UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

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j_e_f_f_g
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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

You can certainly make a tube amp that sounds very nice. That's not the issue.

The problem is that it will cost more than the solid state. It will weigh more. It will be less electrically efficient. It won't be as road-worthy.
And it will have some parts that are difficult to replace (assuming you can find a repairman who will even work on it). Plus, a comparable quality solid state amp can definitely sound as good.

And certainly, you can make a crap sounding solid state amp. Just don't design it well, and use low quality parts. In fact, because it's so expensive to make tube-based circuits today, no company is going to make a "cheap-sounding" tube amp. On the other hand, solid state parts can be so cheap today, that it's a no brainer to make a piece of crap solid state amp. And a number of companies do that to maximize their markup.

Because there are no shit-designed tube amps today, (and the old products were made better quality than today), and because there are lots of junk solid-state amps, is why guitarists have this completely mistaken notion that tube amps are therefore always better than, and inherently sound different than, solid state. They don't. But you can believe otherwise when you're comparing a quality product (with a premium price) against a mediocre product (at a much cheaper price). That's not a valid comparison upon which to base a judgement regarding the merits of tubes versus solid state.

So my point is to tell guitarists that there's nothing superior nor unique about tubes. Circa 2023, they in fact have the aforementioned drawbacks. Let this obsolete tech die. Buy solid state (but not the cheap garbage.)

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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by merlyn »

Usually the internet argument is that valves are better. I thought saying that "valves are different" was suitably un-controversial, possibly even self-evident. Jeffg could start a fight in an empty house. :D

GMaq wrote: Sat Feb 25, 2023 11:39 pm

Draw your own conclusions... I am the skeptic of skeptics and own a few good tube amps, this showed me that modeling has come a LONG way..

https://youtu.be/l0SQcrIK_L8

A DSP model is more suitable for modelling a valve than a transistor circuit 'model' as DSP could model the non-linearity of valves, which is what we're after. A DSP model may sound very close, but I would have to try it before I could say whether or not it feels the same.

j_e_f_f_g wrote: Sun Feb 26, 2023 1:45 am

... I have an associates of science in electrical tech (ie the first 2 years of an Electrical Engineering degree). I understand what tubes and transistors do. And that's why I know the former doesn't do anything the latter can't.

I managed four years, and got a degree in Electronics with Music, so that's merlyn BEng (Hons) to you pal. Unless you studied in the 1960s I doubt you covered valves in your course. You're speculating. It seems that transistors should be able to do anything valves can do, but due to the inconvenient fact of matter obeying the laws of physics, they can't.

You're probably using a valve and don't know it. Do you have a microwave oven? A valve is used in the magnetron of a microwave oven, as silicon can't handle the high frequency/high current required. Valves are also used as power components in radio masts, for the same reasons. This categorically refutes the proposition that "anything valves can do, transistors can do."

What I said was that valves feel different, and you would only know that by playing a guitar through one. Until you run that particular experiment, STFU.

Trying to gaslight people is not nice. It's like me telling you that a synth action and a fully weighted hammer action are the same, without having tried either.

If you want to get into the technicalities of valves and transistors, bring it on.

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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by bluzee »

Yes, this is correct. Tubes are still widely used in RF amplifiers. Guitar players would be a tiny niche market.

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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by sunrat »

merlyn wrote: Mon Feb 27, 2023 2:27 pm

Usually the internet argument is that valves are better. I thought saying that "valves are different" was suitably un-controversial, possibly even self-evident. Jeffg could start a fight in an empty house. :D

Best paragraph in this whole thread!

Vinyl is better than digital too. :twisted:
Most of us know it's not, as far as frequency response, signal-to-noise ratio etc. I love hearing a well-produced lossless digital recording, but sometimes there's an undefinable joy in putting an LP on the turntable, placing the stylus, and just listening to those tones emanating, and looking at the album cover.
There's a similar joy in seeing a valve, hearing that unnatural harmonic distortion. It can sound nice despite engineers saying and knowing it's not absolutely pure reproduction.
Disclosure - I don't own any valve amps any more. I used to have a beautiful 1960s Kenwood valve receiver, from before that company folded and sold the name to the current owner which produces consumer audio crap.

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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by merlyn »

Looks like we dealt with that. Back to valve preamps ...

sjzstudio wrote: Wed Feb 22, 2023 12:05 pm

That could be a great device, but it becomes quite expensive if you take it with all the goodies.

https://en.uraltone.com/kits/studio-kit ... sarja.html

I'm getting 'page not found' on that link. A valve mic preamp ... That is a different application of valves from a guitar amp. Often audio engineers talk about a 'transparent' sound. By transparent they mean it doesn't colour the sound in any way, in other words it does nothing, only increasing the level. An electronic engineer would call this a Linear Time Invariant system, or LTI. It's the holy grail for engineers, as real components often don't want to be LTI. LTI turns out to be not what musicians want at all. What's good about valves for a guitar amp is that they are non-linear, particulalrly for the power amp.

For a preamp with character it's about whether you want to colour the signal on the way in. The tendency these days would be to record the signal clean, then apply processing. But e.g. Brian Eno recorded with effects on, saying "If it sounds good, I'll take it."

