish there were more tests such as this one on RUclips to a) get a proper picture in terms of comparison and b) to show that whatever you buy these days sounds pretty amazing to begin with. (and c) none of these devices will help you turn a bad song into a good one).
Thanks a lot for your effort. I appreciate your enrichment of the internet.
LIstened on my Superlux 681 running Sonarworks 4 profile. I can hear that the warm was not only lower but also did not have deep enough low end. The Art sounded decent on bass but the winner was The Heritage. It had that rock sound. Similar weight without the harmonic excitement was the Fredenstein.
Thanks for your detailed feedback!
Can't believe that are sounds so good. Man for me it was the ART and the Heritage Audio neck and neck. For this sound I may actually pick the ART
I've been eying the Heritage for a while, but this video convinced me otherwise. I thought it sounded way too thin in the high range and muddy in the low range. The Focusrite did really well for a lot of things. I thought the black lion was really good too.
I’m surprised the GAP isn’t being talked about. That one comes in second behind the heritage to me. Has a similar character. I thought I’d like the Black Lion one more but I didn’t.
I was surprised how much I kept liking it. Solid pre.
nice test song! everytime the Black Lion came in I opened my eyes to see which model was on. The Warm Audio then was bad, then the Heritage Audio was good again...
El problema es que estos experimento hechos con un loop son inutiles por que la grabaciones de instrumentos no se han hecho a traves de los pre. se trata de un maldito loop grabado
i love the spm5, very different.
This was incredible! 🙌✌️
Very well made shootout! Thanks!
3:33 was a shocking difference and not doing Warm Audio any favors. I have two WA73-EQ's and they're great but that WA-12 500 MkII sounded like weak crap with that particular sample.
it was recorded at lower volume and something is def wrong with his unit
Carnhill's in/out for the win and full sound. Fantastic review.
Thanks a lot mate!
@@MadebyMiike Just bought 500 so this is super useful. Watched like 3 times today. Thank you for all that work! Sub'd
@@bikesnbeerz Thanks again man!
Hello!
At the start of this video it says there are no differences in volume or performance. The WA12 sounded insane to me (bad, thin, no bass) so i downloaded the video's audio and ran it thru an LUFS meter ... in the "whole mix" part of the video, every single preamp measured around -11.7 LUFS ... the WA12 is around -12.9 ... a whole 1.2 db of AVERAGE level loss. That isn't a small difference and makes a huge perceptual difference and was about to make me completely discard the wa12 as a viable option of purchase, unfairly.
Great video Mike i really appreciate the effort, but i don't know what that was about and it should've been caught, this can (and looking from the comments already did) scare people away from warm audio as a company. That wa12 bass guitar is not right.
the bass guitar wa12 is significantly quieter, according to pro q 3 analyzer -- a few db 3 or 4.
I also downloaded the audio and saw that in addition to being quieter the wa12's waveform was "lopsided". Like the the output of an active bass guitar low on batteries.
GAP sounded the best to my ears.
❤️❤️❤️❤️OH WOW! I want that Heritage ❤️❤️❤️❤️
ummm hello ART Tube MP
I can't hear any difference, especially not one that would justify the purchase. +1.5db shelving EQ at 5khz with your DAW stock EQ would beat all external preamps.
Nice comparison, brings out those subtle differences. That Tube MP is limited and far from high fidelity. But holy crap, I've owned mine for 10 years and there isn't a person who's used it that wasn't impressed. I've had to fight more than a FOH guys who thought I was looney, but they never complain once they hear it. I feel like people would love it if they just charged more for it ;).
GAP and heritage .
This is so well done.
You can put different 2520/1731 style opamps in the Fredenstein and change the sound drastically in delightful ways. I have done it. My favorite so far is a real Melcor 1731. The Fredenstein is basically an API design without the traditional input transformer but has a USA made steel output transformer. In A-B test the stock OPA2 opamps that comes with it new sounds exactly like my Audient mic pres. Fredenstein is a great unit to swap opamps. Big console sound for little money.
Using an electric guitar to demo mic amps doesn't tell much because it's all midrange. You can hear the difference plainly on male vocals. For transients, whacking on a snare or kick drum tells the story.
Best shootout ever. Conclusion: buy whatever is in your budget, then just eq/sidelink/add effects. 99.99999% of people can't tell the difference.
Tube... Stock tube? :)
Yes :)
The big TrustFund kid shootout .. and whats wrong with a old desk bought from Ebay ?
Well, the only one I didn't like the sound as much was the Warm Audio, it lacked bass when compared with the other ones
The Warm Audio bass sound much lower in volume than the others. Are you sure you set the levels right? Or does it really lack low end that much? Overall it sounded horrible. I thought about buying a WA Tone Beast 12, but this really makes me hesitate. TB 12 has gotten great reviews, but after listening to this I wonder...
Thank you so much for taking the time to upload this. I am thinking about integrating a 500 series setup into my home studio and this comparison is priceless! Also, I'm pretty surprised at how well the built in pres are holding up.
Hi Erin! After some time with my Preamp (I kept the Heritage) let me tell you this: If you have a good interface (RME, Motu etc.) and external preamp is not worth the money! Built in preamps have come a long way, and with an external preamp you are paying a lot for maybe 5% of a better sound. What really is awesome for outboard is a great Eq (I have the API 550a) and a nice Compressor. This, with good mics and a treated room are the way to go (Rule Nr.1 in Recording: Always start at the beginning of the chain and work your way down). But if you really, reeeeally want an external pre, check out the green one, the JoeMeek PreQ. It's cheap, has a non-fixed low cut and sounds maybe 2% worse than a Heritage.
Thanks for your feedback! Bye!
AllaboutafriendONLINE I wonder how that would compare to my Joe Meek ThreeQ? I agree that the pre’s do not make a huge impact on the sound but I’m at a point where that tiny difference is worth it. Ideally I would have something that had the characteristics of an NEVE, and another that was like an API 3124+, along with a pultec style eq and an 1176 style compressor.
wonderful comparison...well done! love the Heritage most but Art is also really good
Seriously well done! what would be interesting to me is like a one Mic drum set up recorded in and then coming back out on a reamp box that has XLR, because what im wondering is if Mics paired with certain pres would make a bigger difference in the soun. or even a multi mic setup, to hear the accumulations, that would a be a lot but very interesting, what I found must crazy was really how little of a difference there is in all of them. Im really coming to learn that the Mic Pres are like maybe 10-15% of the sound. so cool well done!
wow the WA ToneBeast really thinned everything out..... Hard to tell the rest as none of the were really pushed hard enough to impart their colour
Heritage and Golden Age grabbed my attention on all of the mixes. I guess it boils down to taste. They all sound good. Great video!
Wow the gap and the black lion actually sound the same, both with a focus on the mids. The fredenstein sounded pretty weak on individual instrument but suddenly came to life on the whole mix. The heritage is punchy and good as expected. A little disappointing was the joemeek, I would really only use it for bass. Focusrite was pretty good, the art was bit harsh to my ears
you know kinda tough since you can crank gain up on all of these to get more saturation etc... i have black lion and it works... b173 for di bass and vox etc... it works yall
Do you Have wav files for this?
I worry that the RUclips compression algorithm may be removing fidelity
Great shoot out! I do think the difference are more than 5%, they are subtle, but there’s a definite difference in the mood they impart on the sound
Preamps are very strong on vocals and acoustic guitar recording also drums