Results: A - ART Pro MPA II B - AMS Neve 1073LB C - API 3124+ D - Mackie VLZ Pro E - SSL XLogic VHD F - GP Electronics PML200E G - Maselec MMX-4XR H - Prism Sound Orpheus
Just ran across this shoot out that is a Lyle Mays clip from his first Solo Album "Lyle Mays" longtime keyboardist for Pat Metheny Group and one of my all time favorite albums.
95% of the comments won't answer the question being asked. They try to change the question, give opinions on what they like or comment on something irrelevant. As an engineer I cannot tell you which one is €4,000 and which one is a couple of hundred dollars. Does that make me a bad engineer? I own some of these preamps, does that make me stupid for owning something expensive that might have a cheaper alternative? Maybe! Maybe not! Who cares. Be honest with yourselves. You've no clue which is which. This video is invaluable to people starting out... Be careful of opinions on equipment on forums and comment sections (including my Two cents). It doesn't matter what your gear sounds like to others or how much it costs. What matters is how it makes you feel, inspired or otherwise! Again, I've no clue which is which. Great video!
Yes, preamps all do have pretty decent clean signal these days... this example doesn’t do much to stress test the gear or show off their own characters.
@Day One Mastering exactly, I know nothing about audio engineering and I read these comments contradicting each other when comparing mics and pre amps, but when blind guessing they have no clue.
@ListenAndLearned They forgot to apply the preamps to multiple track. The effect is accumulative because of the subtle differences. Not sure why ppl do these types shootouts.
Yep the color of the preamp is what I want to hear, and not on some player piano. Crank a Neve or a UA LA-610 on a vocal or a bass guitar, they sound great, then try the same thing on an MPA (I have both I should know!!!). The MPA gained up to an overdrive situation sounds pretty bad!
A - ART Pro MPA II Rating: 7.5 Chosen as Favourite: 5 times Comments: Smooth tubey top end, neutral and rich, especially roasty, more warmth and body B - AMS Neve 1073LB Rating: 3.4 Chosen as Favourite: 1 times Comments: Classy vintage sound, too strident in midrange, veiled top end, rich mids and lows, brittle, sounded grainy C - API 3124+ Rating: 2.9 Chosen as Favourite: 0 times Comments: Vague, dreamy, a touch boxy, slightly harsh midrange, disliked, clean but smooth, strident D - Mackie VLZ Pro Rating: 6.8 Chosen as Favourite: 2 times Comments: Not much character, big bottom end E - SSL XLogic VHD Pre Rating: 6.5 Chosen as Favourite: 4 times Comments: Clean, accurate, neutral, more transparent, warm lows, more depth and evenness, brittle, less solid, little dull, most information and naturalness F - GP Electronics PML200E Rating: 4.2 Chosen as Favourite: 1 times Comments: Dark, slightly plasticky, close and intimate G - Maselec MMX-4XR Rating: 6.4 Chosen as Favourite: 2 times Comments: Clean, accurate and neutral, muffled top end, slightly distant, smooth character, sharper transients
Quite amused that The Official Best Preamp Ever In The World Ever According To Important People™ (B) is thoroughly trounced by an amp costing a tenth of the price (A).
I liked C and H the best. Weird, because normally I'm a huge fan of Neve and hate API, but then again I always listen to guitars, bass and drums instead of piano.
I hear the difference in all of them even downgraded to youtube quality, when you start stacking 10-20 tracks through them is when the strengths and weaknesses are revealed, yes transfomers and op-amps make a huge difference
I would like to have a listen to that kind of shootout, cause I really can't tell the difference between low end and high end stuff even with good headphones and on different levels of volume. At least in this shootout the differences are very subtle. Microphones are MUCH more important IMO.
Of course I pick E as my favorite smh. Affording those pre's is a serious mission. Also strange to note how different H was in the stereo image compared to all the rest. It tricked me until I realized that was different.
From my iPad speakers I chose A,C & E. E being the clearest and most musical. Kind of tuned out after F though. Based on what the article said, A is a pleasant surprise, warm and more or less clear.
All sound the same except for the last one which is wider for some reason. This just prooves that preamps aren't important at all when recording clean signals. This presentation is a perfect example of this. To back up my claim, a guy from Deutsche Grammophon came to produce a classical music album (organs and soprano duo) to my country and the only preamps he used were the built in preamps on an RME Fireface 800 interface. He used good Sennheiser and Neuman microphones, but when my friend, a composer who was at the location asked him why those preamps instead of some more expensive ones, his reply was, "for what we're trying to do today, these are good enough".
RME makes nice gear. I had the RME 800 or something. Thing crushed it, and was the best A/D-D/A converter I've ever owned. I basically was just using it as a converter to listen to music in the end. I should get another. Solid.
The first one sounded the best with the clean piano sound used to me. Something about the decay and presence in the midrange, it had an airy quality I liked with that part.
Lol my FIRST reaction was the B and H sounded open and “real” as if I was in the room! ART & Mackie hahahaaa go figure! we all know the preamps DO make a difference but microphones mic placement and a great performance and a great song is 99% more important. ty for demonstrating this.
This comment is IMPORTANT. For all you youngins. The irony is: the only money I've made off of music was in the early days when I had the worst gear I've ever owned and some demos of mine ended up in a pretty big movie. Get some decent gear. That's it. Play with the settings. Done.
I honestly can't tell any difference between any of them. This may just be because I'm tin-eared, however. I think blind tests like this are really valuable, because I think it's very, very, very easy to convince yourself via the placebo effect alone that something with "Neve" printed on it sounds better than something with "Behringer" on it. At any rate the differences are microscopic, and I think it's better to sink your (inevitably limited) funds into something that makes a more dramatic improvement.
A and H were really transparent with a noticeable perceived loudness bump (attack and clarity) in the upper mid frequencies, followed by F , that might appeal to some, but I think those frequencies could jump out in unsavory ways with more dynamic playing and perhaps might sound a bit thin on an entire piano sonata ( maybe) . I guess it would greatly depend on what else would be going on in the mix too, but I think I preferred the more smooth and musical dynamics , with slight lower mid saturation of B and G . I also noticed C D and E being a little aggressive in the mid/upper mids, with slightly different saturation in the lower-mid to mid frequencies.
