Why are "straight wire" pre's expensive?

[manofsong]

Why are mic pre's way up there in price when they are seemingly following a "straight wire" construction approach (usually a selling point)? You would think fewer components, no transformers, no "tube drive" or other such features would bring manufacturing costs down. Is it because the quality of whichever few components remain that much better?

Knowledgeable feedback appreciated!

[ronzie]

There's no such animal. Some pre's are more simple in design and execution than others, as we all know. "Straight wire with gain" is a fallicy. More an idea (description) than reality in my book.

Ron Allaire, Skyline

[Tibbon]

The price on most gear has little to do with purely the costs of the components involved.

The design of a quality piece of gear costs money. Making something like one of the Earthworks or Grace preamps costs a great deal, and while you might not have tubes in it... you might have stepped attenuators instead (which are rather expensive).

And yea, no preamp is "straight wire". Actually, nevermind there is. I have one that i'll sell for $12,000USD. You do have to sign an NDA however and promise to never open the box, which will be epoxied solidly anyways. Actually you have to use it in front of another preamp, but I promise that it will make it sound better. It's nothing but straight wire, i promise. :)

[Rick Sutton]

Maybe straight wire is more expensive than wire sold on rolls.



Sorry, I couldn't help myself.....it's been a long week. Please resume the discussion.

[Blast9]

Is a fence with straight wire more expensive than one made from a roll Rick?

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by Blast9

Is a fence with straight wire more expensive than one made from a roll Rick?

Way more expensive. If you use straight wire you have to splice it at every length. All that labor adds up! Straight wire length is limited by shipping methods and is usually no longer than 8' per piece. If you use a roll of wire you can spool it off for hundreds of feet before you have to splice it.
I worked on a ranch in my younger days and we definitly preferred to work with wire on the roll when putting up a fence.

[joelpatterson]

There must be a market somewhere for gay wire. Has to.

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

There must be a market somewhere for gay wire. Has to.

Well, I've heard of guy wire that is used to stabilize radio towers. Will that work for you Joel?

God I'm slow! As soon as I posted the response.....bingo. I get it.
Next we can talk about "bi-wiring" on speakers. There's no end to this tech talk!

[joelpatterson]

Sure, close enough.

[RWhite]

Who said that they are more expensive? When I think of tube-less, transformerless pre-amps, I think of Millenia and Grace. A quick internet search found 8 channels of Millenia for around $4200 and 8 channels of Grace for around $4500. This works out to to be cheaper per channel than four channels of API ($2400) and way cheaper than the $1000 per channel that you spend on Great River and Pacifica pres.

[Reptil]

It takes careful design and components to come up with a distortion free flat frequency response, very true and fast transient response, oh and miles of headroom, and still have a "musical" character in your sound instead of sterile or shrill. I think it's an art really to make something like that. And differences between amps are subtle, but huge in another way.

All those vintage Neve and API and Telefunken classics come from a time when amp designers tried to give their products a sound that was as clean and true to the original sound source as possible.

I would therefore turn this around and say: why are colored pre's expensive? Aren't they outmoded? Or is it a hype around outdated technology like germanium transistors, which were abandoned for their bad noise specs?

check this:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php?p=1062300
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showthread.php?p=579033
Please recommend a pre for piano recording
Best transparent mic pre

(BTW I use and love both. )

[Reptil]

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[GYang]

Originally Posted by Reptil

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This is real straight wire type pre. Love it.
Just inside it's slightly crowded, but nevermind..

[HIGHENDONLY]

Speaking of clean pres..does the martech mss10 have a jensen transformer in it.

[Reptil]

It does have an input transformer. I don't know if it's a Jensen. I doubt it's a run of the mill transformer. Most likely something made especially for martech. (guesstimate)
http://www.soundpure.com/showProduct.do?id=696

ppl. often assume transformers mean saturation and distortion and therefore instant coloration.
Comb filtering and/or bumbs in the response.
this is not always the case. It really depends on the transformer used.
Ever seen the specs of a Malotki? Really amazing stuff.
Ruler flat across the whole freq. spectrum way beyond 20 Khz.

[seriousfun]

Originally Posted by HIGHENDONLY

Speaking of clean pres..does the martech mss10 have a jensen transformer in it.

No. The Martech MT-1000 input transformer, found in our Martech MSS-10 mic pre and MSS-01 DI, is our own proprietary design, custom-manufactured.

[larrygates]

Nice thread since I own 2 mss-10. And just yesterday after having them for like 5 years, it dawns on me to feed my DAW into the mss-10's and feed them back into my DAW. What is my problem. These are great boxes, but I need an online manual.

[Stitch333]

Originally Posted by larrygates

Nice thread since I own 2 mss-10. And just yesterday after having them for like 5 years, it dawns on me to feed my DAW into the mss-10's and feed them back into my DAW. What is my problem. These are great boxes, but I need an online manual.

Try sending out 16trks from your DAW through a passive summing mixer and then use the martechs for makeup gain...