Crimson Audio's new HPA100 Headphone amp - Tim's Review

By Tim Dolbear
www.timdolbear.com

As I have written about before ( "What are you listening on?"), I like to check my mixes on headphones and earbuds. Of course I monitor while mixing through a Neumann K&H series monitoring setup but then switch over to check the over all EQ and how the mix translates using devices other than speakers in a room. I usually plug my headphones and earbuds into my Mytek Stereo192-DSD D/A converter, which of course has a very nice headphone amp built in.

Last year, Dan Hembree, who just happens to be my brother-in-law, left Rupert Neve Designs where he had worked designing many of their well know product to strike out on his own. His new company Crimson Audio LLC was soon established.

Dan quickly got busy designing up a soon to be released studio monitoring controller and other products, He also does design and engineering work for many other high end recording studio equipment manufacturers such as BAE, Nashville based Sphere Recording Consoles and Teagarden Audio.

The first product Dan has released under Crimson Audio is the headphone amp section from his monitor controller design; The HPA100. Last summer Dan asked me to beta test it so lets dive in...


I received the HPA100 and connected it to the outputs on the back of my Mytek Stereo192DSD and ran a wonderfully recorded classical recording out from my Sequoia workstation. I set up the volumes to match on both the Mytek's headphone output and the HPA100's output. This first test I simply came out the -10 outs on the back of the Mytek to feed the HPA100 thus leaving my studio monitoring unchanged. The HPA100 can accept a -10 or +4 input and you can select the RCA unbalanced inputs or the Balanced XLR-1/4" combination jacks by way of a selector on the front of the unit.

The HPA100 is a single headphone stereo channel amp and is meant for high quality listening, My live room headphone amps are made by Fostex (PH-5) and CAD, a 4 headphone channel unit. I also compared with these, though they are fed from my RME setups D/A converters and which are good, but are no Mytek D/A, ya know?

The difference between the Mytek Headphone out and the HPA100's output was not at first a huge difference. It seemed like the HPA100 had a slightly more open sound but at the end of the track, the music became more dynamic and the performance came to the big ending and there it was! I could hear a distortion in the recording, either a mic preamp or something in the recording signal chain clipping. Not digital distortion and not an overload feeding the HPA100, this was clip distortion from an analog piece of gear during tracking. I could hear it through the HPA100 and not through the Mytek.

I could also hear it through my Neumann monitoring system but not as apparent as the HPA100 revealed it. Amazing!  I was sold then and there.

Compared to the Fostex and the CAD, the HPA100 is in a different league. In comparison to the Mytek, it's a nice upgrade and worth it as it reveals noises and issues that were not reviled on other listening systems. If it can reveal such things and save me from missing something as important as this was to the classical recording, it's worth it!

Lastly, I asked Dan to send a unit over to Steven Epstein, a friend and decorated Classical Producer and he simply fell in love with it. Steve said about the HPA100 “The Crimson Audio Headphone Amplifier produces a transparent and natural sound which can be experienced in a variety of listening environments from the exacting demands of a recording studio to enjoying audiophile­-type quality at home”

Many Pro Audio shops will be carrying the HPA100 soon, but you can contact him directly if you want to test it out or buy one. It retails for $349 which is a fantastic deal for such design quality.

https://crimsonaudio.com/

sE Electronics Z5600a II and Voodoo VR1 microphone on review.

By Tim Dolbear
www.timdolbear.com


sE Electronics is the maker of many outstanding microphones, including my all time favorite small diaphragm condensers, The sE5. I fell in love with The sE5 while trying them out for my MIX review and you can read about them here:

MIX magazine review - sE5

Chris Dauray who works with sE and helped me out on the MIX review, setup me up with a few more 'of my choice' mics to try out. This time it was the Z5600a II multi-pattern large diaphragm condenser and a pair of Voodoo ribbon mics.