I wonder if using the expensive tube mics might make the results less distinguishable since they are all starting off pretty well. try to do the same thing using some cheap rode condencers maybe.
I’ve got the expensive high end mic preamps for my drum studio and my Mackie 32 ch. 8 buss. Mixer. I can’t tell the difference in sound at all but my wallet can.😃
Then why did you buy it ? they really do make a difference in clarity quality and fatter sound due to transformers.i believe this review, and knew about this years ago but ya its piano and nothing else big difference
Funny you mention this. When I studied music tech we sat in the studio and the teacher played a test of a variety of recordings through 6 different pre amps. Some were £1000's for a single pre amp, one of the pre amps was just a single pre amp from a channel of a cheap 24 track Mackie desk. The blind test showed a very important thing. The Mackie desk blew all the others out of the water winning almost every test. Considering the others were all pre amp units and the Mackie was just one pre amp of 24 on a £1000 desk, making the winner £44. Wait what, no that's not right because in with that £44 was an eq section, faders, pans etc. Oh fuck it lets call it a tenner for the pre amp that smashed the others. If I remember right the most expensive on the test was about £10k. I think it just scraped first place on the vocal recording but flopped on all the rest. The Mackie slapped the shit out of all of them overall and at a total budget price.
christopher dunn yes I do believe in such cases like piano it might not make a difference. But something like drums or vocals I think good gear really does the job.
Normally I can easily distinguish quality between preamps on just regular old laptop speakers...but the piano is so good that it's impossible to tell. I think with additional instruments and vocals it'd become obvious.
For me "A was missing crisp high end airiness. B- is little tighter sound is more solid. C- is much more open better stereo image. High FQ are more pronounced. D- sounds like it has more dynamics in it could be the mids I feel like. E- is very wide on stereo to my ears. Which I like. F- is little woolly. G - is lazy does not pick up transient too fast. H is similar to g just little faster. Just what I hear might be wrong. Thanks for video.
The ART MPA Pro II is predictably respectable amongst its' peers, though the burning question is was thus done with the popular modification of changing out the unremarkable 12AX7 tubes? Most if not all other pres in this demo aren't running 12ax7s...
This was a great demo. The player piano idea is great. A less colored mic could have been used. But if it is going to be a colored mic, might as well use a high end one like what was done here. A quick listen on prosumer headphones lead me to like C the best twice in a row. I started to like E after a while as a sound that would sit well in a mix. But the differences are comparatively minor. This shows that when you are building out your studio, if you can't afford the best all at once, you can buy a great mic first, and get the great preamp later.
Im listening on Ultrasone pro 900's that I use everyday and have had for 6 years. Here are the differences I noticed: Pre A was bright and didnt really fit. B had some smoothness and sounded a little more open. C, D, E all vaguely nasal sounding and nothing special. F was the worst and sounded noticeably nasal and poorer bass response. G was passable but not outstanding. H was the truly outstanding one, sooo much more imaging in the headphones, it really did sound like a different one. H was the only one that sounded like a proper stereo recording.
Well, initially frustrated that I chose H - Mackie VLZ, but on a re-listen, these do sound the best to me in this instance. Otherwise I couldn't tell you the difference between all the others, the Mackies were the only ones that made it sound like it was a real piano, the rest sounded like they had mic'd the speaker on a keyboard. I wonder if it was because the stereo image shifted to the centre, which made it more focused. That said, I strongly doubt that in daily use the VLZ is going to be as convincing, the problem with shoot outs is you won't know what to listen out for until you have a really good knowledge of its sonic imprint, this is much more likely to happen with constant use and learning its qualities and limitations.
In my opinion, every mic pre sounds different. I do not know how this test has been done. There are preamps that respond one way or another depending on the input gain. You can "squeeze" a Neve preamp and the result will be very different than if you squeeze an apogee duet preamp. The grain and roar that the Neve preamp brings at those gain levels is very different from other preamps under the same input gain. I have a mackie 1604vlz4 and I can tell (IMHO)that those preamps don't sound good at all at high gain levels. So I can use an Amek preamp for clean sound because I know even using high input levels these preamps are so clean. If I´m looking for some "grain" maybe I will use other preamps that can "eat" higher input levels with a "good" reaction. So I can use an old german tube preamp wich eat high input gain levels giving me back a crunchy sound..... or an apogee duet with these clean preamps even at high gain levels, and so so so on..... Transformers make a big diference too. Even inserting a Telefunken DI (Carnhill transformer) or a Neve DI(custom Neve transformer) in my Mackie inserts(chanel or master) and I can see a BIG diference in sound... But of course for to take the juice from a transformer you must know how to play with input gain (and I cannot see that in this test!!!!, sorry because now I´m being a bad boy :-) )..... So this is only my humble oppinion ladies and boys, so don´t pay toooo much attention to my words because I´m nobody, and as you can see my english is really bad, but well, I´m a handsome and intelligent man, as my grandmother uses to say.... Have a wonderful day!!!!
Honestly I thought I immidiately spotted the cheap sound of the Mackie even through Apple earbuds and was actually surprised my intuition was 100% correct.
You should do the same video but run the audio through the same preamp, and then pretend you are using lots of different ones and I bet people will still fall for it.
C is the best to my ears but honestly for this application any would be fine. Write a good tune and nobody will care about how good your preamps sound.
to evaluate the sound of a preamp very very good ears (take the challenge of an hearing medical test and check the results) and great headphones are needed. I am thinking to some of the best Stax headphones for instance. They pass through everything you can possibly ear. They are like a stethoscope ! it is very difficult to achieve the same level of resolution with other playback rigs.
