Impulse buy that turned out OK.....

Arno-West

Last week I was at Music Connection getting some consumables (strings, plectrums etc.) and just out of interest sake I asked Anton if he had any 2nd hand Bass Valve pre-amps that I can use for recording purpouses. He had an Ampeg one for R1100. I had a look at it and was just about to start heckling him about the price when one of the other guys suggested I look at this....

ART - Studio V3 Voiced Valve Pre-Amplifier.

They had this in stock for R999-00 and it's brand new. It's loaded with 12AX7 tube and what got my attention is that you can set it to Bass,Vox, Guitar etc. So it's not a 1-trick pony like the Ampeg one.

I bought it there and then. Got a bit of a discount when they added 4 sets of strings and 40 plectrums to the equation.
Went home a happy chappy.

After using this thing on a few recordings, i must say, for a low-end cheap-ass piece of kit, I am impressed with the sound. I have used it as a Pre-Amp for Bass and for Vox and it gives a clean, rounded, punchy sound everytime.

So, impulse buying is sometimes a good thing....

AlanRatcliffe

Excellent! </monty_burns> Those are the best of the small mic pres. Wonderful as a DI too.

singemonkey

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Excellent! </monty_burns> Those are the best of the small mic pres. Wonderful as a DI too.

Yeah? You often hear warnings about cheaper pre-amps. So this significantly pips the ones in your average sound card?

AlanRatcliffe

singemonkey wrote: So this significantly pips the ones in your average sound card?

Exactly that, yes. Probably the only inexpensive pres that do.

Mo-Facta

The thing to remember about these budget valve preamps, however, is that they are "starved plate" designs. This means that the valve runs on about 40V as opposed to the 180V+ that traditional full voltage designs run at.

Correct me if I'm wrong, oh smarter ones, but this has the pitfall of causing the valve to breakup at lower levels and often introduces uneven, third-order harmonics which is what a traditional tube circuit attempts to avoid. In running at higher voltages you get the highest headroom possible out of the valve path and 2nd and 4th order harmonics, which are allegedly more desirable.

Saying all that, I have an ART Tubefire 8, which is essentially eight of those preamps in one box and I've never had an issue with its sound. It doesn't blow you away with its warmth and character, but it has 70dB of gain and sounds good enough. Although, driving it into distortion is not very ear-pleasing as you would expect from a valve design. But as long as you keep your levels reasonable the sound is quite acceptable. Oh, and FWIW, two channels share one valve, which is weird, but I've read that if you upgrade the 12AX7s to something more expensive like a Mullard, the sound improves dramatically.

Cheers ?

AlanRatcliffe

Yes, they are starved plate designs, but I don't have a problem with that. Done properly it can sound good - and the Art stuff always seems to be done well. Preamp drive is never as nice by itself as when it's part of an amp and speaker setup, which takes the edges off the distortion.

The 12A*7s are all twin triodes, so essentially have two channels to use. So you can use one for two stages of preamplification on one channel or for two channels.

FruitarGeek

Yes, i've been eyeing this puppy out for a while. For the price it goes for, I have only heard good things. It is definitely on my wishlist