CroatianSensation
Well-known member
I was having a shitty day 'til I stopped by here and saw CJ was back!
:grin:
Wohoo!
:grin:
Wohoo!
Anyone build the UA M610?
- Thread starter abby normal
- Start date
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CroatianSensation
Well-known member
Me too.
Bacon, midgets and monkeys make things better. :thumb:
Bacon, midgets and monkeys make things better. :thumb:
abby normal
Well-known member
[quote author="SSLtech"]
How is a wall-wart with a transformer, a rectifier and a smoothing cap noisier than an inboard transformer with a rectifier and a smoothing cap?
-If anything it could be expected to be QUIETER than inboard...?
Some distinctly prejudiced -and faulty- thinking going on round here... :?
Keith[/quote]
True and you would thunk. :?:
But if they are expecting you to buy any garden variety wall wart then it comes into question. If they say that you need to buy only theirs then it's possible that they designed a really top notch power supply unit in the form of a wall wort.
Would you build your next high end preamp with a piece of crap transformer and inadequate supply filtering? I suspect they did not either. I have limited knowledge of pro audio design I will admit, and I have never seen a Portico up close and personal, but I would guess that they engineered these preamps to be as small as possible and to use an off board power supply as a means to cut down size and on noise levels. I would also guess that they want you to use their power supply in addition for that very same reason. I'm I way off here? If so I'll lay off the brews for the evening. :grin:
:guinness:
How is a wall-wart with a transformer, a rectifier and a smoothing cap noisier than an inboard transformer with a rectifier and a smoothing cap?
-If anything it could be expected to be QUIETER than inboard...?
Some distinctly prejudiced -and faulty- thinking going on round here... :?
Keith[/quote]
True and you would thunk. :?:
But if they are expecting you to buy any garden variety wall wart then it comes into question. If they say that you need to buy only theirs then it's possible that they designed a really top notch power supply unit in the form of a wall wort.
Would you build your next high end preamp with a piece of crap transformer and inadequate supply filtering? I suspect they did not either. I have limited knowledge of pro audio design I will admit, and I have never seen a Portico up close and personal, but I would guess that they engineered these preamps to be as small as possible and to use an off board power supply as a means to cut down size and on noise levels. I would also guess that they want you to use their power supply in addition for that very same reason. I'm I way off here? If so I'll lay off the brews for the evening. :grin:
:guinness:
abby normal
Well-known member
Homemade wall wart. :razz:
pstamler
Well-known member
The other reason to design with a wall wart is that you don't need to get UL certification, because the wall wart already has it.
Peace,
Paul
Peace,
Paul
SSLtech
Well-known member
[quote author="abby normal"]But if they are expecting you to buy any garden variety wall wart then it comes into question. If they say that you need to buy only theirs then it's possible that they designed a really top notch power supply unit in the form of a wall wort.[/quote]
They're not expecting you to buy ANYTHING to power it...
Here's the deal:
You buy a Portico, they give you one of the world's FINEST-sounding preamps, complete with a decent-quality DC power adaptor. (so called "wall-wart".)
They also tell you that in case you're working in the field, or if anything happens to your power adaptor... (it falls into a vlcano crater, a wildebeeste drops out of the sky and flattens it, whatever-) you can use ANY DC power source between 9V and 24V. -You can gang up 9V batteries from the corner pharmacy, run it from a 12V cigarette lighter, a rechargeable belt-pack (handy when filming video stuff) a 24Volt semi-truck battery...ANYTHING. The internal power conversion in the Portico can handle pretty much ANYTHING, and works FLAWLESSLY.
...and all people can say is: "Ewwww.... -a wall-wart?"...???
So no, they don't expect you to buy ANYTHING to make it run... just plug it into some power. -They just tell you that you also have other options. -Try that with an API, SSL, Neve, McCurdy, Ward-Beck, Harrison, Focusrite Amek, Soundcraft or Helios.
It's a pretty good trick.