This is a very confused video. Great preamps are valuable because they allow you to capture more detail and get it up to volume without overloading and distorting. This is referred to as "headroom". Gain staging is perhaps the most vital aspect of audio production; the lower your microphone gain, the more dynamic detail you will ultimately capture- this comes at the price of hearing what you're recording. With a great preamp, you are boosting that volume in such a way that it doesn't get ravaged or jumbled up with clicks and popping and chugging and crunching and shitty artifacts / waste products that should not exist. Greater preamps also use higher quality AD conversion which convert that detailed dynamic image from analog signal to digital at a greater accuracy so that you can store, manipulate, and play it back. Bad preamps stage gain terribly- average preamps stage poorly- good preamps stage "well enough"- and magical preamps which are coveted (the 1073 or MA-5 come to mind instantly for me) stage fantastically, adding life and magic to your tracks. When paired with a great microphone (which you pick based on what you're recording), great preamps make it exponentially more possible to achieve tight "separated" sounds (sounds that are distinct from sounds on other tracks) when working with multiple tracks. Notice that the audio across this video is at a very low volume. It is only one track, which makes it a bit harder to distinguish if it is recorded with a good mic or preamp. This is basically a useless video if you are looking at preamps considering a purchase, and I would reccommend that you either get your hands on the preamp you are considering purchasing or else research the preamp which your favorite artists use and listen to samples for that item with some good headphones / watch in depth reviews.. I also want to add that the integrated eq sections on high quality preamps are also more or less designed around / "tuned for" the circuitry of the preamp, and as such will generally give you greater control / more intuitive control, which give you more power than you would get with some outboard parametric "surgical" standalone eq which has too many options to keep your head on straight and stay focused on the music. In my opinion, so many people in audio production have this warped philosophy that music is about simply recording things and making them sound better with whatever crap they can scrounge; in reality, the sound needs to sound great intially, and any further processing (post-mic signal chain configuration) is either fairly straightforward (compression, although you can make compression complicated too if you are a nut) or related to the nuances and small details (equalization stages) which most people won't be totally conscious of, but can make a significant difference with some thoughtfulness and passion. The greatest mic preamps will literally make terrible sources sound better, and awesome sources FLY OVER THE MOON
Not. At. All. Neither would most listeners either. Probably only musicians and producers would be able to tell the difference, at the end if the day, cheap gear is fine
Well, as they say....build a wall of sound and see if your multitracks are all fighting for space.... A good pre can be pushed and wont make noise, and it will breakup nicely. It will depend on the source as well. Drums wont hold as well on cheaper pres, cause they are too dynamic. This experiment was also done with gains right down im presuming? that might explain why the api and neve sound is not shining. it needs a bit of gain to really grab the lows and mids, and get musical. go watch a vid of an italian guy? A\B ing his apogee duet with his API... This video Case and point? its a good video demonstrates HOW to get a cheap pre on one source alone, to stand up.. Low gain?
Not that i don't trust this test by sound on sound i can certainly hear the difference will all my pre amps at home here i can't so i can't take this seriously.
Not much difference really. It speaks volumes on the quality of the cheap pres which is a fantastic thing! That said, when you get 60 channels to mix and start pushing those transformers that's when it starts being obvious. Still doesn't mean you can't make a good mix with cheap pres, just that there's a reason why studios use what they use.
The last you play is the 4000$. The first you play is decent. E is better than D but D is not bad. I don't know well the price, but if price talks, that last preamp is the best because I do love sony. That last preamp I would call sony's tone even if it aint sony. Even if its 100$ ill buy that for recording any lead instrument. So would you tell me what preamp is it?
The Little Red Light | Pro Recording on a Not-So-Pro Budget if you mean that all of the models in chain i'd rather collect money in the bank haha. Pardon me?
Thank you very much for telling me that there is a note. Reading that note like graduating from PHD of Sound. I don't have preamp because I don't find the best budget one. But I know now that I do love mackie more than API or neve. And It's make me happy. Thanks a lot.
No, these were not done in a chain. They were each done individually with a playerless piano so that the performance would be identical for each take. You can see which pre is which at www.soundonsound.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=32871#297951
Without trying to sound like a dick i find it hard to believe its a fair test for a few reasons, obviously the youtube thing, but also if its the same audio sample played through all pres then it would had been recording in the first place with a pre (please correct me if im wrong) so wouldn't that mean they will all sound similar because of that relationship. Also i'd imagine it would be difficult to get all the pres sounding so similar not driving the gain on some and others not having a nice high gain characteristic. I guess my point if you were using any of these pres you would adjust until it suited the application the best (not to match the next pre in the line up of comparisons) although very well done test i was surprised at the ones i thought sounded great C,D,F&G
Harley Costello this wasn't a sample. They were all live recordings of a player piano with the same mic and positioning. The point of this demo was to show how little correlation there is between what people hear and the cost of the gear.
this piano sound is NOT GOOD for analysis, because it has ROUNDED sound. Much better is to hear some drums.. especially snare which is much more rich an all critical frequencies. This piano sound it just stupid to analyse the difference. Btw. It should be switched in 0,5 sec intervals... the same loop.. not so large loops from start to the end. This is also bad. Brain can't memorise the differences in not direct comparsion.
You are kidding. Piano is the most demanding task in recording. Choosing mics or preamps - it´s all the same. If you compare the frequency range, the formants, the tuning stability etc. - there are worlds between a piano and a snare. What a joke....
While it doesn't have transients like a drumkit would, A piano has a ton of harmonic content and is still very dynamic. Unlike drums, It has a wide, even frequency range. If you can't tell the difference between mic preamps in this sample, how will you be able to tell in a real-world scenario when you'd have to repatch? Maybe the fact is that the emperor just had no clothes.
I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with your second point. It seems NO ONE on TH-cam understands how the brain works when listening. Although I think piano, and in particular this sound and performance is a really cool way of showing off these preamps, considering we only ever hear drums in every other shootout anyway. And a preamp that sounds good on drums doesn't automatically work on sources such as piano. I like this shootout, although I'd like faster transitions, or at least a section at the end where all the examples are being played, but only 1 second of each, and an immediate transition between them :)
N O T A S I G N I F I C A N T D I F F E R E N C E Of course everyone who says that probably thinks their mixes sound as good as the mixes of stuff you hear on the radio...
Geoff Bosco i get your point..i do disagree however just from the standpoint that the difference isn’t significant enough to justify the price difference from the lowest cost one to the highest cost one in this example.
