Pre-amp to use with PC

R

Rider

Active member
I am looking for a mic per-amp to feed sound digitally (via USB, FW or SPDIF) to my PC. What are some of the options?
 
I would like it to be portable., but I also want to find out the full range of possibilities. I've been to M-Audio website, and thought the smaller units seemed under-speced.

If there were such a thing, I would love a small USB unit that had just one XLR input but a super clean pre-amp, RCA-in, RCA-out (for use without USB), and a headphone jack, that is capable of 32/192 conversion. If it could also record, then it would be a home-run.
 
Rider,

Ask around. In my case, I have a Motu Traveler Mk3 and the pre-amps are pretty good. Not like a high end recording studio but decent mid-range gear. If you want more opinions about audio gear, you might check out gearslutz. In many cases, you are buying reputation, and or customer service. Most of the products you are looking at will have Midi also. Firewire, if your PC has it is a great interface since it can send instructions as well as data.

Here are some opinions of audio interfaces from my own research which will open me up to nuclear flaming by others:

Apogee: Top notch audio, mac oriented
Motu: Good value, decent product, fair to poor support, powerful but difficult software
TC Electronic: Good audio, doesn't always play well with others
Behrenger: Not
DigiDesign: Avid-ProTools company, they tend to want to control your brain
M-Audio: Avid-ProTools company, see above.
Mackie: Very solid company, but oriented towards music

OK, that's a start.

Grant
 
Rider said:
That one looks good too. How do you find out how good the pre-amp is on these things?
Click to expand...

I use a Motu Ultralite MK3 as a front end to my FFT acoustics and audio test package. The software maker rated it among the best. The preamps are pristine class A high quality with lots of headroom. Noise floor below my 115dB SPL reference calibration is -97dB. Very good. I bought this one with the intent to use it for double system sound recording for concert events as it has full SMPTE time code support for film/video frame rates and can act as master clock to jam sync the cameras.
 
Since moving the microphone 6 inches will make more of a difference in the sound than the differences in the specs, save your money and buy something that is good, solid and cheap.
The importance of auditioning is key. Buy it from a store that has an exchange policy, and work you way up the food chain. Or buy two, and keep the one you like. I can tell in five minutes which one I prefer, why spend hours opinion shopping when yours is the one that counts.?
 
ggrantly said:
Rider,

Ask around. In my case, I have a Motu Traveler Mk3 and the pre-amps are pretty good. Not like a high end recording studio but decent mid-range gear. If you want more opinions about audio gear, you might check out gearslutz. In many cases, you are buying reputation, and or customer service. Most of the products you are looking at will have Midi also. Firewire, if your PC has it is a great interface since it can send instructions as well as data.

Here are some opinions of audio interfaces from my own research which will open me up to nuclear flaming by others:

Apogee: Top notch audio, mac oriented
Motu: Good value, decent product, fair to poor support, powerful but difficult software
TC Electronic: Good audio, doesn't always play well with others
Behrenger: Not
DigiDesign: Avid-ProTools company, they tend to want to control your brain
M-Audio: Avid-ProTools company, see above.
Mackie: Very solid company, but oriented towards music

OK, that's a start.

Grant
Click to expand...

Sounds like a plan. I'll have my hands full researching audio products is this is a start. Thanks for the info, mate!
 
Hi

Try this for high quality sound, reliability and build:
NEW 11/08/2010 The Babyface starts shipping


The long and eagerly awaited RME Babyface, the new ultra-mobile USB 22-channel audio interface, is now available.
Equipped with the latest 192 kHz AD- and DA-converters and two reference class microphone preamps the bus-powered Babyface delivers two high end analog recording channels and four analog playback channels, plus ADAT/SPDIF and MIDI I/O in an attractively shaped enclosure.
The Babyface connects to the USB 2.0 bus, but is also compatible to USB 3 chipsets. It has been uncompromisingly optimized for highest performance under Windows and Mac OS by using customized firmwares for every operating system. Like other RME USB interfaces, the Babyface provides revolutionary ultra-low latencies even with multiple channels.
The next generation of TotalMix delivers hardware mixing/routing with lots of new features and a highly improved usability. The unbeaten DSP mixer now not only matches features of high-end digital consoles but even adds effects like a 3-band parametric equalizer, reverb and echo to the mix.


And this is also high quality:

Sound Devices’ USBPre® 2 is a high-resolution, portable hardware interface for Mac- and Windows-based digital audio. The USBPre 2 is the industry's highest performance and most flexible portable interface, connecting professional microphones, line-level sources, consumer audio electronics, and S/PDIF digital sources with Mac OS and Windows computers via USB.
Precision Microphone Preamplifiers

USBPre 2 includes two discrete-transistor microphone preamps with 24-bit converters and sampling rates up to 192 kHz. These preamplifiers provide the highest performance in any portable interface. Their topology is shared with Sound Devices award-winning 744T Digital Audio Recorder. Peak limiters, high-pass filters, and a 15 dB pad add overload protection. All analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion is performed by the USBPre 2 for superior audio performance.




I have had an RME Fireface 800 for years and love it.

Many good choices, so enjoy.
 
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