TritonAudio Active Mic boosters — Review
Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2022 3:03 pm
In another thread, I expressed a desire for more gain/headroom in the mic pres of my M•Audio AIR 192|14. What's onboard is quite good but all adjustments take place close to the end of the Input control that I've found it annoying and too fiddly to set up. I really wanted "what I have but louder".
Doug posted in response,
TritonAudio https://www.tritonaudio.com/products makes a couple, the FetHead Phantom
https://www.tritonaudio.com/fethead-phantom
and FetHead Broadcast
https://www.tritonaudio.com/fethead-broadcast
so I ordered one of each.
I tried them with pairs of AKG C535EB, C451B and a C636, one of my quietest mics with a higher input sensitivity than the others.
Both units are quite good and added quite a bit of headroom. Neither added much noise which, when levels were dialed in, was unnoticeable.Both come in a cloth bag inside a plastic tube In a nutshell:
The $159.95 Broadcast advertises a 23dB boost and has a "rumble" (low pass, I'm guessing 80Hz) filter. It requires an additional cable to connect—inline only. With my C636, the mic is so sensitive that I could not mute it by turning the pot to 0 while the C535 and C451 were closer to Off. It has a rectangular steel box that looks like it can take a lot of abuse.
The $79.95 Phantom advertises an 18dB boost and has a wider frequency range as there's no low pass filter. Its design lets you plug into the mic or your board or even inline with an additional cable (but why?). I tested with it plugged into my AIR but next time I'm on a remote, I'll check both ways.
Looking at the picture of my interface, note the positions of the input pots: Channels 1 (4.5) was the Broadcast, 2 (7) was the Phantom, 3 (9.25) was with no booster installed.
Bottom line: I'll order another Phantom from Amazon @ $69.50 but I won't return the Broadcast that I bought used. I have other mics and interfaces so it might be handy to have one in the gig bag.
Doug posted in response,
I knew about boosters for dynamic and ribbons and own some CloudLifters but boosters that pass phantom to condenser mics was news to me. Ok…
TritonAudio https://www.tritonaudio.com/products makes a couple, the FetHead Phantom
https://www.tritonaudio.com/fethead-phantom
and FetHead Broadcast
https://www.tritonaudio.com/fethead-broadcast
so I ordered one of each.
I tried them with pairs of AKG C535EB, C451B and a C636, one of my quietest mics with a higher input sensitivity than the others.
Both units are quite good and added quite a bit of headroom. Neither added much noise which, when levels were dialed in, was unnoticeable.Both come in a cloth bag inside a plastic tube In a nutshell:
The $159.95 Broadcast advertises a 23dB boost and has a "rumble" (low pass, I'm guessing 80Hz) filter. It requires an additional cable to connect—inline only. With my C636, the mic is so sensitive that I could not mute it by turning the pot to 0 while the C535 and C451 were closer to Off. It has a rectangular steel box that looks like it can take a lot of abuse.
The $79.95 Phantom advertises an 18dB boost and has a wider frequency range as there's no low pass filter. Its design lets you plug into the mic or your board or even inline with an additional cable (but why?). I tested with it plugged into my AIR but next time I'm on a remote, I'll check both ways.
Looking at the picture of my interface, note the positions of the input pots: Channels 1 (4.5) was the Broadcast, 2 (7) was the Phantom, 3 (9.25) was with no booster installed.
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