[quote author="abby normal"]I have never seen a Portico up close and personal, but I would guess that they engineered these preamps to be as small as possible and to use an off board power supply as a means to cut down size and on noise levels. I would also guess that they want you to use their power supply in addition for that very same reason. I'm I way off here? If so I'll lay off the brews for the evening. :grin: [/quote]
No, they made it to run off DC because that's how basically ALL sub-rack gear works... but in addition, it's made to integrate into a 'console' layout, with faders and everything... you wouldn't want 48 power supplies inside a console! :wink:
In addition, the lack of UL certification requirement is a huge bonus!
Keith
They're not expecting you to buy ANYTHING to power it...
Here's the deal:
You buy a Portico, they give you one of the world's FINEST-sounding preamps, complete with a decent-quality DC power adaptor. (so called "wall-wart".)
They also tell you that in case you're working in the field, or if anything happens to your power adaptor... (it falls into a vlcano crater, a wildebeeste drops out of the sky and flattens it, whatever-) you can use ANY DC power source between 9V and 24V. -You can gang up 9V batteries from the corner pharmacy, run it from a 12V cigarette lighter, a rechargeable belt-pack (handy when filming video stuff) a 24Volt semi-truck battery...ANYTHING. The internal power conversion in the Portico can handle pretty much ANYTHING, and works FLAWLESSLY.
...and all people can say is: "Ewwww.... -a wall-wart?"...???
So no, they don't expect you to buy ANYTHING to make it run... just plug it into some power. -They just tell you that you also have other options. -Try that with an API, SSL, Neve, McCurdy, Ward-Beck, Harrison, Focusrite Amek, Soundcraft or Helios.
It's a pretty good trick.
[quote author="abby normal"]I have never seen a Portico up close and personal, but I would guess that they engineered these preamps to be as small as possible and to use an off board power supply as a means to cut down size and on noise levels. I would also guess that they want you to use their power supply in addition for that very same reason. I'm I way off here? If so I'll lay off the brews for the evening. :grin: [/quote]
No, they made it to run off DC because that's how basically ALL sub-rack gear works... but in addition, it's made to integrate into a 'console' layout, with faders and everything... you wouldn't want 48 power supplies inside a console! :wink:
In addition, the lack of UL certification requirement is a huge bonus!
Keith
[quote author="SSLtech"]
They also tell you that in case you're working in the field, or if anything happens to your power adaptor... (it falls into a vlcano crater, a wildebeeste drops out of the sky and flattens it, whatever-) you can use ANY DC power source between 9V and 24V. -You can gang up 9V batteries from the corner pharmacy, run it from a 12V cigarette lighter, a rechargeable belt-pack (handy when filming video stuff) a 24Volt semi-truck battery...ANYTHING. The internal power conversion in the Portico can handle pretty much ANYTHING, and works FLAWLESSLY.
[/quote]
That's smart design. You can be sure it will work in the Sahara; maybe nothing else in your kit will, but it will.
Okay, someone go nuts and give us sound samples of a Portico run with 10 different power sources. Everything from car battery on down. I suspect we'll find serious surprises between the Wal-Mart and Target converters.
They also tell you that in case you're working in the field, or if anything happens to your power adaptor... (it falls into a vlcano crater, a wildebeeste drops out of the sky and flattens it, whatever-) you can use ANY DC power source between 9V and 24V. -You can gang up 9V batteries from the corner pharmacy, run it from a 12V cigarette lighter, a rechargeable belt-pack (handy when filming video stuff) a 24Volt semi-truck battery...ANYTHING. The internal power conversion in the Portico can handle pretty much ANYTHING, and works FLAWLESSLY.
[/quote]
That's smart design. You can be sure it will work in the Sahara; maybe nothing else in your kit will, but it will.
