studioporn

since i had a break from the house tonight and since i'm tired of babbling on about house destruction, i figured i'd take a break tonight and talk about gear instead.

i slapped down close to $2k last year on an avalon 737 preamp. like so many others, i eventually came to the conclusion that these things are just overhyped and overpriced pieces of shit and i don't even bother turning mine on anymore. so i've been in the market for some better (and, ideally, less expensive) preamps.

last month i got a summit audio 2BA-221 preamp:

i've been using this on a couple of projects and have been digging it thusfar. it tends to pick up much more ambiance than my other pres. it sounds really nice with female vox on both my AT 4060 and Rode K2. i ran a snare mic through it on one session and was caught a little off-guard by how smooth the transients sounded and how much ambiance it picked up. i need to do a few more sessions with this on snare before forming an opinion on that particular snare sound.

my only real gripes are that the headroom is kinda limited, and there's no meter, just signal/nominal/clip LEDs. i find i need to ride the level pretty often, especially for vocals.

i'll probably get a second one of these eventually, but i think my next preamp purchase will be a great river mp-2nv, once i can convince myself to pony up the $2k for it: