# Public blind test of Mic PreAmps by Sound on Sound



## Scrianinoff (Sep 23, 2012)

Warning: Not for the faint of heart. Some preconceptions about the value of previous purchases and the accuracy of one's ears might be confirmed, or shattered. Be prepared for the latter, before you're going to try out the audio files yourself.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct12/a ... smedia.htm

There is a discussion on their forum, where also the "results will be unveiled in due course."

"These audio files accompany the ‘Pick A Preamp’ article in SOS October 2012 (http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct12/a ... reamps.htm). Using Realpiano’s Yamaha Disklavier MIDI grand piano, we used a Prism Sound Orpheus interface to record the same demo composition through a total of 24 different combinations of microphones and preamps, at 24-bit/44.1kHz. The microphones used were a pair of Brauner valve large-diaphragm capacitor mics in cardioid mode, a pair of Sennheiser MKH20 small-diaphragm omni capacitor mics, and a single Royer SF12 stereo ribbon microphone. The Brauners and the Sennheisers were positioned as spaced pairs approximately 18 inches above the soundboard, while the Royer was placed over the keyboard, just above head height."


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## wst3 (Sep 23, 2012)

This is interesting listening, no doubt.

But the utility is VERY limited.

The ONLY way to evaluate any piece of gear is in your facility (or the facility that you use) and for your application.

None of the three microphones are poor choices, but except for the Royer they aren't what I would have selected for comparison - which only demonstrates that personal choice plays a role. I think there are much more common microphones that are in the same class (actually I think there are 'better' microphones<G>).

And few if any of us have ever heard this piano in this studio...

I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but I think SOS - one of two trade journals I even open any more - has really missed the boat on this.

In spite of their caveat that it is not a conventional shoot-out, I think it has been framed such that it will be used exactly that way.

Once upon a time one could borrow, or purchase with return privileges, pretty much any piece of kit, and evaluate it in their setting for their application.

These last two bits play such a HUGE part in any purchase decision.

Maybe I just need more coffee, but I am a little bit disappointed in the test. On the other hand, it will provide hours of listening time... always good to train one's ears!!!


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## EastWest Lurker (Sep 23, 2012)

wst3 @ Sun Sep 23 said:


> This is interesting listening, no doubt.
> 
> But the utility is VERY limited.
> 
> ...



More wisdom from Bill. I am very glad you are here, Bill.


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## Hannes_F (Sep 23, 2012)

Haha.


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 23, 2012)

wst3 @ Sun 23 Sep said:


> This is interesting listening, no doubt.
> 
> But the utility is VERY limited.


I would have fully agreed with you if it was just a mic shootout, but it's not. The Net is filled to the brim with mic shooutouts. Here, the chosen microphones each just paint a different picture of the sound scene. Everyone is of course entitled to have an opinion whether those microphones were a good choice for the purpose. Yet the purpose, and what the article is about is how these paintings are further coloured and mugged up by the PreAmps. The 'utility is very limited' to that. So indeed if that's what you mean, I _do_ fully agree.

What _would_ have made the blind test a bit more interesting, is the proposal for everyone to run their own blind tests on the material, with a link to ABX testing tools, such as the ABX functionality of Foobar. http://www.foobar2000.org/components 



wst3 @ Sun 23 Sep said:


> The ONLY way to evaluate any piece of gear is in your facility (or the facility that you use) and for your application.


For me this article is not about gear evaluation per se. First and foremost it's about whether one is capable of hearing the differences and then to what extent, indeed, given the circumstances of the test. Whether you find that 'very limited', depends. If Based on that you should be able to make an extrapolation, or an educated guess of the usefulness of the offered differences in your facility, if you so wish. Whether you find that 'very limited', also depends. Apparently it's not only beauty that's in the eye of the beholder.



wst3 @ Sun 23 Sep said:


> Once upon a time one could borrow, or purchase with return privileges, pretty much any piece of kit, and evaluate it in their setting for their application.


How right you are my friend. That's how I years ago did _not_ buy new monitors that I thought I needed. Still going strong with my decades old Acoustat full range electrostatic loudspeakers. I was convinced a range of some five pairs of monitors should be revealing more detail. I was wrong.



wst3 @ Sun 23 Sep said:


> always good to train one's ears!!!


Yes!


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## noiseboyuk (Sep 24, 2012)

Ha ha indeed (though maybe for a different reason?) I enjoyed the honesty of the Sound On Sound article. Before the blind test, the Maselec was "accurate yet musical", the API would "cut through a busy mix", the Neve had a "rich low end with a slightly softer top". These are the kinds of comments that people read a thousand times a day in reviews, and I've little doubt that purchasing decisions are based on them. If you are just using the preamps in your soundcard, you might well be tempted by the knowledge that if you spend £3,000 you'd get the best - up a notch into "accurate yet musical", no less.

