Grace M101 Microphone Preamp Review

[peniku8]

A top of the line audio interface will cost 4x as much and the built-in pres likely won't match the performance of this stand alone pre. If you're mostly concerned with recording voice and acoustic instruments, one great mic and one great pre are going to be much more useful to you than four mediocre mics and eight average pres, and cheaper too.

If I say "Top of the line audio interface" I don't mean "whatever has the most inputs and outputs". The UCX II is 1300€ and looks like it wouldn't perform much worse (or possibly even better) in terms of S/N, EIN and price than this thing and whatever audio interface you put it on that doesn't degrade its SNR, plus you'll have TotalMixFX.
Having the capability to record acoustic instruments in stereo outweighs a possibly 2dB better SNR by miles, at least to me.
Hell, even the 150€ Topping E2x2 looks to deliver about the same performance.

 

[Rja4000]

I

Unweighted. 22.4 kHz bandwidth from what I recall.

What is the norm?

I'm not sure there actually is a norm.
Personally I do 20Hz-20kHz, but that's an arbitrary choice.
Most vendors give 150 ohm dBu(A) figures.

Here is a short analysis of various brands' specs for EIN.

(Note that there may be more details in the manuals: I just had a look at the specs sheets)

 

[SuicideSquid]

If I say "Top of the line audio interface" I don't mean "whatever has the most inputs and outputs". The UCX II is 1300€ and looks like it wouldn't perform much worse (or possibly even better) in terms of S/N, EIN and price than this thing and whatever audio interface you put it on that doesn't degrade its SNR, plus you'll have TotalMixFX.
Having the capability to record acoustic instruments in stereo outweighs a possibly 2dB better SNR by miles, at least to me.
Hell, even the 150€ Topping E2x2 looks to deliver about the same performance.

The UCX II costs twice as much as doesn't have comparable feature set or performance. Is it good enough for lots of people? Sure. That doesn't invalidate the use cases for a stand-alone preamp or mean the pricing is out of line with market norms or anything else.

[edit] Also a couple other things to consider:

1. Not everyone is starting from scratch. If someone's got a standard Focusrite or Universal Audio interface with decent but not great preamps, they don't need to buy a new interface if they're just doing mostly single-channel recording. It's more cost-effective to just buy a preamp and you get better results.
2. Stand-alone preamps don't require drivers and hold their value. I have two audio interfaces in my closet I can't use anymore because the manufacturer hasn't issued a driver update in years and they don't work on current OS's, so they're worthless to me, and they're also worth almost nothing to resell. I can use a preamp from 50 years ago without issue and I can sell it for a decent chunk of change.

 

[VientoB]

I'm loving how fast these reviews are coming lately.

 

[Cbdb2]

If you have a room thats been extremely sound proofed (very expensive) and are recording foley (quiet sounds) that low mic pre noise will make no differance. It will be swamped by other noise.

 

[Rja4000]

I
I'm not sure there actually is a norm.
Personally I do 20Hz-20kHz, but that's an arbitrary choice.
Most vendors give 150 ohm dBu(A) figures.

Here is a short analysis of various brands' specs for EIN.

View attachment 505486

(Note that there may be more details in the manuals: I just had a look at the specs sheets)

Julian Krause is publishing EIN A-weighted 150 ohm 20Hz-20kHz @Max gain.

 

[Rja4000]

In any setup, be it a large recording studio, small home studio or mobile recording, you'll be using an audio interface (unless you're *really* mobile and use a fully integrated recorder) with integrated mic preamps.

Well, a lot of studio still have dedicated analog mic preamps.

And if you have the money to buy a near 1K standalone single channel mic pre, you can also buy a top of the line audio interface and have no need for an external, non remote controlled single channel mic pre

True. But still...
As a pro, you may want to keep the (purely analog) task of preamplifying mic signal with specialized hardware and the Analog to Digital conversion separated.
Either because you already own the analog preamps - which won't loose much value over time (some are even increasing value)-, or just because the ADC is a technology that still evolves quickly, either in the way you connect it or just in the ADC performance.

Would be interesting to see how a top tier audio interface mic pre compares against this one in terms of noise floor.

Maybe you could have a look at my RME UFX III review here.

The 300 Ohm output impedance is a lil rough tho.

