Reasonably knowledgeable audiophile (listener) wants to add EV RE20 Mic to Setup

[Comrade Sandwich]

Hi there friends. I've been around the forums for a little while though but this is my first forum post. I've mostly just been here for troubleshooting, reviews, hardware measurements and general knowledge. Want to take a second to thank everyone especially Amir for the endless amount of knowledge that's been shared on here. Without this site I would know about one tenth of what I do now.

Anyways onto the question!
So I'll make this quick, I've been a critical listener of music for about four years now and have a respectable amount of knowledge when it comes to amps, DACs, headphones, audio files and formats, impedance blah blah blah but nothing pertaining to the recording side of things.
Put simply, my old crappy USB microphone recently broke and I just got my hands on an Electro-Voice RE20 for a couple hundred and change and I want to integrate it into my system. I know that I need an audio interface and a microphone preamp (I've come to understand the RE20 needs a lot of extra gain apparently).
My primary setup consists of
RME ADI-2 PRO FS R
Dennis Had IHA-1
Primarily HD800 S but many others

I'm not trying to do anything in the short term, just need a general use microphone connected via a setup that won't interfere with how flawlessly my ADI-2 has been working. I do play a lot of games do I'd be using it for communication tha and eventually plan to lay down some extremely simple, experimental vocals for art projects in the future so I need a nice clean vocal sound with enough gain not to cause noticable noise bit nothing needs to be mixed. Thing is, I don't want to too much money ($200 tops for now) on something the ADI-2 PRO already does and I also don't wanna take up too much desk real estate, you know? Also my budget is a little bit low at the moment... I was looking into the Cloudlifter on Sweetwater, would I be able to get by by snagging something like that? Was also looking at the Steinberg UR22MKII and the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 but I'm not sure either of those would provide quite enough phantom power for the RE20.

Sorry for the newbie question and I appreciate any responses in advance!

Thanks friends!
-Billy

 

[Blumlein 88]

The Cloudlifter by itself won't do enough gain for feeding into the ADI-2 Pro. It would with the Steinberg or Focusrite using the on board mic pre.
I'd suggest getting one of the interfaces and seeing if they are enough. They might just barely be. If not then add a Cloudlifter or Fethead, both serve the same purpose. Of those you mention the Focusrite has about 6 db quieter mic pre's vs the Steinberg. 2i2 also has 10 db more dynamic range on the mic pre.

 

[Helicopter]

I am using a 2i2 like this in my work at home setup with a Marantz MPM1000 mic. It works great. RME Fireface looks super cool for similar applications. I have been thinking about getting one of those.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Well the MPM1000 is a condenser mike. OTOH, if it works great, those don't need much gain, and the OP can buy the inexpensive Marantz for less than the price of a Cloudlifter or Fethead.

 

[AnalogSteph]

RE20 specs:
Impedance 150 ohms
Sensitivity 1.5 mV/Pa (~-56 dBV/Pa... that's louder than an SM7B, not too far off from SM58 territory)

My suggestion:
M-Audio AIR 192|4 ($119) - with superbly low EIN, above average gain and plenty of bandwidth left even when fully cranked up, this is arguably the best-suited interface for dynamic mics in its price range (only input impedance is a tad low perhaps but still acceptable at 1.7 kOhms). Its CS4270 ADC isn't what you would call exciting but it's plenty fine for the application - in a spoken word application analog input noise will dominate ADC noise by far, and the high end in dynamic mics tends to be dropping like a rock so the anti-aliasing filter won't have a hard life either, even at 48 kHz. (Recording at 96 kHz or even 192 kHz is an old trick when you've got consumer ADCs with so-so filtering but high sample rate support and challenging input signals.)

Spoiler: Review by [USER=30723]@Julian Krause[/USER]

(If you do the math, the 192|4's -131.1 dBu(A) EIN translates to about 17 dB SPL(A) mic noise with the RE20, while a spoken word application may see peak levels of little more than 90 dB SPL, for a minimum dynamic range requirement of little more than 73 dB. The ADC will deliver about 103 dB(A) worth of dynamic range. EIN will be almost unaffected even if analog noise is 10 dB above ADC noise, that would be 93 dB(A) still, or a maximum sound level of 110 dB SPL. Lots of headroom and footroom available here.)

It is a tad bigger than some other interfaces but you'd be saving the $35 for a Klark Teknik mic booster that I might recommended for an Arturia Minifuse ($99) or Focusrite Scarlett Solo ($120). (They would work OK "barefoot" but available gain and high end response may be pushing things a bit. A mic booster would definitely be a necessity for the UR22C, which is not exactly an EIN king.)

It seems a bit silly to be using a whole USB audio interface when you have a world-class ADC in the ADI-2 Pro FS and would only need a pure preamp, but those don't seem to be in enough demand to bring prices down. It is actually quite hard to find something that's just a good, inexpensive no-frills mic pre with balanced output. Perhaps people are DIYing their "$5 mic preamps" instead.

Incidentally, phantom power is the one thing you do not need for dynamic mics... just, perhaps, for powering mic boosters.

 

[Geert]

I also don't wanna take up too much desk real estate,

This is what I use for my conference call setup https://www.thomann.de/be/midiplus_...Xk3C8rVjsYsdExTMXrTnQn2zTpGVPCBRoCLaoQAvD_BwE

 

[Comrade Sandwich]

Hey guys!

