pre for rca ribbon mic...?

[Elie]

Hi there, first I want to thank the forum's crowd for making this place so resourceful and pretty friendly! I'm learning a lot 'round here!

So, I have a pair of bk-5 which I want to match with appropriate (and as affordable as possible) preamps. I'd rather have something fairly neutral sonically, to record mainly classical instruments.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Elie

[henryrobinett]

Millennia HV-3D.

[PlugHead]

RCA BN5A - 3 tube stage, very rare mic pre - the perfect compliment to RCA's old ribbons. They have like a zillion dB of gain, and quite a toplift starting around 6 - 10k...

Barring that, HV-3/Hardy/GML/ insert quiet, neutral pre with lots of gain here - none in the "budget" category, and I can't comment on "budget" pre's being worth anything for classical recording - cheapest alternative is the Sytek's, at around $800/4 channels, it isn't spendy, but not in the same league as the others mentioned, either...
best of luck,

[bopmachine]

Great river. Just do it. Ask for him to match the transformers to you mic. Aside from that I use a ALtec 1567 tube mixer with Jensen transformers to match the impedance.

[Jason Poulin]

I used a pair of AEA R84's through the Great River MP2NV and it kicked ass!

sample on MP3 upload/advice needed section.

It's a great combo.

Jason

[Ribbonmicguy]

I like MP2NV, the Summit half rack TD1? amazed me as well.
Have used with dbx786, Milmedia origin, aphex 1100, Sytek.

To me it sounds best with GT VIpre.

Moko

[Elie]

Thanks for he input guys, it is useful for me, as usual.

bopmachine- do you use the Altec mixer alone with your ribbons? Could you tell me more about this unit?
E

[cookiekixx]

while ssl mic preamps are far from popular with alot of my friends, i've had great luck with rca ribbons and ssl preamps. even used that combination on a lead vocal! i've also used a melcor preamp with that mic but that could be not clean enough for classical stuff.

[7rojo7]

Melcor, I pulled apart a remote rig and parted out all the pre's and eq's. They were supercool transistor yeah but not modern quiet. The Millennia have a DC input which sublimely helps by bypassing the phantom blocking circuits and the 2 channel tube pre's come stock with this option. My first experience with a tube pre without blocking circuits and a dynamic mic was a bench test for passing signal, SENN 421, RCA tube pre (!), custom bench console, Hafler(?), NS-10s I swear that I was hearing a mirror image of street noises, there was a lo level exact DEPTH freq resp., etc... replication of what I heard from the window and what I was hearing from the NS-10s close to me
oh well time up gottago etc...

[Meriphew]

I'll second the opinion on testing it with a GT Vipre.