PS Audio: Building the world’s best microphone preamplifier

[jtwrace]

https://www.psaudio.com/askpaul/building-the-worlds-best-microphone-preamplifier/

 

[Doodski]

It seems as if a wind-up video for the "battle of no-negative feedback." Coming soon to a video near you

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yeah, despite saying otherwise, they are crazy.

SoundOnSound magazine had a blind listening comparison of microphone pre's a few years back. I forget something like 9 different ones ranging in price from $300 to $10k. A few dozen responses from people in their forum. There was no consensus on the best. They weren't quite evenly split. #1 choice by a slim margin was the ART tube pre for that $300. The next was moderately expensive and the next one also cheap.

Pre-amp circuitry is mostly bound by the physics of noise, gain and bandwidth. There are a few ways to get near the physical limits at low distortion, high enough output and more than 100khz bandwidth. There are some pretty good circuits with only 4 jfets in them.

I'd imagine whatever they come up with won't match an Earthworks ZDT microphone pre. But it might cost as much or more.

 

[PierreV]

psaudio sells noise harvesters...

"What's the connection?" you might ask.

Well, given the various laws of matter, energy and, information conservation, the harvested noise has to go somewhere.

I suspect it is collected at psaudio HQ and then offloaded in their videos.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I seem to remember Paul going on and on about how wonderful their Studer mixing console is. So now its not so great? If he was concerned as much about signal purity as he seems to be, he would chuck the mixing console entirely and make the signal chain microphone -> microphone preamp -> DAW track input. If one considers the microphone preamp as a 'sound creation device' verses a 'sound reproduction device', I would say that they could get away with tube output with no negative feedback and accept the resulting distortion.

I wish them luck with their record label; I've not been very impressed with their roster of artists so far. The world is already full of audiophile labels offering 'perfectly recorded music which nobody wishes to hear'.

 

[pozz]

SoundOnSound magazine had a blind listening comparison of microphone pre's a few years back.

For reference: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/preamp-post-mortem

 

[pierre]

For reference: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/preamp-post-mortem

Pro are following the same folklore as audiophile. they also do not like double blind test. There is nothing to hear there. Gearslutz,is,full of people raving about Masselec or SPL (add your favorite brand) eq or compressors. They are very close to each other’s and also very close to plugins. Btw the better the hardware is, the closer it is to plugins.

what I like with physical buttons is that it is easier to concentrate without looking at a screen. Sound wise there is almost no diff (but analogue hardware is a PITA to use wrt to daw+plugins).

end of rant.

what is the connection between Paul and Studer?

 

[pozz]

what is the connection between Paul and Studer?

He bought a vintage mixing console and made a big deal of installing it in their new building. They built a studio using what could only be called random acoustic principles.

 

[Blumlein 88]

He bought a vintage mixing console and made a big deal of installing it in their new building. They built a studio using what could only be called random acoustic principles.

Should that be RAP, Random Acoustic Principles without feedback!

 

[tmtomh]

Page title says "best" mic pre, while the title of the embedded video says "most musical" mic pre.

That tells you all you need to know. (Well, actually, the "psaudio" in the URL tells you all you need to know.)

In all seriousness, though, I actually have much less of a problem with designing a sound input device with some distortion, so long as that information is clear (so long as you are "transparent" about it? ). After all, the production of music is precisely the place where it's legitimate to have distortion, EQ, voicing, and all kinds of processing to make things sound a certain way that is not necessarily the most high fidelity.

The slipperiness of the terminology used is a problem because it perpetuates the myth that euphonic is really hi-fi and hi-if is really "cold" and "clinical," and that measurements don't mean anything. But when we always bang on about how sound reproduction/playback devices should be transparent, the corollary of that argument is that sound recording and production is the appropriate arena for intentional coloration.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

what is the connection between Paul and Studer?

The mixing console he has in his studio is Studer. It looks kind of like a Neve, but it has a Studer label on it. It was once owned by Neil Young or somebody like that, blah, blah, blah........

 

[restorer-john]

What I love about the internet is I can, in a few mouse clicks from my desk in Australia, identify the hipster cafe and even the seats they are sitting in. Technology is wonderful huh?

MadisonReed has clearly taken over the tenancy next door since this 2018 google drive-by.

Here's the menu if you are interested in the salads or bespoke eco-approved wraps.
https://www.madgreens.com/menu/salads
or maybe some grain bowls?
https://www.madgreens.com/menu/grain-bowls

Check this out. Read the Chef's Inspiration/Mad story. He must be on LSD or something.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Sounds like food my wife would probably like. Me, I'll take a thick steak, please.

