Audioroot Femto: opinions??

P

PrimeHD

Well-known member
This mic pre ha sbeen around for awhile, but I can't find any meaningful user reviews.

I was planning on using it as a high-end XLR mic pre to feed Sony M10 recorder, so to make a very portable field dual system for video. Also as a 2-input expansion for my studio RME UFX.

If you have used FEMTO, please share your opinion - thanks!

http://www.audioroot.fr/product/femto/
 
PrimeHD said:
This mic pre ha sbeen around for awhile, but I can't find any meaningful user reviews.

I was planning on using it as a high-end XLR mic pre to feed Sony M10 recorder, so to make a very portable field dual system for video. Also as a 2-input expansion for my studio RME UFX.

If you have used FEMTO, please share your opinion - thanks!

http://www.audioroot.fr/product/femto/
Click to expand...

Well, the audio freaks over at gearslutz.com love it and it's big brothers and say its audio quality is spectacular. Which means it is.
But at $630 for only 2 mic pre's it sure isn't cheap. their stuff is regarded as being "built like tanks" too. So if you can afford it, i'm sure it's extremely good.
 
Could you refer to the link(s) on GS that say so?

I couldn't find anything but the likes of "well, I'm listening to it now/evaluating it", but then nothing follows....
 
It looks good but, you could probably pick up a used MixPre for this price or lower. The plusses would be an easily available battery, limiter, standard Ins and Outs, tone, and slate mic. It's a bit larger but... THe batteries would give me a lot of pause, and I use the MixPre's great limiters all the time.

So that would be my worries.
#1 Batteries. 9V batteries are a bit of a PITA unless you use them for other things. And they can get pricey.
#2 your out put is a special cable. Not a huge deal since you will probably just use a breakout but still, one more thing you may have to scrounge for if it gets screwed up.
#3 Lack of limiter. For me after using the MixPre this would be a big deal.
#4 Tone. If you start using it makes set up really easy, so after having it I would really miss it.
#5 The roll off is fixed. THe MixPre only gives you two options and 90% of the time you are going to be using the 80Hz so it's not a really big deal but I have had a few ocasions where the low freq noise was so bad that using the higher setting was really helpful.

IF none of the above you care about then it looks like a solid box and the new price is in the sweet spot that the MixPre used to occupy. The Street price on the MixPre when I bought it was $650. Not sure what the street price is on this, but the MixPreD is a fair bit higher than the MixPre was.

If I were buying today, and I could get the MixPreD for within a couple of hundred of this box I would jump on it. If I were really scared of used and the price gap on the New MixPre was a bunch larger this unit would be tempting.

I will say a really decent preamp, even with no bells and whistles, will make a BIG difference in the quality of your recordings. The first one I owned required 9 9V batteries (4 for the Preamp, 5 for the Phantom power). THe Phantom batts lasted a LONG time but the preamp batteries only lasted 5 - 8 hours so $$$$$. But it was still a life changer. And it didn't even have a low cut at all.
 
Ok, I just talked to a full time location sound guy here in Phoenix about this box.
he says he likes it "just fine" and that the audio quality is as good as the rest of his top of the line gear, but he also uses the MixPre and says that even though he can handle 16 channels of live audio at once now, he never bought another Femto because of the same reasons Scott mentioned: no limiter of any kind, no adjustable low-cut and the solid but "unusual" custom audio output cable that he says he's afraid to lose. But he did say the tiny color screen is "cute".
there's really a ton of great mic pre's out there - but they need to be helpful in addition to sounding good.
 
DPStewart said:
Ok, I just talked to a full time location sound guy here in Phoenix about this box.
he says he likes it "just fine" and that the audio quality is as good as the rest of his top of the line gear, but he also uses the MixPre and says that even though he can handle 16 channels of live audio at once now, he never bought another Femto because of the same reasons Scott mentioned: no limiter of any kind, no adjustable low-cut and the solid but "unusual" custom audio output cable that he says he's afraid to lose. But he did say the tiny color screen is "cute".
Click to expand...

Thanks, this is very helpful. I have MixPre but don't love it - sound is OK but not awesome (comparing to my RME UFX for example); a bit big; and just way overpriced at $1K for MixPreD which is the current model. (and used ones arte usually quite beat up.)

I don't need limiter because in mobile configuration with Sony M10 recording the pre's output, M10 has its own limiter. And many mics have their own low freq roll-off switch on them. So I'm good with that.

DPStewart said:
there's really a ton of great mic pre's out there - but they need to be helpful in addition to sounding good.
Click to expand...

Like what? All I ever hear about in this size/quality range is Sound Devices Mix Pre/D. Which by the way has 20 times higher THD than FEMTO, if we are to believe the specs...

What else is there, battery powered and small, with specs comparable to FEMTO? (yes I'm not hot on 2x9V batteries either, but not a dealbreaker IMHO... in fact it gives me more confidence than SD trying to pull good sound out of the 3V source, frankly speaking...)
 
