FMR RNP8380 V0.60 User Manual

Really Nice Preamp

QuickStart Guide

V0.60

FMR Audio

[phone]

www.fmraudio.com

I

NTRODUCTION

Typically, this is where I’m supposed to congratulate you on your choice of buying our Really Nice

Preamp, but I’m not going to! I do, however, want to THANK YOU! We appreciate putting your trust and

hard-earned cash into one of our products (or at least giving us a shot by demoing them)! Even though

we’re very proud of our products, the point of it is to give you the opportunity to

excessively draining your bank account nor making excuses for the sonic results!

Really Nice Preamp

What’s Cool!

Before you scurry off to work on your studio tan (although if you’re in a real hurry, see See “Quickstart” on

page 4. ), I did want to point out to you some of the salient points about the Really Nice Preamp:

•

Lots’o’headroom —

output signal levels while reducing their output noise levels. This means either

employing a front-end pad and/or increasing the headroom of a micpre. We

decided to do the latter: at unity gain, the RNP 8380 has a clip point of +28dBu

(over 27 Volts peak-to-peak)! Even with a hefty microphone output, the RNP8380

should take what your mics have to give!

These days, the trend is for microphones to increase their

make music

without

Fidelity —

•

probably agree that it’s not one of the easier devices to design properly. There are

many ways to balance the sometimes conflicting design constraints. Unfortu-

nately, with the proliferation of integrated-circuit (IC) based micpres in recent

years, one of the typical casualties has been fidelity. At this point, I won’t bore you

with the geeky details, but I want to assure you that fidelity was not sacrificed in

the RNP8380. Even though there are many micpres that are quieter, there are very

few that have the spurious-free (i.e., distortion-free) spectrum of the RNP8380

(Okay, that was a geeky detail...)! Now, more than ever, what you put into a

micpre is what you’ll get out!

•

Ugly box —

we opted to throw the money we saved in cosmetics into the quality of the audio

electronics. I like having nice-looking gear as much as the next guy, but given the

choice between something that sounds nice versus looks nice, the sound wins out

every time!

•

Really Nice Compressor (RNC) inserts —

unbalanced send/receive jack that allow you to connect an RNC1773 using a sin-

gle Tip-Ring-Sleeve (TRS) cable (per channel). Also, with proper cabling, you

could use this feature to balance any other unbalanced piece of gear. In addition,

with the right external configuration, the RNP can provide a separate +22dBu

As simple as the function of micpre is, most design engineers would

If you look beyond the RNP8380’s utiliterian ugliness, you’ll see that

Each channel on the RNP8380 has an

RNPQuickstartV050 Page 1 of 10

FMR Audio, [phone] www.fmraudio.com

unbalanced output and a +28dBu balanced output simultaneously to allow nifty

things like separate M/S decoding while tracking the M/S signal without decod-

ing!

•

Balanced/unbalanced operation —

are electronically balanced, differential signals. Want to run to/from unbalanced

sources? No problem, the RNP “automatically” adjusts...no special cabling

required!

•

Hi-Z DI inputs —

bass, and not “suck the tone” away from the instrument. This input features a

high-impedance (1M Ω ), unbalanced 1/4˝ jack.

•

Slowly-ramping 48V supply —

nected to the RNP that can’t tolerate +48V applied to them, we ramp up the

+48Volts slowly—just in case you accidently turn on the phantom supply with a

phantom-intolerant microphone attached to the RNP. In addition, this ramp helps

reduce “settling time” of the RNP’s servos (see Geek Stuff below) and reduces the

size of the output pops/clicks.

These inputs are designed to take a source, such as a passive

Both the mic inputs and micpre outputs

To r educe the chance of destroying mics con-

•

EMI-resistant —

designed to attenuate RF while giving a smooth audio performance up to 240kHz,

we’ve reduced the chances that you’ll have trouble with Radio Frequency (RF)

interfering with the RNP’s operation even at high-gain levels. When used with a

nominal 150 Ω balanced source, this filter yields exceptional audio performance.

•

Output mutes —

switching, we momentarily mute the output signals to reduce output pops &

clicks that may otherwise annoy you and others. This mute actually occurs before

the INSERT send signal so that even devices connected to the INSERT are spared

large pops & clicks.

•

Stepped gain control —

nels, we’re using a Grayhill 12-position switch to set the RNP’s gain.

•

Phase inversion control —

date any phase problems due to things like system cabling, etc. This control

inverts the polarity of the micpres output signal relative to the input.

•

Precision metering —

ing (signal presence, +18dBu and CLIP) of the insert “SEND” signal. In addition,

By utilizing a third-order EMI filter at the front end specifically

During phantom engagement/disengagement and DI/mic

To allow precise gain-setting between multiple chan-

This is fairly standard stuff to allow you to accommo-

Three LEDs per channel are provided for accurate meter-

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