First up is the Z5600a II.  $1249 list

This is a 9 pattern tube condenser mic with built in -10 db pad and HP filter. It comes in a great flight case with remote power supply that also has the pattern selection on it, a large and of quality shock mount, and cabling.

The sound is upfront, mid-range focused and filled with harmonics, as you'd expect from a tube mic that has a good transformer in the output stage. The polar patterns range from Omni through Cardio to figure 8. I liked the sound of the mic in Omni pattern more than cardio.  Example, when tracking acoustic guitar, Set to cardio, the sound of the strings and left hand came through, but in Omni, the entire instrument came through. Also the added depth of the room came to life in Omni.

It was a very nice feature being able to dial in the polar patterns, if I wanted a Cardio pattern that was slightly more open than normal, simple select the setting that works. Very cool!

This mic would find itself at home tracking vocals for Rock and hardrock. This mic is on my list of wants for future purchases. :-)



Next up is the sE Voodoo Ribbon mic VR1. $499List

These are small passive ribbon mics that have an extended high range and are not a budget ribbon mic. I have try others in the $200-600 range and hated them, terrible. The Royer ribbon mics start at $1000 and I just have not gotten a chance to use them as I figured I would want to buy it if I loved it... So if the VR1 sounds of the quality of the $1000+ ribbons, I am in business. The VR1 comes in at half the price and with so many engineers bragging about their beautiful high end response and rich mids and lows, I could not wait to try them out.

The VR1 do not have a HP filter and of course due to the low output inherent to a ribbon microphone's design, no pad. Also, the VR1 has a transform on it's output so if you hit the mic with 48v phantom power, the mic will not have issue. This is unlike most ribbon mics on the market which will fry an ugly death if you accidentally hit them with phantom power.

I received a pair of mics so I could test them as overheads for drums, but first up was what these are known for and I had waited a long time to get them in here to try out; Electric Guitars.

The VR1 sounded creamy yet tight, smooth frequency response and no "dull high-end" like I have run into in the past with ribbons. It made my SM57 (Transformer-less) sound very upfront and tight but not in a good way. In fact, I could not believe how bad my normal guitar amping mics (SM57 transformer-less and Audix D1) sounded in comparison to the VR1.

The VR1 just Killed it!

Compared with my Shure KSM27, a condenser mic I often use for electric guitar, it simply had a more creamy smooth sound, the KSM sounded bright and even a tad harsh. Since the VR1 is a figure 8 pattern as most all ribbon mics are, it kept up with the condenser as they both had depth and "room" in their sound. The two complimented each other very well.

The VR1 is now my go to electric guitar mic. Its fantastic!

Many of my friends like ribbon mics as overheads, but for me I am not really a fan. First you need to be in a room with at least a 15ft ceiling as the figure 8 pattern catches reflections off the ceiling and kills the sound. Also the sound of a ribbon on a kit is very dull and not modern sounding to me at all. Even in a throwback vintage sounding recording, its not the sound I would look for. Just not to my personal taste.

Also if you are using a set of ribbons for over heads, I would only use a single as having 2 mics both in figure 8 pattern over a kit can cause all sorts of phase issues not to mention all the reflections being picked up. Just my 2cents.

I do look forward to using them on Horns (Brass) as I know the will be perfect. These have found a new home. I really really like these Ribbons and they deserve the hype they get.

Bravo sE, Bravo!


'till next time!

Monitoring...what are you double checking your work on?

By Tim Dolbear

www.timdolbear.com

Lets first start by stating and hopefully agreeing on this: Your studio control room's design and acoustic layout is the most important factor, If it's off, it does not matter what speaker or monitor setup you have, everything will be off.

Even my professionally designed control room at Eclectica Studios had issues that I dealt with for years and ended up throwing a lot of money at it to correct it.