@@2gunzfilms425 Well, the economics of it is a completely separate argument. The thing that gets me about all these kind of comparisons is that they are contrasting the different preamps at their neutral settings. No one buys the boutique outboard gear for their uncolored transparent response ranges. They buy them for the "vintage color" that comes from sending a hot signal through discreet transistors and transformers. At these settings is where the differences appear. Now, I do agree that even with that difference the price is seemingly outrageous. But, that comes down to market demand. Audio engineers desire the specific sounds of classic albums they love and to record their own productions through them. It's not that you can't get amazing results with gear that wasn't used on classic albums. The price is totally dictated by desire. This is how all economics works. And at the end of the day, the fact that there are so many people dumping this much money into this sector of the economy means better budget gear for the rest of us who aren't as nostalgic for that one particular sound.
Geoff Bosco you raise a great point. But you also have to realize we are in an age where most of the engineers my age (I’m 33) and younger really have never worked with or even seen a Neve 1073 etc in person so the only reference of it they have is old recordings that don’t really sound all that good because they’ve never been remastered or they were ripped & uploaded to TH-cam..a lot of times they’re chasing a sound without even knowing what the pure sound actually was in the first place. I kind of fall in that sweet spot because i started Engineering just early enough where the last of the SSL consoles and ADAT recorders were shifting into working with pro tools TDM systems..so i got to work with a lot of the great outboard stuff as it was getting phased out and the new waves plugins were being held in high regard early on in the late 90s and early 2000s. But even my experience is limited because I’ve always don’t hip hop and r&b so i never got to work with stuff like the Manley Vox Box until just recently. I happened to run across a Vox Box, & UA 2-610 for $3000 total bundled together from a pawn shop a couple months ago. I jumped at it because i just loved the way the UA plugins worked and wanted the actual hardware and had it st the time to spend on a great deal. Most of the youth will never do that though.
+The Little Red Light | Pro Recording on a Not-So-Pro Budget not true, I expect the higher priced ones to sound better, where are the results of the test?
I consistently dislike neve preamps I've learned. goes to show everyone has sounds they like and don't like. neve preamps just aren't clear sounding enough for my tastes.
I picked the same ones. A was the ART Pro MPA, H was the Prism Orpheus. Since the ART is only around $200 used, I bought on and have been very happy with it.
The Little Red Light | Pro Recording on a Not-So-Pro Budget this video really help me what preamp I want.This ia the best review Ive ever known. Let the sound talks.
This is kinda true but kinda BS as well ,Ive heard people recorded different pre amps with acoustic , electric guitar, drums, and bass, and they all make a huge difference, using a piano and claiming just go buy a cheap piece of garbage pre amp is the only gain i see from sound on sound shame on you.
From my experience, art stuff Is pretty decent. im sure it won't beat neve 511 or millenia hv-35 that i have been able to enjoy recently, but i wouldn't spit on it.. i might buy one and try to mod it, at that price its not too risky.
Tim Jackson it proves whatever you hear. If you hear a difference between the expensive preamps and the inexpensive ones, the additional thousands that you spend are justified.
these shootouts are not true. Mix with good pres and mix with bad pres, Then you will know the difference! You cannot nessecarily hear all the inaudible junk that bad pres add to it until youre critiquing it in the mix. Regardless of how they sound, good pres are clean and bad pres have inaudible junk that comes to the surface when effects are added and other tracks are behind it
Nice test. But why are you vague about the results, damn I'm annoyed and trying not to be rude. .. WHERE are the results? The link you gave there are three different tests with three different mics. What are the codes for THIS video ... Gonna need a drink fast. I have better things to do than trying to find the results. G-SUS!
My apologies. I can't believe that you're the first person to point out that I didn't explicitly tell people where to find the key. There is a link to the results at the bottom of this page: thelittleredlight.com/gear-reviews/can-you-tell-a-100-preamp-from-a-4000-preamp/
Results:
A - ART Pro MPA II
B - AMS Neve 1073LB
C - API 3124+
D - Mackie VLZ Pro
E - SSL XLogic VHD
F - GP Electronics PML200E
G - Maselec MMX-4XR
H - Prism Sound Orpheus
Is this the real result?
yeah yeah the preamps, but this piano lick is amazing wtf
Just ran across this shoot out that is a Lyle Mays clip from his first Solo Album "Lyle Mays" longtime keyboardist for Pat Metheny Group and one of my all time favorite albums.
@@danholloman6502 what track? couldnt find
@@danholloman6502 Thought it sounded familiar
95% of the comments won't answer the question being asked. They try to change the question, give opinions on what they like or comment on something irrelevant. As an engineer I cannot tell you which one is €4,000 and which one is a couple of hundred dollars. Does that make me a bad engineer? I own some of these preamps, does that make me stupid for owning something expensive that might have a cheaper alternative? Maybe! Maybe not! Who cares. Be honest with yourselves. You've no clue which is which. This video is invaluable to people starting out... Be careful of opinions on equipment on forums and comment sections (including my Two cents). It doesn't matter what your gear sounds like to others or how much it costs. What matters is how it makes you feel, inspired or otherwise! Again, I've no clue which is which. Great video!
Yes, preamps all do have pretty decent clean signal these days... this example doesn’t do much to stress test the gear or show off their own characters.
When B started to play I immediatly identified it as NEVE.
B and H for me (in time, I was not expecting the Mackie perfoming so well).
Can't finish watching but B was awesome. I would like to see a shootout where cranked preamps with sm57 in front. This will show the real difference
@Day One Mastering exactly, I know nothing about audio engineering and I read these comments contradicting each other when comparing mics and pre amps, but when blind guessing they have no clue.
@ListenAndLearned They forgot to apply the preamps to multiple track. The effect is accumulative because of the subtle differences. Not sure why ppl do these types shootouts.
Every time, I got distracted by that clipped note in the fifth chord! Then I started to focus on it and got distracted from the task at hand. :)
This is just for me to switch between the same part of the lick quicker...
A 0:05
B 0:17
C 0:31
D 0:44
E 0:58
F 1:10
G 1:25
H 1:38
I would guess most amps *do* sound alike when they're all aiming for clean. But clean is not why there's so many choices for pres these days.
That's a great point.
Yep the color of the preamp is what I want to hear, and not on some player piano. Crank a Neve or a UA LA-610 on a vocal or a bass guitar, they sound great, then try the same thing on an MPA (I have both I should know!!!). The MPA gained up to an overdrive situation sounds pretty bad!
can you recomend me a afordable one?
