ART MPA Gold vs. Digital MPA

[dkelley]

Originally Posted by woomanmoomin

I think this is the bottom line as far as this unit is concerned. Best of the cheap ones.

yep, there is a definite difference in build quality and finish etc between units like this and high end gear. It's good that, at least to my ears in my day job, I've found a unit like this that packs a punch but doesn't cost a mint. I do worry a bit about the switches and pots dying prematurely though, sort of that behringer worry one gets...

That's a worry I don't get when using my platinum series focusrite gear though, fewer exotic features in that stuff but solid as a rock reliability.

But true high end gear puts those two mindsets together into one plus throws in a bagful of fairy dust magic... :-)

[PheelTheMusic]

So what's the verdict. Would y'all advise that I get the ART DIGITAL MPA or regular MPA GOLD? Will the internal A/D converter really hinder performance to any noticeable extent?

[dkelley]

Originally Posted by PheelTheMusic

So what's the verdict. Would y'all advise that I get the ART DIGITAL MPA or regular MPA GOLD? Will the internal A/D converter really hinder performance to any noticeable extent?

honestly, haven't used the digital mpa. Know nothing about it. If it offers the high plate voltage switch option like the mpa gold does plus variable input impedence and variable high pass filter and 75 db of gain (pretty sure about the last stuff, not sure about the plate voltage which is vital in my opinion), then go for it. not much extra to get a dual a/d converter, and if you choose not to use the a/d you still have a great dual analog preamp.

That'd be my recommendation. I personally didn't want to pay any extra for a/d since I have great a/d already and also prefer the look of the mpa gold, I'm a bit of a look slut also.

Cheers,
Don

[PheelTheMusic]

Originally Posted by dkelley

honestly, haven't used the digital mpa. Know nothing about it. If it offers the high plate voltage switch option like the mpa gold does plus variable input impedence and variable high pass filter and 75 db of gain (pretty sure about the last stuff, not sure about the plate voltage which is vital in my opinion), then go for it. not much extra to get a dual a/d converter, and if you choose not to use the a/d you still have a great dual analog preamp.

That'd be my recommendation. I personally didn't want to pay any extra for a/d since I have great a/d already and also prefer the look of the mpa gold, I'm a bit of a look slut also.

Cheers,
Don

I find that really interesting that you liked the looks of the the regular gold better. I really like the look of the Digital! It has all identical analog features of the regular plus the onboard A/D. That conversion will free up 2 channels of audio on my FireStudio so that seems liek the way to go for me. Thanks for the input!

[dkelley]

Originally Posted by PheelTheMusic

I find that really interesting that you liked the looks of the the regular gold better. I really like the look of the Digital! It has all identical analog features of the regular plus the onboard A/D. That conversion will free up 2 channels of audio on my FireStudio so that seems liek the way to go for me. Thanks for the input!

no worries. And as for looks, I'm into cars like lambos and women like Angelina J, so boxes that look glitzy are the icing on my cake.

I'm terribly shallow :-)




just kidding, I'm happily married :-) but that lambo would be fun........

Don

[conroy]

I actually prefer the old Art PRO MPA. It may not have the sweepable impedance feature but I like being able to see when the warmth is kicking in. The new Gold stuff no longer has the LEDs to indicate when the sound is beginning to distort. It just has the analogue output meters. The converters on the Digital Gold are nothing to write home about.

[mamm7215]

Actually it does have "tube warmth" leds in between the vu meters.

[dkelley]

and the great thing about the mpa gold is that if you run it at high plate voltage, the tubes don't distort, they have huge headroom.

I don't think there's anything superior about the older pro mpa blackface unit over the newer mpa gold. some people who own the older units say the build quality was better in the past... hahahaha, that's the exact opposite of what I've seen. ART's build quality has improved tons over the past year or so. They do still have some QC issues, but that too is improving. You do more or less get what you pay for in the construction quality side of things, but the performance shines like crazy with the mpa gold (and presumable the mpa digital).

Don

[chasman]

just picked up an mpa gold. first mic pre. any tips on settings???

for vocals????

guitars????

what does the meter reference switch do?? whats the -10 +4 dB thing???

love your site guys.

