Review: Audient Mico

The last time I inspected a piece of Audient equipment I was very impressed with the military spec and quality of its audio path. That unit was the Sumo analogue summing amplifier. It sported a heavyweight abundance of headroom and really did open up the mixes I was working on at the time. Unfortunately, the Sumo was well out of my budget, but since then it appears Audient is being sold directly with a commensurate reduction in retail pricing – hurrah! Take, for example, the subject of this particular narrative, the Mico dual-channel mic preamp. I was bowled over when I saw the $1199 price tag on this little unit. Primo analogue circuitry for minimal bucks! Let’s have a look and a listen.

As I’ve mentioned, the Audient gear is built like the proverbial brick outhouse. The steel casing is nicely enamelled and the 4mm-thick brushed aluminium fascia oozes a reassuring sense of solidity. The Mico is a half single-rack unit that’s compact enough to lug about alongside your laptop. Audient offers an optional rack mounting kit that will accept two Micos should you desire. Out t’ord the rear of the Mico are two combo XLR/TRS inputs and XLR outputs for Channel 1 and 2. Standard fare for the analogue side of things, but the Mico isn’t merely an analogue horse. Its output can also be sent digitally via AES/EBU or SP/DIF via RCA coax and optical TOSlink. In other words, the Mico can act as a front end to your preferred audio interface. All digital ports simultaneously output signal, although Audient recommends disconnecting the AES output when using either of the S/PDIF ports. A single wordclock port will sync the unit to either external clock or act as a wordclock out port. These options are configurable via a set of dip switches on the rear panel. The same set of switches alternates the sample rate of the Mico between 44.1, 48 and 96k. The Mico will operate at sample rates up to 192k but only when synced via an external wordclock. Under its own steam the highest sample rate possible is 96k. Audient even includes an earthing point to the chassis, which is a thoughtful touch. Power is via an external inline transformer delivering 16V DC. The power supply itself is ‘universal’, accepting voltages from 100–240V.

The front side houses control for the two mic preamps. Each pre can produce up to 66dB of gain, has 48V phantom power, a 10dB pad and three high-pass filter options: 40, 80 and 120Hz. Polarity reverse buttons are also present for both channels. All pushbuttons are backlit with the 48V buttons illuminating blue. The preamps are the same topology as found in Audient’s consoles and ASP008 mic pre units. Electronically balanced (i.e. transformerless) and boasting an equivalent input noise of –127dBu, they’re quite a pure-sounding pre – clean and detailed, yet robust. The sound actually reminds me a lot of the Avalon preamps – albeit minus that top-shelf sheen you get from the far pricier Avalons. For a pair of professional-grade preamps it’s a refreshing surprise to see the palatable retail price, but on top of that, Audient has included a couple of very useful features that many will find indispensable (and creative) additions.

Channel 1 of the Mico includes a ‘colouration’ circuit that adds harmonically useful distortions to the signal. Let me explain: Being transformerless, the Mico provides a very clean audio path. This ‘HMX’ circuitry brings back some of the harmonic content transformers can add, allowing you to ‘fatten up’ a signal. Personally I prefer the sound of transformers, but certainly, the HMX control provides the preamp with some of this lost character. It will regularly come in handy on miked sources, but I’d wager it’ll be more commonly used in conjunction with the high impedance input on instruments. This same circuit is included in Audient’s recently released Black range of ‘lunchbox’ format units.

GOING THROUGH A PHASE

Next, Channel 2 features a “Variphase” control; a single pot that uses an all-pass filter to take the signal from 0° through to 180°. Combined with the phase inverter switch, the Mico offers some very powerful control over the time and polarity of a signal. This is an exceedingly useful tool. Not only for, as Audient suggests, perfect phase alignment of dual miked sources, but also as a mix tool in its own right. I recorded some acoustic guitar using a simple X/Y miking setup to hear just how out of whack I could take the stereo image. The Variphase control provided countless, useful positions to place the stereo guitar image – extremely useful and undoubtedly a weapon for re-articulating any stereo source.

CAPTIVE AUDIENT

The Audient Mico is a winner of a preamp. I was initially impressed with the price, then the cleanliness of the sound and finally the Variphase control. The HMX harmonic distortion circuit I could take or leave but it’s there all the same. There are plenty of ways to get some transformer-esque colouration happening – one of Rob Squire’s little transformer boxes would be a good start [see Issue 58]. In short, however, a top pair of pre’s, and a 96k A/D unit for a very good price.