 

[dfuller]

The funny thing to me is a lot of the "holy grail" mic pres aren't exactly super-low distortion (be it THD or otherwise) - they probably were SOTA at the time of design, but they're almost all 50ish years old. Transformer coupled inputs and outputs, plus discrete transistors (or even tubes, for slightly earlier ones) were standard tech.
Classic Neves, for example, have very obvious transient smear from the coupling transformers, which you can see if you run a step response through them - or just listen to what they do to a snare drum vs a cleaner, faster response mic preamp. (say, some modern IC transformerless design). The transient gets rounded off a ltitle bit. But, looking at the circuit, it uses a fair bit of local NFB - so if that shyster at PS audio thinks he's somehow a better designer than Rupert Effing Neve...

 

[Cbdb2]

Pro are following the same folklore as audiophile. they also do not like double blind test. There is nothing to hear there. Gearslutz,is,full of people raving about Masselec or SPL (add your favorite brand) eq or compressors. They are very close to each other’s and also very close to plugins. Btw the better the hardware is, the closer it is to plugins.

what I like with physical buttons is that it is easier to concentrate without looking at a screen. Sound wise there is almost no diff (but analogue hardware is a PITA to use wrt to daw+plugins).

end of rant.

what is the connection between Paul and Studer?

Dont know what kind of "pros" you know but the ones I worked with had no time for "folklore" or other audiophool devices. Almost Everything was decided by ear real time by switching between options. And if your not the guy doing the switching its often blind ( you dont know what was done you just hear it). Gearslutz is full of people who have a hobby recording studio in there basement and think there pros, some of these are the guys in audiophool land. And plugins are not as good as the hardware, there just approximate simulations of the hardware. Ever use a real Neve 1073 mic pre or a UA LA2 compressor? Dosnt sound like it. Why would pros buy a $4000 piece of hardware if a $50 plug in sounds the same (especially when theres mics to buy). The better the plug in the more it sounds like the hardware, thats the whole point of a plug in!

 

[Cbdb2]

More BS audio. Even the specs are stupid. Impulse response? Thats a new one thats totaly useless as is slew rate. What kind of engineers dont know that the freq response is all you need? Bad ones. And one of the most important specs headroom ( max level) is not given. I dont expect the real pros will be buying these and the others wont be able to afford them. These dumb asses dont realize recording engineers dont throw money away and most recognize a snake oil salesman. I hope they loose there shirts.

 

[Cbdb2]

That engineer is embarasing. He says he can make zero distortion amps, even in spice! Like its harder in spice, idiot. I can see how he fits in at BS audio.

 

[LTig]

psaudio sells noise harvesters...

"What's the connection?" you might ask.

Well, given the various laws of matter, energy and, information conservation, the harvested noise has to go somewhere.

I suspect it is collected at psaudio HQ and then offloaded in their videos.

YMMD (2nd today).

 

[LTig]

The funny thing to me is a lot of the "holy grail" mic pres aren't exactly super-low distortion (be it THD or otherwise) - they probably were SOTA at the time of design, but they're almost all 50ish years old. Transformer coupled inputs and outputs, plus discrete transistors (or even tubes, for slightly earlier ones) were standard tech.
Classic Neves, for example, have very obvious transient smear from the coupling transformers, which you can see if you run a step response through them - or just listen to what they do to a snare drum vs a cleaner, faster response mic preamp. (say, some modern IC transformerless design). The transient gets rounded off a ltitle bit. But, looking at the circuit, it uses a fair bit of local NFB - so if that shyster at PS audio thinks he's somehow a better designer than Rupert Effing Neve...

I wanted to buy a good quality mic preamp in our local pro shop to put in front of my RME ADI-2 PRO fs as it has no mic input so I could use my Behringer ECM8000. The dealer more or less said that almost all expensive pro mic preamps are actually sound processors tailored for a certain "musical" sound, and mixing engineers chose them individually for specific tasks. His recommendation was to just get the RME mic preamp and be done with it. I didn't though because the smallest (QuadMic) had 4 channels and did cost some €600. I got the UMIK-1 instead.

 

[scott wurcer]

Yeah, despite saying otherwise, they are crazy.

SoundOnSound magazine had a blind listening comparison of microphone pre's a few years back. I forget something like 9 different ones ranging in price from $300 to $10k. A few dozen responses from people in their forum. There was no consensus on the best. They weren't quite evenly split. #1 choice by a slim margin was the ART tube pre for that $300. The next was moderately expensive and the next one also cheap.

Pre-amp circuitry is mostly bound by the physics of noise, gain and bandwidth. There are a few ways to get near the physical limits at low distortion, high enough output and more than 100khz bandwidth. There are some pretty good circuits with only 4 jfets in them.

I'd imagine whatever they come up with won't match an Earthworks ZDT microphone pre. But it might cost as much or more.
View attachment 91220

I had lunch with Dave Blackmer's son and got the impression this pre-amp is based on the well known instrumentation amplifier approach with low noise bi-polar inputs. I wish the noise spec included a BW and source impedance.