@@bonesbginnis Idk, I like my MPA II. New tubes in it, and it's a massive improvement over my behringer interface (not that that's saying a lot lol)
A - ART Pro MPA II Rating: 7.5 Chosen as Favourite: 5 times
Comments: Smooth tubey top end, neutral and rich, especially roasty, more warmth and body
B - AMS Neve 1073LB Rating: 3.4 Chosen as Favourite: 1 times
Comments: Classy vintage sound, too strident in midrange, veiled top end, rich mids and lows, brittle, sounded grainy
C - API 3124+ Rating: 2.9 Chosen as Favourite: 0 times
Comments: Vague, dreamy, a touch boxy, slightly harsh midrange, disliked, clean but smooth, strident
D - Mackie VLZ Pro Rating: 6.8 Chosen as Favourite: 2 times
Comments: Not much character, big bottom end
E - SSL XLogic VHD Pre Rating: 6.5 Chosen as Favourite: 4 times
Comments: Clean, accurate, neutral, more transparent, warm lows, more depth and evenness, brittle, less solid, little dull, most information and naturalness
F - GP Electronics PML200E Rating: 4.2 Chosen as Favourite: 1 times
Comments: Dark, slightly plasticky, close and intimate
G - Maselec MMX-4XR Rating: 6.4 Chosen as Favourite: 2 times
Comments: Clean, accurate and neutral, muffled top end, slightly distant, smooth character, sharper transients
He got it right, these are the literal results from the link, lol
Tnx for posting the answers :)
Quite amused that The Official Best Preamp Ever In The World Ever According To Important People™ (B) is thoroughly trounced by an amp costing a tenth of the price (A).
I liked C and H the best. Weird, because normally I'm a huge fan of Neve and hate API, but then again I always listen to guitars, bass and drums instead of piano.
I hear the difference in all of them even downgraded to youtube quality, when you start stacking 10-20 tracks through them is when the strengths and weaknesses are revealed, yes transfomers and op-amps make a huge difference
I would like to have a listen to that kind of shootout, cause I really can't tell the difference between low end and high end stuff even with good headphones and on different levels of volume. At least in this shootout the differences are very subtle. Microphones are MUCH more important IMO.
Of course I pick E as my favorite smh. Affording those pre's is a serious mission. Also strange to note how different H was in the stereo image compared to all the rest. It tricked me until I realized that was different.
From my iPad speakers I chose A,C & E. E being the clearest and most musical. Kind of tuned out after F though. Based on what the article said, A is a pleasant surprise, warm and more or less clear.
Agree!
All sound the same except for the last one which is wider for some reason. This just prooves that preamps aren't important at all when recording clean signals. This presentation is a perfect example of this.
To back up my claim, a guy from Deutsche Grammophon came to produce a classical music album (organs and soprano duo) to my country and the only preamps he used were the built in preamps on an RME Fireface 800 interface. He used good Sennheiser and Neuman microphones, but when my friend, a composer who was at the location asked him why those preamps instead of some more expensive ones, his reply was, "for what we're trying to do today, these are good enough".
RME makes nice gear. I had the RME 800 or something. Thing crushed it, and was the best A/D-D/A converter I've ever owned. I basically was just using it as a converter to listen to music in the end. I should get another. Solid.
The first one sounded the best with the clean piano sound used to me. Something about the decay and presence in the midrange, it had an airy quality I liked with that part.
Lol my FIRST reaction was the B and H sounded open and “real” as if I was in the room! ART & Mackie hahahaaa go figure! we all know the preamps DO make a difference but microphones mic placement and a great performance and a great song is 99% more important. ty for demonstrating this.
It's this simple; If you have A GREAT SONG preamps don't matter. At all...
This comment is IMPORTANT. For all you youngins. The irony is: the only money I've made off of music was in the early days when I had the worst gear I've ever owned and some demos of mine ended up in a pretty big movie. Get some decent gear. That's it. Play with the settings. Done.
I honestly can't tell any difference between any of them. This may just be because I'm tin-eared, however. I think blind tests like this are really valuable, because I think it's very, very, very easy to convince yourself via the placebo effect alone that something with "Neve" printed on it sounds better than something with "Behringer" on it. At any rate the differences are microscopic, and I think it's better to sink your (inevitably limited) funds into something that makes a more dramatic improvement.
A and H were really transparent with a noticeable perceived loudness bump (attack and clarity) in the upper mid frequencies, followed by F , that might appeal to some, but I think those frequencies could jump out in unsavory ways with more dynamic playing and perhaps might sound a bit thin on an entire piano sonata ( maybe) . I guess it would greatly depend on what else would be going on in the mix too, but I think I preferred the more smooth and musical dynamics , with slight lower mid saturation of B and G . I also noticed C D and E being a little aggressive in the mid/upper mids, with slightly different saturation in the lower-mid to mid frequencies.
May I please have a link to the song being played? One of the most beautiful sequences of music I've ever heard
I wonder if using the expensive tube mics might make the results less distinguishable since they are all starting off pretty well. try to do the same thing using some cheap rode condencers maybe.
I’ve got the expensive high end mic preamps for my drum studio and my Mackie 32 ch. 8 buss. Mixer. I can’t tell the difference in sound at all but my wallet can.😃
haha
exactly the same ,ive got a Mackie 32-4 busses ,and some great pres!!!ahaha!
Then why did you buy it ? they really do make a difference in clarity quality and fatter sound due to transformers.i believe this review, and knew about this years ago but ya its piano and nothing else big difference
Funny you mention this. When I studied music tech we sat in the studio and the teacher played a test of a variety of recordings through 6 different pre amps. Some were £1000's for a single pre amp, one of the pre amps was just a single pre amp from a channel of a cheap 24 track Mackie desk. The blind test showed a very important thing. The Mackie desk blew all the others out of the water winning almost every test. Considering the others were all pre amp units and the Mackie was just one pre amp of 24 on a £1000 desk, making the winner £44. Wait what, no that's not right because in with that £44 was an eq section, faders, pans etc. Oh fuck it lets call it a tenner for the pre amp that smashed the others. If I remember right the most expensive on the test was about £10k. I think it just scraped first place on the vocal recording but flopped on all the rest. The Mackie slapped the shit out of all of them overall and at a total budget price.
christopher dunn yes I do believe in such cases like piano it might not make a difference. But something like drums or vocals I think good gear really does the job.
