Black Lion Audio Auteur MK2 Dual Channel Microphone Preamp

I love Black Lion Audio products. I had an Auteur I for 5 years of faithful service, but I was always a little annoyed with its noise floor being at around -68 dBFS when measured with no gain at my audio interface. Also in the last 6 months I owned it, it started to get a little finicky with the impedance it was seeing where it would start to slightly roll off treble frequencies on certain mics.So I decided to take a chance on the Black Lion Audio Auteur Mark II. What an improvement this is over the Mark I. I'm measuring a noise floor of -80 dBFS at the same interface and it only increases by about 6 dBFS or so on the meters when I have the preamp at maximum gain. That alone is impressive.None of that funky impedance loading is happening with the new unit. The power supply is more robust. The potentiometers are smoother travelling with a nicer taper that doesn't get all jumpy after 12 o'clock in its dial position. The phantom power is steady and clean. You can use this mic preamp with a Shure SM-7B or a Beyerdynamic M-160 without any BS Cloudlifter inline. The mics sound great with the is preamp without such nonsense. That's what you pay for with a pro level preamp is to hook any mic or DI box up to it and it should sound good with no snake oil in between.Highly recommended!

I had this in my rig for a few months, I never had a chance to use it. Once I finally did, channel 1 was nothing but noise. I reached out to BlackLion since it was under warranty, they said to send it in. After sending it in, I heard nothing for a month. I emailed them once. No reply. Waited a week. Emailed them again. No reply. Waited another week. Emailed them again. NO REPLY. I reached out their Facebook page, they said to email this different address. I did, no reply. After 2 months of no replies, no updates, no communication that they even received it (besides the USPS slip that said they did), I put them on blast on Twitter. The next day, I finally got an email back saying they were taking a look at it. (They had it for 2 months!!!!) They followed up saying that I damaged the pot by smashing it in. I saw no damage to it, I never even used the thing. It was sitting protected in a road case for a couple months. They said they'd replace it anyway. They finally sent it back about 2.5 months after I sent it out. I plug it in, and channel 1 is still just the same noise. They didn't even fix it. Worst customer service and worst experience I've ever had with a "professional" music equipment company. I will never purchase from BLA again.

Couldn’t be happier with this! Leveled up my production a LOT and works perfectly for my setup.

Well... it's a well-made product and priced very fairly. But all in all, I must admit, I'm not 'loving' the sound. Volume control is only smooth up to the point between average input sensitivity and low-level boost zone, where the slightest amount of twist causes like a 5-10db LEAP to LOUD; none of my cheap or Soundcraft mixer onboard preamps do that. When it does jump from lower-level to that last 20% rotation LOUD zone, it's not so quiet either. Frankly, I prefer using bargain ART tube hybrid preamps and a used Studio Projects VTB1 I just got: even without pushing signal through the vacuum tube stage, those sound nicer to me as plain solid state preamps. Not bad. Worth the money, I guess. But wouldn't buy another.

I bought this one expecting pristine sound, and wasn't disappointed. Not only are both channels matched very closely, they also do not get noisy until almost maxed out, and by that level, ambient sounds from far away are sounding way louder than the noise.I like how I can print the DAW outputs through it and the audio sounds just as clean, but with that extra level of niceness. You don't know what it is, but it sounds OBVIOUSLY SUBTLE...enough to make a big difference.If you want a very colored sound that's thick, you need to look elsewhere. This one was made by BLA to sound clean but with a bit of that old-school upper range smoothness. I vouch. Bright highs remain bright, but they're buffed out enough to retain detail while losing any bothersome harshness. I think it's the perfect amount of color. I haven't found an application where this pre-amp doesn't sound good to my ears.$200 per pre-amp channel is a fantastic deal. You are paying $400 for TWO pre-amps, not just one. These are as serious and as high-end as anything else out there with a huge price. Nothing about them is peasant-level. BLA said that this one is simply not expensive to make, so the price is very low for the level of quality, and is made in the US by hand. This is big boy stuff without the big boy price.This is my first BLA product, and certainly not my last. First impression was extremely positive, and while $400 might seem like a lot if you're new in this game, this is truly a bargain price for a product with NO compromises whatsoever. Turn it on, adjust levels, and record. Smile while hearing back what you just recorded.Do your interface pre-amps sound clean? Clean is good, but sometimes that's not enough. There are occasions where you also might want big, and this pre-amp makes stuff sound big like in real life. It just captures that unknown element that your interface pre-amps miss. To my ears, recordings just sound more real and dynamic. Even my voice sounds pleasant enough to my ears for me to just cut the lows from 100 Hz down and enjoy it as it is with no additive EQ.Have fun. God bless you. Peace!