Hobbyist vs Crazed Hobbyist vs Total Idiot

First off, you've got to figure out what your engineering goals are. Are you just wanting to have a little fun making noise? Are you looking to be the flat-out best engineer you can possibly be? Are you looking to put together a pro facility in which you could record tip-top bands? Are you somewhere in the middle.

I think the biggest reason so many people are mislead on this whole preamp thing comes from not understanding a person's needs. I've been struggling for a while in explaining why I've acquired some fancy pantsy preamps but then rarely recommend this upgrade to anyone here at RecordingReview.

The Music Always Takes Precedence

#1 I'm of the opinion that a person can definitely make exciting music with gear that is “just okay”. Stock interface preamps fall into this category, for example. Even in a not-so-hi-fi state (which high end pres in no way guarantee), exciting music means the recording IS exciting. This was the motivation for this blog: Preamps Don't Matter?

I'd prefer to listen to great music with cheapo preamps over stale, boring crap any day of the week. Everyone with a pulse is this way. If they say differently, avoid them like a gay rapists with big guns.

Good New For: Broke and talented people
Bad News For: Skilled engineers recording uninspired noise, anyone untalented

Squeezing That Last Drop

#2 Dumb metaphor time: If cash is no object, you get the lightest gear possible for 10x the price when climbing Everest because too many people have died trying and that last 100 ft is harder than it looks.

Even the best engineers are going to have a hard time with that “last 100ft”....the thing that separates the ultra men from the men without the fancy preamps. Of course, #1 is still applies here.

Good News For: Skilled engineers with deep pockets who want to be ultra-skilled engineers, hobbyists who aren't attempting to “climb Everest” and therefor don't need idiot-gadgetry anyway
Bad News For: Broke people climbing Everest

No Bailouts

#3 There are a billion places a person can screw up a recording (with or without the high end preamps). Fancy pres don't bail you out of bad sounding situations....ever!

Good News For: People who've really got their shit together......which is basically no one
Bad News For: Anyone trying to make a butt kicking recording

What's Wrong With Cheapo Pres?

#4 The two main problems with cheapo pres is they sound “blurry”....kinda like a VCR tape where stuff is kind of smudged/smeared or they take on the megaphone effect a bit. How much? Not THAT much, but it's certainly something no one I know would prefer.

You can clearly hear what I'm talking about in The Interrogator Sessions in Killer Home Recording. Once your ears are acclimated, it doesn't take much work to hear how the cheapo pres compare to the high end pres. There's never a time when the cheapo pre would win. The top notch pres always have this “extra excitement” in them while the cheapo pres seem more “sluggish”.

I divide the preamp thing into three categories: cheapo, adequate, and fancy. Once you get passed the cheapo stuff, the adequate pres do the job just fine. They may not add anything interesting, but they don't murk up anything and they don't add the megaphone effect. The True Systems pres fall into this category, among others. I thought the pres in the Yamaha MR816 weren't TOO far from being adequate, but they didn't quite make it. I've rumors that the pres on the RME Fireface 800 may be playing not too far from this ballpark. So when you read reviews about these upper-range interfaces sounding “amazing”, they really just sound “almost adequate” if we take the Total Idiot stance from above.

Adequate preamps do a fine job and could be used on everything without any real issues.

The special pres do a certain something extra. This “extra” thing could be good or bad depending on what you are going for (we'll get into that) and this is where knowing exactly what each preamp is ideal for comes into play. Certain special pres push you into a corner a little bit.

#5 Not all fancy mic preamps are ideal for use on everything. Big, dark sounding preamps can cause big problem when using them on everything. Too many “big” sources makes mixing a challenge. It's best to use the big sounding pres sparingly on the bigger stuff and use the tighter pres for everything else.

When I started out with my Vintech 1272 on the very first recording I had ever done (I was told I absolutely NEEDED it!....asshole!) Anyhow, that preamp is more on the bigger/thicker side of the fence. It doesn't have the hi-fi sparkle that many pres do, but it does have a the Neve-style harmonic in the upper mids. All Neve-type pres have this and it's a dead giveaway in shootouts. The Vintech does not have the hi-fi Neve thing that the Great River Neve-style pres have. It's more of a darker sound.

This is not a preamp I would recommend starting with. Even though I do pull it out for certain things some of the time. The Vintech 1272 can be great on vocals that you don't need to be ultra bright (particularly with an SM7b among others) but want to sound big. The lack of sparkle paints the 1272 into a corner that's only useful at certain times. It kind of reminds me of when mom puts the special tablecloth on at Christmas. It's only great once a year.

For what it's worth, the pres in the Yamaha MR816 don't have near the sparkle of a Manley TNT solid state channel, Martech, or Great River either, but the more neutral approach to their design makes them more usable across the board. There's something impractical about certain high end pres as a daily driver. A person would be better off with a new Ford Focus than a 500Hp Hemi Cuda if they only had one car. For a person who only has single-car garage, there are powerhouse BMWs and Mercedes that can do the daily driver thing and can do it with super high performance. This is where the high end sparkly preamps mentioned above come in.

In short, spending big bucks on some random pre is not the solution and could actually get you into a place that is worse than decent interface pres.

Good News For: People with a wide variety of pres who know how and when to use them, People who have a single faster/tighter preamp they use on all overdubs
Bad News For: Guys overdubbing exclusively with one fancy preamp that may not be ideal for across the board use

My Recommendations

Hobbyists – If you are a guy just having fun, don't buy a fancy preamp. If you want your recordings to sound good but have limited time and aren't going to get upset if your productions don't blow away the big boy bands, just have fun and don't let anyone convince you need to make a huge investment.

Crazed Hobbyists – If you do this for fun, but have a few bucks to blow, have a little fun with adequate preamps first. You may not need a big selection and your needs will depend on if you are entirely doing overdubs or if you are recording multiple tracks at once. However, in this world, I recommend preamps on the sparkly side of the fence with tight low mids. You saw a few examples above. The True Systems stuff definitely gets the job done in this realm, but if you want to go all out the solid state Manley TNT channel is my go-to preamp for sparkly stuff. The Great River gear works really well. I definitely wouldn't go with something not-so-tight in the low mids for my single pre again. Those were some long years!

Total Idiots – If you are going for the top and climbing Everest, I'll tell you what I've done. I just bought a Toft ATB32. It supposedly has okay pres to hold me over when I run out of fancy stuff. I picked up an API 3124, a Wunder PaFour, and a Focusrite ISA 428. I'm keeping my Manley TNT and most likely selling everything I've had previously. (I haven't decided about my Chameleon 7602s yet.)

I expect the API to end up on close mics on drums and probably most things I'm overdubbing. It doesn't have a super sparkly top end and it's quite colored. It'll smooth out shrill stuff. My Manley TNT solid state is definitely sparkly and doesn't smooth out anything. The X factors here are the PaFour and ISA 428. I'll have to report back when I've put them to the test, but the Wunder should do more of the Neve thing with the extra harmonic in the upper midrange. The ISA should be sparkly like the Manley TNT SS, probably a little less colored, maybe a little faster. I'm speculating.

