Topic: ad-20 vs. ADMIC-20

[jb3newbie]

Anyone have experience with both.....what are the pros and cons??

[RobC]

I've never run an ADMIC-20
but I can give you some of the pros and cons of an AD-20

cons:
No level meters
No Phantom power
only 44.1 kHz
Knobs for adjusting levels are really small
minimum gain is +16 db (at really lould shows you have to set levels all the way down and hope for the best,  personally I have never had clips that affected playback)

pros:
not very expensive
small in size (croachable)
pre and A/D in one box
both coax and optical outs (great for JB3 users)
built like a tank it won't break if you drop it
easy to power on either 9v battery or will run a very long time on a 9.6v RC battery pack

All and all, I was very happy with my AD-20.  I made many great tapes with it.  I just got a Warm Mod UA-5 (which I haven't gotten to try out yet) and the reason for getting it wasn't because I didn't like the AD-20, but I wanted to try out the "warm" sound and want the abality to record at different sampling and bit rates.

I think if you are happy with the sound your microphones give you going "Line IN" you will be happy with an AD-20, because the mic pre in the AD-20 dosen't do all that much to the sound.  I've heard some people call AD-20s the "thinbox" (instead of the in-box) probably because they were using "thin sounding" microphones    An AD-20 is not going to improve the sound of your microphones, but is a good inexpensive way to add gain and convert analog to digital,  without any "extras"

[super-phat-al]

Personally i think the DMIC-20 is the best a/d pre for the price.  It has everything you need.  While it doesn't add any color to the sound as a warm mod UA-5 would, it has everything you would need in one box.

level meters
phantom power
easily powered by a 6v
easy to set gain (with todd modd)
would work well with a JB3 if you have the coax>optical (ask Brian S about this)
good design & very durable from what i can tell


To me this is a prefect addition to someone's rig.  I would be happy to send you some tapes i have made with it.  

[F.O.Bean]

Personally i think the DMIC-20 is the best a/d pre for the price.  It has everything you need.  While it doesn't add any color to the sound as a warm mod UA-5 would, it has everything you would need in one box.

level meters
phantom power
easily powered by a 6v
easy to set gain (with todd modd)
would work well with a JB3 if you have the coax>optical (ask Brian S about this)
good design & very durable from what i can tell


To me this is a prefect addition to someone's rig.  I would be happy to send you some tapes i have made with it.  

thank god we have a dmic fulffer to take my place,GO ALEX

[Kelso]

where can you buy this ADMIC-20?

[Tim]

DMIC-20

any of the regular retailers should have it...

[Kelso]

but they don't I get no result on google

[zhianosatch]

what the hell is an ADMIC-20?

[cpclark]

if you search for DMIC-20 instead of putting an A in front of it, you should find plenty of results, IMO, i would rather give the nod to the ad-20, although it doesnt have phantom or level meters, but the dmic is so bright , you have to use some colored mics IMO to get a good sound, just my .02 on that one

[F.O.Bean]

the dmic-20 is a great pre/ad combo IMO, i ran one w/ 480's from 99 until recently, it has dip switches which def have their pro's and con's, but youlll never bump the levels off again, theyre not going anywhere

its a transparent pre/ad if thats your tyhing, but its a lil bright, but i look at its bright side as detail

[cpclark]

i never would have thought there would have been an ad-20/dmic-20 phluffing thread around here, its nice for a change over grace/apogee phluffing that is all over the place

[zhianosatch]

yup, i know what the DMIC-20 is...

[F.O.Bean]

i never would have thought there would have been an ad-20/dmic-20 phluffing thread around here, its nice for a change over grace/apogee phluffing that is all over the place

just getting back to the roots

[THE NIZ BIAAAAACH!]

Posted by: superphatal  Posted on: February 05, 2004, 08:22:50 PM  
Personally i think the DMIC-20 is the best a/d pre for the price.  It has everything you need.  While it doesn't add any color to the sound  

I agree 100%.  I ran this box for 2 years it is a great starter pre\ad box.  I loved it.  People complain about the dip switches that you have to set but I never had a problem  if I was with in 3db I would usuall step it up the extra 5db and it never brick walled once.  This was of course reading levels on my dap1 which we know not to always be the most accurate.  Point is though it never overloaded.

[Brian Skalinder]

I know your post didn't ask about it specifically, but for my money I'd also consider a digi-modded Edirol UA-5.  I personally prefer it to both the AD-20 and DMIC-20 in terms of price/sound quality/feature set.  I just posted a quickly put together UA-5 FAQ in the Archival Info forum - check it out as an option.

The DMIC yields more detail, but is too bright and digital sounding for my tastes.  Good thing we have all these gear choices - lots of options for different ears!