I regularly review music gear for Sonic State, it’s an interesting job as I have to look in detail at a particular piece of hardware or software. Often when you are just using a piece of kit, you don’t get time to delve into all the subtleties of it and learn all its’ full capabilities. I recently had a look at the new range of Apollo audio interfaces from Universal Audio, the full video review will be coming out in due course over on the Sonic State website, but in the meantime I thought it would be interesting to post up some audio illustrating the performance differences compared to the previous generation of interfaces.
The new Apollo thunderbolt-only interfaces boast different cosmetics and some enhanced functionality, but what I was most interested in was the sonic differences due to the revised A/D and D/A signal paths. On paper the specs show improved SNR, THD and Dynamic Range. Given that the previous generation of Apollo interfaces were already very well specified in this department, I did wonder how much of an audible difference these improvements actually made.
In order to test the differences I set up a simple drum recording session: 4 mics on a 1950’s Premier drum kit (EV RE20 outside kick, AKG C414 on snare, Oktavamod Oktava MK012’s for overheads) and my good friend and ace drummer Mark Whitlam laying down some funky yet consistently repeatable grooves. We tracked first through the 4 preamps on the older generation Apollo, then immediately switched the mic cables into the first 4 preamp channels on the Apollo 8P. Mark layed down the same groove again (clicked for ease of comparison) and that was it. Admittedly, this is more a real-world test rather than a carefully controlled scientific experiment, there will always be slight differences in the playing between each take no matter how consistent the drummer, but it gives a good indication of the differences.
Here are the audio files, listen for your self and decide if you can tell the difference:
First, the old generation Apollo Quad:
And next, the new generation Apollo 8P:
Can you hear a difference?
You can download the 24bit 44.1kHz audio files yourself from this link, load them into a DAW and flip between solo’d tracks to get a more direct comparison.
To my ears, I hear a different emphasis in the mid to high range, I can hear it in the hi hats and ride cymbal. I also perceive a bigger stereo image somehow, the the whole thing sounds a little smoother, more open and less boxy compared to the old generation. These are very subtle differences, but good monitoring or headphones do show them up.
As promised in the previous post, here are some sound samples to demonstrate the sonic differences between the DIY EZ1290 Neve-style Mic preamps and the stock preamps on the Universal Audio Apollo firewire interface.
The setup for this was pretty simple, a remote drum recording session where the drummer (the fabulous Mr Mark Whitlam) was given a score and a backing track to record the drum part to. The session was carried out in Marks garden studio cabin, a compact but decent sounding purpose-built space that has been acoustically treated.
Listening to the stye of the track and how the drums sounded in the space I decided to go for a simple 4 mic setup: 2 overheads placed more out in front of the drums to get a more balanced picture of the kit as a whole, supplemented with kick and snare close mics.
The drums themselves were:
Vintage 1960s Zildjian A 14″ hi hats, 22″ Istanbul Agop Azure ride (next to hats), Bosphorus 21″ medium thin ride and an 18″ bosphorus thin crash. Drums …. Snare: Canopus Zelkova, 1960’s premier Olympic 20″ bass drum and 12″ Tom, modern premier 14″ Tom
Of course, all properly tuned…..
On the overheads I used 2 Oktava MK-012 modified by Micheal Joly at Oktavamod, on the kick an Electrovoice RE20 and on the snare a cheap and surprisingly cheerful Audio Technica AT2020 (high SPL handling, nice response, good rejection).
On the following audio examples you are listening to just the overheads so you can hear more clearly the differences between preamps. Note that these are different takes, although the drummer is incredibly consistent, so the comparison is not entirely precise.
Firstly, through with the UA Apollo preamps
And then with the EZ1290 preamps
You can hear the subtle differences, especially when you listen to that ride cymbal from about 10 seconds in. The Apollo preamps are very good, very clear and crisp, but the EZ1290 has a smoother sound, more open and somehow with a better sense of space. What do you think?
This is the only direct comparison I’ve done but I’ve been working a lot with these preamps on voice and guitar and really like the sound I’m getting, I’m finding I’m using less processing further down the line to shape the sound. I’ve particularly enjoyed the combination of this preamp and the modified Apex 460 valve mic mentioned in a previous article.
There comes a point when many a recording engineer starts to consider the finer points of the recording chain, and inevitably finds themselves in the esoteric world of mic preamps. These days there are so many choices both off the shelf and DIY, so many opinions, and so many fuzzy descriptions of ‘warmth’, ‘open-ness’, ‘transparency’ etc…It’s hard to know where to begin.
I began by accident. I bought a job lot of electronic components off EBay, the seller claimed that all the components required to make a Neve preamp were included. Well, that was optimistic, I think there were about 4 capacitors and a handful of resistors that could be used, but anyway it piqued my interest. I found out the project board he was intending to use which led me to the fabulous www.groupdiy.com website, where Martin Adriaanse has created a complete guide to building the EZ1290 Neve preamp clone, including a bill of materials, circuit schematics, build guide and some basic troubleshooting points. You can purchase the PCBs directly from him (they are not available anywhere else).