Okay, someone go nuts and give us sound samples of a Portico run with 10 different power sources. Everything from car battery on down. I suspect we'll find serious surprises between the Wal-Mart and Target converters.
abby normal
Well-known member
[quote author="SSLtech"]
No, they made it to run off DC because that's how basically ALL sub-rack gear works... but in addition, it's made to integrate into a 'console' layout, with faders and everything... you wouldn't want 48 power supplies inside a console! :wink:
In addition, the lack of UL certification requirement is a huge bonus!
Keith[/quote]
In my own weird way I was agreeing with you even though I personally hate wall warts. I did not realize they engineered these with the idea to integrate into consoles. You could easily build a robust PSU to power up the whole lot of them daisy chained. I guess the thought of all those power input jacks makes me cringe, nothing a soldering iron can't fix. lol
No, they made it to run off DC because that's how basically ALL sub-rack gear works... but in addition, it's made to integrate into a 'console' layout, with faders and everything... you wouldn't want 48 power supplies inside a console! :wink:
In addition, the lack of UL certification requirement is a huge bonus!
Keith[/quote]
In my own weird way I was agreeing with you even though I personally hate wall warts. I did not realize they engineered these with the idea to integrate into consoles. You could easily build a robust PSU to power up the whole lot of them daisy chained. I guess the thought of all those power input jacks makes me cringe, nothing a soldering iron can't fix. lol
SSLtech
Well-known member
Oh hell yes... Their 'console' design integration also involves having a 'vertical' overlay which turns the legending 90° on its side, and the knob caps can be rotated through 90° also, so that 'flat' on an EQ band is still at 12-o-clock no matter whether the unit is oriented horizontally or vertically.
It's seven inches tall, so it is exactly 4 rack units, or if you put it on its side, there's a pair of rack ears and a small adapter plate which makes two of the exactly nineteen inches wide. The module 'width' is exactly one and three-quarter inches, so it 'rotates' into exactly 1 rack unit tall.
There are also compressor/limiters, expander/gates EQs and fader packs with routing, so you can assemble your console how you want it... and it ALL runs off of ANY available supply.
..not only is it genius, it sounds out of this world! :thumb:
Keith
It's seven inches tall, so it is exactly 4 rack units, or if you put it on its side, there's a pair of rack ears and a small adapter plate which makes two of the exactly nineteen inches wide. The module 'width' is exactly one and three-quarter inches, so it 'rotates' into exactly 1 rack unit tall.
There are also compressor/limiters, expander/gates EQs and fader packs with routing, so you can assemble your console how you want it... and it ALL runs off of ANY available supply.
..not only is it genius, it sounds out of this world! :thumb:
Keith
Stagefright13
Well-known member
I had 2 UA Solo 610's. I sold one last week because I don't really need 2. I like them. They sound good when ya put a Telefunken 12ax7 and a Jan GE 6072A in them. However the NYD Mila sounds really close to one. I used a Cinemag Cmmi-10 input tranny on my Mila.
My friend's studio in NY has a 2-610 and he hates it lol! But says it looks nice. Maybe it's the tubes I used... Mine sounds a ton better after I replaced them.
My friend's studio in NY has a 2-610 and he hates it lol! But says it looks nice. Maybe it's the tubes I used... Mine sounds a ton better after I replaced them.
clintrubber
Well-known member
[quote author="SSLtech"]..not only is it genius, it sounds out of this world! :thumb:
Keith[/quote]
There sure must be a thread going on somewhere about what they did to those NE5534's, but I haven't found it yet :wink:
OK then, there's also the iron, but that & pulling stuff into A releasing this amount of magic ? :roll:
[quote author="[url]http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr07/articles/rupertneveportico.htm[/url]"]The circuitry is built almost entirely using conventional-sized components, with the old familiar NE5534 op-amps doing the bulk of the work, supplemented with separate transistors in appropriate places. Rupert Neve's designs traditionally employed single-sided class-A topologies, and it is hard to square that approach with these Portico circuit boards covered in op-amps. The secret missing ingredient is that he uses a circuit technique with the 5534 op-amps which offsets the DC point of their output stages, so that for signals below about 0dBu they are effectively running in a single-sided class-A mode. This removes crossover distortion artifacts completely and is a significant contributor to the sound of this preamp.
