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Grace Design m101 Microphone Preamp
 
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List Price: $765.00
Our Price: $685.00
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Availability: Usually Ships in 24 Hours
Product Code: 9999-06002



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Grace Design m101 Microphone Preamp Details

The Grace Design m101 employs Grace Design's balanced, transformerless, transimpedance circuit topology, thus maintaining the Grace Design pedigree throughout. With incredible bandwidth and headroom, the m101 is natural, musical and detailed, allowing engineers and musicians to consistently record vibrant, amazing tracks.

The m101 is equipped with Grace Design's new universal switching power supply, which is dead quiet and accepts input voltages from 100 to 240VAC. The front panel is a tough black anodized / laser etched black, which ensures legibility and usability in varying light conditions. And all preamp functions have a dedicated indicator LED, including the 48V phantom power and HPF switch.

Built in as standard is Grace Design's unique Ribbon Mic Mode, which bypasses the input decoupling capacitors, raises the input impedance from 8.1kΩ to 20kΩ, and defeats the 48V phantom power, preventing damage to delicate ribbon mic elements. Ribbon mics, you’re welcome.

The gain range is 10-75dB, including the additional +10dB of gain available with the output trim control. This provides ample gain for use of any type of microphone in any recording situation. The gain control is a precision gold plated 12 position switch and the circuit path is built with 0.5% metal film resistors.

Included is a HI-Z input on the front panel. Rear panel I/O options include both balanced TRS and unbalanced TS 1/4” outputs, along with the standard XLR balanced out and XLR microphone in.

Equally at home amplifying a vintage condenser mic or a plugged-in acoustic guitar, the m101 delivers the kind of high fidelity performance previously available only to big budget recording studios and Grammy winning musicians. Add it all up while considering that the price is unmatched and the picture becomes pretty clear – the m101 is one little hot rod piece of pro audio gear for the masses.

Two m101's can be rack-mounted side by side in a standard 1U Universal rack tray.

Grace Design m101 Microphone Preamp Features

  • Fast and musical transimpedance architecture
  • Updated audio path with 0.5% precision metal film resistors
  • New 12 position gold plated rotary gain switch
  • High performance output line driver amplifier and HPF amplifier
  • New Ribbon mic mode (also great for dynamic mics) - Relays bypass of phantom power decoupling capacitors, increased input impedance, and 48V lockout
  • Wider 10-75dB gain range
  • Enhanced RFI interference suppression
  • Three output connectors: XLR balanced, TRS balanced and Ό” unbalanced
  • Bombproof laser-etched black anodized front panel
  • Sealed gold contact relay for Hi-Z input switching
  • Built in power supply / no wall-wart!
  • Led indicators for +48V, Ribbon mode, and HPF
  • Five year warranty on parts and labor
  • Made in the USA

Grace Design m101 Microphone Preamp Specifications

  • GAIN RANGE (5dB steps)
    • Mic input: 10-65dB
    • Hi-Z input: -10-45dB
    • Output trim control: 0 to +10dB
  • THD+N
    • @ 20dB Gain +20dBu out: <0.00085%
    • @ 40dB Gain +20dBu out: <0.0010%
    • @ 60dB Gain +20dBu out: <0.0050%
  • INTERMODULATION DISTORTION
    • @ 40dB Gain +20dBu out
    • SMPTE/DIN 4:1 7kHz/50Hz: <0.0020
  • NOISE - REFERRED TO INPUT
    • 50Ω source: <-130dB
    • 150Ω source: <-128dB
    • 600Ω source: <-124dB
  • CMRR
    • 100Hz: >68dB
    • 1kHz: >75dB
    • 10kHz: >65dB
  • PHASE DEVIATION (HPF off)
    • 50Hz-25kHz: <6°
  • FREQUENCY RESPONSE
    • Mic input @ 40dB Gain -3dB: 4.5Hz-390kHz
    • Mic input @ 40dB Gain -0.5dB: 10.5Hz-140kHz
    • Hi-Z input @ 20dB Gain -3dB: 2.5Hz-195kHz
    • Hi-Z input @ 20dB Gain -0.5dB: 6Hz-74kHz
  • IMPEDANCE
    • Mic input: 8.1kΩ
    • Mic input, Ribbon mode: 20kΩ
    • Hi-Z input (unbalanced): 1MΩ
    • Hi-Z input (balanced): 2MΩ
    • Balanced Output: 300Ω
    • Unbalanced Output: 150Ω
  • PEAK LED METER
    • Green threshold: -14dBu
    • Red threshold: +16dBu
  • MAXIMUM OUTPUT LEVEL
    • 100k Ohm load, 0.1% THD: +25dBu
  • WEIGHT and DIMENSIONS
    • English: 2.4 lbs / H1.7” x W8.5” x D9.0”
    • Metric: 1.09 kg / H4.3cm x W21.6cm x D22.8cm
  • POWER CONSUMPTION
    • 100 - 240VAC: 5 Watts Max