[diatonic]

...

[8th_note]

I have a couple of Pro Channels and an MPA Gold. I haven't heard the Digital MPA but if you're on a limited budget I suggest you consider getting a plain MPA Gold and putting the money you save into new tubes. Different tubes make quite a sonic difference in this unit (same with the Pro Channel). My favorite is a Mullard 12AT7 but other tubes such as JAN GE, JAN Phillips, and Sylvania all have their strong points.

The standard tube is a 12AX7. The Mullard 12AT7 has a little less gain but there's plenty of gain in this pre so that hasn't been a problem for me.

Whether you get the MPA or the Digital you should definitely get a few tubes and experiment. They are easy to replace and they make a significant improvement in the sound.

[ballpein]

I recently used the digital MPA gold (or whatever they call it) for some live sessions, and the thing was a piece of garbage.

As a caveat, we were using the spdif outs, not analog, and this thing was such a ridiculous piece of crap that it seems possible we got a bad unit.

This was a brand new unit, sealed box etc. Pots were scratchy; one of the knobs was bent so the knob ground against the case, and another knob had a big blob of glue out of it, which we had to cut off with an xacto knife before it was usable. Nice QA !

We found that both gain knobs had to be up over 75% before they had any audible effect on levels. The meters were randomly spastic, seemed to bear no relationship to the actual audio levels. There is audible crosstalk between the channels (as a result we could only use one channel at a time). The sound was generally thin, brittle, and harsh. Tried it on vox, mic'd cabs, kick, overheads, and as a bass DI - ugly on all of them. The impedance adjust is the only knob on the thing that actually bears an audible relationship to the sound you hear coming out of it, and allowed us to tweak the tone to somewhat less-shitty levels.

Maybe the MPA is a great preamp and they just added a really shitty A/D section - I don't know. I do know that if I had shelled out $500 for this thing I would be hella bummed.

[Weasel9992]

Ballpein...that sucks. I wonder if you just got a bad one...those are some pretty significant quality issues right out of the box.

I've had a great experience with my MPA...good enough that I bought another one to have another couple of channels. I will agree that it doesn't work well on some sources, and when it doesnt work it really, really doesn't work. I've found it to be a fantastic bass pre, but I use it with a Radial JDI, not with the 1/4" input.

I use mine right along side an RNP, an ME-1NV and API pre's...I think it fits nicely. I certainly don't think there's another pre in this price range that comes even close to it.

Weez

[ballpein]

Yeah, I would tend to think it was a lemon unit, it was just too shockingly bad to be anything but a fluke. Also, the unit came from a somewhat sleazy national Canadian retailer, wouldn't shock me to hear they're stocking grey-market refurb junk.

I have other ART gear which I like quite well, wouldn't bash them.

[feedback711]

you change the stock tubes out and get some real good ones. then they are good.... they are better if used as a DI and all right for vocals if you change the tubes to add some needed warmth and grit to the sound

[mmcfarlane]

Originally Posted by PheelTheMusic

So what's the verdict. Would y'all advise that I get the ART DIGITAL MPA or regular MPA GOLD? Will the internal A/D converter really hinder performance to any noticeable extent?

The A/D converter in the FF400 are probably significantly better than the Digital MPA.

Does the FF400 have wordclock out? You'll need to buy a good quality wordclock cable and cable terminator and a wordclock source to run the digital MPA in digital mode through the coax connection. Ya, you could use the DMPA as the wordclock source but I wouldn't want to run a FF400 off of the ART clock.

Budget another $30-60 for a good wordclock cable and terminator if you go the digital coax route. I don't know if the DMPA can clock off its ADAT input but that may be another option, so budget for 2 adat cables if you go optical.

I own a Digital MPA. I like it a lot for the money, it even makes a decent bass DI. But, I am really annoyed that the preamp gain is non-linear and just takes off at about 3oclock on the dial. It seems I usually want to set the gain right in the zone where it jumps up 10db or so.

Anyone else get have this problem with the gain knob?

I use the analog outputs today, but in the past when I only had an 8 channel interface (also the Aardvark Q10) with a coax spdif input it was really nice to be able to get 2 extra channels from the DMPA when I needed them.

