The EF86 is an interesting choice, as they often become micro-phonic in guitar amps, wonder how they hold up in this design?

Very cool looking unit!interested to hear one.
the only thing is please please move the instrument inputs to the front of the unit.
having them on the rear is completely pointless.

Thank you!

You can listen to some demos here:
https://www.mysterymagicians.com/listen
https://youtube.com/@mysterymagicians?feature=shared

We have a 1RU M808APB Patchbay coming out by the end of Jan that will give you all of the I/Os of both channels in the front for those who like to have access to all the I/Os including MIC ins, DIs, etc.

Some can indeed be. But any pentode can be, we test all of our tubes for microphonics and noise and weed out the unsatisfactory tubes.

EF86 has been a top choice pentode in many mic pre/phono stage designs throughout time.

I can see how much more problematic it can be in a guitar amp considering it's close to speakers.

Wow! Probably the most beautiful Preamp on the market.

Lovely electronic work. Will it get to Britain? I’d love to get one.

Thank you so much!

Thank you!

we are definitely going to get it in the European market in the next little bit here, I will check back in with you

They are also used in microphones like U67. It can be used i microphones I don't think it is a big problem in a preamp.

Major props on the internal design. Looks fantastic.

We appreciate your input!

No input selector?

any news when you'll restock?

In stock at VK :-)

https://vintageking.com/mystery-magi...rophone-preamp

thanks!!

Any news on the patch bay?

Yes! Thank you for asking

We are waiting for some parts to arrive and start the soldering/assembly process in the next couple of weeks. I would say the latest 1st week of March we should have a batch ready.


Thanks!

so the DI is post transformer, line in is post filter and insert, all three inputs are on the back, and there is no way to switch between them? Have I got that right?

Hi 8ttila,

The M808A preamp utilizes our exclusively engineered patch bay the "M808APB" to make all the I/Os of both channels available in the front panel, which gives you quite a bit of flexibility.

As designers from the get-go, our primary objective with the M808A has been Microphones. But we did not stop there. We added loads and loads of features to this preamp, and instead of making compromises and removing features from the face of the unit to make real estate for I/O jacks, we designed the M808APB to pair with the Dual channel units.

There are tons of excellent tube Mic preamps on the market to choose from, but we feel that we are giving lots of possibilities, features, and routing options with the M808A that may make it stand on its own.

For instance, there are a lot of tube preamps on the market that only have (MIC IN/LINE OUT) and that's it. Some of the best sellers out there don't even offer Phantom Power. (Not naming any brands).

If you look at the signal chain of the M808A on the .PDF on our website you can see that every step of the way on the block diagram there are entry and exit points for your signal, and there isn't a right or wrong way about the ways you can patch in.

I'll take your concern on the LINE IN: The user can bring line line-level signal with a series pad into the M808A and run through the entire signal chain utilizing every feature. If more pad is needed, one can use the front end -20dB pad on the M808A.

Commercial products like the (AVEDIS LPZ-2 Line to Mic Level Adaptor, or D.W. Fearn LP-1 Dual Channel Mic to Line Pad) are made for this very task and function and are commonly used in studios on mic pres to this job. We have our own MIC to LINE Pad in the works for a competitive price, which we will introduce later this month. Stay tuned!

But that's one way of routing, you could also bring in your line-level signal through the RETURN of the M808A, which will hit the bypassable Filters, the gain staging, the output transformer, and the balanced H output attenuator.

Or you could use our LINE IN which puts the signal pre-gain knob, output tube, output transformer, and attenuator. These different ways of bringing line-level signals into the unit achieve different sonic possibilities, none is superior to the other and is highly subjective to your taste!

As a designer I always appreciate input from the outside world, it gives me ideas. I can reflect on the possibilities and limitations involved in my designs. So I appreciate everyone's input!

Being a brand new company, two guys running the entire operation in a small garage, and building this stuff takes a lot of time to document and publish everything, so I hope we are doing an okay job!

