Looking for a professional Pre Amp.

Question

I use a Shure KMS 32 for voice recording for music. I want a professional quality for the final mix. I tested the AVALON 737 and liked the sound but this pre amp is much too expensive. How do I go about looking for the right pre amp? Do you have any specific recommendations? I just need a single microphone, no gimmicks, just quality and hopefully something not too expensive.

Answer 1

>the E-MU which you refer to is the USB Box version. I use the PCI version. I'm not sure they're the same. What do you think?
The quoted specification figures were from the PCI version, which performs similarly to the Lynx II (although the Lynx has more facilities - but that's only a consideration if you actually want to use them). The newer USB version comfortably outperforms the Lynx. Apart from dealers who don't get much of a mark-up from them, I've never heard a single serious complaint about the 0404 from a quality point of view - and I know somebody with
seriously acute hearing who bought one and swears by it. You really don't want to believe dealers - they are only motivated by profit. It's almost worse than talking to manufacturer's reps about their kit!
The only comments I can offer from any degree of experience at all of the other preamps in the list is that by all accounts, the SPL GoldMics have a noticeably 'warm' sound - and with a mic that's already on the warm side, this might be a bit much. I personally wasn't that impressed with the Focusrites when I heard them, but that was under less than ideal conditions.
Since I only have any real interest in mic preamps that are neutral in character, it doesn't take too much to stop me even listening to quite a few - just adding the word 'character' without the 'neutral' to its description is enough to put me off, as a rule. But I would say in general that you get what you pay for, within reason - but you still have to be careful with some mic/pre combinations; if you are just going to buy the one, it's well worth making absolutely sure that the particular combination you end up with is reasonably compatible. You can get reasonably similar results from 'warm' mics with neutral preamps versus neutral mics with warmer ones. But, I have to say that if I was recording a female voice I'd pick the mic first and the preamp second, and it would probably be a warmer mic I'd use because of the relative lack of lower frequency output. With male voices, it's anybody's guess, as they are all different.
In general though, I'd say pick the mic for the vocalist, and use a preamp that tends towards the neutral - you tend to spend rather less time mucking about with the sound that way, simply because you have one less variable to consider.