Sytek Audio Systems MPX-4A

The Sytek Audio Systems MPX-4A is a four channel microphones preamplifier with a simple configuration and big sound. The MPX-4A has solid state, transformerless design, consisting of all class A parts. It only has XLR inputs and outputs for each of the four channels and no other connections at all. It is in rack mountable form and will only take up a single space, which is awesome considering there are four mic pres in here!

UTILIZATION

Using the Sytek Audio Systems MPX-4A is just about as simple as it can get for a set of microphones preamps. Each of the four channels consists of the same configuration, with a gain knob for each and buttons for mute, phase, and phantom power, and that's it! That is literally all that you need to know about this, making it just about as fool proof as you can get. A manual certainly isn't necessary to use the MPX-4A.

SOUND QUALITY

The sound of the Sytek Audio Systems MPX-4A is overall outstanding. In a recent recording session that I worked on, we used all four of these mic preamps at once for use with a live band. We had the preamps going to all sorts of different places. We had one on acoustic guitar, one on the bottom of a snare drum, one on a scratch vocal, and one on the inside of the kick drum. Just from seeing the wide array of applications that I used them for, you can probably tell that I believe these preamps are quite versatile. I think you'll agree when you hear the high quality sound that you achieve with these preamps regardless of the application. While I might not use these for the most important things during the recording of a live band, they are perfect for supplementing higher end preamps when you need more high quality preamps beyond your Neves, etc. Of course there are times when I would not want to use these pres, but more times than not I think they'll work great.

OVERALL OPINION

While the Sytek Audio Systems MPX-4A comes in a few different versions, the one that I have used is the standard one. In my opinion this set of four mic pres is one of the best bang for your buck deals out there in terms of microphones preamps. For under $1000 USD (which this costs) I think you'd be pretty hard pressed to find another set of FOUR microphone preamps that is of this high of a quality. I've been very impressed with the Sytek Audio Systems MPX-4A in my time using it, and it is definitley something that I'm thinking of adding to my home studio as well...