The entire design approach is equally unorthodox. Unusually, although the input does have a transformer, this is not the first thing the mic input signal sees. Instead, after a common-mode torroid ensures that nothing above 150kHz can get into the preamp, the signal is handled by Rupert Neve's own 'transformer-like amplifier' (TLA) configuration. This is a variation on the familiar instrumentation amplifier theme, and presents the input with an unusually high input impedance — 10k(omega), in fact — which minimises the microphone loading and is claimed to improve 'transparency.'
The input transformer follows this TLA stage, and overall, the input stage can tolerate a massive +26dBu without needing a pad. Given the relatively high input impedance, the mic input is quite happy serving as a line input — provided phantom power is switched off, of course.
A second transformer has two secondaries, with one feeding the main output and the second feeding the buss output, meter, and output stage negative feedback. The main output is fully floating (ground free), to minimise the risk of ground loops and radio-frequency interference. The maximum output level is +25dBu, which is more than enough for even the hottest of A-D converters! The signal bandwidth is flat out to a -3dB point at 160kHz, and is only -0.2dB down at 10Hz. Mr Neve takes care to maintain the LF phase integrity, and he claims all his designs maintain phase below five degrees down to 10Hz. At unity gain, the unweighted noise is a very impressive -100dBu, helped, no doubt, by the fact that the mains power supply is external.[/quote]
Keith[/quote]
There sure must be a thread going on somewhere about what they did to those NE5534's, but I haven't found it yet
:wink: OK then, there's also the iron, but that & pulling stuff into A releasing this amount of magic ? :roll:
[quote author="[url]http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr07/articles/rupertneveportico.htm[/url]"]The circuitry is built almost entirely using conventional-sized components, with the old familiar NE5534 op-amps doing the bulk of the work, supplemented with separate transistors in appropriate places. Rupert Neve's designs traditionally employed single-sided class-A topologies, and it is hard to square that approach with these Portico circuit boards covered in op-amps. The secret missing ingredient is that he uses a circuit technique with the 5534 op-amps which offsets the DC point of their output stages, so that for signals below about 0dBu they are effectively running in a single-sided class-A mode. This removes crossover distortion artifacts completely and is a significant contributor to the sound of this preamp.
The entire design approach is equally unorthodox. Unusually, although the input does have a transformer, this is not the first thing the mic input signal sees. Instead, after a common-mode torroid ensures that nothing above 150kHz can get into the preamp, the signal is handled by Rupert Neve's own 'transformer-like amplifier' (TLA) configuration. This is a variation on the familiar instrumentation amplifier theme, and presents the input with an unusually high input impedance — 10k(omega), in fact — which minimises the microphone loading and is claimed to improve 'transparency.'
The input transformer follows this TLA stage, and overall, the input stage can tolerate a massive +26dBu without needing a pad. Given the relatively high input impedance, the mic input is quite happy serving as a line input — provided phantom power is switched off, of course.
A second transformer has two secondaries, with one feeding the main output and the second feeding the buss output, meter, and output stage negative feedback. The main output is fully floating (ground free), to minimise the risk of ground loops and radio-frequency interference. The maximum output level is +25dBu, which is more than enough for even the hottest of A-D converters! The signal bandwidth is flat out to a -3dB point at 160kHz, and is only -0.2dB down at 10Hz. Mr Neve takes care to maintain the LF phase integrity, and he claims all his designs maintain phase below five degrees down to 10Hz. At unity gain, the unweighted noise is a very impressive -100dBu, helped, no doubt, by the fact that the mains power supply is external.[/quote]
pstamler
Well-known member
[quote author="clintrubber"]There sure must be a thread going on somewhere about what they did to those NE5534's, but I haven't found it yet :wink:
OK then, there's also the iron, but that & pulling stuff into A releasing this amount of magic ? :roll: [/quote]
I wouldn't be surprised. The Focusrite Platinum series uses 5534s extensively, and they're also using pulldown techniques to make their outputs run in Class A. I wasn't nuts about the preamps in these channel strips, but the line-level sections are astonishingly transparent.