True. But that's mainly annoying for long range connections, which is not typical use in small studios.
Given you have to manually control the gain, you'll want this one close to your computer DAW or mixer.

That won't pair too well with the Cosmos ADC, which would otherwise be the obvious choice to digitize whats coming out of a high SNR mic pre.

Sorry, but I highly doubt the E1DA ADC -a wonderful small and affordable device- is the right pairing for this.
You want low latency bullet proof driver first, before ultimate ADC performance (which will be limited by the preamp and the microphone capabilities anyway). A RME ADI-2 or any line-level converter is a more likely candidate.
And this won't be a problem for those.

 

[Herbert]

Before you comment: NO, I cannot hear any difference between 44.1 kHz and 192 kHz, and it’s extremely unlikely that anyone can reliably hear a difference so long as the filters are working optimally, but there are genuine technical reasons that higher sampling rates are 100% valid and useful during editing and mixing.

I second that. Once I even had the feeling that the mix , originally 24/96, sounded b e t t e r on CD because I could listen to it now in a relaxed mood…

 

[olds1959special]

That's actually a very positive point on an analog preamp.
Usually, you optimize noise by setting gain. Then you adjust (lower) the output level to what your ADC can do with Trim.

Here it's a bit different, since it has a positive gain only.
So you keep Trim at 0dB always, except when you really need some extra gain.
This will give you the best performance.

The gain knob is stepped so not usable for adjusting on the fly.

 

[Rja4000]

The gain knob is stepped so not usable for adjusting on the fly.

How big are the steps ?
Most, if not all, preamps I know have stepped gain.
That's hardly an issue in practice.

 

[G|force]

Some inexpensive pres have a potentiometer with detents to adjust gain in the name of easy recall, while other better designs use a rotary switch that selects different transformer taps.
Some use both where the gain is adjusted with a rotary switched tap which in turn drives an output pot.

 

[amirm]

The gain knob is stepped so not usable for adjusting on the fly.

But has a secondary control with no steps to fine tune.

 

[olds1959special]

But has a secondary control with no steps to fine tune.

But when the secondary control doesn't have enough range to turn, then what?

 

[amirm]

But when the secondary control doesn't have enough range to turn, then what?

You use the other to get close then trim.

 

[olds1959special]

You use the other to get close then trim.

But the gain knob is stepped so if you're in the middle of tracking it's not going to create a smooth transition in the recorded audio.

 

[Robin L]

But the gain knob is stepped so if you're in the middle of recording someone singing (for example) it's not going to create a smooth transition in the recorded audio.

You set a peak level with this preamp, mess with overall level with the board's fader or the recording level. This preamp can produce a lot of signal without distorting, When I recorded concerts of classical music I'd set for the peak during rehearsals, back off by about 10 db and then just let the recorder do its thing. The headroom of Redbook standard was enough when I was recording, allowing for peaks is easier now with High-Rez recording.

 

[olds1959special]

You set a peak level with this preamp, mess with overall level with the board's fader or the recording level. This preamp can produce a lot of signal without distorting, When I recorded concerts of classical music I'd set for the peak during rehearsals, back off by about 10 db and then just let the recorder do its thing. The headroom of Redbook standard was enough when I was recording, allowing for peaks is easier now with High-Rez recording.

Set the level and forget, then boost later in post if needed in one approach, but I like to get an optimal level with my pre-amp during recording and I find I have to manually lower the level when recording loud things and vice versa, which is impossible with this pre-amp.

 

[Zvezda]

Set the level and forget, then boost later in post if needed in one approach, but I like to get an optimal level with my pre-amp during recording and I find I have to manually lower the level when recording loud things and vice versa, which is impossible with this pre-amp.

There's 10 dB of stepless trim; it's possible to center the trim knob, set a level with the stepped main gain control, and then have effectively a step either way to fine tune. Or set it to +10 instead of zero and trim down instead of up. I feel like if I was going to be using this in a position where I needed to manually chase the level, I'd rather have a proper fader instead of forcing what's really more of a combined coarse/fine gain adjustment into that role anyway.

 

[beeface]

Looks like a good device, although I would have thought it’d be outside the scope of this site?

 

[M.C. Logan]

I wonder what the use case of such a device would be in today's market

Clean vocals/instrument into a DAW.