For what it's worth, there are only a few qualities that are that important. Why a person needs 22 different models of preamps is beyond me.

• Meaty Transients
• Sparkly preamp with tight low mids (for brighter vocals, acoustic guitars)
• Tamed Upper Mids, Harmonic Content (for most vocals, electric guitars)

You can make it much more complicated if you want to, but I don't see the reason. I really do think the old view of just using a console worked on most the cds in my collection. I've leave the optional hair/atom-splitting up to you. I've got noise to make.

The tighter, more focused pres are where it is at for day to day tracking. There are times when you want the bigger, darker, and less-focused sound but the most part I'm not into it. In the tighter/focused category you have all kinds of options to choose from and various attributes that make them more or less ideal.

Here's a 1992 Chicago Bulls basketball analogy that I think sums it up. Michael Jordan is API. BJ Armstrong is Great River. We are recording my “sparkly” acoustic guitars again. (Work with me, I know this sounds, and is, stupid.) BJ Armstrong is the point guard and so it's his job to bring the ball up the court. Is it going to really be the end of the world if Michael Jordan has to handle the ball? Probably not. Basically, we get an extra point in the sparkly department by selecting the Great River. We don't necessarily lose anything with the API. Your girlfriend probably won't notice and the bass player definitely will not notice.

Then again, when all this stuff aligns and you select the pres that give you what you want at various times (and combine that skill with an equal amount of across-the-board engineering skill) the band will definitely notice.

Conclusion

Broke home recorders don't have to worry too much unless their aim is absolute robo recordings. A hobbyist will usually have goals that are more modest than the guy engineering the next INSERT BIG BAND's album. Some hobbyists are dealing with limitations in music, musicians, instruments, room, and engineering ability that hold them back and in any of those situations, the fancy preamp thing is unnecessary.

For the crazed hobbyist, If the wrong pre is used throughout a recording, a person can have their work cut out for them in mixing. Because of this, I highly recommend tighter, more focused pres to be used overall and then, in time, adding a big sounding pre for special situations (vocals, kick, etc).

For the guys going for the absolute echelon of ultra recordings, there are specialized tasks for various pres than can make life a little more fun. Understanding when to use what is part of the skill of a great engineer. While there have certainly been numerous recordings made with a console only, and great music music will always come through, most people agree that there are sound quality benefits to specializing.

Features

The Chameleon Labs 7602 MKII is a Neve 1073-style preamp / EQ combo. You get an 80dB mic preamp, a front switchable DI, and a 3-band, fixed bandwidth EQ with a high pass filter.

Bla bla bla. I hate repeating features that could be found here.

Cool Switching

I absolutely love the switching this thing. Yes, I know that no gear review site ever gives stars based on “switching” but I freakin' do! The switch allows you to select between the DI input and mic input. This may sound like nothing, but I hate when you have to unplug the mic before recording the DI to avoid a preamp blending the two signals together. (I once had a cat meow in a drum room mic that totally screwed up a bass solo part! I HATE cats! Ironically, I always fight to leave the dog barks in.)

There is another switch on the preamp gain knob that allows you to select between the mic input and the Line In input. This is handy if you only want to use the EQ.

As boring as this may sound, I've found these well-thought-out features to be awesome in battle.

Mic Preamp With X-Mod Upgrade

I don't find myself running out of gain much, but I'm positive I'll never run out of gain on this thing. (Who cares about gain!) What's the damn thing sound like?

First off, let me say I sprung for the X-Mod upgrade. So how does it compare to the normal version? You've got me. Oh well. Here we go.

Let's just say the 7602 MKII has a permanent place in my preamp collection. I've fought with pres having a bit too much top end or too much sibilance sometimes. Compared with my Martech MSS-10, Manley TNT, or Great River etc the 7602 MKII is on the smoother, creamy side of the bunch. The top end is a just a hair tucked in a way that can be very desirable. In fact, this is a sound I've been looking for. It's a very natural sound that I'm always hearing on recordings and never quite got right.

I found it to be very useful on really just about everything. I love it on kick and snare. It's not my first choice for airy, poppy vocals that need that top end thing really going on (although if you EQ the hell out of it, you can still get there). On overheads, it really depended. If I want “sparkly” overheads this probably isn't the preamp. On drums I found it really excelled when I wanted a thicker, meaty, darker kind of thing. “Darker” is a strong word here. Don't get carried away. It's just a little more reserved up top. It's a little less crazy up there.

On high gain electric guitars, this thing is awesome for getting big ass sounds without a bunch of fizz up top. The preamps that do the mega pop girl vocal sound well tend to bring out a little more fizz than I'd want if using a dynamic mic on a guitar cab. This one controls all that top end stuff well which brings out the meat of the guitar sound. I found myself relying on EQ a bit when using my Royer R121 as the two together may have been a hair too dark for my tastes.

Overall, this mic pre is an excellent workhorse type pre without a lot of exaggerated stuff up top or bottom. It has character, but my Vintech 1272 is way more wild in the upper midrange harmonics than the 7602 MKII. I don't consider this preamp to have the “Neve sound” necessarily. If you want that over the top kind of Neve thing, I think a person has to look elsewhere. With that said, the reason I like it so well is the fact that it contrasts my Vintech 1272 and Manley TNT so well. If I had to pick just one....hmmm....it would be a tough call.

DI

The 7602 MKII DI really screams on bass! It's flat out perfect! I've been using my Manley TNT tube channel as my main bass DI, but the 7602 MKII has become my go to guy for bass. It's awesome. The low end doesn't get too out of control and the bass sits just how it should. They really got this part right. There are times when my Manley maybe has too much low end oomph in the wrong way. The 7602 is more controlled in a good way.

Sam, my bass idiostrummer in my ruckus unit and the dude who played on 99% of the Killer Home Recording: Bass stuff is a freak about tone. He's been looking at getting a 7602 MKII and a power amp for his main bass rig. That out to tell you something!

EQ

The EQ on the 7602 is bad ass! It's not the most feature filled EQ. It can't come close to surgery (unless your surgery involves a crane and a giant swinging ball), but I have to say I don't care.

So while I can't cut 234 Hz and I can't even change the width of the boosts and cuts I do make, this is the most powerful tonal tool I have in my arsenal. This EQ is just as effective (in terms of quality) as the Great River MEQ-1NV. This is a high end EQ! (It doesn't have near the flexibility of the Great River, for whatever that is worth to you.) The EQ has that ability to fundamentally change the sound of the source track somehow in ways that none of my plugins seem to do.

Because of the fixed Q nature of this thing, I don't even really consider it an equalizer. I think of it as more of a guitar amp. I play with low, mid, and highs and see what happens. I don't use the algebra side of my brain. Not even close. I just chill out and have fun. A really drunk person with good hearing could use this EQ and come out just fine.

