Housed in a single-space, 500 Series chassis, the TRP500 is the first product in AEA’s third generation of microphone preamps.
The TRP500 provides 85 dB of gain via DC-coupled JFET, and features two input impedance settings: 11,900 Ohms with phantom power on, and 66,000 Ohms with phantom power off. The 66,000 Ohm mode is intended for use with vintage, high-impedance, dynamic, passive ribbon and tube microphones, while the 11,900 Ohm mode accommodates modern, phantom-powered condensers, ensuring high sensitivity, wide bandwidth, fast transient response, and uncolored sound for a wide variety of microphones.
Front-panel controls for the TRP500 include a high-pass filter (off, 115 Hz, 230 Hz 6dB/octave for taming proximity effect), phase reverse and phantom power on/off switches, 12-position precision gain switch (+7 to +65 dB) and output gain (0 to +20 dB).
An LED meter indicates green for signal present at -20 dBu, yellow for 0 dBu, and red for +20 dBu.
Specs include a frequency response of 20 Hz to 100 kHz (+0/-1 dB, 85 dB gain); equivalent input noise: less than –128 dBu (22 Hz to 22 kHz, unweighted, 40Ω source); THD+N: 0.0017% (1kHz, 22 Hz – 22 kHz, 30 dB Gain, +4 dBu output); output impedance: 50Ω; DC current draw 130 mA.
The TRP500 was developed in collaboration with Fred Forssell and is handcrafted in Pasadena, Calif.. MSRP is $599.