My first decision was whether to go the complete DIY route (where you have to source all the parts yourself) or go for one of the many kits provided by the likes of Seventh Circle Audio or JLM Audio . Being the masochist that I am, I opted for buying the PCBs and sourcing components myself using mainly Mouser in the UK, how hard could it be? Of course, some of those nice polystyrene capacitors weren’t available on Mouser, nor were the BC184 transistors and a few other little things, so I ended up on EBay where I found pretty much everything else I needed.
The Neve sound is all about transformers, and not just any old ones; properly designed, carefully manufactured transformers made for the specific task of interfacing microphones and line level signals. You need 2 per channel, an input mic transformer and an output line transformer. These aren’t cheap, I got mine from Audio Maintenance Limited who also sell the Grayhill rotary switches used for the gain selector. All in, 2 channels worth of xformers and switches cost the best part of £200 once delivery was factored in.
Once the components were in, soldering the PCBs was a relatively straightforward task, pay attention to put things in the right place and use a heatsink on those capacitors. Use a fine tip soldering iron (especially for that rotary switch, the pins are tiny and close together) and audio grade solder.
Soldering the components onto the ez1290 pcb
I started with resistors first, then smaller caps, then transistors and larger caps.
Almost complete ez1290 pcb
Note the overkill polystyrene capacitor on the right, couldn’t find the right voltage spec one for that capacitance so had to go for a 400V spec, hence the size. Still fits and works!
Building the boards was the easy bit to be honest. Once they were done the fun of trying to fit everything into a case and route the wiring began. I got a 1U rack case off EBay again, it was from a network router so needed a bit of tidying up, and I also ordered a plain aluminium front panel which I was going to attach on top of the existing front plate. I’ll admit that the rack case was probably my biggest cock-up. I thought it was full depth but when it arrived it was a shallow one, so stuffing all the PCBs, transformers and connectors in was going to be a challenge.
I put the transformers for each channel down the sides and the PCBs in the middle. This just about worked, I had to leave space for input, output and power supply sockets too.
I wanted to make use of the input transformers multi-taps, so I could make a switchable impedance for the mic inputs. Although not strictly necessary these days as most mics are designed to work with the typical high impedance of most mic preamps, it can help when interfacing with older mics and it also offers another tonal option for a given mic. The taps on the primary side of the transformer allow the two halves of the primary to be wired in series (1200Ω) or parallel (300Ω), I wired in a switch to change the configuration via the front panel.
Nearing completion, fitting the front panel
The only other switch I fitted was a +48V phantom power switch. Phantom power is introduced to the hot and cold connectors on the input XLR via 6.81K resistors. I left out phase and pad switches for now. I also opted not to fit the output trimmer. You ideally need to use a high quality pot, I think I may add this for the next build as it allows you to drive the input stages harder for more grit if you want it. Some people say that the trimmer degrades the sound quality slightly, that’s a better reason than not being arsed to fit it.
The other important piece of the puzzle is the power supply. These boards need a +24V supply as well as +48V for phantom. I had no choice but to locate all of this in a separate enclosure, though with careful planning you could fit all this into a larger rack unit (watch out for induced mains hum from the power supply transformer). JLM do a suitable power supply, I already had a toroidal transformer so found a PSU kit from a Russian supplier on EBay. These do the job, but I blew the first one with an accidental short circuit.
Once everything is connected, you need to bias the output transistor, for this you ideally need an oscilloscope and a signal generator. I used a 1kHz test tone from my sound card and a borrowed scope from the local university, very useful diagnostic tool and I might have to invest in one if I’m going to do this more often. Biasing is explained in the build guide and is a pretty straightforward procedure, just adjust the trimpot till you get symmetrical clipping and your done. Pushing it too far in the wrong direction can make things get very hot.
My first board wouldn’t bias properly, I ended up swapping all the transistors in the output driver stage and it all worked ok after that, took a bit of head scratching though, the build guide gives a few tips such as the typical DC voltages at each of the transistor pins but it wasn’t obvious which was the culprit.
I had some intermittent hum issues, I was using the case as a ground so I implemented a star grounding scheme, seems to have worked.
I used a powder coated metal enclosure for the power supply, this is a pain as the individual panels don’t necessarily conduct with each other so the safety ground had to be wired to each panel to ensure proper earthing.
I blew the 1W resistors on the + side of the board supply rails by letting the underside of the board accidentally touch the case (which is earthed) when testing, won’t be doing that again.
The finished product (Roof off)
So here is the finished version. Sure, it’s a little chaotic and Heath Robinson in there, I used whatever material I had to hand to make things like cable guides and mountings for the transformers. But this is my first build.
I’m glad I chose to do it this way, you learn so much more by going through the stages yourself, figuring out details like how to package and connect up the system and then troubleshooting it, making mistakes, blowing components, ordering the wrong thing etc….I know what to do next time. Speaking of which, I’m considering this project as a prototype; I’m planning to get another 2 boards and build a 4 channel unit into a 2U (full depth) case, and add pad and phase switching for each channel, and maybe a switched mode power supply instead of that bulky and noisy toroidal transformer.
All in all it has been a lot of work (and expense) to get these mic-pres up and running, however, they work beautifully and I’ve been getting some great results on guitars, vocals and drums. I’m even starting to use words like ‘warm’, ‘open-sounding’ and ‘big’ when I describe the recordings. In the next post I will put up some examples to illustrate why I think they are worth the effort.
