Seagate X18 18TB Hard Drive
Nov 23, 2022
Production and Creative
This holiday season is a great time to pick up hard drives at a competitive price. With…
ART Precision Phono Preamp for Turntables Review
One of the things we've been doing during Covid is listening to more vinyl. It's been nice to revisit the analog realm of the spinning discs. Of course, it was also a good time to check out some phono preamps. We created a nice compact setup with our vintage Pioneer turntable, Yamaha studio monitors and an ART Precision Phono Preamp. We pick it up for $65 and think it provides excellent value. It's small, easy to connect, nicely labeled and sounds great.
The ART includes settings for moving magnet and moving coil cartridges. It has a switchable low-cut filter and includes standard photo line input and output jacks. It's a very small unit so the power supply is external. On the front there's a gain control, clipping indicator and really bright power light. Really. They could make this 1/10 the brightness and that would be fine. ART should have a dimming capability because if you want to fall asleep to some vinyl this light is going to keep you up. Now, if you prefer to have a nighlight this offers extra value. Depends how you look at it but yes we had to put a cloth over that light at night. It's distracting. <br<
Other than that, this is a great little preamp. The sound quality clean and transparent with plenty of ouuput. We were able to drive our Yamaha studio monitors to very high output level no problem. For a simple, clean and very good sounding setup the ART Precision Phono Preamp is an excellent value.
Learn more and get all the specs here.
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- Category: Home Electronics
Metric - Brie Larson - Blacksheep - Emily/Brie Mashup - 2021
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- Category: Music Mix
Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro Headphones Review, 250 Ohm version
The Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro Headphones offer an excellent value in the $150 price range for professional level headphone with excellent isolation and long lasting comfort. There's a reason so many of our production friends refer to these as “the clouds” and you're seeing podcasters and field mixers replace their trusty Sony MDR-7506s with the DT 770s.
The DT 770s come in several versions depending on what type of device you think you'll be using to drive them. We've tested both the 80 Ohm and 250 Ohm versions and recommend the 250 Ohm version when connecting to professional gear and quality headphone amps. The 250 Ohm version pair nicely with a Mackie mixer for example and we could mix with confidence on par with our studio monitors. We found the 80 Ohm version a little boomy and less accurate.
The DT 770s are nicely made with beautiful velour ear pads that make them comfortable to wear for extended sessions. Since these pads are inherent to the design you get the comfort and the quality sound. If you replace the ear pads on the Sony MDR-7506s with velour pads the sound is not the same and they're still not as comfortable to wear as the DT 770s. The DT 770s have a better feel overall. We also like the look of the silver pads.
The DT 770s are not nearly as heavy as they look. Before taking them out of the box we expected them to just feel heavy. That wasn't the case and we were pleasantly surprised by the design. It's just the right mix of metal and plastic. You can't really fold them up in a compact way like the MDR-7506s but that's not a concern in the studio. They're kinda too nice to take in the field anyway. That's what the Sony's are for.
We're not sure why we waited so long to try the DT 770s. We just got so used to the $100 headphones from Sony, Shure and AKG. If you can, spend a little more and check out the DT 770s, especially the 250 Ohm version. You'll find them on Amazon as low as $125 but typically around $150. They're certainly worth a listen and will be in our arsenal going forward.
Visit Beyerdynamic for more details and all the specs.
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- Category: Production and Creative
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