The 7602 MKII's EQ is so awesome that I've convinced myself that I need this kind of tonal flexibility on every channel I'm tracking. I'm not sure how I'm going to afford that! The EQ on the 7602 prompted me to write this: http://www.recordingreview.com/blog/audio-engineering-principles/analog-eq/

Conclusion

I have no problem making the claim that the Chameleon Labs 7602 MKII with the transformer upgrade runs with the big boy preamp / EQ's I own and have used. At $800, this thing isn't exactly a budget piece of gear, but it's pretty much half to 1/3 the price of anything similar. I'm positive that there is a point of diminishing return in there somewhere. In other words, at this price point, you get some really pro stuff for a hell of a price. It's the “sweet spot” for gear purchases.

So if you aren't quite ready to jump into the $2k+ preamp/EQ market, I urge you to take a look at this. I suspect you'll be very happy. I know I am!

I'll be reviewing the Chameleon Labs 7802 stereo tube compressor soon so keep an eye out.

Brandon

The Manley TNT is a high dollar unit, to say the least. Well, even expensive gear has problems some times. I contacted Manley to let them know I was having a problem. I shipped the TNT to them their shop and what do you know? They can't find the problem. It appears that it is intermittent.

We've all dealt with tech repair situations that had intermittent problems. This ALWAYS blows. In a big ol' chunk of those cases you end up screwed. Well, the Manley dude told me straight up, that they weren't going to give up. They had their tricks and they'd find the damn problems.

It took 'em almost a month (which was fine by me), but they eventually found the culprit. There was a problem with a capacitor.

It's nice dealing with a tech support where you know you are being taken care of. I don't know how much time they spent on my Manley TNT, but I'm guessing it was significant. While you'd expect high end support from such a high end company, you never really know for sure what you are going to get.

I have to say that I couldn't recommend Manley gear any higher based on both the quality of their products and their dedication to taking care of you when problems occur.....including the dreaded intermittent crap.

Well done, Manley!

Brandon

The Great River MEQ-1NV it a single channel preamp with a 4 band parametric EQ. You can tell the second you take it out of the box that there is some serious stuff happening here just by looking through the ventilated top. We are dealing with a beast.

The MEQ-1NV has the usual required features I'd expect from a high end preamp:
Phantom power
Hi-Z Input
2 different input impedances
bla bla bla

Just go to the Great River website and get all that type of info.

Flexibility
The impedance button was a huge help any time I wanted to bring out a bit more upper midrange / top end on a track as it allows a selection between 300 ohms and 1,200 ohms. The effects of impedance switch vary depending on the output impedance of the microphone but overall I was very happy with this option. If a tone was a bit too aggressive, switching to the lower impedance helped solved the problem. If I wanted more upper midrange cut, the higher impedance often delivered it.

The loading button was quite a bit more subtle and really has more with the output impedance of the unit (which isn't that big of deal to most of us home recording types.). The only time I really noticed a clear difference with it was on one bass track. The low end seemed to tighten up a bit. I may be crazy.

Hi-Z Input
It's not secret that I'm a big fan of reamping these days. I record quite a few of my electric guitar tracks DI and then run them back through an amp. There is something I really like about this Hi-Z input. Great River runs the Hi-Z input through an input transformer. Apparently this isn't all that common. All I know is I like it. The top end just sounds sweeter to my ears. Very cool!

I had a session using DI electric guitar the day after I sent back the MEQ-1NV and I have to say that it was disappointing going back to the M-Audio Octane Hi-Z input.

Pushing The Preamp
Just as I like transformers, the only thing better is pushing a transformer harder. I like harmonic content. That's why I chose the Distressor EL-8X. I think there are serious benefits to squeezing a little extra juice out of my gear. That's why most of us like tube microphones so much. I love the fact that the MEQ-1NV has separate input and output metering. This is fairly unique for a preamp. Why did they do that? So retards like me and cram in more signal than I probably should, get a little bit of saturation going, and then back off the output gain. It's subtle, but it's cool.

Of course, if a person REALLY wanted to drive under the speed limit, the opposite is true. You could crank up the output gain all the way up to +10dB and then back off on the input gain. I found myself doing that 0% of the time, but it certainly gave slightly different results.

The Sound
When conducting the Interrogations for Killer Home Recording each and every time I switched from X preamp to the Great River MEQ-1NV I immediately heard sweet aggression in the upper midrange and high end. I think many of you would call this “clarity without a hint of harshness”. I don't use that “c” word often, but I think it fits in this case. Maybe “alive” is a better adjective. One thing I liked about the Great River MEQ-1NV was it performed extremely well on every source. I had my preferences for this instrument and my preferences for that instrument, but the Great River was consistently towards the top on all of them.

The Great River MEQ-1NV has a certain character to it. It sounds “richer” in the upper midrange and high end than all the other preamps in the shootout. I guess a person could say the Great River preamp is brighter than the others, but I don't think “brighter” is the right word here. It implies some kind of frequency response kind of thing. I don't think this is it, necessarily. It sounds more like a harmonic content thing or something. I'm not sure how to describe it necessarily, but it's simply something you can't EQ into a track if you didn't have it in the first place. It has a way of tucking the boxy 400Hz junk a bit too which I consider to be a necessity for the kind of work I do.

The combination of a “sweet” top end and a way of keeping 400Hz a little more tucked than other preamps ends up sounding like what I can only describe in one single word. EXCITING!

More Than Rock Music
I hear a lot of talk about the aggressive Neve-style sound being ideal for rock music. I can't deny that, but I recorded a number of acoustic songs with the Great River MEQ-1NV and I'm very, very happy with it. So I think the Great River is an outstanding preamp for just about any source and any kind of music.

The EQ
I have to admit that I have never used a serious hardware EQ before. I've used EQ plugins each and every day since I opened this Pandora's box of recording back in 2001, but I've never got to play with the real deal analog EQ.

The long story short is I feel I need - or at least could greatly benefit from - a kick ass hardware EQ like this. I found that when I heard something in tracking I didn't like or I heard something I did like and I wanted to enhance it, it was awesome solving that problem before it even started. I loved the convenience of never having to deal with that issue again. My tracks were practically finished before I even started mixing. I really liked that.

I found that MEQ-1NV was not my first choice for precise surgery. I don't think it was meant to be. One one acoustic guitar track, there was this “thingy” that kept leaping out at 234Hz. I know it was 234Hz, not because I can hear that well, but because I highlighted that one single note in Cubase and ran a spectrum analysis on it. Something was spiking in that region and I had no idea why. The MEQ-1NV is not the kind of EQ where you can dial in to 234Hz, use a Q of 10,000 and make a cut that removes 234Hz but leaves 230Hz and 238Hz in tact.

The MEQ-1NV, however is the kind of preamp that makes stuff simply sound better. I looked at it more as a space-aged tone control than as problem solver, necessarily.