And yet when they made all the levels the same and assigned an anoymous letter, those differences became "vastly more subtle". Not a little more subtle... vastly. SOS continues "many of us in the SOS office felt unable to confidently tell teh anonymised files apart in any repeted or reliable fashion".

At this point, those who have spend £3k on preamps will either throw their hands up in defeat (as some of the online correspondence at SOS suggests) or say the methodology is so flawed as to make the test meaningless. Sorry, but I don't buy it. Every other element in the chain is identical, the source is identical and yet real - this test is designed to showcase the differences and differences alone. And if folks can't reliably spot any, that's easily good enough for me to say that the £3k will be better spent elsewhere - mics, monitors, libraries, buildings, almost anything in fact. I'd go further - even if there were very subtle differences that could be reliably discerned (which, at the moment there are not), I'd have thought that some of money would be better spend on differences which are, well, easier to discern.

Congrats to SOS on an excellent test.


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## Scrianinoff (Sep 24, 2012)

More wisdom from Guy. I am very glad you are here, Guy. Haha!


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## wst3 (Sep 24, 2012)

I get what you are saying Guy, but I'm not sure I agree. I think the idea is good, but the I'm wrestling with the execution. Even on my current, and very sub-standard monitoring environment I can detect differences, and I guess I would be hard pressed to call them subtle.

Difficult to catalog? Yes, but then that is always the case. It's a lot easier to point out that there is a difference than to say one is better because, well, because better is entirely up to the listener.

The problem with this test is that I don't have the ability to switch between examples such that I can start to reliably identify the differences. What I end up with is "I think that factor X was different between these two examples.

And that's the problem with any shootout. Or non-shootout, as the case may be.

It is instructive, no question, I'm just not sure I agree with their conclusion.

Then there is the "other' factor...

I will often start a session with a mini-shootout, especially if the artist is new to recording. And I KNOW I have biases, but I do it anyway. And every once in a while I get a lovely surprise!

Case in point - I almost always put up an AKG C-414 for vocals. I don't care for this microphone for vocals, but a LOT of clients do. So I put it up.

A couple years ago a young lady was singing into different microphones and I was certain I had mis-labeled something because she sounded AMAZING through the C-414. Turns out she did sound amazing through the C-414. Dang, that's why I never sold that microphone.

Differences between microphones are more obvious than differences between preamplifiers. But the later are real, and sometimes they matter too.

Which is why I guess I'm not sure the current SOS test is as great an idea as they think it is.

But it is there magazine, and it will give a lot of folks an opportunity to give a listen to a bunch of preamplifiers.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Sep 24, 2012)

This is another example of what I'm always going on about. Yes, it's very hard to tell the difference between subtle things without teaching yourself the differences first. Yet when you're sitting in a room and switching preamps, after a while do learn to differentiate.

Also, the way these things behave isn't static - they change at different gain settings and with different signals.

My Millennia Media channel strips have switches between tube and solid-state signal paths in their mic preamp and EQ stages, along with a transformer you can switch in and out of the signal path. The stock tubes sound even more subtle than the replacement tubes I have in there, but they have different colors.

And sure, nobody would know if you started with a great mic preamp for the first verse and then switched to a cheap one for the next verse. But you can hear it when you're working on it. That was why I sold all my rack stuff years ago and got a really top-notch input chain.


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## noiseboyuk (Sep 25, 2012)

wst3 @ Tue Sep 25 said:


> I'm just not sure I agree with their conclusion.



Actually, to be fair their conclusion is to throw it open and ask what people make of it. I loved their candour at their own reaction, and they then asked the question "can you do better?" So, again, all credit to them I say.

As links in the chain go, preamps clearly come above interconnects (don't get me started on them...) clearly it is possible to have terrible preamps if they are cheap and shoddy enough. But as their article says, even modest kit tends to have respectable preamps these days, and since the price of high end stuff is so high, and any difference so subtle, I think you'd literally have to have every mic and monitor setup in the world before making them a priority. $0.02 etc etc

These discussions often start revolving around placebos, but the interesting thing about placebo is how effective it genuinely is. There's an argument to be made that if a £3k preamp makes people - and performers - believe that they sound better, then they might actually perform better, so you would get real world benefit.


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## germancomponist (Sep 25, 2012)

Nick Batzdorf @ Tue Sep 25 said:


> This is another example of what I'm always going on about. Yes, it's very hard to tell the difference between subtle things without teaching yourself the differences first. Yet when you're sitting in a room and switching preamps, after a while do learn to differentiate.
> 
> Also, the way these things behave isn't static - they change at different gain settings and with different signals.



+1


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