Like most of you, I'm guessing you are a musician. I'm a guitar player. I've swapped out pickups and tried my hand at some other modifications. I'm slowly putting together a recording setup at home and wanted to add a mic pre to a Focusrite 18i8 going into Reason. If you are like me, you have already spent hours pouring over forums trying to figure out what to buy and hope you make the "right" choice for your sound you hear in your head. You have probably spent hours reading about Neve and API and all the clones and marveled at the fierceness of certain posts defending or slamming different gear.
So again, I choose the T-15 because I've read it is clean without much "color" and has enough gain for just about any style mic. Isnt that what we really want a preamp to do? Amplifiy the mic of choice to bring it to a level that we appreciate the characteristic of the chosen mic?
Well, here is my help to all those considering the T-15:
1. It is a fairly easy build WITH THE RIGHT TOOLS. I used the recomended tools on the list and it did make things go easy. I've read about guys that did it in three hours. I took my time and it was more like 7 hours over two days, getting it into the one shot chassis. So don't race and beat yourself up if you don't finish in record time. I felt very confident when finished because I took my time and everything checked out when powered up.
2. Watch videos of solder technique if you don't know how. There are some pretty clear, helpful videos on line. I watched the lapse time of the N72 build and learned some things from that too!
3. The instructions are great but the 1.5 revised board is a little different than the instructions. If you just move through the build, you will be able to see where the revisions are different and you won't wind up with any extra parts
. There are two lines in the BOM that are marked optional. Don't worry about them. After emailing Tim, It was obvious to stay clear of them. (MORE WORK!) 4. It does sound really nice. I have never recorded through a Neve or API but I am a home based guitar player that wants to have a nice sound when I listen to my tracks.
It is clean and quiet with a TON of gain! I did a test last night of spoken vocal and singing through a couple mics, both dynamic and condenser.
I compared it to the mic pres in the focusrite and a Studio Projects VTB-1. I recorded with and without the tube blend on the VTB-1. It was tough to match levels perfectly but I was close and over all I really like the T-15. It did make the mics sound great.
It is still my belief that the mic choice will make a much bigger difference in the sound of your recording. A lousy mic through a nice pre will just highlight the lousy mic! But complementing a nice mic with a clean pre will bring out what you like about that mic, and I think the T-15 does an excelent job of that. I'm anxious to record more sources and try different mics with it and I really thank Tim for putting this out there for guys like us to build and enjoy!
Good luck with your choice and I hope this insight may help you decide.