I talk with many other mixing engineers about how they monitor while mixing. Some use one set of speakers, other have 3 or 4 pair, some studios have studio monitors all staked up on top one other... Some swear by the age old practice of burning the mix to CD or cassette before that and listening to their work in their car. Dave Pensado talks about the small Aurotones he keeps to the side of him, right next to each other simply to hear the song.

We live in a full range world now. 

For me, I have really settled into a setup that consist of a single high end monitor setup but with a few extras.

My Studio monitors are Nuemann KH Series: the KH120 and Sub, fed by the  Mytek Stereo192 DSD D/A. They sound amazing; clean, clear and correct.

Interestingly, for a minute I added a second set of 6.5" studio monitors, and had them sitting right next to the KH120s, But they killed the sound, the stereo field of the KH120s just closed up. Now when I see studio with speakers next to other speakers I wonder if they know what they are loosing by setting a big box next to a speaker they are listening too, or if they even noticed the stereo field disappearing and the sound closing up.

But really, what's the point of having lots of good sounding speakers that really sound basically the same when the consumer will be listening to your music on earbuds which have a completely different presentation or a Bose stereo system that is not setup to spec...

If I mix on speakers, as I do, and then switch to another pair of speakers, it confuses the situation as to my reference point of the tonalities of the mix..."Is there too much 600hz in the mix or is it just these speakers have more low mids than the first set?"

But popping in Earbuds or on a set of headphones will resets your brain and point of view for listening.

Aurotones are an interesting small 4.5" single speaker in a small box, and have for decades been "industry standard" for low-fi mix checking as they represented small boom boxes and TV speakers well. But it's almost 2016 (in a few weeks), people do not listen to music on boomboxes, or to their TVs using the built in speakers anymore. Boomboxes are now earbuds and headphones, TVs plug into Stereo and 5.1 Home systems. Car stereos are basically full range and decent nowadays,  no more single speaker AM radios for automobile entertainment.

While interviewing engineers and artist for the "How We Listen" feature I wrote for Professional sound I spoke with Tony Harnell and him mentioning how he only listens to music on his earbuds nowadays, I realized, outside my studio walls, things really are changing...

So instead of a 2nd and 3rd pair of speakers or my car... I now check my mixes using a set of medium range earbuds and a set of decent headphones that sit between the Bose headphones and crappy Beats headphones that are so popular with fashion conscience. Since checking mixes and masters with earbuds and headphones earlier this year, my work is translating better than ever to all mediums.

So a few things to take away...

You have to work in an acoustically correct room. You need one set of REALLY good monitoring and know how they sound like you know your own soul. You need to know how speakers and the room sound together and there is no better way than to listen to music you know and love on them everyday.

Then, you need to be checking your mixes on what the consumers will be listening to your work on. For the most part, if its not a full range stereo, its earbuds and headphones.

Adding body and girth to a thin snare drum sound using no samples.

By Tim Dolbear
www.timdolbear.com

What to do when the snare drum track you are mixing has no body to it...

I am mixing a rock album right now that has a very "PINGY" and thin sounding snare drum, yet most of the songs are dictating a warm, fat snare sound. In this case I really hate to trigger the snare and use a sample and loses all the drum's nuances. In fact over the last few years I really have stayed away from replacing drums, the feel is never exactly right and the overheads still play out the original. This is where re-micing comes in. Like Re-amping, but without the "amp sound". 

There are a few ways to re-mic a snare. Both ways require you playing the snare track out of your DAW and into a speaker in your live room. For me, I simply send a feed to the headphone amp and plug in whichever speaker cabinet I want to use.  

First you may have heard of, the old "My snare has no snare sound to it, it sounds like a tom" fix. For this you take a snare drum, placed on a stand and set a raw speaker (no cabinet) on top of the snare facing down. and bottom mic the snare drum. Or lay a 1x10 or 1x12" speaker cabinet on its back and place the snare drum face down on the speaker and mic the snare side, now facing up, of the up-side-down snare. When you feed sound into the speaker, it "hits" the snare drum and the snares on the 'bottom' of the drum react, mic records it. Simple. 