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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by sjzstudio »

Does that work better?
https://en.uraltone.com/kits/studio-kit ... sarja.html

As for the sound, there are a couple of reviews from those who have built their own. Since few here know Finnish, I translated my laziness with google translator:

Warm and traditional sound
Assembling the cards was easy, but the rest of the wiring took more time. I first tried without pads / phantom so that everything works and only then did I tap to the end. The sound is really very warm and familiar from BBC recordings. The vocal sound is thick and mellow. Almost done without any post-processing. That's the best thing about these: With super clean ethers, you have to search for that sound with pluggers, but it comes directly from such devices.

This is not super clean, but you can get that sound directly with the interface's own pickups. This is used to search for color and also a little bit of compression.

The device is completely silent, meaning there are no disturbing disturbances. That's why it's designed with high quality.

It's not a completely free package, but when even at double the price you can't get the same high-quality ready-made piping from the store, you have to give 5 stars for the price as well.

The only not so nice step was drilling the case. Hammond's case is stylish after all, but I could have left the drilling to someone else :) However, it didn't take long even though the tool was only a cordless drill.

There were some errors in the instructions, but they were corrected and I automatically received new instructions. Apparently now everything is fixed or at least my device works as it should. Support answered all questions quickly.

Review by Ääneheppu

Posted on 10/26/22

Glorious!
A two-channel version was built with Lundahl transformers.. Shall we say now that this ether sounds so damn good that you'd like to just shut up and keep it to yourself, hoping that no one else comes up with something similar???? The first nice surprise was that no matter what mics you feed to it, it works with even the most old-fashioned mics (old low-ohm mics, etc.) and it seems that they all sound better than what you thought each microphone was capable of.
I had to try about 25 different microphones with this one and with each microphone I had to think a little that ohhoh.. Does this sound this good too? ????
I also compared this to Telefunken's V72, Calrec PQ1161-02, and Bae 1073 among other things.. Where, for example, Telefunken's V72 is on the soft side and relaxed, this one is clean and "present winning" in a good way.
This also has a really sweet, rough top end in a good way, which cuts well through the mix and already sounds a bit compressed and "ready-made album sounds" when recorded raw.
If you were to try to compare it to something, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the Johnny Cash / Hurt vocal sound. The priority is also very versatile for being only a priority. The settings really change the nature of the sound, but everything is still so simple that you can't really screw anything up while playing with the pedals.
You can make the sound source sound good in many different ways, depending on the setting of the lower head cutter and the positions of the attenuator, pad, gain and fine gain. At the same time, Fine gain also works as some kind of EQ, i.e. it changes the character of the upper end from darker to brighter.
I also tried the front stage with guitars/bass and I found a very wild fuzz-like distortion when I ran the guitar through two channels, i.e. from the line output of the first channel to the instrument input of the second channel ???? The instrument input is quite on the hot side, so -20db pad seemed to be quite necessary, especially with hotter pickups and bass.
Of course, there were also bad aspects of the device ???? Namely, I would like to get these 2, 4 or 6 more channels???? That was also the absolute downside that I was inspired to order an old Hofner violin bass too, inspired by the Beatles-esque trend at the front ????????????
As for the construction, the cards were very easy and quick to put together and all the components felt sturdy and high-quality anyway. When tapping rotary switches, you have to be even more precise that you don't carry too many beers to sip while taking a break from tapping???? All in all, a really inspiring and great-sounding device and definitely more like this ????

Review by Shareholder

Posted on 10/26/22

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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by merlyn »

If I click on the British flag at the top of the page it works. The goodies you were talking about are Lundahl transformers. Wow. They are not cheap. That's probably another argument -- transformers versus an active circuit. :D

I remember seeing the inside of one of the early Focusrite preamps from when Rupert Neve was still involved, and it had Lundahl transformers. Neve famously designed the desk at George Martin's Air studios, and it was described as "no compromise". That meant it used Lundahl transformers and class A preamps. Class A is probably yet another controversial topic, and that's because it's an engineering term, which takes some technical knowledge to understand what it means, but it's used as marketing.

You would be forgiven for thinking 'A' means 'the best'. It actually means the transistor or valve is always biased, so current is always flowing. For audio it is the best, but at the price of being hugely (ridiculously) inefficient, and not suitable for anything above 5W.

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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by bluzee »

Of course the biggest advantage to having a tube amp......

Image

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Re: UralTone REDD .47 1 or 2-channel all tube mic pre kit

Post by tseaver »

@bluezee
Love that image!

Reminds me of a culture clash when I first visited Europe for a software conference, umpteen years ago: one event on the schedule was a "barbecue", to be held at ~ 18:00 hours, where the last session ended around 17:30: the entry on the calendar said, "bring your own meat," which completely threw me for a loop! Where I come from, "barbecue" implies long (8+ hours) cooking over low, indirect heat, usually with smoke: the event they were advertising (fast cooking over high, direct heat) would be called a "cookout."

Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the thought of the smell of the fat from those sausages and roasts, dripping on the power amp tubes.

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