MEQ-1NV vs Oxford EQ On Distorted Guitar
I played with the MEQ-1NV for some time on an electric guitar. I have to admit that no angels came down from heaven when I was twisting knobs on the EQ. I didn't even hear the movie-style scary choir sound. However, there was something that felt better that I can't really explain. I did my best to knock out the frequencies that were bothering me on these high gain guitars. (Note: I could have lived with these guitars with zero EQ!) I was happy with what I had going into my converter.

Then I recorded the tracks again (via reamping) with no EQ. The plan was to take 8 seconds, use the Oxford EQ to match the tone and write the MEQ-1NV off as overpriced hunk of iron and transistors. Then something happened.

8 seconds later, I wasn't able to match the tone.

6 seconds later, the same thing. I kept thinking “hmmm. Why can't I match these?”.

I kept on and kept on and kept on. After 30 minutes I finally threw my hands in the air. Something was going on in this damn Great River EQ that I simply could not match with a respected plugin.

The guitar track with the Great River had more 3D depth, sounded smoother, and yet still sounded brighter and more aggressive at the same time. With the Oxford, the end result was flatter, seemed to have less harmonic content, and when I did add top end it just sorta brought out the fizz. The Great River MEQ-1NV sounded exciting in comparison.

It's clear I need a hardware EQ this good. Anyone need an inexperienced bank robber?

Does a Great River MEQ-1NV Belong In a Bedroom Studio?
The Great River is good as high end gear gets. It's a bold sound. It doesn't take long to hear what makes this thing so expensive. It SOUNDS expensive! With that said, it's not going to make up for other weak links in the chain. The preamp is just one of many links in the chain. This is a professional piece of gear and it requires an engineer with a professional-like attention to detail to make full use of it.

Does it belong in a home recording studio? If you have some experience under your belt, and your kids have more than enough cash in their college funds to experiment with their sexuality AND still get good grades, I think the Great River can make life much easier. If you haven't lossed your hair dealing with idiots (some of you refer to them as “musicians” there may be bigger fish you need to fry).

Conclusion
The Great River MEQ-1NV is a winner. It really is a high end piece of gear that delivers high end results. It's the kind of thing that is just as necessary on a folk song as it is on a death metal song. You can simply hear more excitement in the tracks without ever sounding harsh or fizzy.

It's the kind of thing that if home recording is more than a hobby, you can certainly gain something extra with high end preamps. Is it an instant and automatic Engineering Grammy? Definitely not. You still got to work hard to get the sounds you are after, but I found that doing just that was easier with a preamp the caliber of the Great River MEQ-1NV.

I just need to figure out where I can steal the $,$$$ to buy it!

This is going to a quicky. Preamps don't need a dissertation. They are a volume knob for Christ's sake!

The True Systems P-Solo is a single channel mic preamp about the size of 2 or 3 Hi-C containers fit together in a line. It sells for about $535 (street). It has all the features I'd demand in a preamp.

• Phantom power
• Hi-Z input
• High pass filter
• bla bla bla

Features are boring. You can read about them on the P-Solo webpage.

The Knob
There is something about the gain knob on this P-Solo that is just fun to turn. I personally believe it triggers a similar portion of the brain that mammary tomfoolery engages, but I'd have to contact my Neuroscience pals for that one. (Yeah right! My friends play music. They can barely read!)

What does this knob do for the recording? Absolutely nothing. However, I still give it a fun point.

The Sound
Reviews of preamps are stupid, but so is my obsession with plastic spoons. I'm not stopping either today. I've included the True Systems P-Solo in numerous shootouts in Killer Home Recording. Make sure you check 'em out if you want to hear this thing in action.

No Hype
What did Chuck D say about hype? (Seriously, I'm asking, I don't know. I was more into Young MC than Public Enemy and move busting doesn't help us here.) Regardless, there isn't a bit of hype in this thing. I've not had a chance to get my hands on too many straight wire designs. (Some say the Martech MSS-10 is a straight wire design. I think these people need to go straight to the aural nut house.)

As you may know, I'm a big fan of colored preamps. I like preamps that get mean and dirty and aren't afraid to bully around a signal that may be crossing the line here and there. My main weapon of choice these days is a Manley TNT, but I'd love get my paws on just about every Neve product I can. (I LOVED the sound of the Great River MEQ-1NV, but Manley suckered me in.) This straight wire idea is fairly new to me. I wasn't sure how I'd like it.

It turns out I like it a lot. The P-Solo sounds good. In fact, I think it sounds damn good and I'm not aware of any dirty preamps that perform so well at this price point. You often have to spend double to get to the really good dirty stuff. I'm curious how it compares to something like a Grace. I suspect they have nukes pointed at each other. Then again, there is only so much enriched-Uranium and Plutonium to go around and I'm not sharing.

A Different Sound
The first thing I immediately noticed about the P-Solo sounds incredibly realistic. It gives the impression that the instrument is being played directly in front of you. I didn't get that vibe with any other preamps I compared it to and I compared to a bunch of them that cost way more than the P-Solo. In fact, I can't recall ever hearing this kind of sound before. I didn't even know preamps had a “more realistic” knob. (Must be set inside the preamp.) It was a nice change.

I describe the sound of the P-Solo like this: You know when you over compress a vocal just a little bit? It does that “thing”. Then when you back off the threshold a bit, it cleans up and gets a little nicer sounding. That effect is what I hear when I compare the P-Solo to the dirty preamps. This is an exaggerated analogy, but it gets the point across.

When I compared the P-Solo to my stock Presonus Firestudio preamps, it's obvious that the Firestudio has this extra layer of harsh junk. Remember the commercials with the “Bitter Beer Face”? Us partakers in the icy barley pop know a good beer. We've all taken a drink of beer that had that extra, bitter thing in it. It doesn't take but just a smidgen of that slimey bitter stuff to kill the whole beer. The P-Solo is bitter proof.

There is not a hint of harshness in this thing. In my head I called it the “Neck pickup of preamps”. It has this way of making everything a bit smoother. There are certainly instances where I would prefer the Neve sound. However, it's nice to know that there is another way of doing things. It's nice to know that sounds like this are out there.

Since a majority of music I do is in the rock music world, I can't say I'd pick the True Systems P-Solo as my #1 pick. The colored pres work too well for the rock and metal stuff. However, if someone made me use it, I wouldn't think twice about it. I'd use it and I'm sure the record would come out just fine.

Generally speaking, rock and metal aren't really intended to naturally recreate anything. These genres are meant to be over the top and in your face. A little distortion is bad. A lot of distortion is good. However, in other genres where realistic smoothness is absolutely required, I could see the P-Solo being incredible. When a realistic recreation of the sound is utmost importance, the P-Solo performs excellently.

I could see myself picking up the P-Solo or even the Precision 8 when I have more than enough colored preamps to go around. I wouldn't be surprised to see these in any big time studio as an additional color to whatever else is available.

Conclusion
The P-Solo is the smoothest preamp I've ever heard. I like it. It gets you into the expensive sound without the heavy price tag. While it wouldn't be my first choice for recording metal heads, I think it may just be my first choice for realistic capture of acoustic music.

