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Grace Design model 101

Single Channel Microphone Preamp with fully-balanced, transformerless design
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Item ID: 101

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Grace Design model 101
Grace Design model 101
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Superb Grace Design Audiophile Quality!

The Grace Design Model 101 mic pre boasts a sleek and sexy look on the outside and immaculate design and features on the inside. The Grace 101 mic pre's fully balanced, transformerless design and fast musical transimpedance amplifier architecture, lets you record with confidence. The Grace 101 insures your microphone and recording equipment are capturing audiophile quality sound faithfully and accurately.

Grace Design Quality
The Grace 101 is a single serving of the critically acclaimed Grace Design microphone preamplifier. The Grace 101 uses the same fast, musical transimpedance amplifier architecture as the venerable Grace 801 and 201, but is packaged it to be priced within the reach of any recording engineer, musician, or studio.

The model 101 is Grace Design pedigree throughout - fully balanced and transformerless with no electrolytic capacitors in the signal path. With incredible bandwidth, headroom and resolution, the Grace 101 is remarkably natural, musical and detailed. Also, the Grace 101 is available with an extended gain range input (10-70dB) 'Grace Designed' for gain-hungry ribbon microphones.

Plug The Grace 101 In
The included instrument DI input of the Grace 101 is designed to accommodate a wide variety of high impedance input sources, making the Grace 101 an excellent choice as a DI box which will flawlessly preserve the sound of the instrument- imagine the same resolution and detail as Grace microphone preamplifiers available for direct-inject recording situations.

Rugged Grace Construction
To top it off, the Grace Design 101 mic pre is completely rugged and road worthy, so discerning live performers can use the Grace 101 to achieve studio quality sound with their live setups. The Grace 101 mic pre is rack mountable in a standard 1U rack tray, and two units will happily nest side by side in one rack space. Equally at home amplifying a vintage condenser mic or an acoustic guitar, the Grace model 101 delivers results previously available only to big budget studios and Grammy winning engineers. The Grace Design 101 mic pre is the ultimate microphone preamplifier for under $1000.

Grace Design 101 Mic Pre Features:
  • Fully balanced transformerless mic input and high impedance instrument input
  • Balanced xlr and 1/4" TRS outputs
  • Ultra clean 48 Volt phantom power
  • 11 position precision silver contact rotary gain switch
  • High quality conductive plastic 10dB output attenuator
  • 75Hz 12dB/octave transitional Thompson-Butterworth high pass filter
  • Two color LED peak meter shows signal present and peak conditions
  • No electrolitic capacitors in the signal path.
  • Minimal internal signal wiring
  • Ultra high resolution transimpedance gain stage
  • High precision active balanced output circuit

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Tech Specs

  • Manufacturer Part Number: A101-120

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Hear from a Sales Engineer
What Do Our In-house Gear Experts Think?
Taking the Grace Design 101 home with me, I was so excited. I had a project I was working on and really hoping the 101 would come through for me. Upon opening the box, the first thing I noticed was how solid the unit was. It was heavy, not a cheap plastic case. The front was so shiny and sleek. With only two knobs and three buttons it felt very inviting, not intimidating. Getting a great sound out of this unit was really easy. There is a light that goes green when you have a -20 dBu signal and stays green until you get close to clipping at +16dBu. The gain knob gives you 11 different gain stages at 5dB increments, which makes it easy to record settings with specific mics and applications. Each knob even has a rubber strip in it to keep your fingers from slipping while you make adjustments. The other knob is dedicated to trim allowing you to dial in proper levels quickly. So once I got it out of the box and plugged in, I grabbed a Rode NT-2 and plugged it into the Grace. I instantly noticed how clean and clear the mic sounded. Playing my acoustic, I was really able to hear the character of the microphone. The low end was really tight and the high end was very smooth. So I grabbed another mic, a small-diaphragm condenser, one I had some noise problems with in the past. Running it through the Grace 101 I had none of those problems. The noise I had experienced in the past was gone. This is a direct result of the clean, transformerless signal path. The phantom power is exceptionally pure as well. Put those two together and the result is that you really get to hear the sound and character of your microphone. The Grace Design 101 is a great preamp for anyone. Whether you are a professional studio or you are expanding your home studio, the 101 will really help take your sound to the next level. It is perfect next to your other preamps if you are looking for an additional channel of preamplification. With its features and price point, it is also the perfect first preamp for a home studio. I loved using the 101 and found it really gave me all I was looking for in a preamp and love having it as a part of my studio.
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