Am I dreaming? That was my initial reaction when I heard the Golden Age Project Pre-73 (Mk I $299; Mk II $349.99) preamp for the first time. Somehow Golden Age Project managed to produce a preamp with an authentic vintage vibe at a deep discount to the usual cost. What’s more, the company didn’t realize its goal by starving the Pre-73 for features. This is one feature-packed box.

Golden Age Project is an offshoot of Golden Age Music, a Swedish company whose mission is offering vintage-style pro-audio gear at affordable prices. The company makes over a dozen mics and a couple outboard pieces, one of which is the Pre-73.

The Pre-73 purportedly uses a similar circuit design as the preamp section of the vintage Neve 1073 (a combination preamp and equalizer), although different components were used to cut costs. But make no mistake, all components in the audio path are discrete; no integrated circuits and no more than nine transistors—at high gain settings—are used. Separate transformers are used on the line and mic inputs and on the line output. The discrete components and transformers are what give the Pre-73 its colorful sound.

Taking a Closer Look
The single-channel Pre-73 is a steel-encased desktop unit that accepts mic, line, and instrument inputs. An optional rackmount kit is available for $39. It mates two Pre-73’s together to form an integral 1RU unit.

The front panel has input- and output-gain controls, several pushbutton switches, an unbalanced ¼-inch instrument jack, and status and metering LEDs (see Fig. 1). The rear panel is home to connections for mic and line inputs and a single output connector.

Fig. 1: A long view of the case: The Pre-73’s front panel provides gain controls, an instrument input, output metering and several pushbutton switches that activate useful functions.

Moving back to the front panel, the input-gain control is a switched affair that allows gain adjustments in 5dB steps for a mic, line, or instrument source. Gain increases as you turn the knob counterclockwise, the opposite direction than for most American designs. The first eight steps select line input and adjust its gain. Counterclockwise from about the 2 o’clock position, the line input is muted and gain is increased for either the mic or instrument input, depending on which is selected by way of a pushbutton switch labeled DI. Push the switch in, and the high-impedance instrument jack is routed to the input-gain control. Toggle it to the out position, and the mic input on the rear panel becomes active.

Maximum gain available to the mic input is 80dB, enough boost for passive ribbon mics recording quiet sources. (When you boost gain over 50dB, a second gain stage kicks in; gain settings for the two stages are separated by a switch position that mutes all output.) The line input can be attenuated up to 20dB or boosted as much as 10dB.

The mic input’s impedance can be switched to either 300 or 1200 Ohms; pushing a Low-Z button in (on the front panel) selects 300 Ohms. Changing the impedance presented to the mic changes its frequency response and output level, alternately lending a more open and present sound or one that favors the low end. Other push-button switches on the front panel activate +48V phantom power and flip the preamp’s polarity, respectively. All push-button switches light status LEDs when active.

The continuously variable output-level control is essential to achieving the saturated sound that is the calling card of vintage preamps. The typical way to add color to your tracks is to boost the input gain more than necessary to overdrive the preamp, then back off the output gain to present a more reasonable level to your A/D converter, DAW, or recorder. I wish the output-level control had decibel settings screened on the panel around the knob; on the plus side, numerous unspecified dot-shaped markings help you to achieve repeatable settings.

A horizontal ladder of four LEDs shows output levels; the rightmost LED lights red when your signal has clipped. There’s even a power switch, with an associated LED, on the front panel (something which more costly preamps sometimes lack).

Behind The Scene
The Pre-73’s rear panel continues the happy parade of surprises for such an inexpensive preamp (see Fig. 2). Separate combo XLR/TRS jacks serve balanced mic and line inputs. The preamp’s output is split out to separate balanced XLR and TRS jacks, affording hassle-free interfacing with downstream gear.

You can plug in mic, line, and instrument sources at the same time. Just keep in mind that if you accidentally patch a line source to the mic input’s ¼-inch jack and activate phantom power, you could potentially damage the connected gear. As the separate line-input connector also provides a ¼-inch jack, I would have preferred having a standard XLR for mic input to avoid this possibility.

