The 6 Best 500 Series Mic pres (2023 reviews)

The warm audio 500 series mic pre is capable of outshining several other pre featured in this list in overall features for the price point. Home-based musicians and professional studios alike will find the Tone Beast to be a powerful and professional piece of gear that is capable of warming and shaping signals and mixes in a way that is both pleasing and beastly indeed. It comes with loads of gain that effortlessly captures a broad array of sources very well. It comes with strong input signal and engaged controls, and the tone beast colorize your signal with a sweetness that could charm the birds out of the trees. It is allows for other opamps to be sourced and easily swapped into the unit.

Why We Like This:

New and hot release
Good investment for long term

Rupert Neve designs 500 Series Mic Pre

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Rupert Neve Designs offers a variety of pre for personal choice and yet maintaining quality in all the variants.

Why We Like This:

One of the new comers and featured product
Lot of satisfied buyers

Grace Design 500 Series Mic Pre

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The grace design 500 series mic pre's superior materials makes sure that it ages well with use. While the 500 series market has plenty of colored mic preamplifier options, the natural, musical clarity of the m501 makes it a welcome addition to the field. It is Grace design's exclusive ribbon mic mode, which raises the mic input impedance, bypasses the input decoupling capacitors and deactivates 48v phantom power to protect delicate ribbon mics from damage.

This circuit is for audio engineers who are confident with the quality of the source, mic section and placement, and wish to capture it with as little coloration or distortion as possible. It is a balanced, transformerless preamplifier, with 48v phantom power, a 75hz hpf and a 1/4" hi-z instrument input. The signature transparency and detail of Grace circuit designs is available for your 500 series frame.

Why We Like This:

Good brand reputation
New and hot release

Warm Audio Mic Preamp

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The warm audio mic preamp should be able to handle its purpose and duties with ease. It is a mic preamp that sounds really good and will make a mic as hot you would want it. It sounds great with electronic drums, bass guitar direct, miked guitar cabs, vocals, etc. It can go from modern compressed tone to old vintagey vibe tube tone. It certainly captures the original sound, but then gives it a very professionally sound polish that makes it very easy to sit in the overall mix.

A main control circuit board contains the high-z input, the preamp's mode selectors, and a gain pot. They control the input (mic or instrument), 48V phantom power, 20db pad, output polarity (nice to see in a budget box), tone selection, and the unit's power. The tone can be as colored (or not) as you'd like depending upon how hard you hit the transformers. This is likely to have a more profound difference on low output dynamic and ribbon mics, but essentially this works like a gentle high frequency roll-off in most cases.

Why We Like This:

Loads of gain, simple operation, incredible tone and value
Vocals and guitars feel more present, warmer, fatter just better all the way around
Delivers what they promise