Normally I can easily distinguish quality between preamps on just regular old laptop speakers...but the piano is so good that it's impossible to tell. I think with additional instruments and vocals it'd become obvious.
For me "A was missing crisp high end airiness. B- is little tighter sound is more solid. C- is much more open better stereo image. High FQ are more pronounced. D- sounds like it has more dynamics in it could be the mids I feel like. E- is very wide on stereo to my ears. Which I like. F- is little woolly. G - is lazy does not pick up transient too fast. H is similar to g just little faster. Just what I hear might be wrong. Thanks for video.
Awesome, thank you!
The ART MPA Pro II is predictably respectable amongst its' peers, though the burning question is was thus done with the popular modification of changing out the unremarkable 12AX7 tubes? Most if not all other pres in this demo aren't running 12ax7s...
Long term listening will reveal differences that go unnoticed with instant A-B switchovers.
This was a great demo. The player piano idea is great. A less colored mic could have been used. But if it is going to be a colored mic, might as well use a high end one like what was done here. A quick listen on prosumer headphones lead me to like C the best twice in a row. I started to like E after a while as a sound that would sit well in a mix. But the differences are comparatively minor. This shows that when you are building out your studio, if you can't afford the best all at once, you can buy a great mic first, and get the great preamp later.
I liked the API and Prism best. Some cheaper ones were a little flat or grainy. Surprisingly, Neve and Maselec sounded a bit blah.
Im listening on Ultrasone pro 900's that I use everyday and have had for 6 years. Here are the differences I noticed: Pre A was bright and didnt really fit. B had some smoothness and sounded a little more open. C, D, E all vaguely nasal sounding and nothing special. F was the worst and sounded noticeably nasal and poorer bass response. G was passable but not outstanding. H was the truly outstanding one, sooo much more imaging in the headphones, it really did sound like a different one. H was the only one that sounded like a proper stereo recording.
The Prism Orpheus was my fav and just perfect for this piano IMO.
That was my favorite as well
The site does not exist anymore?
Well, initially frustrated that I chose H - Mackie VLZ, but on a re-listen, these do sound the best to me in this instance. Otherwise I couldn't tell you the difference between all the others, the Mackies were the only ones that made it sound like it was a real piano, the rest sounded like they had mic'd the speaker on a keyboard. I wonder if it was because the stereo image shifted to the centre, which made it more focused.
That said, I strongly doubt that in daily use the VLZ is going to be as convincing, the problem with shoot outs is you won't know what to listen out for until you have a really good knowledge of its sonic imprint, this is much more likely to happen with constant use and learning its qualities and limitations.
H is prism not mackie
How can you tell the difference when youtube only play audio at 128 or 192kbps? You need to listen at analogue source to make a comparison.
Just like most listeners undoubtedly will.
In my opinion, every mic pre sounds different.
I do not know how this test has been done. There are preamps that respond one way or another depending on the input gain. You can "squeeze" a Neve preamp and the result will be very different than if you squeeze an apogee duet preamp. The grain and roar that the Neve preamp brings at those gain levels is very different from other preamps under the same input gain. I have a mackie 1604vlz4 and I can tell (IMHO)that those preamps don't sound good at all at high gain levels. So I can use an Amek preamp for clean sound because I know even using high input levels these preamps are so clean. If I´m looking for some "grain" maybe I will use other preamps that can "eat" higher input levels with a "good" reaction. So I can use an old german tube preamp wich eat high input gain levels giving me back a crunchy sound..... or an apogee duet with these clean preamps even at high gain levels, and so so so on.....
Transformers make a big diference too. Even inserting a Telefunken DI (Carnhill transformer) or a Neve DI(custom Neve transformer) in my Mackie inserts(chanel or master) and I can see a BIG diference in sound... But of course for to take the juice from a transformer you must know how to play with input gain (and I cannot see that in this test!!!!, sorry because now I´m being a bad boy :-) ).....
So this is only my humble oppinion ladies and boys, so don´t pay toooo much attention to my words because I´m nobody, and as you can see my english is really bad, but well, I´m a handsome and intelligent man, as my grandmother uses to say.... Have a wonderful day!!!!
This piano lick is so wonderful I cannot focus on the pre thing...
That last pre obviously did something to the stereo field perception of this musical piece.
I'm listening with 2 HS8, an can't spot any differences.. am I deaf??
They are very subtle. It's also worth mentioning that a lot of what people "hear" is in their head.
0:00 - 0:14 - 0:27 - 0:40 - 0:53 - 1:06 - 1:20 - 1:33
Honestly I thought I immidiately spotted the cheap sound of the Mackie even through Apple earbuds and was actually surprised my intuition was 100% correct.
You certainly can distinguish them ….each mic pre has its own character
You should do the same video but run the audio through the same preamp, and then pretend you are using lots of different ones and I bet people will still fall for it.
SSL the best ..open higher end and great stereo field.
C is the best to my ears but honestly for this application any would be fine. Write a good tune and nobody will care about how good your preamps sound.
to evaluate the sound of a preamp very very good ears (take the challenge of an hearing medical test and check the results) and great headphones are needed. I am thinking to some of the best Stax headphones for instance. They pass through everything you can possibly ear. They are like a stethoscope ! it is very difficult to achieve the same level of resolution with other playback rigs.
a 0:00
b 0:13
c 0:26
d 0:39
e 0:53
f 1:06
g 1:19
h 1:33
Try a kick/snare/piano/vox/synth comparison.
This is a very confused video. Great preamps are valuable because they allow you to capture more detail and get it up to volume without overloading and distorting. This is referred to as "headroom". Gain staging is perhaps the most vital aspect of audio production; the lower your microphone gain, the more dynamic detail you will ultimately capture- this comes at the price of hearing what you're recording. With a great preamp, you are boosting that volume in such a way that it doesn't get ravaged or jumbled up with clicks and popping and chugging and crunching and shitty artifacts / waste products that should not exist. Greater preamps also use higher quality AD conversion which convert that detailed dynamic image from analog signal to digital at a greater accuracy so that you can store, manipulate, and play it back.