But today we are going to talk about adding girth and body to a thin snare sound, something that is not talked about as much as just adding "snare sound".

This recording had a top and bottom mic for the snare, each on its own track. Take a listen.

• The original Snare mics, top and bottom mixed together

• The original Snare top mic only

• Original snare tracks with kick and overheads 

I first solo's just the top mic track and feed it out of the DAW into the Headphone feed for the Live room. I plugged into the headphone amp an early '80's original 2x12 cabinet that has a Celestion G12-30 and a G12-35 speaker. These 2 speakers in this over sized cabinet have a nice low mid overtone, perfect for what I was looking for.



More about Eclectica Studios' speaker cabs

I then Mic'd the cabinet with a tranformer-less SM57 and sent it through a MANLEY FORCE preamp into an old Ashley SC50 compressor. Using the EQ on the original snare channel in the mix, I EQ'd the sound feeding the headphone amp so that what I was hearing coming out of the speaker and captured into my workstation was to my liking, I also added a slight gate to it to lessen the cymbal bleed.  Then I record the mic'd speaker to a empty track.

• Captured snare re-mic'd

Next I switched back to hearing just my workstation in order to mix the parts together and turned off the EQ i used to flavor the speaker. I zoomed in on the 3 tracks (Top, Bottom, and re-mic) and time aligned the new re-mic snare track to the top mic to be in phase.

(In the picture the Snare bottom track, in the middle, has been phase flipped 180 degrees)

Now, using the 3 faders I blended the 3 tracks of snare together and added a little high EQ to the Top snare mic track.

• 3 snare tracks mixed

• Final entire kit solo'd 

Download All the samples



Happen re-mic'n!

New Manley Variable Mu video and changes to my Youtube Channel

By Tim Dolbear
www.timdolbear.com

Hey all!

I wanted to invite you to my YouTube channel in case you have not been there before or have yet to subscribed to it. It has over 250k views which is cool for a channel with very specific recording studio info!

The URL is   https://www.youtube.com/TimDolbearOnline
(formally TimDolbearMagix)

This is different than the channel for Eclectica Studio with its videos specifically for the Studio.

Its URL is   https://www.youtube.com/EclecticaStudios

TimDolbearOnline contains videos for Samplitude and Sequoia DAWs, Fostex Monitors, UAD, and interview with famous engineers. Now it also contains a new section for Manley Labs, I will be adding more and more content for Manley Labs over the next few months, the first one is a rather technical video, but still interesting: Setting up the Variable Mu's service adjustments.

So please drop by my channel and subscribe!

Enjoy the video:

The Pillow and the Stone - The differences in microphone pre-amps and how to choose one.

By Tim Dolbear
www.timdolbear.com

For the last 20 years I have run the course of Mic Preamps here at Eclectica Studios. From crappy $50  "tube" preamps and built in mixer preamps to my collection of top-of-the-line Manley and Great River pres. I have learned so much. For me the Microphone Preamp is very important, more so than the mic. A bad preamp can make a $4000 mic sound like a $200 mic and a top of the line Mic Pre can make a $200 mic sound like a $4000 mic... Imagine what the $4000 mic sounds like through that top of the line pre! Mic Preamps can add color and warmth, harmonic richness, or the can add crud and cloudiness.

Every thing comes into play, The input impedance, the microphone amplification section, various features such as a high-pass filter, phase reverse or pad and the output section. and the output transformer. Not to mention is the output transformer adding or taking away from the sound?

History...

