Hi everyone, first post here. Long time lurker and regular poster on GS.
Thought I would start my contribution to this great forum with a review of the NPNG preamp. I thought I was done shopping for micpres when my dealer asked me if I wanted to try this new preamp that just came in, the NPNG. Yawn...a preamp...sure...I´ll give it a go....
F**k me. It took me about 5 seconds to decide to buy it. Here´s why.
Overall tone and texture
The NPNG is an unlikely mixture of all the good qualities I´ve come to appreciate in different designs. Usually you can´t have the Yin without the yang - clean can be a little lacking sometimes and harmonically rich can borderline muddiness and so forth. The NPNG seems to have taken only the good things out of every camp of sounds and put them into one box.
It´s fast. I mean really fast. The transient response is outstanding and seems to hold the entire frequency spectrum, like every frequency is arriving at you at the same time. It has a velvety smoothness and a size to it that I have previously heard only in good tube designs. It has a deep solid lowend with the authority of a neve. It´s an inch more in your face and closer to the source than any other preamp I have ever heard. When recording a mono source it doesn´t sound all that mono having great depth and dimension.
It stacks tracks in a way where they just seem to fall into place without effort. The sound is really in a league among the very best ever.
Build quality
The cliche "built like a tank" holds true. It is very obvious that it is a quality piece. All pots and switches have a robust feel. The PSU is external and we´re not talking wall-warts here. Big, heavy and probably capable of powering a small console. You immediately trust the NPNG, I would be very surprised if it broke down in normal operation.
In action
The operation is very straight-forward. There are really no special features other than the variable pad, which instead of just padding down the input lets you finetune the lower range below 30dB of gain. The main gain pot ranges from 30-74 dB. Other than that it´s just a couple of switches for 80Hz HPF, polarity reversal, pad engage and +48V phantom.
The phantom power switch sinks into the front panel meaning it takes some effort to engage it, the obvious reason beeing you can´t turn it on or off by accident.
The meter is scaled down to a couple of LEDs but gives you enough information about where your levels are at. Simple as that, you don´t get a lot to tweak but you are rewarded in spades with the outstanding sonic qualities. All the superlatives I could think of are in the beginning of the review.
So far I have yet to find a source or microphone that doesn´t fit. Vox, bass, guitars, percussion, DI boxes, passive summing rails... all good.
Of course, beeing a state-of-the-art micpre it will tell you if your source sucks. It´s not a flattering piece on a bad source but definitely brings out the best in a good one.
And the way it stacks tracks... Another user said it very well and I quote "it´s like a song recorded with the NPNG becomes this big entity that says place-vocals-here".
Complaints
None except the LEDs on the front panel. They are so bright it hurts to look at them.
Final words
I wasn´t even remotely thinking about buying a preamp but I bought the NPNG immediately. It was painfully obvious that this is a workhorse pre for anyone needing outstanding sonics in a super reliable package. It was what I´ve been hearing in my head.
I was a little nervous about spending close to $3k on a pre from a company I knew nothing about and that doesn´t even have a website. A little research however shows that Karl Diehl, the man behind NPNG is a very respected tech and obviously is a lot better at building gear than marketing them. So buy with confidence.
I own/have owned/used many highend preamps like Api, GML, Cranesong, ff isa, neve & clones, vintage telefunkens etc. The NPNG is high up with the very best of them.
Thanks for reading.
/ Marcus