What is the best mic preamp? Our personal favorite mic preamp is the DBX 286s. We chose the DBX 286s primarily because it offers much more than just a preamp for your microphone. The DBX 286s also provides other processing options such as EQ, compression, desser, and a noise gate. Not only does it include all these processing features, the preamp also sounds pretty dang good. Lets dive in a bit deeper and see why the DBX 286s is the best mic preamp on the market.
The Mic Preamp Is Great
We mentioned earlier that the DBX 286s has all of those processing features so that may lead some people to believe that the mic preamp may not be as good. But, that is not the case here. The mic preamp on the DBX 286s is fantastic. The preamp has enough gain to power even the most gain hungry mics such as the SM7B. The DBX 286s supplies 60dB of clean gain, which is more than enough for practically any microphone you want to use. This mic preamp is fantastic and you really can’t go wrong with the DBX 286s. We are huge fans of how clean the gain is. You can push the preamps pretty hard before you get any kind of noise.
The Additional Processing Features
All of the additional processing features such as EQ, compression, desser, and the noise gate are all incredible. These effects were designed really well and all of them sound great. We especially love the compressor and we think it is one of the better sounding compression effects in this price range. We think that having processing which you can apply in real time is incredibly useful. Having these processing features is great for content creation such as streaming, podcasting, or radio. You can just dial in your processing settings and never have to worry about applying processing in post ever again. That is why we are huge fans of the DBX 286s. Because it has a great mic preamp and it has excellent real time processing options.
Should You Get The DBX 286s
The DBX 286s is an excellent mic preamp and channel strip. It is perfect if you just want to dial in a sound and forget about it. Never having to edit your audio in post is just an incredible feeling to have. The DBX 286s is especially good with dynamic mics but it can work pretty good with condenser mics as well. The mic preamp is fantastic and supplies 60dB of gain. The preamp can be pushed pretty hard too without generating noise. We really recommend the DBX 286s for anyone who is looking for an excellent mic preamp that also contains extra processing features. It really is one of the best options on the market and it is reasonably priced too for what you are getting. We can easily recommend the DBX 286s to other audio enthusiasts as the sound is simply great. Thanks for reading. We hope this helps. Check out our other articles here.