In the case of the Platinum, they're doing the pulldown with a simple resistor from the output to one of the power supplies, probably the negative. I bet the Portico is using the more sophisticated method of connecting a constant-current source (or sink) to the output stage. The snippet quoted above mentions a few discrete transistors on the boards, and I'll bet they're current sources. I've done that, and it has nice effects on a 5534.
Peace,
Paul
:wink: OK then, there's also the iron, but that & pulling stuff into A releasing this amount of magic ? :roll: [/quote]
I wouldn't be surprised. The Focusrite Platinum series uses 5534s extensively, and they're also using pulldown techniques to make their outputs run in Class A. I wasn't nuts about the preamps in these channel strips, but the line-level sections are astonishingly transparent.
In the case of the Platinum, they're doing the pulldown with a simple resistor from the output to one of the power supplies, probably the negative. I bet the Portico is using the more sophisticated method of connecting a constant-current source (or sink) to the output stage. The snippet quoted above mentions a few discrete transistors on the boards, and I'll bet they're current sources. I've done that, and it has nice effects on a 5534.
Peace,
Paul
TomWaterman
Well-known member
The Porticos sound killer!
They measure well too FWIW.
Silk is more of an EQ function to me, although I think the distortion changes slightly - the effect of which seems likely quite program dependant. I didn't measure much of a change in THD at low gain but the frequency response changes quite nicely. A 0.5dB lift centred at 350 Hz, quite broad with an equally broad scoop out (0.3-4dB) going from 7-12kHz-ish... FWIW I measured two units side by side and they were within tenths of a dB of each other. Build quality is awesome too. Very solid.
I thought I read that the 5534s were biased to half supply at their outputs or something similar...but then I also read that the transformers were made by SE and that turned out to be misinformed...
-T
They measure well too FWIW.
Silk is more of an EQ function to me, although I think the distortion changes slightly - the effect of which seems likely quite program dependant. I didn't measure much of a change in THD at low gain but the frequency response changes quite nicely. A 0.5dB lift centred at 350 Hz, quite broad with an equally broad scoop out (0.3-4dB) going from 7-12kHz-ish... FWIW I measured two units side by side and they were within tenths of a dB of each other. Build quality is awesome too. Very solid.
I thought I read that the 5534s were biased to half supply at their outputs or something similar...but then I also read that the transformers were made by SE and that turned out to be misinformed...
-T
clintrubber
Well-known member
[quote author="TomWaterman"]The Porticos sound killer!
They measure well too FWIW.[/quote]
So you want us to believe you've only been measuring ?
No trace of other activities ? :wink:
They measure well too FWIW.[/quote]
So you want us to believe you've only been measuring ?
No trace of other activities ? :wink:
TomWaterman
Well-known member
Afraid not - they weren't mine so I didn't get to pop the lid on one.
Maybe some other time. We were planning on checking out the console (just for shits and giggles)...
There are some photos of one here
http://techtalk.te.funpic.de/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=8
Anyway - what happened wasn't this thread about the M610? LOL
-T
Maybe some other time. We were planning on checking out the console (just for shits and giggles)...
There are some photos of one here
http://techtalk.te.funpic.de/coppermine/displayimage.php?album=13&pos=8
Anyway - what happened wasn't this thread about the M610? LOL
-T
Stagefright13
Well-known member
Yeah the Portico just looks like a bunch of chips. Can't seem to find the "Portico Clone Thread"... Anyone? :green:
solder_city
Well-known member
hey, you could say that michaelangelos 'david' is just a piece of marble. right?
abby normal
Well-known member
[quote author="solder_city"]hey, you could say that michaelangelos 'david' is just a piece of marble. right?[/quote]
:thumb: :guinness:
:thumb: :guinness:
