Description
PRO Master Tape Head Preamplifier is the best Tape Head Preamp from Merrill Audio.
There can’t be many of us, lovers of music and fine audio, who have quite gotten over the magic, resolution, spaciousness and delicacy of analogue tape.
The New World Class standard is with Merrill Audio PRO Master tape head preamplifier, built for the professional recording engineer, working with tape masters. Fast, transparent, the PRO Master Tape Head Preamplifier brings your Master tapes Alive like it should be. Grab every detail, and the full force of the transient like never before with the PRO Master Tape Head Preamplifiers.
The goal was to extract the maximum amount of information from the tape head directly and hence from the tape by extreme reduction of parasitics, designing the fastest electronic circuits, and a power supply to keep up with the circuits and the music.
The Tape Head is a fully balanced reading device, hence the input on the PRO Tape Head preamp was designed match the tape head with a fully balance design that will accept a wide range of impedances without bandwidth problems.
Using the lowest noise electronics and components, the PCB was multilayers, trace impedances were measured for maximum transmission of sound on the PCB. Extensive testing was done to find reduce the parasitics, which suck away the sound, to the lowest level possible. The explosive transient speed greatly improved with the massive reduction of parasitics.
It features four inputs with 4 independent settings for each input that can be saved, for improved workflow. 0-75dB of gain per channel selectable through 254 increments.
The Human Machine Interface (HMI) is critical to visualize and adjust the many settings of a Professional tape head preamplifier. Without sparing expense, A full 7” color, glass, capacitive touch panel screen with high resolution fronts the HMI. A custom build graphics interface was designed to allow easy changes to all the controls. Using a very powerful fast CPU to compliment the top of the line screen, the CPU interacts with the HMI and operates the Merrill Audio Tape Head Preamplifier using custom software to manage everything. .
Equalization curves are presented for NAB, IEC and IEC2/AES to accommodate European and American standards.
Merrill Audio’s PRO Tape Head preamplifier is our contribution, and homage, to the legacy of magnetic tape. It is our wish to provide simply the best Tape Head Preamplifier available in the world.
There are some unique challenges in working with tape ? the dynamic range can be large, the velocity of transients, sonic ‘bloom’, immediacy, slam, all arriving within an envelope of effortlessness and space. Merrill Audio’s unique approach to speed. ‘ready state’ and dynamics is perfectly poised to service the smorgasbord of auditory delights hidden within reel-to-reel.
Merrill Audio’s PRO tape head preamplifier presents a new standard for the resolution of difficult sonic events, such as piano. Piano is notoriously hard to reproduce. Each piano note, or chord is a percussive packet which arrives with singular speed and a considerable harmonic richness, especially if the instrument is a fine one. It must be preserved. Most preamps are wrong-footed by this. At Merrill Audio we pay particular attention to the issues around very fast, harmonically rich events. Merrill himself is a pianist and understands very well how the piano sound moves in space with immediacy and holographic presence. The Merrill Audio PRO Tape Head Preamplifiers provides world class fidelity to brings out the complexities of overtone and undertone harmonics delivered in explosive sonic phenomena as well as, of course, delivering a state of the art ‘blacker than black’ noise floor to reveal vital ambient cues and musical nuances locked in the original recording.
Reel-to-reel tape recordings still contain secrets. At Merrill Audio we would like to unlock those secrets, in a spirit of tribute and deep respect to our wonderful, actually priceless, audio heritage.
Call us today to arrange your audition of the PRO Tape Head preamplifier.
PRO Tape Head Preamp: unveiling the legacy.
