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Congratulations on the purchase of your MSS-10 Microphone Preamplier, one of the
nest sounding pieces of recording equipment ever developed. This remarkable tool will
enable you to make exceptional, natural sounding recordings like never before. Unlike
other units, the “watermark” left by your MSS-10 is pure sonic excellence. Its unique
lack of coloration or hype will reveal a naturalness that is startling, yet immediately
endearing. Your MSS-10 will quickly become one of the hardest working tools in your
audio toolkit. We’re sure that you will enjoy its use for many years to come.
At the heart of the MSS-10 are proprietary, high resolution, all discrete ampliers,
coupled with a custom, high-level, input transformer. These give the MSS-10 its unique
sonic neutrality and resolution, hence the natural sound and musicality. Every com-
ponent of the MSS-10 was evaluated and listened to, individually and collectively, to
assure the nest possible signal path. Coin silver with a stabilizing agent was chosen
for switch contacts because of its superior audio quality over gold. Different grounding
techniques were tried on the PC board layouts to nd the best sounding design. And
capacitors… we could write a book on them, which is why we eliminated them from
the audio path and use our own private label capacitors in other key areas. From all
this research and technology came the desire to build the world’s nest solid state
microphone preamplier. Our desire was not to pick the best shade of rose for a new pair
of tinted glasses, but to truly unveil the audio as never before.
The MSS-10 is comprised of dual signal paths in a single unit, allowing the user complete
exibility in getting audio from the microphone to the console or recorder input.
The primary signal path is a microphone preamplier using two stages of non-inverting
amplication from Mic Preamp In to Mic Preamp Out, providing wide bandwidth and
stability, while avoiding the sonic degradation of inverting ampliers. The microphone
preamplier features 20-65dB of gain switched in precise 5dB steps, and selection of a
20dB pad, polarity reversal, and 48V phantom power. The Mic Preamp Out provides the
user with the highest denition audio signal possible from the source microphone to the
outside world.
The secondary signal path is a line driver that can derive its source from either the
microphone preamplier or from the separate balanced Line In. The line driver features
a high quality level control with adjustment from ∞ to +10dB of gain for smooth level
riding, a Cal switch that shunts the level control for unity gain, a Mute switch, and a
buffered professional VU meter that follows the Line Out. Again no inverting ampliers
are used.
Let’s take a closer look at the layout of the MSS-10…
Introduction
