There have been a few accounts of XLR plugs getting stuck in the jacks. It’s never been clear if this is a fault of jack or plug, and the jacks are by no means proprietary. However, in the four units that I’ve had and the motley array of microphone cables that I use, I’ve never experienced this. I can only imagine there is some foul combination out there. A pint-sized preamp with anything but a pint-sized sound. As there’s a fair bit of mains power supply noise, I wonder how much better the SINAD would be if the power supply was changed for a 12v DC supply.

• I have no idea why nobody seems to ever talk about it.
• Center on the unit you will also find the Mid/Side Matrix button which will decode your mid/side mic setup into a stereo left and right signal.
• Despite its add-ons and connections, there’s really no more for you to do here to extract great performance from this talented ripping phono stage than there is with any rival.
• The input, output, and buffer stages are upgraded with Burr Brown op-amps, which are a big sonic upgrade.
• For live or general-purpose mixing use, the master-section buttons can be left set to their out positions.

It is a Class-A/B design with custom transformers on both the input and output and a complement of readily-available tubes… Having a mid EQ on a small mixer such as this also makes it a little more versatile than many, and it certainly sounds clean and workmanlike with no obvious vices. At no point did I notice any excessive noise or other signal-path problems. Bringing the drive down to a low level and switching on the high tube-voltage brought about a subtle thickening of the sound, which, again, I found musically useful. In combination with a higher drive level, the sound again became progressively warm, then thick, then quite distorted as the pre‑tube gain was increased.

Art Pro Audio Pro Vla Ii By Beasone

Because the device is small and light, the mounting position is unimportant. Each year inexpensive equipment comes out that compares favourably to older secondcityswingout.com devices costing many times that of the new equipment. This is exactly what we see with the Art Pro VLA II. It is a very respectable vacuum tube compressor that compares favourably to units costing over $1000 dollars.

Art Dualxdirect

I like a high impedance on my ribbon mics as I find it brings out more top in a subtle way. Yes you do loose some highs but I would rather go for the thicker warmer whatever you want to call it sound and eq in a bit of top if needed. You can get tone options by playing with impedance but I’ve never been into that strategy. It also affects dynamics more than condensers in my experience. That makes it an easy fix using the phase button on one of the channels so I haven’t let it bother me.

Art Usb Phono Plus Project Series Phono Preamp And Audio Interface

Overall, a great unit to have around and very enjoyable to play with. Very transparent for the price, exactly what I was looking for, should do me fine till I build a DIY dual LA-2 clone here pretty soon. This is the older version that has the desirable “vari-MU” type compressor option along with the optical type compression.

The output stage can handle up to +27dB on the XLRs, and has a low 47Ω impedance, which is suitable for driving long cables. The input meter, responsive though it is, appears to measure output. I would prefer it if it measured input gain so I could dial in how hard I was pushing the transformer and then use the meter on my converters as the reference for setting the output trim. I can just use my ears for that, but having a visual of the input signal can be very helpful when trying to quickly get things setup to begin tracking. I’m not sure if the channels are intended to be out of phase with one another or if my unit is malfunctioning. Suffice it to say, I have the phase button permanently engaged on channel 2 and the results are more coherent 99% of the time, whereas if I disengage it on both channels I almost always have to flip phase in the DAW.

A further button mounted between the channels selects the M/S decoding matrix, so that an M/S mic pair fed through the unit will produce a standard stereo signal at the output. At the extreme right of the unit is a ‘stereo’ button that allows the rightmost output‑level control to function instead as a stereo balance, while the leftmost output‑level control operates as a master stereo level control. I then performed a null test of the original Line Audio 8MP audio compared to channel 1 of the TransX recordings. This resulted in some differences in the low end from about 100hz and down, as well as some content in the upper midrange from around 800hz up to around 1.4khz.

Next, Panasonic capacitors are added in coupling and de-coupling functions that results in better frequency response, lower noise, and will help the unit last longer. The Vactrol is upgraded, and the tube plate voltages are increased. Finally, NOS Vintage American tubes replace the OEM offshore tubes that the Pro VLA ships with. For an extra $200 you can add output transformers to the originally transformerless circuit design. There is an option for Carnhill transformers or CineMag transformers (the classic American-made transformer used in a lot of Universal Audio gear). I went with the CineMag transformers, figuring the LA-2A was an American design, so why not keep it local?