Peavey TMP-1 Tube Pre

For fun, here is a run down of pres I have had owned through the years:

Studio Master Diamond Series Mixer (Early 90's)

Peavey TMP1 (90's)

Bellari MP1  ( mid 90's through 2012)

ART MP 1 (90's)

Mackie 2404 (Mid 90's -2000)

Fostex Digital Mixers VM200 (2000-2003)

Mackie 2408 (2003-2012)

Warm Audio TB 12 (2013-2014)

Manley 40db Mono (2001-)

The "MASH" Unit (2001-)

Great River MP-2NV (2014-)

Manley FORCE (2015-)


I used my Studio Master Diamond series with my Fostex R8 Reel-Reel, and it sounded great for what I was doing at the time. But needing more inputs and routing capability, I moved up to a Mackie 2404. I had various different "tube" preamps that I had hoped would be an improvement on the built in Mackie Pres; the ART, the Bellari, the Peavey TMP1, but none of them really did anything great. I even swapped out the tubes with various upgrade tubes, even NOS (New Old Stock) RCA 12AX7 from 1963. The Bellari sounds a little nicer, but it was not a game changer.

...I came to realize that you can not get a wonderful tube sound from a unit using a wallwart. The Manley has 300vDC rails powering it. The ART MP1 can run on a 9volt battery...

studio 2001 with Fostex VM200s

In 1999 I opened Eclectica Studios and bought 2 Fostex VM200 digital boards. I soon after realized just how bad a mixer could sound and missed my Mackie 2404 big time. I soon bought my first REAL preamp, "real" meaning instead of a 5 cent op-amp chip that's found in mid/cheap lever mixer, the Manley 40db Mic Pre was 1 channel, $2200 retail and was PRO all the way. Its changed everything for me.

I took a tour of the Manley factory with my wife Angela in 2001 and bought the mic pre directly from Eveanna Manley. The entire drive home all I could think of is how I just spent almost $2000 on 1 channel of mic pre, basically 1 knob! We got to the studio and plugged it in and was floored at the difference. Even a SM58 sounded like a high end studio mic!

Realizing how amazing the sound of the Manley was, clear, tons of tone and resolution, I knew I needed more than just the 1 channel of hi-end mic pre, so I bought the Altec 1678 (aka the MASH unit, Microphone Amplification System Housing) for about $600, an old auto mixer made for installs that retailed for $3000+ in 1979. A monster unit with amazing transformers and sound. I had it mod'd so the inputs feed the mic preamp into the channel's volume control and then straight out the direct out bypassing all the Auto Mix features. I also had channels 4-8 mod'd to pad the input 3db. The MASH unit is solid state and up until that point in my career I did not know that solid state could sound as good as tube, difference but just as good.

I replaced the Fostex mixers, which were at this point just CUE mixers for head phone feeds and monitoring with a mod'd Mackie 2408. Its preamps were pretty good for a mixer a I used them to track drums since the MASH unit tended to clip the frontend when tracking LOUD drummers.

The Mackie left a few years ago when I moved to using totalmix for all cue mixing. At that point I had the Manley 40db, the MASH unit, and the Warm Audio TB12 which is a solid state API style mic pre.( My MIX Magazine review of the TB12)  The Warm Audio was soon replaced with the amazing Great River Neve style 2 channel MP-2NV preamp. We recently added the Manley FORCE, 4 channels of preamps that are designed differently than the 40db preamp but wonderful sounding. There will be a video series about the FORCE coming out soon, Watch my blog for more on that.

Great River MP-2NV

Manley 40db 

The Pillow and the Stone

So why the different preamps? If the Manley 40db sounded so amazing, why not buy 8 of them and you're done?

Picture a stone floor. Beautiful, with colors, grain and veins running through it.

Now picture a Pillow, the nicest pillow you have ever felt or seen. Silky, soft, the perfect size.

If you take a tennis ball and throw it at the stone floor it's going to bounce back to you, quickly and with strength and purpose and note the stone does not move at all. The stone floor is not smooth so there is also various reactions, the ball may vary its course and not bounce back perfectly to you and the harder you throw the ball at it the more the angles come into play, we call this odd order harmonic distortion. You can have a fun time bouncing things off of it, a golf ball, super ball, even dropping a drinking glass on it is fun and yields a interesting shattering.