Well done, True Systems!

While I have vocal preamps galore in my Killer Home Recording shootouts, I haven't included any preamp shootouts here in free Recording Review member's area.

So, I've brought in the greatest singer of all time.

He sang through a Presonus Firestudio preamp (and converter), a Manley TNT Tube Channel preamp > Mytek AD96, and a Manley TNT solid state channel preamp > Mytek AD96.

So check it out now (Member's Only, you'll need to join first).

The Most Serious Mic Preamp Uhhdsf Thing EVER!

Brandon

This thing has plenty of gain, a -20dB pad, 3 different input impedances, the usual polarity (phase) button, 3 different high pass filter options, and an instrument jack on the front (always an under rated feature in my experience).

Basically, they've got everything you need here. Case Closed

The Sound
In the shootouts for Killer Home Recording we had numerous preamps from all different price ranges from stock Presonus Firestudio preamps to Great River, Manley, Vintech, and more. While this preamp stuff is always a mega subtle affair, the ADL 600 stood out as being different from the aggressive Neve family stuff. The ADL 600 had a smoothness to it in the upper midrange that really none of the other preamps had. Granted, for most of the work I do, I prefer the kick you in the butt Neve-style sound, but there are certainly instances where “smooth” is a desirable thing particular on vocals.

The ADL 600 even contrasted with the tube preamp in the Manley TNT quite a bit. The Manley TNT stands up to a height of 30' feet and says “I AM GIGANTIC!”. The ADL 600 wasn't quite so big sounding, but it was more refined in the low mids. There was quite a bit more harmonic content in that lower region. Basically, I thought the ADL 600 was a nice step in between Neve family stuff and the Manley TNT tube channel. It had the nicest lower harmonics of any preamp in the shootout.

The ADL 600 is definitely a pro caliber preamp. When you plug this thing in, it doesn't take long to realize why this thing costs what it does. It does sound excellent. Even though the upper midrange was a bit tame on this thing compared to the more aggressive preamps, it still maintained a clarity that I really liked.

I'm not sure if the ADL 600 would be my first choice if I had to run all overdubs through one single preamp. This preamp is a bit too big sounding for that in an ideal situation. If you tried to cram too many big tracks into the same mix, you'd run out of room in a hurry. The importance of this track stacking effect remains controversial but it's a philosophy I generally adhere to.

Downsides
This thing ain't cheap. We knew that already so we can quit crying anytime.

While the preamp was as quiet as any other preamp in this price range, if you turn the ADL 600 all the way up you will get noise. This is a bit off for a preamp in this price range. In my assembly-line style preamp shootouts a person may not notice the noise, but any real audio engineering situation give the engineer ample warning to turn the gain down 2dB so the noise disappears. I reality, I guess it's actually preferred to have the option of squeezing every last drop of gain out of the unit and using your own noise tolerances.

Conclusion
For the pro studio, the ADL 600 has something exciting to offer. On sources where maybe the aggressive preamps are a bit too aggressive, the ADL 600 comes to the rescue. It's an excellent preamp and I recommend it to anyone who has the cash for such ventures. For high end home studios, I'd imagine this would be the perfect “contrast” preamp to other pres in your rack. Well done, Presonus!

Preamps
I liked the preamps in the D8. While a little research will tell you that they are super similar to the preamps found in the Presonus Firestudio (I believe their name for these is XMAX which I believe is a series of movies starring Mel Gibson.) I don't care what anyone online says, the preamps in Digimax D8 are clearly not the same preamps in the Firestudio. By adding the additional five dB of gain something clearly changed. This was reflected in every preamp shootout I conducted with the Digimax D8 in multiple blind tests for the Killer Home Recording Series. These preamps are a step up from the Firestudio and I have the proof in the Killer Home Recording shootouts .

The preamps sounded very good to me. They certainly weren't in the league of the Neve family stuff, Vintech 1272 and Great River MEQ-1NV; the Manley TNT, or Presonus ADL 600. Then again, the preamps in the D8 cost between 1/20th and 1/50th the price of the monsters they were up against. Regardless, the Digimax D8 preamps certainly did not sound cheap. I put this in the “nothing gained, nothing lost” category. We could call these “normal” preamps if we wanted to. If I didn't have access to my fancier toys (and the necessary credit to obtain those toys) I would gladly be able to use the D8 day in and day out without fret. Hence, the preamps in the D8 are ideal home recording preamps.

It's really tough to right anything overly sensational about D8 preamps. They didn't win any shootouts, but never did I not like the sound of them. If you are willing to sell your new car or skip six vacations you could get incrementally better preamps, but I can guarantee that if you are in the market for 8 preamps in this price range you will be more than happy with the Digimax D8.

Digimax D8 vs M-Audio Octane
I'm sure those of you here aren't really all that concerned how the 8 channel D8 fairs against a one channel Great River preamp. Minivan shoppers typically aren't overly interested in an 8mph Lamborgini. So how does the Digimax D8 compare to the Octane? I've owned an Octane for close to two years so I know it fairly well. They certainly had their character differences, but in the end I feel the exact same way about both of them. They both sound pretty good most of the time. Each seems to have strengths in different areas, but I consider the two to be entirely interchangeable. I've found Presonus to be a cooler company to deal with, personally, and the D8 is quite a bit cheaper.

Metering
One thing I did like about the Digimax D8 was the metering. It was four LEDs arranged in a way that makes adjusting levels super easy. I always set my preamp levels by the meters within Cubase, but I found their metering to most useful when dealing with retard drummers. (Yeah, I know. I'm stating the obvious. That's like saying “red blood”, “wet water”, or “tall skyscraper”.) No matter what you do, it always seems like drummers always play at ¼ intensity during soundcheck while setting preamp levels. When the real deal session starts, they always seem to make preamps clip and even though you compensated with relatively low levels already, they always seem to engage the autogain circuit in their brains to hit the drums just hard enough to clip. They think it's really funny, apparently. For some reason, I always feel extra uncomfortable when tom tracks are spiking through the roof. I found the metering in the Digimax D8 made me feel more calm. The metering made it much easier to see when clipping set in and gave a clear idea of how much headroom I had within the preamp. This may seem like a small detail – and I guess it is – but I found it worth noting.

Gripes
The only gripe that comes to mind is the ADAT cable was not included with the Digimax D8. I'm sure this an issue of hitting a price point and I really don't think it's a big deal. I could just imagine having to run to the local store to get the thing to work and paying 10x as much for a cable I could have ordered along with the Digimax. It's one of those small flaws of capitalism that no one is going to put a gigantic red sticker stating “ADAT Cable Not Included!”. So fair warning!

Conclusion
If you are considering buying a Digimax D8, just go ahead and do it. As an owner of the Presonus M80, Vintech 1272, M-Audio Octane, and Manley TNT I can assure you that the Digimax D8 is a screaming value. There are other options out there, but at this price point you aren't going to beat the D8.

