LAKE PEOPLE MIC-AMP F311-Q 4-Channel Microphone Preamp

Certainly capable, but not without it's flaws.

I bought this after reading some glowing reviews of Lake People on forums. Needing 4 more channels this seemed perfect, and the price per channel is good compared to other high end preamps. I wanted to use this for critical classical work, but I ended up returning it, so I'll explain why first. My first criticism is about the gain dials, which they do explain clearly on their site. They increase in 6dB intervals, which is a lot. You hear a pretty big jump in volume with one click. I didn't think it would be a big deal initially, but it ended up being annoying to work with. Their higher end preamps have a finer gain adjustment, and I just can't figure out why they wouldn't make this preamp have 3dB stepped gain (there are even indicators every 3dB, but the dial just clicks right over it!). Anyway, the first mics I plugged in were a Royer SF2 and Samar AL95 that I like on the neck and bridge of the guitar, and matching the gain was impossible. Of course there are work arounds by simply adjusting the gain in post, but it felt like an unnecessary compromise. I then decided to do a shootout with against my Pueblo Audio and Prism Titan preamps. In terms of sound quality, they are all great and in a similar category or "uncolored" preamps. The differences I'm about to list are actually very minor, but were clear enough to me that I decided against keeping the Lake People preamp. You know the saying "the music lives in the mids", well it felt like the Pueblo and Prism captured the transients and colour very naturally, while the Lake People preamp was slightly more percussive, and has ever so slightly more exaggerated transients. To me, as someone who primarily records guitarists, the sharper plucking transient is undesirable. Mind you, I only mic'd myself playing classical guitar, so I certainly didn't run it through it's paces at an orchestra or opera. It is certainly a very good pre, but when you can hear a little more beauty in another preamp it's hard to justify keeping it even at this modest price. Having said all this, I am sure someone will have the exact opposite experience from me, as my applications are very specific. There is a lot of subjectivity in evaluating a preamp, and it totally depends on what/how you are recording. In terms of absolutes, the Lake People preamp is amazingly quiet, and beautifully constructed. The meters are a really nice touch too. I really wanted this because the Pueblo preamp has a huge power supply which is quite frankly a pain to always lug around and set up as it needs to be in a separate rack, so this would have made for a much more portable yet high end setup. I wish I could justify keeping it, because the number of channels, the clean gain, and the form factor are all perfect for me, but it just seems to bring out qualities in the music that would really become fatiguing over time.