No, you're exactly right. If you no longer need the additional limiters or low-cuts, and you just need more channels then I'd bet this is great. I suppose you can deal with the unusual output cable - perhaps get a couple spares from the company. If you just need more channels in a small size this seems to be the ticket.
The THD on their spec sheet looks EXTREMELY low. Even if it were only half that good it would still be outstanding.
 
No I have not actually used it. I have used another, even smaller, french mic pre by a company that has since gone out of business (PSS I think it was). Went makes small field preamps, as does Shure, and Lunatec. On the low end Rolls, and Behringer both had/have battery powered mic pres. Juiclink makes a few. ART, Eventide and NADY all make them. Then there is Sony, Fostex, Audio Technologies.
That was from memory and a Google search, but you could get most of them from just looking at B&H. So I don't think you looked too hard if you couldn't find any.

I agree the MixPreD is a big step, but then so is this unit. It's pretty hard to find a top quality battery powered mixer/ preamp for under $600 - $800 new. But there are a lot of lower priced units that are a LOT better than they used to be. When I first bought I got a "steal" on a Black Audio preamp (the 9 9V one I mentioned) because someone had ordered it and hadn't picked it up. THe store was tired of looking at it and there was no way to return them (all hand built) so I got it for $600 (in 1995 dollars). That was the "affordable" market then, anything lower was really bad. So in perspective the MixPre is a bargain.

What has changed is that the lower levels have come way up in quality.

I question your reasoning on the limiter and roll off.
First you need the limiter on the mic pre, that is where you are going to clip the pre. Second I have yet to see a "limiter" on a portable consumer recorder that wasn't basically a glorified AGC. I hear that my Tascal DR40's limiter actually is OK but if so that will be a big first. As a rule they react slow and recover slow, and you have already clipped the mic pre so it doesn't matter that much. Low cuts on mics tend to be very gentle and of course are inconvenient to switch, especially if you are using wind protection. Most recorders also have this failing of a very gentle roll off. Also mic rolloffs are almost always fixed.

Since you have a MixPre I would be looking at upgrading your recorder as the weak link. To some extent it isn't going to make a lot of difference from a MixPre to X if your knocking the signal down and going through a mini handhelds mic pre to record. Almost no hand helds bypass the mic pre, they just pad down the input when in "line" mode. If you have a physical switch to go into Line mode or a separate line In you may be an exception, but I doubt it.

So whatever the portable mic pre out puts is only going to be as "clean" as the quality of the mic pre on your handheld recorder. And it's specks will obliterate any differences in S/N and THD between the SD and other high end micpre.
 
I agree that lower end improved in quality, but the game is to find out the pearls that work.

For example, my field recorder is Sony PCM-M10 which is unbelievably good. That's why I'm looking for a mic pre for it (M10 has no phantom/XLR inputs.)

On the second thought, perhaps all I have to do is build a XLR box with 48V phantom power, and feed mic's signal into M10's input. Problem is, the box will be the size of FEMTO anyway, and after all the experiments and wrong turns before I make it work, will probably cost me as much in the end.

The other mic pres you mentioned do not seem to have comparable specs to Femto (THD/Noise).

BTW I'm impartial to brand/make - whatever works, but must be excellent...
 
I don't think it's a bad box, but I don't think it's going to be a noticeable step up from a MixPre, especially feeding a handheld. But the M10 does have a dedicated line in so maybe it does bypass the mic pre. As far as noise and THD...? IF you can find one and really listen to a blind comparison maybe you would perceive the difference? Really hard to tell with out a personal comparison. The distortion is so low on all the top candidates that it's really impossible to say if any of the differences are audible. I have seen things spec'd with a top end at 40K+, and that is pretty meaningless. It is, spec wise, twice as good as something with a top of 20K but with very few people hearing above 15K and almost nobody ever being able to hear above 20K, 40K is a distinction with out a difference for all practical purposes.

Noise on the other hand is often most perceptible based on noise characteristics than actual amount that again it's hard to tell what will "sound" noisier with out a real comparison.

And the big problem with spec's in general is that they are not standardised. With out knowing exactly what was done to generate spec. X it makes it near impossible to actually compare them between brands.

But I doubt that it will sound worse than the MixPre, I'm just not sure it will sound noticeably better.

The other big factor of course is that all preamps color the sound in some way. So you may like the "sound" of this preamp better. I know a very experienced recordist that likes the sound of the MixPre but hates the sound of the SD recorder. They are similar but not identical and for her the difference is a real problem.

I do get the feeling though that you really want to get this box. My advice is if it's not going to be a financial hardship go for it. Like the SD boxes this should hold value well and an extra couple of channels of quality mic pre often come in handy. If you are jonesing for it and you can afford it just get it and let us know how it goes.
 
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