in-line microphone preamp for Dynamic and Passive Ribbon Microphones (UPGRADE BRASS)

I've been playing around with microphones for a while. I loved the sound of the SM7b, but could not realistically afford one as I don't currently make any money from my vocal work. I tried all forms of condensers and shotguns, and they had the right sound but were so sensitive to background noises they were practically unusable in a home setting. My first microphone, a Shure SM-57, seemed to be the answer. Bought originally for recording guitars and putting my tube amps out into the front of house, I hadn't really considered using it for vocal work. The only problem was that to use the SM57, I had to push the preamp of my Scarlett Solo so hard that I was getting 60 cycle hum in the background. In comes the Manayo preamp. Pretty sure its a clone of the Dynamite, but at the price I wasn't going to argue much. I had seen some good reviews on youtube, so I took a chance. I am so glad I did. This has brought near SM7b quality sound to my narration work for about a quarter of the price. Does not introduce any appreciable noise and adds enough dB to bring the preamp on the Solo down from about 80% to 50% on the knob. The product itself feels extremely well built with an aluminum (?) shell and is very well packaged inside of a felt bag stuffed in a small cardboard tube. It doesn't rattle around in there and the tube makes a pleasant "pop" when you open it. I mean that alone is worth at least a star. One thing to note though is that this does up the sensitivity of your dynamic microphones quite a bit. They will pick up people moving around upstairs, laundry going in the other room, bumps on the desk, and you'll have to definitely invest in some good plosive handling stuff (pop filters, screens, etc) because it will pick up every "p" "b" "s" "k" very well now. Overall, I am very impressed with the preamp. Very easy to use, just plug it into the DAC and enable 48V phantom power. This will add a lot of presence and richness to any dynamic microphone, from cheap to expensive, and do a good enough job of it that you'll wonder why you even considered getting a Cloud Lifter or a FetHead in the first place. There is no audible difference I've been able to hear in any side by side comparisons online, and when doing narration like I do the end product gets so heavily compressed upon distribution that no one is going to be able to tell if you have a super expensive mic set up, or this and an SM57.

I don’t normally leave reviews, but I think that for the price point and quality of this inline mic preamp that it deserves one. I was struggling with a SM57 to get enough clean gain without raising the noise floor to get a quality recording. Not only did this pre give me the clean gain that I needed, but it is cleaner than the 57 its self from my initial tests. I was able to turn my device down to 5 where I was at 10 before to try to get anything out of my 57. I look forward to recording with this. Some folks say it is hit or miss on quality. Guess I got lucky, but quality is great, easy to use, functions awesome, fits in your pocket, and the noise level is awesome compared to the cheap M-audio pre normally that I use with my 57. Worth it. 👍🏻

I was a bit nervous getting this because of the high number of one star reviews. I'm using an Audio Technica AT2040 dynamic microphone with a Yamaha AG03 USB powered audio interface supplying the needed phantom power to this product. I wanted to give the microphone a boost in order to be able to achieve proper amplification per the audio interfaces guided software setup and that is what I got. Works as advertised. It seems odd to me that so many people had defective units seeing that this item is of solid construction and well packaged. I can't help but wonder if some of the negative experiences were due to poor or missing phantom power in their setups. Either that or using this item with the wrong type of microphone.

The original unit I received had a loud hum/buzz, making it unusable. However, the seller contacted me and sent me a new unit that is much better. There is still a little bit of a hum, but it is a lot less than the first unit they sent and can be eliminated with the de-noiser on my software. It would still be better if I didn't have to use the de-noiser, but it is at least usable. So, A+ for customer service, B+ for the product itself.

Noisy as hell! Absolutely unusable.

Honestly, I did not expect this to perform as well as it does. I got it to use with a Zoom H6, which has pretty noisy preamps (EIN of -120dBu), but it even improves upon my Presonus Studio 26c interface (good preamps, but not the best by today's standards (EIN -125dBu)). The product doesn't feel flimsy, but it doesn't feel particularly sturdy, either. But at $30 (compared to $80 or more for the name brands), I can live with that. However, you should only get this if your audio device has an EIN rating higher than -128dBu (-120dBu, for instance; most modern preamps are REALLY good, though) or it doesn't have enough amplification for your dynamic mic of choice (keep in mind this won't work with a condenser). Definitely worth the price for the performance.

I used to have the gain for my dynamic mic turned up to the max, and now I get clean audio with it set at around 40% gain. It's very easy to install. The only thing is you need to turn on phantom power from your audio interface or it won't work at all (I've seen other reviewers make this mistake).

This review comes 6 months after purchase! I was looking to get something to boost my sound gain for my Rode Podmic that is running out of my generic Behringer UMC-22 mixer/dac without cranking the volume to 85%. While searching for a Cloudlifter, I saw this thing for a third of the price. The earlier reviews look sketchy, but I took a chance when it had a 10$ off coupon available for it. Boy I tell you what a surprise, this thing works as intended right out of the box. I no longer have to crank my gain volume to 85% to get my Rode Podmic to work loudly, thus eliminating background noise and static. My volume doesn't even need to hit 12 o'clock on the mixer dial if I set windows Microphone volume to 100% Will buy again if I end up buying a second dynamic microphone!

Cumple con lo que promete. Aproximadamente 26db más. Sonido limpio. Estoy satisfecho. Aunque por alguna razón mi caja venía sin el papel de especificaciones e instrucciones, pero no importa. El producto funciona. Puedes conectarlo directo al micrófono o si prefieres a la interfaz, no olvides activar el 48V Phantom Power.

Resolveu meu problema

doesn't work - when I have it between my neumann t103 and my focusrite, no sound gets through at all!

Bought an Fduce sl40 as a begginer xlr mic just for gaming not content creation as I wanted to impress my friends with the quality of my mic. I bought the vocaster one for the audio interface and just had a hunch I'd need an inline Amp to be actually heard in discord and games without having the crank the gain on the vocaster all the way to 100, which this handy little device allowed me to avoid doing. Gain on the vocaster is set to around 50-60% with a filter on to make my voice even more crisp and radio caster sounding. Overall very happy I purchased this budget friendly inline mic Amp. Would recommend for people who also want to actually be heard on their new xlr mix for discord, calls and gaming.

La verdad es la primera vez que tengo un dispositivo de estos pero me funciona súper bien, la estoy trabajando con un interfaz de Arturia minifuse y con un micrófono shure SM7B, realmente se nota el cambio y me arroja una salida muy limpia