I hope this helps to clarify some of the features, possibilities, design considerations, and maybe things that haven't been talked about yet!


Arash

Hi Tienunreal

The next order of the the material for the patch bays is due in two weeks, I can check in with you once we receive the cases and start assembling them if you'd like!

About to get it plugged in, but just have to say.


Damn…

It’s a good looking piece of equipment. I try not to be so shallow about this stuff, but you just have to admit when a company nails that nice balance of simple/classy. Definitely my kind of design!

Oooh I'm so jelly :-) You got a patchbay!

I'm still rolling commando.



Such incredibly flexible routing. I've come in the return and the line in and the mic pre with different line inputs depending upon the source, bal/unbalanced and am still learning all the nuances of what goes where.

Super stoked to get your perspective. You've always got insights that add value to any device you review.

Let’s hear some reports! What does it sound like?

I'm in the middle of a few sessions for the next week, so I can't post stuff from those. Here's a clip from an initial test of just screwing around with the preamp a few days ago. I had my pair of Soyuz 013 Tube small caps side by side, about a foot away from the guitar. One mic was going to the dry UA Apollo preamp, one was going to the Mystery Magician preamp in Triode mode.

A bit subtle, but definitely a "classier" sound. The high end is smoothed out a bit on the Mystery Magician, a little more compressed and rounded out nicely in the mids and lows. Probably the THD starting to kick in.

It's still really early on, so these are just initial impressions. It's going to take me a bit to get my head around how the gain staging is implemented. There seems to be an initial, "fixed" gain stage when you plug in. I'm not getting the impression that the "Gain" control is letting you control how hard you're hitting the circuit, that's confirmed by the Saturation light on the front. If you turn the Gain all the way down to where you're not getting any signal, you can still get the saturation light to come on with a louder signal. That doesn't change with the Gain control, so you're kind of stuck with whatever happens right when you plug into the unit. The "Gain" just takes that signal and makes it louder (it might be taking that signal and feeding it into the output stage harder. I'm not sure yet. If that's the case, the output stage seems to have a lot of headroom and doesn't seem to change the tone too much).

I'm sure that's by design, but I'm a little frustrated by it initially as I like having more control over how hard you're hitting the circuit. With my Chandler Type L mic on a close mic, strummed acoustic guitar, I'm getting a little too much saturation and THD for my liking in Triode mode right out of the gate. It would be nice to tone it down just a little bit, but your only option is to kick in the 20 dB pad. It cleans things up, but its a big difference as far as THD and you loose a lot of gain obviously. At that point, you're going to have to turn the gain all the way up to get a passable signal on acoustic instruments with most mics.

Pentode mode is pretty extreme, you will not be able to record anything in Pentode mode with a condenser mic without engaging the 20 dB pad. It's extremely hot. I would get in the habit of thinking of Pentode mode not so much as a tonal difference, but a gain staging option for quieter mics and sources. I would say it's geared towards ribbon mics, but unfortunately neither my AEA R88 or vintage RCA PB-90 are playing well with the preamp, even in Pentode more. Both mics are sitting around the 250 ohm range, so I would consider that fairly normal for most ribbon mics. There's not even close to enough gain available with either of those mics to do acoustic instruments or vocals, which is a little heart breaking for me specifically. If you're doing mostly louder sources like drums and amps, it's obviously not going to be a problem. Things might go better with some other, more "modern" ribbon mics with higher impedances.

That's all I'll say for now, I'm sure my thoughts and opinions are going to change as I get to know the preamp a bit better. Arash is sending me some 6414 tubes to sub out the stock 6350's, as apparently the 6414's have more gain available. We'll see if that helps with the ribbons at all.

Thanks Anders! How have things been going on this front?

Just took a unit on board here. Preamp is very flexible with a classy clean sound or able to dial in a thicker girthy sound when appropriate for some sources.

More of a report soon.

Unit offers the "expensive sound."