ART USB Dual Pre

[theshaggyfreak]

Now, ART doesn't make the best stuff out there but I've had a lot of good luck with a number of their products. I have their Tube PAC preamp and the Tube MP preamp and I've gotten quite a bit of use out of them. Well, I recently got a new laptop and I wanted to have a small USB interface to throw in my bag if I wanted to do some mobile recording. Considering how much I spent on gear lately, I didn't want to spend a ton of cash on a potable interface that I'd only use once in a while.

After doing some research, I came across the ART USB Dual pre on Zzounds for $80. I read a bunch of reviews on various sites and about the only real complaint was that the control on the back are a bit crowded. It's a tiny portable USB interface? What do you expect? Most other reviews were fairly positive.

Anyway, I finally got mine in today and I'm rather impressed. First of all, the housing is aluminum. I really hate having a cheap piece of plastic that will end up getting broken because it's something I just want to throw in my bag. All of the pots feel pretty tight and don't feel cheap. As far as the build goes, my only complain is the 9v battery compartment. While it's awesome to have the option of using a battery to power the preamps, it's really hard to get a battery out of the unit once it's in there. Luckily you can just power the preamps from your computer or an optional wall wart.

How does the thing sound? Not bad! I don't have any samples to throw out yet but I tested a couple dynamic mics and a condensor and everything sound quite clear. Now, the preamps don't have a heck of a lot of gain. You've only got 48db of gain on each channel but that should be enough for most things. As far as outputs go, I only tested the headphones so far and it sounds fairly good. It's nice that you can mix in the audio coming directly from the preamps with the computers output.

So, I think it's worth $80 and would probably stand up to other products costing in the realm of $200. I can't imagine wanting to use it as a main interface but it certainly would do the job if you're strapped for cash. It really is the perfect size to throw into your laptop bag, though. Since it's USB compliant, I was just able to plug it into my laptop and get going.

Anwyay, I thought I'd throw this out there in case anyone was looking for something portable and cheap.