For a rundown on all the features and a healthy dose of the usual propaganda, head here.

In Use
When I first got a hold of the PreSonus Studio Channel my rack was full. I had 4 pieces of gear in it and a combined price tag of over $10,000. I've always come from the school that the high end gear is a nice little luxury, but in the real world recording land, there are way too many other flaws to overcome for the gear to be as strong of impact as maybe be implied by a $1,000+ volume knob. So keep in mind that my review of the PreSonus Studio Channel was done when in the midst of some big time players. I think it held up pretty well! Better than it's price tag would indicate.a

My hope was the PreSonus Studio Channel preamps would not only blow away the stock preamps in my audio interface or M-Audio Octane, but also be able to run head to head with the big boys like the Great River MEQ-1NV, PreSonus ADL600, or the Manley TNT.

I can say without hesitation that the preamps in the Studio Channel are better on all sources than the stock preamp in my PreSonus Firestudio, but certainly aren't going to be putting the Money-Is-No-Object companies out of business. Then again, most members here at RecordingReview happen to be in the Money-Doesn't-Grow-On-Trees side of the fence.

The PreSonus Studio Channel was a step up in clarity, excitement, and low end tightness from the PreSonus Firestudio preamp, but I can't ever imagine myself choosing this preamp when a preamp from the A-list is available. There were certain specific shootouts where the PreSonus Studio Channel certainly snuck into high end preamp land and I mistook it for a preamp costing exponentially more. So there are some very desirable uses for the PreSonus Studio Channel.

I think it's safe to say the PreSonus Studio Channel preamps outperform the price tag and would be a welcome home in any budget oriented home recording studio. You certainly gain a point by upgrading from a stock audio interface preamp to the Studio Channel. Moving up to $2k preamps will give you another point. You figure out how much a point is worth to you. (We are talking NBA points here, not hockey or that dumb thing everyone in the world plays with their feet.)

As is illustrated in the upcoming shootouts for Killer Home Recording, the PreSonus Studio Channel has this way of being a little extra forward in the 1Khz region. This could be excellent for helping vocals cut through a dense mix. I'm not sure if I would want it on everything, but I definitely wouldn't mind having that feature around.

The Tube Drive Thing
I played with the tube drive thing considerably. It does add some gain and it does add some harmonics. I could be useful for some things. I have to admit that I never get too wound up about these sorts of things. It's never a life changing thing. I can't think of one source where maybe the sound wasn't quite right with the Tube Drive on 0, but changing it to 10 parted the Red Sea or whatever. However, the tube drive thing didn't hurt anything. I'm sure there are sources where I would say “Oh hell with it!” and crank it all the way up. In fact, on real sessions that's probably were I'd start.

I prefer knobs / processors that go overboard when I turn them all the way up. The ability to break is the ability to fix said Socrates. Okay, maybe he didn't, but somebody somewhere said something remotely close. If not, put Brandon Drury down in the book right next to Richard Lewis and “the blank from hell” (Curb Your Enthusiasm inside joke). The tube drive feature did not give me the ability to break. If I can't turn it up to “disgusting” and then slowly pull it back to reality, I have a hard time. So take that for what it's worth. Good big or go home, as they say.

More Headroom Please
On several occasions I had attempted to reamp a signal back through the PreSonus Studio Channel. In practically every situation I overloaded the unit. It's safe to say that the headroom on the Studio Channel is not near as high as other compressors I had used during the shootout (Distressor EL-8X and Spectrasonic Complimiter). This wasn't the end of the world, but it was certainly a pain in the neck. This hampered me from slamming the compressor as much as I would have preferred.

I like to use hardware compressors to add tonal color. Smashing a signal can bring it right to the front of a mega dense mix and can even add perceived excitement to a track. These things I like. Even with the threshold on the compressor of the Studio Channel set for maximum death, I never really felt like I could get this compressor to pump and slam. At least not to the extent I was used to.

I was also looking for adding harmonic content by reducing the release down to zero. While I was led to believe that all hardware compressors were supposed to distort any signal with a wavelength longer than the release time, I stand corrected. I just couldn't get any distortion out of this thing.

I've been through the recording forum war long enough to know that a bunch of you reading this aren't looking to distort the signal. However, when you take away the ability of the engineer to color the signal (particularly vocals) with compressors, you essentially cut off one his fingers....if not his whole arm. (Then again, how badly could that REALLY effect an engineer. So much for the ability to do keyboard shortcuts AND mouse clicks simultaneously! Big deal!)

I did find that the compressor was able to nicely control peaks. This certainly has it's place and I did find it useful in those situations. Of course, plugin compressors like the Waves C1, Waves Rcomp, or even the stock Cubase compressors perform in a similar fashion. There are certainly times where maybe my Distressor EL-8X is a little bit too loud at parties and I have to find ways to get him to quiet down without hurting his feelings. I'd never take my Distressor to a library and he really has to bite his tongue in funerals. He's always trying to scream “See you in hell, mother f*cker!”. The Complimiter 610 had a tendency to invite the other kids out to country roads to smash mail boxes. I didn't have any of those problems with the compressor in the PreSonus Studio Channel. It's a much more behaved compressor. So this compressor choice really depends heavily on whether you need Dr. Spock or Vince Neil. Both have their strengths. Personally, I'm looking for a compressor that resells hard drugs and kicks up the tribute to the producer. Let me know if you come across that one.

Of course, either the Distressor EL-8x of the Complimiter 610 cost the price of 5 PreSonus Studio channels and they don't do anything but compress. So I may be comparing an apple to a Ferrari. Regardless, a minivan is badass when the Swedish Bikini Team bus breaks down. You get the idea.

EQ
In a world where EQ plugins capable of robo surgery, turbo tone control, and everything in between are running rampant it does seem a bit odd to switch to an analog EQ with a high shelf, a low shelf, and one parametric band of EQ. You aren't going to save the world with this EQ. I guess a person could argue that you can do less damage on the way in with this EQ as well. That could be a plus for many of us.

I do have to say that there were specific situations where it certainly came in handy for solving slight problems. Adding a little bottom and top to a kick drum is pretty much a no brainer and it functioned perfectly for that. On vocals that had a bit too much 400Hz and 2k, I had to choose which problem I wanted to solve because this EQ couldn't do both. This isn't a big deal in modern computer land, but it's worth noting.

On The Way In
The more I've used the hardware gear, I've found that the benefits of getting the sound right from the very beginning are worth the occasional (and regular!) times I screw up a track with over compression or whatever. I do feel there is some merit to getting tracks closest to their final state as early on in the process as possible. As I said above, maybe we can't solve a 400Hz and a 2K problem with this EQ, but we can certainly solve the 2k issue. This is worth something. It's worth a lot! Every problem during a mix (or even tracking) uses a bit of RAM in your brain that could have been better used for cranking the Ass Kicking Gears (yes, this warrants proper noun grammar treatment). So depending on your style of working, you may reap big rewards for this alone.