Now throw the tennis ball at the pillow. No bounce and not really fun. it does kind of react and the pillow really reacts to the ball hitting it, we'll call this reaction even order harmonic distortion. Dropping the glass on it and the glass is preserved perfectly. If I lay my head down on the pillow, it's amazing! ...and I would not want to sleep with my head on the stone floor.

So for somethings, the pillow is the best choice, other times the stone is.  No right or wrong, simply choices since both are equally as good for their specific applications.

Harmonic distortion can best be heard in guitar amps.  If you listen to an old solid state guitar amp, you will hear odd order harmonic distortion which can seem more harsh, verses a tube amp whose distortion is based on even order harmonic distortion that is sweeter sounding and often called more musical. 

Examples

I chose the "pillow" and "stone" because  they are relevant to our audio uses. Tubes are the Pillow and solid state is the Stone in the example, My Great River and MASH unit mic pres are both solid state and the sound is more upfront than my Manley Tube Mic Pres. The Great River also sound more aggressive with a great strong mid-range, great for rock drums, bass, electric guitars, vocals... while the Manley is great for those things too but yield a different version, more depth, sweeter and more round, nice lows and sweet highs.

A bluesy electric guitar through the Manley Tube preamp sounds more 3d, warmer and full. The Great River yields a more upfront stronger sound. 2 completely different colors and each has its place.

For this example, and its not a prefect example, no Eq was used but some compression was used during tracking, same setting, 2 different compressor units (Ashley SC50/55). The Kick mic is a transformer-less SM57, Snare is my strange Cad dynamic mic. No overheads, just the 2 channels of kick and snare.

Kick and snare through the Manley Force
www.eclecticarecordings.com/audio/blog102415/Manleydrums.mp3

Kick and snare through the Great River MP-2NV
www.eclecticarecordings.com/audio/blog102415/GRdrums.mp3

So I choose simply depending on what I am recording. For male vocals, Singer songwriter style, the Manley tube preamp, and for Male Rock vocal, most likely the Great River MP-2NV. For violin, tube, for acoustic guitar, tube, but for acoustic guitar in a driving dense mix, the Great River.

Its really wonderfully having these 2 very different types of preamp in a recording to add the range of colors. See my blog post on using variations to make your recordings BIG sounding. spice-is-spice-of-life

I hope this helps you understand and think about types of preamps and understand the value of good preamps. My best advice is to rent as many high end preamps as you can and try them out. When you find and buy ones you love, you will keep them forever so they are worth investing in.

What is this?

Tim Dolbear
www.timdolbear.com

Last Friday I was in NYC and spent the day at Sony/Battery Studios located in the formal home of the Record Plant. I had a blast hanging out with the gang there. Everywhere you look was amazing history and vibe from years of amazing artist working in those rooms; John Lennon, Kiss, Aerosmith, Paul Simon, Jimi Hendrix, New York Dolls, and so many more.

Nowadays the studio is the mastering studio for Sony and its subsidiaries and they are not only master the new releases, but handle the transfer of the older music to digital for achieving. At one point Vic Anesini handed me a 1/4" reel in an old box, I flipped it over and it was the original master for many Elvis songs recorded in the early 1960's. Amazing!

That brings us to this:

Since records made during and just after WWII were made of lesser than quality ingredients, the lacquer is no longer sticking to its sub-frame and thus the album is falling apart. So in order to transfer in for achieving, they have to go to the original metal stamp that was made for record pressing... and this record player will play a metal stamp!

The table turns backwards and you use the arm on the left whose needle is an upside down "V" shape not a normal down facing point. Since not only does it spin backwards, but the the grooves are no longer valleys, but are mountains and the needle has to straddle the the ridge. Dig?

It was amazing to check out as it is a one of a kind.


Btw, it lives in this room: