PRE-73 : Expensive Vintage sound quality at a budget price!

I bought this to record vocals and instruments in my home studio, specifically for use with my Warm Audio WA-47jr microphone.

I wanted to try and capture some of the more vintage sound quality you get from the Neve pre amps and Neumann/Telefunken microphones, but without busting my bank account. I have the Golden Age Project Pre 73 MIII already and was very excited to read that they had now had the Neve-inspired GAP Premium Pre-73.

On receiving the product, it comes in a very nice box with the usual GAP literature in the form of a nicely printed A4 card. Instructions for the full manual can be downloaded form the GAP website.

Installation and plug in is very straight forward. It sits very nicely on my desk.

In operation there is very little in the way of signal noise. I have used it for female vocals and it handles beautifully. The sound is smooth and certainly have that vintage colour you'd expect from a signal path that uses only discrete components like resistors, capacitors and transistors.

It sounds great: far, far better than anyone would expect of devices in this price range.

For thoseof you who want to venture into the use of vintage outboard equipment with out a huge budget I would highly recommend this product.

At a good 100 Euros less than the Warm Audio WA-73 or Heritage 73 preamps this is a dam good contender!