Thank you so much for your advice. Especially @AnalogSteph I appreciate all of that info! Seems like you're on the exact same page as me; I seriously don't want another headamp and/or DAC sitting on my desk, especially vastly inferior one that's taking up even more USB resources.

In a nutshell, I just want something that will run directly into the ADI-2 PRO via Toslink, SPDIF or maybe Coax but can hardly find anything with those particular connections. The Babyface Pro is obviously damn ideal but more than twice what I'm looking to spend (I'm going to be selling some pristine HD700 that have been sitting around, not getting used for many years so my budget's potentially bumped to $400-$500)

It's just so strange to me that there's nothing else really available that's simply just a mic preamp that has Toslink in/out but I at least stumbled
upon these... any thoughts?

Maybe run something like this to the ADI-2 PRO via SPDIF?
Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 Mk2
Or this one through Toslink in/out?
Audient iD22 USB Audio Interface

For reference, see this video (should be linked at 4:00 mark)
ADI-2 Pro FS R to an Audio Interface

Oh! Also, one last thing. Look at the last post on this RME Forums page that KaiS' left. Interesting...
https://www.forum.rme-audio.de/viewtopic.php?id=30672

Thanks again, you all are the best I love this forum

-Billy

 

[Blumlein 88]

Now if you are willing to spend $400 or so, that is a little different. I'd suggest a Focusrite ISA One. Single mic pre you could feed to your RME. They are about $700 new, but have been around long enough a good used one over at www.reverb.com or on ebay should be easy to find. They have a total of 80 db gain, they also have adjustable impedance.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ISAOne--focusrite-isa-one

 

[Comrade Sandwich]

Now if you are willing to spend $400 or so, that is a little different. I'd suggest a Focusrite ISA One. Single mic pre you could feed to your RME. They are about $700 new, but have been around long enough a good used one over at www.reverb.com or on ebay should be easy to find. They have a total of 80 db gain, they also have adjustable impedance.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ISAOne--focusrite-isa-one

Now if you are willing to spend $400 or so, that is a little different. I'd suggest a Focusrite ISA One. Single mic pre you could feed to your RME. They are about $700 new, but have been around long enough a good used one over at www.reverb.com or on ebay should be easy to find. They have a total of 80 db gain, they also have adjustable impedance.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ISAOne--focusrite-isa-one

Oh yeah, so I kept stumbling onto that ISA One. Yeah definitely seeing it for $400 except that thing is kind of huge lol. Would I have to connect it via my analog inputs on the ADI-2?

Edit: So I keep running into this Zoom U-44 Mini Interface/Preamp. What's catching my eye is that it has a Toslink in/out like the Babyface Pro and looks particularly desk friendly and so is the price. Would also be pretty psyched to be able to do field recording with it but mostly just to run it straight into my ADI-2 PRO. What are the chances this thing won't give me trouble running the RE20 through it?
xoxo,
-B

 

[Blumlein 88]

Oh yeah, so I kept stumbling onto that ISA One. Yeah definitely seeing it for $400 except that thing is kind of huge lol. Would I have to connect it via my analog inputs on the ADI-2?

Edit: So I keep running into this Zoom U-44 Mini Interface/Preamp. What's catching my eye is that it has a Toslink in/out like the Babyface Pro and looks particularly desk friendly and so is the price. Would also be pretty psyched to be able to do field recording with it but mostly just to run it straight into my ADI-2 PRO. What are the chances this thing won't give me trouble running the RE20 through it?
xoxo,
-B

Some ISA will have ADC with digital out. However, few ADCs match your RME, so you will be better off feeding it over analog connection. The ISA is rather large. Too bad the ISA Two costs too much as they are slim.

 

[AnalogSteph]

In a nutshell, I just want something that will run directly into the ADI-2 PRO via Toslink, SPDIF or maybe Coax but can hardly find anything with those particular connections.

Why do you insist on a mic preamp with SPDIF (digital) output, i.e. a built-in ADC? That's even more exotic, not to mention potentially inconvenient (you have to change sample rate on the ADC). Is the analog input already taken up? If so, an extra little USB audio interface seems by far the least hassle. Better than desperately trying to shove a proverbial square peg into a round hole.

 

[Comrade Sandwich]

Why do you insist on a mic preamp with SPDIF (digital) output, i.e. a built-in ADC? That's even more exotic, not to mention potentially inconvenient (you have to change sample rate on the ADC). Is the analog input already taken up? If so, an extra little USB audio interface seems by far the least hassle. Better than desperately trying to shove a proverbial square peg into a round hole.

Why do you insist on a mic preamp with SPDIF (digital) output, i.e. a built-in ADC? That's even more exotic, not to mention potentially inconvenient (you have to change sample rate on the ADC). Is the analog input already taken up? If so, an extra little USB audio interface seems by far the least hassle. Better than desperately trying to shove a proverbial square peg into a round hole.

Yeah idk, I'm not sure what it is about me but I'm always trying to shove them darn square pegs into round holes; people get pretty worked up over it. To be honest, I'm often forcing much stranger shapes into said holes, so this example is pretty tame as far as electronics etc. Yeah the analog ins are already reserved for phono stage. Thanks so much for investing your time on this and in the forum in general. I've learned a lot from reading your posts in the past. Cheers @AnalogSteph