A tiny coax receptacle accepts the external power supply. The latter is a lump-in-the-line affair, terminated with a two-prong AC plug. Its captive cabling provides over 12 feet of reach, readily accommodating your distantly located AC outlet. The Chinese-made power transformer is pretty hefty: it weighs over a pound and delivers 1.75 amps. Exiling it from the preamp’s steel chassis minimizes hum. Had Golden Age Project used an internal power transformer, they would have had to make the chassis much larger and provided shielding for the audio path. Placing the power transformer outside the chassis kept the Pre-73’s infrastructure leaner and the price more affordable.

The Pre-73 has a one-year warranty. At the time of this writing, an upgraded version of the Pre-73, the Pre-73 Mk II, had already hit the streets. In addition to offering a lower noise floor and greater dynamic range, the Mk II also provides a rear-panel insert jack useful for patching an equalizer or compressor into the audio path.

In The Studio
My first test of the Pre-73 was recording male lead vocals, using an AKG C 414 XL II mic in omni mode. The preamp’s mic-impedance selector was set to the high position, and its output was routed through a Universal Audio LA-2A tube compressor. Adjusting the Pre-73’s input level for 50dB of gain and setting the output-level control fully clockwise (wide open), I was immediately struck by how beautiful the sound was. The midrange sounded very prominent but not at all harsh or edgy. Highs sounded very smooth, and low frequencies were in good balance. The overall effect was a very present and articulate sound.

The Pre-73’s high-impedance setting sounded the most balanced while using the XL II. It produced the clearest sound and exhibited the tightest bottom end. Sticking with this impedance setting, I raised the input gain further and lowered the output level. Doing so added color and grit to the singer’s track and sounded fantastic. Time and again, I found myself using this same saturation technique on the tracks I recorded with the Pre-73. Its smooth and musical saturation is clearly the Pre-73’s greatest attribute and main selling point.

Next up was electric guitar—a 1962 Strat—recorded with an XL II set to hypercardioid mode and placed 15 inches away from a Roland MicroCube amp. Overdriving the Pre-73’s input and attenuating the output once again, the sound exuded warmth, presence and detail. The midrange, in particular, was widened progressively and to beautiful effect as I pushed the preamp harder.

Plugging an ‘80s-era Kramer Pioneer passive electric bass into the Pre-73’s DI input, and routing the preamp’s output to my Universal Audio LA-2A, gave very good results. Once again, boosting the Pre-73’s input gain and lowering its output level added color and size to the track. The tone sounded present but warm.

Running pre-recorded kick and snare tracks in turn through the Pre-73’s line input and overdriving the preamp’s front end again, both tracks sounded bigger, punchier, and less clinical. I also tried giving the same treatment to an electric-guitar track that needed some warming up. The guitar had played through a transistorized amp that sounded very biting. The difference the Pre-73’s line input imparted to the track was too subtle in this instance to determine if it helped the sound at all.

The Final Score
The Pre-73 is capable of producing a wide range of timbres, from clean to saturated. The most dramatic saturation is achieved by overdriving mic signals. Line and DI sources demonstrate less latitude but can also be fattened considerably by driving the unit hard.

"Unlike other inexpensive pretenders to the vintage throne, the Pre-73 never sounded unpleasantly distorted or cheap."

Unlike other inexpensive pretenders to the vintage throne, the Pre-73 never sounded unpleasantly distorted or cheap. In fact, there’s nothing cheap about the Pre-73 except the price. The build quality is rock-solid and the feature set exceptionally generous considering the low cost. Golden Age Project cut corners in all the right places. The result is a vintage-sounding preamp that sets a new price-performance benchmark. The Pre-73 rocks!

Pros: Excellent sound quality. Handles mic, line and instrument levels. Flexible I/O. Sturdy. Very affordable.
Cons: Combo jack on mic input potentially exposes misrouted ¼-inch, line-input sources to damaging phantom power.