Nobody has opinion?
(:

i too am looking for a pre-amp

people here tend to say that the 737 is overrated!
but they say too that it goes well with the u87

kurt loves the sebatron

Avalons may be a bit pricey, but they sound wonderful. We've got a pair in every room. Try one out in a shop I'd say.

Phil Plumpton
Technical Engineer
Olympic Studios, EMI Studios Group
London

The Avalon is a mic pre/compressor in a 2RU unit. The Apogee is a 1/3 rack width 1RU mic pre with softlimit and some A/D converters. If I were looking for a good quality mic pre, I think I'd go with a company that's known for good quality mic pre's. Ever hear anyone rave about the pre in the min-me or mini-MP? Not knocking them, but the Avalon is built like a brick shithouse compared to the Apogee and it doesn't try to be an entire front end in a teeny tiny box.

Ever hear anyone rave about the pre in the min-me or mini-MP?

I have...they sound great. If you're looking for a nice clean preamp. For vocals, they may not be my first choice. And I wouldn't consider the SoftLimit feature quite flexible enough to be considered a real "compressor" that you'd want to track vocals with. I would prefer the Apogee for acoustic guitar, though.

Having said that, you may want to look at a Focusrite ISA220. I have one myself and may be a little biased, but it's less money than the Avalon, has more features, and I think it sounds at least as good. It's obviously subjective, but the preamp and compressor quality seem to be a tossup. Most seem to prefer the EQ in the Focusrite. And it has a dedicated de-esser and limiter. I'm very happy with mine...

-Duardo

"The Apogee is a 1/3 rack width 1RU mic pre with softlimit and some A/D converters."

I had oportunity to listen vocal in studio of my friend run through Manlay VoxBox and Sony 800(mic) through Apogee converters and without and I can tell you that VoxBox and Sony 800(15000$ both)
did not gave either 60% of their sound when run without apogee conv.
So I thought having Mic pre and converters in one would be the best for me.

Apogee makes some really good converters, not knocking that. If you're looking for a world-class pre, though, I think I'd be looking at something more along the lines of the Avalon and then capturing it to my DAW with Apogee converters.

Not that you'll get bad results from the pre in the MiniMe, but I think the Avalon totally kicks it's ass.

I was looking into the Apogee Minime. But in my case it was for field recordings. If you don't need it to go anywhere you might be better off with something more flexible.

The only thing I found out from reading about the Apogee was that he is very clean. If it's that what you are after then it might maybe be a good choice.

I think you're comparing apples to oranges.
Each box is very different. The Apogee will offer better conversion (a must) than most home DAW's come with but does not have a real compressor. The pre amp is very clean, like a Millinia or John Hardy or the Trak2. The Avalon is more of a standard mic pre/compressor combo.

Eventually, you will need them both. Welcome to the club :wink:
chap