Amek Neve or Avalon 2022?!

[tradershort]

Help! I'm torn between buying one of two industry standard Mic Pre's: The AMEK NEVE 9098 (w/EQ) and the AVALON 2022. This will be my main preamp for miking Vocals & Guitars.

I recently bought an ADK A-51TC tube Mic to replace my Rode NT2 (I know...where's the "high end"?). I now want to upgrade my Mic Pre to give me what I need. I'm primarily recording female vocals (clean sounding voice - no grit - ala Joni Mitchell/Ann Wilson) and acoustic (Martin & Gibson) and electric (amped) guitars.

Any advice on this is much appreciated!

Thanks a million!

tradershort

[atticus]

I've never used he AMEK, but I really like the 2022's on vocals and acoustic guitar.

[nlc201]

Second on the 2022. My favorite pre for "standard"sounding acoustic guitars. Very clean and clear with just a little somethin' somethin' at the very top to make it real nice. Not too shabby on vocals either. Also, it's frickin' clean gain! At high settings, you'll hear most mic noise before preamp noise. A good buy, second only to Mackie ("our graphs prove that the XDR mic pres sound way better than prize vintage units. The math is right here. Oscilloscopes don't lie! If that doesen't convince you, then I've got some charts")

[Wiggy Neve Slut]

PHOENIX DRS 1 or 2...

Prolly the best all round pre i have heard in ages.

Chek it out.. its another step above the AMEK, which i own and is great in its own right, and more in theleague fot he avalon all be it totally different sounding sonically. So get em all together and go for gold and a/b till you are sick!

Cheers
Wiggy

[thethrillfactor]

I am going to against the grain and say that the EQ alone on the 9098 is worth its weight in gold. You can use it while tracking if you need to tailor the mic even more to the voice.

[entropy]

I'm with Thrill as well. 9098

[RaGe]

Funny how rare it is for the 2022 to get any praise. Why is that? (dont own one ....yet)

[syra]

if you want a clean transparent sound the 2002 its hard to beat...on acoustic instruments such as guitars, piano, strings percussion its amazing...

peace, syra

[C.Lambrechts]

both .... AD2022 into 9098 eq for tracking. definately my favourite way ...


god I wouldn't know how to choose really ... the AD2022 is also worth it's weight in gold imvho. depends on what the rest of your outboard is I guess and what you wanna do with it. The Avalon is the slightly better pre in my book, though better is a rather 'relative' term in this case.

[tradershort]

The only other outboard gear I'll use before going into my Digital Interface is a Distressor.

Thanks!

[quadwould]

i would go Avalon... i just Love the sound of te 20series.

[littledog]

I think it depends on how much you will use the EQ. Also, if you plan on getting some ribbon mics, having that impedance selection is a nice feature on the Avalon. (I don't recall if the AMEK has that...)

If you do need EQ, in addition to the 1073/81 types that were suggested, don't forget the Daking as another possible alternative to the AMEK.

If you don't need the EQ, another interesting alternative is the Tube Tech MP1a. It's just gorgeous as a vocal preamp.

[C.Lambrechts]

another nice eq I recently discovered is a Malcom Toft design. ATC-2 (or something ....) we got it on demo for the studio and decided to keep it just for the eq. It's a dual mic pre / comp eq unit. The mic pre does not stand a change against the ad2022 or the 9098. The compressors are nice enough to have hanging around for situations like 'hmmmm ... that doesn't work either ... oh wait .... let's try the atc ... you never know. but the EQ is more then worth the money .... aprox. 1000$ for 2 very good eq's

[jpaudio]

Originally posted by thethrillfactor
I am going to against the grain and say that the EQ alone on the 9098 is worth its weight in gold. You can use it while tracking if you need to tailor the mic even more to the voice.

I'll second that... incredible EQ. The Amek pre's ain't bad, but I wouldn't rely on them as my "desert island" preamps. If you go for the Avalon 2022, you get two super-clean detailed pres, but the Amek gives you a very decent pre and a great EQ... YMMV

[cebolao]

is the avalon "super clean" similar somehow to the millenia hv3d "super clean"? i was thinking about getting millenia 8 ch as a general purpose super clean pre, mainly for vocals...

[mac black]

Its the curtis opre2 for me

[Shaman]

I highly recommend the Avalon 2022.

It´s super punchy, transparent and stone quiet.
I personally have two of them and want 3 more.
To me it´s the best clean / fast / multipurpose preamp, I´ve heard.

I compared it to the Grace 801 and liked the 2022 better.
Haven´t heard the Millenia/Massenburg/ Hardy.

For some sources you´ll want a more coloured pre like API, Neve, Manley...but you definetly can´t go wrong with the Avalon.

It has tons of headroom(30 db) - I recently used it with an unbelievable loud classical singer - it didn´t clip once !