Is Jim Right? Neve 1073 style preamps vs Scarlett 2i2 1st Gen mic preamp comparison

Everyone has heard it. “All microphone preamps sound the same.” Or are they? Following up on the Part - 1 of this video, we are putting things into a little bit more perspective, and providing guidance on what we are doing above all, we are hopefully asking a more scientific question: Can we detect an audible difference between a professional microphone preamp and a reference Scarlett 2i2 at different gain settings? To answer that, we designed a controlled experiment that attempts to minimise as many variables as possible. A single microphone signal is split simultaneously into two recording paths, allowing the exact same snare hit to be captured by both the reference interface and the preamp under test. Each gain setting is treated as an independent measurement, with loudness normalised afterwards to reduce listening bias. The purpose is not to produce absolute measurements or rank preamps. It is simply to investigate whether audible differences emerge as gain increases, while keeping the methodology transparent and reproducible. 00:00 Introduction 00:20 What are we testing? 00:48 Jim's questions 02:20 Jim's conclusions 02:58 What is our question? 03:30 Experimental Configuration 06:20 Rupert Neve Shelford 09:46 Neve 8801 14:13 BAE 1073 16:51 AMS Neve 1073 19:11 Final words. Visit out web site and if you are a guitar player check out our Kemper profiles: https://www.skylabsfx.com We would genuinely like to hear your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for watching.