Mic Pres: Focusrite ISA one Vs. Grace m101

I've come to hate the concept of stand-alone preamps. Or more specifically, interweb discussions about them.

Since it's hard for the average home studioist to get to test the different options properly, and since all magazine reviews seem to just say "good clean preamp for the money" about any given preamp, you have no choice but to take some forum geek's word for it! Have you ever been to GearSlutz.com? Those guys are so passionate about their gear, they will defend it to the death!

Tell me if you've you heard this one before: "There is a threshold to pro preamp sound that lies at $1000 PER CHANNEL. That is the smallest amount you can pay that will be a significant step up from built-in interface pres". Note that this implies all interface preamps being equal and crap, even though the quality of built-in preamps are discussed with fervor in "what interface to buy" threads.

If you can't afford that, buy room treatment ("But my room is already nicely treated!" - "That's impossible! If you think your room is great, you're simply not a PRO! Buy more room treatment!!!")

So you think: "Well $1K will buy me the cheapest one-channel Great River pre, which everyone seems to like" (exept some geek with 10000 posts who will inevitably pop in and state that it's total garbage compared to the APIs, Avalons and Neves that he's read about).

But then someone will say, "That being said (the $1000 per channel limit), the FMR Really Nice Preamp (RNP) is great value for money (~$500 for TWO CHANNELS)! NOW WHAT THE FUDGE DOES THAT MEAN? IS IT PRO OR IS IT CRAP???

From there on it gets worse. Someone will say that THEY THINK the Black Lion Auteur or True Systems P-Solo are far better options in the RNP's price range and will sound better than units several times the price. Someone will say that the $1000 limit applies to transformer balanced preamps only, since wire+gain types of designs are cheap and easy to make.

Someone will certainly mention the New Offical GearSlutz Low-End-Theory preamp, the $300 (transformer based[!])Golden Age Project Pre-73. Someone will say that that unit is absolute crap until you replace the stock chinese output transformer with a proper Carnill tranny. Someone will say that that modification makes the unit unreasonably expensive (~$400 with the mod, still way under the $1K pro club admittance fee), and a few guys will say that the unit is crap, period.

The most interesting stuff happens whenever some forumite has bought a new fancy preamp and posts a single blind comparison against his cheap gear.

It will go something like this:
"Bought a New Fancy Preamp and it totally blows me away, so I've posted files for you to compare:
Guess which wav-file X,Y,Z is
- Fancy New Preamp
- Behringer 4-channel mixer
- Built in M-Audio Interface Preamp"

As often as not, that's when an Emperor's New Clothes moment follows as the enthusiastic posters are all over the place ("'X' is cleaner and more presise, 'Y' is punchier and warmer, 'Z' is just muddy crap", I'm certain that 'Y' is the New Fancy) if Z is revealed to be the New Fancy Preamp, which I've seen happen, all the posters experience cognitive dissonance, the thread dies and everyone forgets it ever existed.

So, in this lengthy post I've tried to save you some time and energy researching stand-alone preamps on the interweb. Did you get any wiser?

My current to-buy preamp is the Audient Mico, for no reason other than that the digital outs will expand my setup to 10 simultaneous inputs instead of 8! I'm sure there are cheaper options, but I just can't completely kill the GearSlut in me...

Sven

P.S. I forgot Gearslutz obligatory commandment NO. 1: Buy the freakin' SM7B microphone already!

Thanks buddy! As you perhaps remember, I had a "which pre is best value" thread of my own in here a few months ago. Reading GearSlutz threads kinda stole my thunder back then, and I ended up not buying anything.

I'd advice anyone to avoid going there, especially do not read threads about gear you own and like, since you will be questioning your own sanity before long (How can I like this thing when so many pro-sounding people says it's crap? I must be deaf...)
 
It's like the anti-thesis of Harmony Central's User Reviews section, whereupon reading about your stuff for an hour makes you think you own the most badass home studio in the known Universe!

Sven

I really appreciate the interesting and thoughtful responses! That was a great read Sven.

I'm in the position where I have no illusions about ever doing this even semi-professionally - I just want to have fun and have things sound a bit better! That's to say Mike, that at the moment I don't think I could justify in reason or ability the cost of the Great River, as nice as that would be.

I've owned a few mic pres in the past that have been solid (DBX 576, JoeMeek VC6, Aphex 207), but I'm looking for something a bit cleaner than any of those!

Sometimes I wonder if my ears are good enough to tell much of a difference between mediocre and good gear anyway. Compared to what was available when I started messing around with this years ago, the quality:price ratio now is quite amazing.

Thanks again, and of course, I'm interested in other's thoughts too if you have them!

I ended up getting a UA Solo 110 and I love it!

I'm going to end up getting another pre or two in the near future... I'm interested in the SSL Alpha VHD (not the alpha channel) the UA 710, Grace 101, ISA 428 and a few others... haven't looked into it too much yet but there's lots to choose from and it's definitely confusing since there is so much conflicting and subjective information out there. And to top it off, it's hard for most of us to even have a chance (if not impossible) to have an objective comparison between preamps in our own studios... 

I've heard great things about both of those pre-amps, I think either one will be a nice step up from your current set-up.
I will say this... you do hear a lot about the value a good pre-amp adds. I was skeptical of this but when I stepped up from a PreSonus BlueTube to my current PreSonus Eureka, I really could tell the difference and I've never regretted the purchase.  But not too long ago I was doing a recording and thinking I was just recording scratch tracks, I recorded another singer's vocals just doing direct into my interface (a Lexicon Omega). It ended up being a really good take so I kept it. When I posted it on the Songs forum, someone mentioned they loved my signal chain on the vocals!! It was still a good mic, etc. - but the point is I don't think you need a real fancy preamp for your typical home-recording quality work.  But if you've got the $$ to spend - do it!!

How did you like your ISA One? In the years since this thread, what have you come to learn about various preamps?
 
I was looking at these two preamps as well and I went for the cheaper ISA. I think it's oversized and ugly but it does well with condenser mics, though not much better than my other preamps. It has been good for low output dynamic mics when I do louder vocals but exhibits more hiss than I'd like when recording normal to low vocals (spoken word to breathy singing). One characteristic I like about the ISA One over my cheaper preamps is that while they have similar noise levels, the distortion on them is bad at higher gain levels. The ISA One has been practically distortion free. Have these been your experiences as well?

Another ISA owner here.  I've previously owned two ISA Ones, and currently own an ISA Two.  I've never owned a Grace (although I've been tempted many, many times), so I can't really compare them.  Gotta agree with everything AT posted above regarding the ISAs - it's a lot of preamp for not much money.  If you're the hardcore gearslutz-type who demands that incremental increase in performance/sound/color, then be prepared to spend a little-to-a-lot more.  But, if you want a solid, reliable, clean and very flexible preamp for a great price, there is little that can compete with the ISAs IMO.  The ISA One has the advantage of operating as two pres - e.g., one for vocals and another simultaneously for guitar.  I didn't really use it in that capacity, but it sure is a nice feature to have, particularly for home/hobby studios.

I bought an ISA One a couple of years ago and use it on  nearly every project now.
 
It has enough gain available to suit my cheap ribbon mics and to my ears, it's completely distortion free and retains natural dynamics & warmth pretty well