Meet the 37th Annual TEC Award Finalists: Microphone Preamplifiers

The TEC Awards “recognize the individuals, companies, and technical innovations behind the sound of recordings, live performances, film, television, video games, and multimedia.” With award categories spanning 21 Technical Achievement and six Creative Achievement categories, the TEC Awards is considered the highest honor dedicated to the pro audio and sound recording industry.

TEC Awards finalists are identified through a three-step process starting with a “Call for Entries.” After the entry period, a panel comprised of industry leaders and professionals nominated eligible products and project submissions that “represent superior accomplishment in their respective fields.” Professionals in the pro audio, live event, and music industry are invited to vote for the finalists in each category, with one taking home the title of “Product of the Year.”

Audient – iD4: This two-in and two-out audio interface is “designed to take your recordings to the next level in every way.” Audient boasts that the iD4 “delivers professional audio performance in a compact and modern desktop experience, giving you everything you need to make studio-quality recordings at home.” Features included on the iD4 are an Audient console mic preamp, monitor mix and pan, class-leading converters, true phantom power over USB, a JFET instrument input, USB3.0 bus-powered, two line outputs, iOS compatible, dual headphone outputs, 24bit/96khz, scroll control, all-metal design, audio loop-back with mixer, free software and plugins, and a speaker on/off button.

Black Lion Audio – B173 MKII: This half-rack British-styled mic pre uses the same Cinemag input and output transformers as Black Lion Audio’s B173 Quad and provides 70dB of gain, a revamped gain stage, and a lower noise floor for “cleaner, lower distortion sound.” This solid-state, one-channel preamp includes phantom power, an external power supply to minimize noise, and a variable output attenuator, among other dynamic features.

Black Lion Audio – B12A MKIII: Black Lion Audio says the American-style half-rack is “the most portable 312A American sound around.” The B173 MKII, like the B12A MKIII, uses Cinemag input and output transformers like Black Lion Audio’s B173 Quad. The front panel D.I. “delivers a harmonically rich tone to guitars, keyboards, and synthesizers, and stepped input gain allows for perfect recall.”

GC Audio - Inherit: GC Audio reports that the Inherit is “the first interchangeable cartridge preamplifier on the market.” Users can possess several preamps without buying multiple racks and can test technologies without plugging and unplugging XLRs from one rack to another. The Inherit makes it possible “to compare, in a short time, the sound between the sharpness of a transistor preamp or the warm of a tube preamp.” Five cartridges are currently available including the RE-73, RE-98, RE-4K, and Tube Heat.

Heritage Audio – HA-81A: This product from Heritage Audio is a new mix of two classic console circuits, combing the Class-A 73-style mic preamp with an “extremely versatile and musical console-style equalizer.” This particular model utilizes “only rotary switches and precision, concentric potentiometers” and is “built with the most cutting-edge methods in manufacturing and design, without ever compromising audio quality or cutting quarters.”

Millennia – HV-316: Millennia describes the HV-316 simply as “unrestricted capacity, uncompromised clarity.” The 16-channel, remote Dante network mic preamp provides “effortless, vividly realistic, dynamically uniform HV-3 musical performance” in an ultra-lightweight aluminum 16-gauge rack chassis. The HV-316 is built with a redundant power supply for “fail-safe, glitch-free operation” and manufactured for ultra-high temperature continuous operation.

For more information about the TEC Awards, including the entire list of finalists, please visit https://www.tecawards.org/. Voting is now open, please visit http://tecawards.org/vote to cast your vote today.