Bad preamps stage gain terribly- average preamps stage poorly- good preamps stage "well enough"- and magical preamps which are coveted (the 1073 or MA-5 come to mind instantly for me) stage fantastically, adding life and magic to your tracks. When paired with a great microphone (which you pick based on what you're recording), great preamps make it exponentially more possible to achieve tight "separated" sounds (sounds that are distinct from sounds on other tracks) when working with multiple tracks.
Notice that the audio across this video is at a very low volume. It is only one track, which makes it a bit harder to distinguish if it is recorded with a good mic or preamp. This is basically a useless video if you are looking at preamps considering a purchase, and I would reccommend that you either get your hands on the preamp you are considering purchasing or else research the preamp which your favorite artists use and listen to samples for that item with some good headphones / watch in depth reviews..
I also want to add that the integrated eq sections on high quality preamps are also more or less designed around / "tuned for" the circuitry of the preamp, and as such will generally give you greater control / more intuitive control, which give you more power than you would get with some outboard parametric "surgical" standalone eq which has too many options to keep your head on straight and stay focused on the music.
In my opinion, so many people in audio production have this warped philosophy that music is about simply recording things and making them sound better with whatever crap they can scrounge; in reality, the sound needs to sound great intially, and any further processing (post-mic signal chain configuration) is either fairly straightforward (compression, although you can make compression complicated too if you are a nut) or related to the nuances and small details (equalization stages) which most people won't be totally conscious of, but can make a significant difference with some thoughtfulness and passion. The greatest mic preamps will literally make terrible sources sound better, and awesome sources FLY OVER THE MOON
Not. At. All. Neither would most listeners either. Probably only musicians and producers would be able to tell the difference, at the end if the day, cheap gear is fine
not on my PC through my PC DAC and internal speakers, in my room etc.....they all sound the same because it is compressed by my PC
This is the one that soundest the sweetist Maselec MMA 4XR
I only heard version H was different.
Well, as they say....build a wall of sound and see if your multitracks are all fighting for space.... A good pre can be pushed and wont make noise, and it will breakup nicely.
It will depend on the source as well. Drums wont hold as well on cheaper pres, cause they are too dynamic.
This experiment was also done with gains right down im presuming?
that might explain why the api and neve sound is not shining. it needs a bit of gain to really grab the lows and mids, and get musical.
go watch a vid of an italian guy? A\B ing his apogee duet with his API...
This video Case and point?
its a good video demonstrates HOW to get a cheap pre on one source alone, to stand up.. Low gain?
I was like damn, what is H?
Not that i don't trust this test by sound on sound i can certainly hear the difference will all my pre amps at home here i can't so i can't take this seriously.
Maybe it's because you can't see the mic preamps here...
Forget about the preamps, what piano are you using? That’s a beautiful tone
E and F were my favourites.
The all sound great.
Not much difference really. It speaks volumes on the quality of the cheap pres which is a fantastic thing! That said, when you get 60 channels to mix and start pushing those transformers that's when it starts being obvious. Still doesn't mean you can't make a good mix with cheap pres, just that there's a reason why studios use what they use.
F is my favorite! Followed by E.
These shootout vids are all
The last you play is the 4000$. The first you play is decent. E is better than D but D is not bad. I don't know well the price, but if price talks, that last preamp is the best because I do love sony. That last preamp I would call sony's tone even if it aint sony. Even if its 100$ ill buy that for recording any lead instrument. So would you tell me what preamp is it?
Maria Ulfah If you look at the notes it says all of the models
The Little Red Light | Pro Recording on a Not-So-Pro Budget if you mean that all of the models in chain i'd rather collect money in the bank haha. Pardon me?
Thank you very much for telling me that there is a note. Reading that note like graduating from PHD of Sound. I don't have preamp because I don't find the best budget one. But I know now that I do love mackie more than API or neve. And It's make me happy. Thanks a lot.
No, these were not done in a chain. They were each done individually with a playerless piano so that the performance would be identical for each take. You can see which pre is which at www.soundonsound.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=32871#297951
And thank God that it's 100 bucks.
Without trying to sound like a dick i find it hard to believe its a fair test for a few reasons, obviously the youtube thing, but also if its the same audio sample played through all pres then it would had been recording in the first place with a pre (please correct me if im wrong) so wouldn't that mean they will all sound similar because of that relationship. Also i'd imagine it would be difficult to get all the pres sounding so similar not driving the gain on some and others not having a nice high gain characteristic. I guess my point if you were using any of these pres you would adjust until it suited the application the best (not to match the next pre in the line up of comparisons) although very well done test i was surprised at the ones i thought sounded great C,D,F&G
Harley Costello this wasn't a sample. They were all live recordings of a player piano with the same mic and positioning. The point of this demo was to show how little correlation there is between what people hear and the cost of the gear.
Good that you did not go from A to Z....Thanks
B C and H were my favs
this piano sound is NOT GOOD for analysis, because it has ROUNDED sound. Much better is to hear some drums.. especially snare which is much more rich an all critical frequencies. This piano sound it just stupid to analyse the difference. Btw. It should be switched in 0,5 sec intervals... the same loop.. not so large loops from start to the end. This is also bad. Brain can't memorise the differences in not direct comparsion.
You are kidding. Piano is the most demanding task in recording. Choosing mics or preamps - it´s all the same.
If you compare the frequency range, the formants, the tuning stability etc. - there are worlds between a piano and a snare.
What a joke....
While it doesn't have transients like a drumkit would, A piano has a ton of harmonic content and is still very dynamic. Unlike drums, It has a wide, even frequency range. If you can't tell the difference between mic preamps in this sample, how will you be able to tell in a real-world scenario when you'd have to repatch? Maybe the fact is that the emperor just had no clothes.