Conclusion
The preamp on this booger is an improvement of preamps found in stock audio interfaces. The compressor and EQ are not life changing, but they certainly ain't bad. I didn't get my first hardware compressor until I had been recording for 7 years and I still don't own a hardware EQ. So I'm not exactly going to tell you that hardware is absolutely required in these situations. However, as I've documented above, having these gadgets around is pretty much always beneficial.

At $300 (street), the PreSonus Studio Channel is a nice, well laid out channel strip that will definitely serve it's purpose to anyone in the market for a $300 channel strip. I'd expect it to very competitive and I think it's an excellent purchase for the home recording market.

To hear how this thing competes with the gear costing exponentially more and drastically less, make sure to check out the Killer Home Recording shootouts today.

First off, I want to start off by thwarting away any potential tech support that Manley may have to deal with. Even though this is a Manley preamp, you can record girls with it too. In fact, it may even work better on girls. (I didn't do that shootout).

Sorry. It's a terrible joke. No one laughed the 14 times I told it during shootout times either but I insist that somewhere out there someone will laugh.

The Idea Behind The Manley TNT

First off, Manley makes some high-end junk. In fact, I can't even call it “junk”. I guess I need to search the Thesaurus for something a bit more eloquent. Done! Manley makes high-end stuff. They target big boy studios with their gear and they strike me as the kind of company that worries little about hitting a price point. They have one goal in mind (domination) and they don't seem to be overly concerned with how much you have to pay for it.

Manley set out to create the single most versatile 1U rack space preamp on the planet. They tossed a tube design on the cleverly named “Tube Channel” and then snuck in a solid state design on the boldly named “Cool Channel”. (Manley's reputation is stout enough that they don't have to bore us with another abuse of the word “warm”.) On each side they included an array of impedance options. I won't bore you with the actual impedances, but there were at least three on each channel. They included a DI (which also contains an array of unique impedance options...VERY COOL!), a smart high-pass filter on the Cool Channel, an average intelligence high-pass filter on the Tube Channel, a thing called “Iron” on the Cool Channel, and a switch called “Color” on the Cool Channel.

For those of you who read the high-end audio recording fantasy publications (which IS essentially porn without all the drugs or pony tails) you may be up on the Manley SLAM! Limiter. The preamp on the Manley SLAM! is the same thing as the Tube Channel on the TNT.

Blah blah blah…You can read about the features and all that junk in the Manley TNT Manual or on the website. Let's get down to my views on this damn thing.

Features In Action
Smart High-Pass Filter - Okay, it's not THAT smart. It's not an auto-detect gadget or anything stupid like that. I just like the fact that The Cool Channel gives me a choice between 60Hz and 120Hz for the high-pass. 120Hz is a bit extreme for some applications and that's why I want it. There are many sources that have absolutely no need for anything up to 120Hz and for those I can say “See ya!”. When we want to be subtle, we can leave quite a bit more in. This may not seem to be all that life changing, but it came in handy more than I had realized. 85HZ is a common high-pass frequency and seldom do I consider it ideal.

Note: The more I do this music recording thing, the more I prefer to solve problems the second they arise. I don't want to have to reach for a high-pass filter when mixing. I want it to be right from the start. I feel this “smart” high-pass filter is a good idea.

The Tube Channel has the usual dumb high-pass filter, but it's set at 80Hz. I found this useful because the tube side is generally used for meatier sounds anyway. We'll get into that.

Mega Impedance Options – I loved having the option of selecting different input impedances on the Manley TNT. The character of the recorded signal can change dramatically by varying the impedance. I could tame brittle sounds by selecting lower impedances and I could make signals that were a touch low-mid heavy a bit more aggressive by increasing the input impedance. This is all Engineering 101 stuff, but it worked exactly like it should have with the TNT and better than most.

Apparently, Manley designers went out of their way to create an impedance switcher that doesn't affect gain. In a lesser circuit, switching to a higher impedance would usually increase the level. It's clear that Manley has no qualms with going the extra mile.

Iron – Everyone always talks about the Lundahl transformers. Apparently they ain't cheap. Many of the Cascade ribbon microphones double in price when you add a Lundahl transformer. I don't get too deep into that side of the equation often, but basically the TNT Cool Channel lets you decide how much of the transformer you want to use. This is not a simulation. This is not a plugin. This is a real world splitter gadget that lets you run the signal through a real, “iron” transformer. The result is a possibly outstanding increase in harmonics.

Manley Guy Interjection:

We use Lundahl INPUT transformers, so you’re dealing with them when you adjust the input impedance. However, the IRON control is affecting the OUTPUT transformer, which is a custom Manley design (and built here in-house). We had to specially design this transformer specifically for the IRON function; using a stock one from someone else (or from us!) wouldn’t have cut the mustard. We mention this on page 9 of the manual - the last paragraph on that page has a little blurb about it.

I have this view on recording gear that if you can't make something sound crappy when you overdo it, it ain't good enough. I like bold, obvious gear that I have to restrain myself from going too far with. This may be why preamps often bore me a bit. I'd rather play with a compressor with attitude ( I LOVED playing with the Complimiter 610, for example) By cranking this transformer up to 10 you can easily add way too much harmonic content to certain tracks. It sorta reminds me of sending a low end heavy track to a Distressor with the the release on zero. It adds sort of a distortion. It's not something I'd ever imagine using on 10 often, but using it on 3 does some great things in my opinion in a way where the singer would never ask “Do you hear a distortion sound?”. They'd only notice their voice cutting through the mix a bit easier. I'm always looking for harmonic content. That's why I like the SPL Twin Tube plugin so much, for example. This iron knob is only found on The Cool Channel.

The reason I'm always looking for ways to sneak in harmonic content is fairly straightforward. Harmonic content has a way of making a track feel brighter without EQ. When we blend in just the tiniest amount of distortion underneath the signal, some great things happen to the way that track sits in the mix all at levels that are essentially indistinguishable.

Color – It's a shame they couldn't label this “Cock N Balls”. I'm guessing it wouldn't fit on the label. Maybe they could have named it “Blacks”, “Whites”, and “Hispanics” but that wouldn't be fair to the Asians. Regardless, I love this color thing. Never has racial integration been so fun!

Again, I want knobs and switches that knock me on my ass. I want to hear BOLD differences....the kind you need to type in caps. (HINT! HINT!) While I thought 60s and 70s were time periods and not parts of the rainbow, I have to admit that these mods have some BOLD color. The default setting is “clean”. As you can imagine, it doesn't do anything. It's very useful in those times when you simply want the TNT to do its job (which is excellent on it's own).

The 60s color immediately made me say “DAMN!”. I wasn't expecting such an obvious difference. They didn't hold back any punches. The character immediately leaped into this Janis Joplin vocal sound kind of thing. Okay, so it's not 100% Janis and my idea of “leaped” is based on high end gear companies that should label their buttons “placebo”, but it's definitely a big step in that direction. I'd love to record a whole record with the 60s color. Some of my clients would be pissed. Some would kiss me.