[diatonic]

...

[MaestroNYC]

Originally Posted by mmcfarlane

I own a Digital MPA. I like it a lot for the money, it even makes a decent bass DI. But, I am really annoyed that the preamp gain is non-linear and just takes off at about 3oclock on the dial. It seems I usually want to set the gain right in the zone where it jumps up 10db or so.

Anyone else get have this problem with the gain knob?

I use the analog outputs today, but in the past when I only had an 8 channel interface (also the Aardvark Q10) with a coax spdif input it was really nice to be able to get 2 extra channels from the DMPA when I needed them.

Yup... I noticed the same thing on my MPA Gold. Big jump about 3 oclock. Which is where the noise kicks in on mine!

[pikapikapi]

I if connect the art digital mpa to my mbox2 via spdif will I get better results than if i use the line in?

[8th_note]

Anyone else get have this problem with the gain knob?

Mine does that too - I just noticed it a few days ago. I had to activate the 20db boost which allowed me to bring the knob back down.

Bummer. I really like this preamp but that's clearly a design flaw.

[MaestroNYC]

I read here on GS, and found it to be very true, that you pretty much always have to keep the +20db gain on. It lets me avoid going over that threshold at 3 oclock.

[mmcfarlane]

Ya, I keep the 20db switch engaged but I am still always right around 3oclock with soft vocalists.

[cooknkpl]

New to forum - 1st post.
Bought this unit. Read all the posts about changing tubes. Seems the 2 front runners are:
NOS Mullard 12AT7'S
Telefunken ECC83/12ax7a

Now...I know absolutely NOTHING about buying tubes. But I found this on e-bay: "NOS MULLARD 12AT7 ECC81 RARE YELLOW PRINT MATCHED PAIR"

I'm confused by the "ECC81". The Telefunken tubes were ECC83. SO...someone PLEASE help me figure out what to buy?...thx

FWIW - this unit will be used primarily for vocals.

[analog modeling]

i just bought a pair of nos ge s 12ax7a, they arrive in 2 weeks, ill let u know how they sound.

[craigmorris74]

Why is no input transformers a bad thing? Because they're often the component most confuse with "tube" sound. I can't think of a respected full tube that doesn't have transformers (could be mistaken). I suggest looking at the specifications for most pres people consider great, and you'll find transformers. There is no "tube" sound, and if there where, the ART units wouldn't give it to you because they lack these components.

Best new unit for less than $500? I'll argue against that. For example, here's all tube tranformer in and out for $400 new:
Mercenary Audio - Groove Tubes "The Brick"

When I didn't know any better, I owned ART gear (even the high end stuff-Pro Channel etc.), which might sound perfectly fine by itself, but when you have to mix several tracks recorded with this stuff, it's not fun.

I'm not trying to be a pompous arse, I just hate to see people blow legitmate money when they can save $100-$200 bucks more and get something really nice. So much of your money on these unit goes into features that don't make the unit any better-"Tube Warmth" knobs and meters are a prime example.

Low end gear can be great, but when you start to dropping $300 bucks on a piece of gear, that's not exactly cheap.

[MaestroNYC]

Originally Posted by cooknkpl

Now...I know absolutely NOTHING about buying tubes. But I found this on e-bay: "NOS MULLARD 12AT7 ECC81 RARE YELLOW PRINT MATCHED PAIR"

I'm confused by the "ECC81". The Telefunken tubes were ECC83. SO...someone PLEASE help me figure out what to buy?...thx

Can't help ya there, but there is a guy here on GS, BOWIE, that sells NOS tubes. A bunch of folks on here have bought from him; I was planning on it but then didn't have the $$$ when a project fell through. We emailed a bit and he seemed very knowledgable and had good stock. I've heard that it is hard to know for sure about the quality of tubes on ebay. Do some searches on GS for more info.

[murilix]

Originally Posted by cooknkpl

I'm confused by the "ECC81". The Telefunken tubes were ECC83. SO...someone PLEASE help me figure out what to buy?...thx

To make it short, any of these will do:

12AX7/12AX7A/12AX7WA/ECC83/ECC803S/E83CC/7025/5751 or high gain/quality 12AT7/12AT7A/12AT7WC/6201...

