Cranborne audio Préampli micro

Cranborne audio Préampli micro

The Camden EC1 we are talking about here is a mono preamp, which comes in the form of a half 19'' horizontal. A format which can be rather practical for a mobile installation, a home studio more home than studio, but which does not fit particularly well in a studio whose other machines are generally in trays provided for the 500 or 19 'formats '.

When we observe the front panel, we can distinguish the major part dedicated to the preamp on the left, from a small section on the right which seems rather to concern monitoring and announces to us “Aux”, “Ext” and other “C.A.S.T. »… We will come back later on this part which raises a lot of questions.

The grip is quite pleasant and inspires confidence: the potentiometers are solid, the most useful and stressed in particular, which are larger and more resistant than the others – it is very consistent from our point of view. Same observation on the connectors, the selectors, the power supply: overall the EC1 seems sturdy and well made. Honestly! And not to spoil anything, it is rather pretty, in a dark and sober style, the font is elegant and we find among the inscriptions evocative words like mojo, cream, thump…

Essentially, there is 1 XLR microphone input, 1 XLR or jack (6.35 mm) output, and a jack link at the back. At the front, a jack input which can be used in line or in HI Z as a DI, attacked directly from an instrument.

A small selector allows you to choose the input between Mic / Line / HI Z but we also have a low cut, a polarity inverter and obviously a 48v power supply: the classics of this kind of preamp are good the. Note that the LED which signals 48v in On is colored in different ways when switched on / off or during use, as if to signal a short stand-by time. The color of the LEDs is also a small specialty-gadget of the Camden. To the left of the panel, there is a postgain input signal LED. It works like a vu meter on a single LED and goes from blue to green, then to orange, before indicating saturation when it goes to red.

Finally, the gain is notched – that, we like – but on unusual values: 19, 30, 41, 52, 63. We can put that down to British pranks, to be stored alongside their units of measurement, etc. . On arrival, it bothered us a bit for what we will be talking about right after: comparing the Camden to other preamps in an identical context.