When we first set out to strike new ground in the audio world we knew that our new project would live or die on the strength of the preamps. After thousands of hours spent researching and developing our design from the ground up, evaluating components and measuring every last specification, we had achieved what many had thought was impossible: the KMI K-Mix µPre (pronounced “micro pre”).
We’re very proud of the uncompromising quality of our preamps; their quiet operation and flat frequency response, their energy efficiency and overall sonic character. In an effort to share some insight on the process behind the development of the K-Mix µPre mic preamps we’ve created a couple of videos. Check them out, we think they do a great job at showing off some of what we think makes our µPres so special.
In the first video we sat for a quick interview with Keith himself and our lead hardware engineer, Brian Wright, to discuss the finer points of preamp design. The µPre analog front end boasts a flat frequency response out to 40kHz (great for preserving the crystalline upper harmonic content of the source material when using a sample rate of 96kHz). The AKM convertors we use sound amazing. That the whole thing can be run on USB bus power is simply a marvel of modern engineering and component design, it was amazingly challenging to get uncompromised quality in a bus powered package.
For the second video we took K-Mix out for a field test of the preamps with Brad Dollar at Zoolabs, a music accelerator and recording studio in Oakland, California. It was good to be able to really listen to the µPres in a controlled setting with multiple pics and other preamps to A/B and measure against. We look forward to documenting more K-Mix recording sessions soon!
Check out K-Mix today and hear the µPre preamps for yourself! Find more at https://www.keithmcmillen.com/k-mix/