Rupert Neve Designs 5025 Dual Shelford Mic Pre

The bestseller from Rupert Neve Designs, the Shelford Channel, is the ultimate evolution of the original electronics of the classic 1073, 1064, and 2254.

By popular demand, Rupert Neve Designs introduces the Dual Shelford Mic Pre: a limited-edition, two-channel version of the flagship preamplifier that has become an indispensable tool for countless sound engineers, producers, and musicians. The Dual Shelford offers the sonic excellence of two Rupert Neve Designs Shelford microphone preamplifiers in a single rack unit, with an internal power supply; in short, these are two channels of the world's finest microphone preamplification.

This special production will be limited to only 300 pieces worldwide.

The Input Transformer

Like Rupert Neve's original designs, the Dual Shelford Pre uses a custom input transformer that provides the first 15 dB of gain. This custom transformer, along with its careful integration with the surrounding Class A circuitry, is critical to the amplifier's sonic performance. Its sound can be heard on thousands of historical recordings. While most of the harmonic richness of Rupert's designs comes from the output transformer and the surrounding Class A amplifiers, this input transformer provides unique sonics. The technical reasons are primarily the result of the input transformer's characteristic reactive impedance and how it interacts with the connected microphone, with a subtle nonlinear harmonic enhancement of the lows and an unmistakable sweetness in the high frequencies. When creating the input stage for Shelford Channel and Dual Shelford Pre, the goal was not merely to reproduce classic designs, but to improve them by combining the unmistakable sound of vintage technology with wideband frequency response, with consistently excellent amplifier performance at any gain setting and extremely low noise floor. To achieve this, the custom transformer designs were optimized and the input transformer's full MuMetal shielding was implemented. The resulting preamplifier is flat from below 10Hz to above 60kHz, thus achieving the purest and most versatile sound possible.

What is Silk?

The Dual Shelford Mic Pre's exclusive Silk & Texture circuit allows you to adjust the amount (and type) of harmonic content in the output stage. This means the sound can range from transparent settings to others that produce almost 10 times the amount of color of vintage Neve modules. This happens with two unique modes. Whatever sound you're looking for, Silk can help you achieve it.
When you apply SILK RED, you are enhancing the harmonic content generated by the highs and upper mids of your source. This adds a brilliance to the extreme upper band, and is often ideal for sources such as vocals, snare drum, strings, piano, and many other acoustic instruments. With SILK BLUE, you are enhancing the harmonics generated by the lows and lower mids of your source. This tends to "reinforce" the signal, making it an excellent choice for drums, bass, heavy electric guitars, male vocals, and synthesizers.

The Dual-Level Output Transformers

Complementing the Silk circuit are the custom-designed output transformers, which utilize Rupert Neve Designs' unique dual-output topology. These offer both Main (+26 dBu) and -6dB (+20 dBu) outputs, allowing the engineer to drive the preamplifiers into classic transformer saturation without clipping converters and other downstream devices in the audio chain. The main outputs are designed to capture a more pristine sound at high levels, avoiding any nonlinear coloration of the output stage. The -6dB outputs allow high gain levels on the Shelford without clipping most professional interfaces. On drums, vocals, guitars, and other instruments, these outputs allow you to easily reach the "sweet spot" of the transformer's nonlinear harmonic content, bringing a recorded performance to life in a way that other preamplifiers cannot match.

Features

• The ultimate evolution of Rupert Neve's renowned vintage microphone preamplifier technology
• Dual-level output transformers create rich harmonic character without clipping downstream devices in the chain
• Silk Red & Blue modes with Texture control to precisely dial in the desired amount of "classic" sound
• Shelford offers the essence of classic design combined with modern versatility
• Class A Gain up to 72 dB with low noise floor, to get the best out of any source
• Worldwide compatible power supply, with double the voltage of the original 80-series modules
• Precisely engineered discrete design, built to last for decades to come.