I came across Stam Audio a few years ago when looking to add to my microphone collection. I had been looking for a 47-FET style microphone for kick drum use, and took the plunge on the Stam. I was hugely impressed.

Since then, I have purchased a pair of Stam SA-87 microphones, one SA-76ADG, a pair SA-73-5 preamps, and I am still waiting for the SA-609 which is on order.

Some of these came very quickly, but some admittedly took a few months. Regardless, I have always been very happy with the build quality and the sound quality.

My most recent purchase from Stam was a pair of SA-312-5 preamps. I ordered these around the start of 2021, and they arrived in April.

Like everything else Stam, I was expecting them to sound great - but in fact I was completely blown away!

I have tested these on a wide range of sources and the sound is just so balanced and yet so warm and meaty - even without driving the preamp hard. I don't know what's how this works, perhaps it's the huge transformer they squeezed into this unit, but the lows are just so think and lush, and every other frequency band seems to balance well around this low end warmth.

Then, by driving the preamp harder and turning down the output to compensate, you introduce this really nice level of saturation in the mids that just sounds beautiful and buttery.

I highly recommend these for drums, bass, guitars, male vocals, etc, and they would probably even work really well on brass or keys if you want a fatter sound. They are fast becoming one of my favourite pieces of gear!