For the full story, read below...

There's so much to say...

A 12AX7 has gain factor of 100, whereas a 12AT7 has 60 and a 12AU7, 20.

Just a practical example: it's pretty common in guitar amps to replace a 12AX7 with a 12AT7 to "tame down" a loud amp. I had a Fender 60W DeVille that was so F***** LOUD, I could only play with "home studio" levels with a 12AU7, otherwise I would have to set the amp gain at 0.5.

ECC8xs are the European codes for the 12A_7 family.

ECC81 = 12AT7
ECC82 = 12AU7
ECC83 = 12AX7

ECC80xs= same as ECC8x, but higher quality, longer life.

There are also the "industrial" numbers/codes (7025 for the 12AX7, 6201 for the 12AT7, 6189/5814/5963 for the 12AU7. A 5751 is "half between" the 12AX7 and the 12AT7, with a 70 gain factor).

Usually these industrial numbers mean higher quality, tighter production specs, just as the JAN, which may be sold with the 12A_7 or the "industrial" codes and may or may not mean a better tone, but do mean better specs (including improved low frequency response).

JAN (joint army/navy) means military tubes, also higher quality, tighter production tolerances and longer life and may have higher gain factor than usual because of that. There are guys selling military-coded Mullard 12AT7's on eBay whose gain factor is almost of a 12AX7.

Also, have in mind there are a lot of discrepancies/similarities.

For example:

1. I've bought a few GE JAN 12AT7WC's which have a 6201 stamp on them. A/WA/WB/WC are usually "higher quality" suffixes.

2. I also have a Philips-ECG JAN 12AT7WC pair which, according to a webpage somewhere shouldn't be labeled as such because they don't have the extra support rods that would give these tubes the WC designation.

3. Groove Tubes 7025 tubes are, in fact, European made ECC83s (either Hungarian Tungsrams (older ones) or Serbian EIs).

4. A new production Mullard tube is made in Russia, not England as the NOS. Same with Tung-sol, which was an American brand. Both brands now belong to the New Sensor Corporation, who also markets Sovtek, Electro-Harmonix and Svetlana brands, all made in Russia. While these are not necessarily bad and are all within the $10-20 range a dishonest seller might try to act funny.

The nice thing about the double triode family (the 12a_7's) is that you can experiment a lot with them, just pop one out/put the other in until you like what you hear. I still haven't tried 12AT7's on my MPA, but will do when I have the time so I can compare if there's a big difference in gain.

Another thing you might want to have in mind is that two tubes produced at the same date at the very same factory might sound differently due to poor production control.

Tubes are made in bunches on which there may be drastic differences from one tube to another. Then, the factory screens the best ones and trashes the bad ones (or sends them to Brazil...)

This is why, when buying NOS tubes, someone would prefer buying a 12AX7A over a 12AX7 or a JAN 6201 over a non-JAN 6201 or a 6189 over a 12AU7. That's also why these usually cost more, especially because there are audiophiles involved. Audiophiles usually pay 100 dollars or more for a NOS Telefunken ECC803s, the holy grail of the 12AX7 family. Mention the much rarer Genalex Gold Lion's and the thing goes over one grand.

I've read many engineers say they prefer current production tubes because you always know you'll be able to get a similar pair if you need an extra one in case the older ones wear out. This is half true. No one knows how tight is the quality control. BUT buying tubes from a good seller that tests his tubes prior to shipping does help.

Some retailers usually offer the matching service, which means that for an extra bucks you can get tubes that will probably behave similarly. I said probably because you can only be sure if you test the tubes at their actual operational voltage, which in the case of the ART MPA Gold remains a mystery, and actually there two settings for that (high/low). The manual doesn't help because it says the tube is supplied with the equivalent of 300V.

Also, since 12A_7's are "twin/double triode" tubes, there is the option of getting them "balanced", which means the triodes are matched.

Please, don't get discouraged with this "letter soup". Remember you can always put the former tubes back. Spending some bucks with different 12A_7 tubes and trying them out will at least be fun and is generally safe. This is one of the charms of tube gear: you don't need a soldering iron to get radically different tones out of them.

[BudgetMC]

Murilix!