Grace Design m101 Microphone Preamp Downloads

What People Are Saying...

"This thing sounds beautiful"

- Bill Frisell

Reviews

What We Think - Grace Design m101 Review

"The Grace Design m101 is one of those microphone pre-amps that you can't help but love. First off, it's not to hard on the wallet, especially given the level of sheer audio quality you're getting into. Grace Design preamps are chameleons, somewhat in that they're clean, but they've got character. They sparkle, but they're not especially bright. They epitomize precision, but are also lustrous... But overall, they are a great investment when you're looking to up your game. My first exposure to Grace Design was a classical album that I assisted on many years back. The sheer depth of the soundfield really was shocking. The emotion could really cut through and was clearly conveyed. If the viola player dug-in on the strings with the bow a little more, you could almost see the particles of horse hair burning off into the air around her. If you're recording acoustic instrumentation and/or simply want to make a significant improvement to your front end, there are fewer choices that could be better than the Grace m101."

Alan Moon - Front End Audio

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Average Customer Review: 4.5 of 5 		| Total Reviews: 5 Write a review.

  0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 
worthy. May 16, 2012
Reviewer: Matthew Moorman from Hillsdale, NY United States  
You don't need "mojo" or "color" in a preamp if your room and instrument and mic have already sufficiently taken care of that. I have a pair of these and a pair of Golden Age Pre 73. I use the Grace more often.

I didn't think these were over $600! Might wanna search the classifieds. I got one for $350 and the other for $450 (both used but in perfect condition). Sorry for the suggestion FEA but I'm for the people. Plus, I've bought plenty from ya

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  0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 
Grace m101 Pre March 28, 2012
Reviewer: David Williams from Hendersonville, NC United States  
The Grace m101 is a relatively affordable and very transparent mic pre. Before buying you should be aware that this pre is EXTREMELY quiet and clean sounding so if you want "color," this definitely won't do it. Otherwise, for classical recordings it rivals Millenia pres; for recordings with ribbon mics it rivals AEA's TRP (due to its variable impedance option) - all at a reasonable price. In my opinion it's the cheapest "truly good" pre out there. I recently got my second one and I am very pleased with my purchase.

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  0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 
Truly transparent preamp February 15, 2012
Reviewer: Dave Kaminsky from Saint Petersburg, FL United States  
I bought this preamp initially to try out in my vocal chain, and it has performed excellently! No other preamp under $1000 displays the kind of transparency that the M101 manages.  Running a microphone through this preamp is a great way to hear how a mic truly sounds, without the coloration of a lesser-quality or overly-warm pre.  Tracks recorded through the M101 tend to stack incredibly well through all stages of a mix.  Great buy!

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  0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 
never sounded this good before June 16, 2011
Reviewer: Mark Davies from Australia  
This pre made me realise how "adequate only" a mixers pre amps are. Seems to fill up so much more of the frequency spectrum in a really nice way, to my ears. Dynamic mics never sounded so good as this in "ribbon mic" mode. Very glad I took the chance & spent the money.

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  0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 
this one's a winner! January 12, 2010
Reviewer: Jesse Clark from Berkeley, CA United States  
I received the Grace m101 preamp the other day and love it! The clarity and cleanness of the signal of this preamp is something I have never experienced before. I'm currently running a Peluso 2247 microphone as a drum overhead into the Grace and it really sounds full and bright and gives the drums a high-production value sound.  The housing is solid, the knobs are solid, everything about this beast is solid! It's got a boost button for ribbon mics which I greatly appreciate as ribbons can use all the help they can get. With both a gain as well as a trim knob you can really dial in the precise level you want to hit it. really, I can't find anything wrong with this thing.


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