I agree WHOLEHEARTEDLY with your second point. It seems NO ONE on TH-cam understands how the brain works when listening. Although I think piano, and in particular this sound and performance is a really cool way of showing off these preamps, considering we only ever hear drums in every other shootout anyway. And a preamp that sounds good on drums doesn't automatically work on sources such as piano. I like this shootout, although I'd like faster transitions, or at least a section at the end where all the examples are being played, but only 1 second of each, and an immediate transition between them :)
N O T A S I G N I F I C A N T D I F F E R E N C E
Of course everyone who says that probably thinks their mixes sound as good as the mixes of stuff you hear on the radio...
Geoff Bosco this would actually make sense..if 90% of the mixes on the radio weren’t garbage lol
@@2gunzfilms425 lol. Poor choice of words, but what I meant still stands.
Geoff Bosco i get your point..i do disagree however just from the standpoint that the difference isn’t significant enough to justify the price difference from the lowest cost one to the highest cost one in this example.
@@2gunzfilms425 Well, the economics of it is a completely separate argument.
The thing that gets me about all these kind of comparisons is that they are contrasting the different preamps at their neutral settings. No one buys the boutique outboard gear for their uncolored transparent response ranges. They buy them for the "vintage color" that comes from sending a hot signal through discreet transistors and transformers. At these settings is where the differences appear.
Now, I do agree that even with that difference the price is seemingly outrageous. But, that comes down to market demand. Audio engineers desire the specific sounds of classic albums they love and to record their own productions through them. It's not that you can't get amazing results with gear that wasn't used on classic albums. The price is totally dictated by desire.
This is how all economics works. And at the end of the day, the fact that there are so many people dumping this much money into this sector of the economy means better budget gear for the rest of us who aren't as nostalgic for that one particular sound.
Geoff Bosco you raise a great point. But you also have to realize we are in an age where most of the engineers my age (I’m 33) and younger really have never worked with or even seen a Neve 1073 etc in person so the only reference of it they have is old recordings that don’t really sound all that good because they’ve never been remastered or they were ripped & uploaded to TH-cam..a lot of times they’re chasing a sound without even knowing what the pure sound actually was in the first place.
I kind of fall in that sweet spot because i started Engineering just early enough where the last of the SSL consoles and ADAT recorders were shifting into working with pro tools TDM systems..so i got to work with a lot of the great outboard stuff as it was getting phased out and the new waves plugins were being held in high regard early on in the late 90s and early 2000s. But even my experience is limited because I’ve always don’t hip hop and r&b so i never got to work with stuff like the Manley Vox Box until just recently. I happened to run across a Vox Box, & UA 2-610 for $3000 total bundled together from a pawn shop a couple months ago. I jumped at it because i just loved the way the UA plugins worked and wanted the actual hardware and had it st the time to spend on a great deal.
Most of the youth will never do that though.
A, D, F and H for me.
If there even is a slight difference, i think its just splitting hairs. At least its not enough to justify 4000$
They all sound different
Absolutely. The interesting point is that there seems to not be a solid a correlation between price and the "quality" of the sound.
+The Little Red Light | Pro Recording on a Not-So-Pro Budget not true, I expect the higher priced ones to sound better, where are the results of the test?
+gel1912 www.soundonsound.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=1013054&Main=1013054#Post1013054
+gel1912 when I first heard them, my favorite turned out to be the Orpheus, but my 2nd fav was the ART Pro MPA. I bought one afterwards.
I consistently dislike neve preamps I've learned. goes to show everyone has sounds they like and don't like. neve preamps just aren't clear sounding enough for my tastes.
D sounded the best by, B second. But im nearly deaf.
The list is dead :(
But I don't like C and E they seems like the stock preamp on soundcards they don't soften the harshness in my opinion
Ok sorry seen the list on the comments, Ive seen API on plugin doctor it add 3rd harmonic so I think thats why, for dark sources could be good !
The H and A is the best for me
I picked the same ones. A was the ART Pro MPA, H was the Prism Orpheus. Since the ART is only around $200 used, I bought on and have been very happy with it.
+The Little Red Light | Pro Recording on a Not-So-Pro Budget
I did the test using a pair of KRK Rokit 8" G3
The Little Red Light | Pro Recording on a Not-So-Pro Budget this video really help me what preamp I want.This ia the best review Ive ever known. Let the sound talks.
@@Thelittleredlight wait...A is the Art??? It says API is A on your description
Yes, I can.
A vocal test would be better..
This is kinda true but kinda BS as well ,Ive heard people recorded different pre amps with acoustic , electric guitar, drums, and bass, and they all make a huge difference, using a piano and claiming just go buy a cheap piece of garbage pre amp is the only gain i see from sound on sound shame on you.
From my experience, art stuff Is pretty decent. im sure it won't beat neve 511 or millenia hv-35 that i have been able to enjoy recently, but i wouldn't spit on it.. i might buy one and try to mod it, at that price its not too risky.
What on earth does that prove??
Tim Jackson it proves whatever you hear. If you hear a difference between the expensive preamps and the inexpensive ones, the additional thousands that you spend are justified.
A little disappointed I have to visit a web site to see the results.
B and H for me.
The last has a problem lol
B, D, F
D & E before I saw what was what
these shootouts are not true. Mix with good pres and mix with bad pres, Then you will know the difference! You cannot nessecarily hear all the inaudible junk that bad pres add to it until youre critiquing it in the mix. Regardless of how they sound, good pres are clean and bad pres have inaudible junk that comes to the surface when effects are added and other tracks are behind it
How does it matter if it's inaudible ?
Best FEBDH
Nice test. But why are you vague about the results, damn I'm annoyed and trying not to be rude. .. WHERE are the results? The link you gave there are three different tests with three different mics. What are the codes for THIS video ... Gonna need a drink fast. I have better things to do than trying to find the results. G-SUS!
My apologies. I can't believe that you're the first person to point out that I didn't explicitly tell people where to find the key. There is a link to the results at the bottom of this page: thelittleredlight.com/gear-reviews/can-you-tell-a-100-preamp-from-a-4000-preamp/
I also changed the description to explain that this was the sample done with the Brauner large diaphram condenser.
Thanks man! I was really tired and was a bit harsh, sorry about that. My favorites were B, C and E.
What I hear is just a terrible pianist...
onclassical it IS a player piano... it should have a rather mechanical delivery I would imagine