I hate the 70s. (With notable exceptions) That was my mom's era. I come from the school that says that parents are supposed to hate your music. (Listen up, 16-year old wuss boys trying to impress Dad with your Eric Clapton t-shirt!). The 70s color sounds like you spent the previous decade with too much drugs and too many The Who concerts. It sounds like they took an impulse of Pete Townsend's hearing and applied it here. Okay, not really. Let's get serious.

I didn't feel like The Partridge family or Skynard when I used this setting. I'll tell you what it did remind me off. It just SCREAMED Melloncollie and The Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins. I'm probably way off base on this and some high end jerk bag is going to tell me they used the same console as was used on The Night At The Roxbury soundtrack. Regardless, every time I hear tracks done with this, I felt that way.

To describe it, it's a relatively dark setting but with a bunch of harmonic content WAY lower than that of the 60s. It's like instead of putting harmonics at 2k and 8k like in the 60s mode, they put them at 400Hz and 800Hz (without sounding “tubby”, “boxy”, or any other scary words that can come from those frequencies). Note, I'm guessing 100% on where this harmonic content lies. I have no intention of making an entire album with this setting, but then again, that may be a good reason to do it. At least Manley has the balls to include a mode that I don't want to use all the time. Awesome!

Real World Color Application
I was doing a session for a chick who had a sparse arrangement in the verse and a mega dense arrangement in the chorus. When I got the vocal nice and thick in the lower midrange on the verse, it didn't cut through enough in the chorus. Normally, I'd reach for EQ and get a headache with this one. Instead, I found myself switching from clean mode in the verse to 60s mode in the chorus. It gave me exactly the cut I needed without sounding EQ'd. Bad ass! It was as if they built this feature for me.

Of course, don't label the “color” setting as gimmick or effect only usable in specific situations. Not even close! This color setting is a real deal problem solver. While it is a bold sound, its usefulness in a real world mix is absolute. Check out Preamp Shootout #3 in Killer Home Recording: Vocals and it'll be immediately obvious to you just how valuable this color button is AND how impressive the “iron” knob is..

The Sound – Regardless of what source I used this thing on, the Manley TNT is a freaking winner. On bass DI, it really did something incredible. It was much like taking Ron Jeremy's Extendz....or maybe it reminded me more of the dog in Van Wilder. The Tube Channel of the Manley beat everything I had in the preamp shootout with either bass DI or micing a bass amp and The Cool Channel came in second. When it came to acoustic guitar, The Cool Channel won, in my opinion. It had the most upper midrange “sparkle” without getting clicky in the top end. On vocals, the variety of options is bad ass and extremely useful. The Manley TNT scored very high on every vocal shootout and clearly won one of them (at least to me). I really break all of this down on each shootout but I have to say that I was always pleased with the Manley TNT. It's the kind of thing that makes me re-question my deprecated views on preamps I've had in the past.

Tube VS Solid State
This dumb old war will be going on longer than our dumb old US Vietnam-style wars. They'll still be arguing about tube vs solid state when the US is busted into 7 regions who all hate each other because of Jesus somehow. Is there a difference between tube vs solid state? Yeah, there is a difference. The tube thing seems to have lower frequency harmonics. It's a bit meatier. Is this subtle? Sometimes. Sometimes it hits you in the head with a frying pan.

The Tube Channel is a BIG sound, but it's also quite a bit darker than the Cool Channel. It doesn't do the sparkle thing as well and it certainly doesn't have the air that the Cool Channel does in the mega top end. However, it's got great low mid harmonics and it's low end sounds gigantic. When you need something to sound BIG in a mix, the Tube Channel is THE way to go. However, I wouldn't want to track everything with the Tube Channel. I think things would get a little too far out of hand. In fact, for most tracks my initial inclination would be to reach for the Cool Channel.

The Cool Channel does pretty much everything right. It has this “near Neve” style aggressiveness to it however, it seems impossible to get The Cool Channel to sound boxy particularly when employing the 60s color. I find my Vintech 1272 had a similar aggressiveness but it would get boxy the first sign of trouble. This is a turn off to me and now that I know better I can see why I've not been overly thrilled with the Vintech 1272 over the years in certain applications.

The Great River EQ-1NV had a character that was at least from the same city as the Manley Cool Channel and had a very similar accent but the Great River didn't have the 60s color switch to engage when recording a truly problematic singer. I don't mean to take anything away from the Great River. In fact, I really liked that preamp too...a whole lot! However, I wanted to point out that Manley went well beyond the call of duty by packing in additional color. They could have just put a damn volume knob and a high-pass filter and called it a day. Instead they've created real solutions to real home recording problems. Yes, I'm impressed! Yes, I feel like they catered to me exactly!

The Dark Side
Alright, so I've told you about “the force”. Now for The Dark Side. There is only one thing that this thing completely sucks at (literally)....the wallet! It's not a cheap box. However, there is a bright side to dumping this much cash into 2 preamps, particularly for studios that are mostly overdub style studios. Investing this many Ben Franklins into the TNT is going to provide you with more tonal colors than any other preamp I know of. If there are even 2 preamps out there than can pull off the big tube sound and pull off a very Neve-style sound and have all the flexibilities when it comes to transformer saturation, impedance, and the color thingy I want to see them. I've never encountered it. I know the Focusrite Liquid Channel could be an option but I'm a little apprehensive of the emulators by instinct alone.

Basically, it goes like this. It's gonna cost you a lot more than $2,700 (street) to get this many preamp colors. Of course, none of us are engaged in color collecting contests. However, I'm convinced that, especially without additional gadgetry, no preamp is perfect all the time. It seems that when one preamp brings out the good stuff on one source it brings out the bad on the next source. For those of us who need to track everything basically through the same 2 channels I think the Manley TNT is a total freakin' winner!

Reservations
If you are an experienced recording dude, you know where the preamp sits on the totem pole of recording junk to think about. Preamps don't make up for crappy instruments, crappy songs, crappy performances, or crappy room acoustics. PERIOD. So if you are recording at home with a 2 channel audio interface with crappy studio monitoring and $7 in your bank account, don't bother. If you've got the cash and nothing else to do today, the Manley TNT is WAY cooler than buying a high end riding lawn mower....then again, so is paralysis. (That joke isn't meant to make fun of people in not-so-ideal physical conditions or professional lawn care dudes. It's meant to be a sledgehammer in the face of suburbia USA.)

Conclusion
I'm buying the damn thing. Enough said!

Audio Clips
Want to hear the Manley TNT head to head against the following preamps? Check out Killer Home Recording today! You can hear the Manley TNT go head to head with the following preamps on male vocals, female vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass amps, bass DI, and drums.

Martech MSS-10
Truesystems P-Solo
Great River MEQ-1NV
Presonus ADL600
Trident S20
Vintech 1272
Presonus Studio Channel
RNP
Firestudio
Presonus Digimax D8
M-Audio Octane