Heritage Audio HA73EQX2 ELITE 2-channel Microphone Preamp & EQ Reviews
Heritage Audio's value-packed ELITE series leverages the expertise gleaned from years of making acclaimed vintage-inspired equipment. For the dual-channel HA73EQ ELITE mic preamp/EQ, Heritage Audio set its target high: their own widely respected, hand-wired HA73jr and DMA73 preamps — themselves based on the most iconic vintage console preamp/EQ module in history, the 1073. In Sweetwater's opinion, they succeeded quite handily. This thing sounds amazing. You might ask how Heritage can offer the same world-class sound and performance at such a budget-friendly price. Through economies of scale, mostly. They don't cut corners on components (the HA73EQ ELITE employs genuine Carnhill input and output transformers), but they do order parts and build in quantity, using lean manufacturing and modern construction techniques, in the same Spanish factory as the rest of their line.
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Highest Rated Reviews
A Must Have For The Next Level!!!
These make everything so much better, Everything that goes through this is just better, takes it to the next level!
Class A
This is a wonderful preamp and the EQ is of mastering quality and tones, this is all one needs to get any tone from and life like sound from running pre recorded tracks through as well and on the master channel. Stunning... Vibes out the wazoo. Later freaks... :)
I get it now
My friend always told me to use a mic pre, that it would make my recordings sit better; now I get it. Instantly I'm able to record bass, guitar, vocals, and they sit in the mix. The device literally makes my recordings come through better. I don't have experience with a true Neve but can say I have had nothing but a good experience using this preamp.
Desert Island MicPre
I have a bunch of preamps to choose from. I have used lots of preamps in many forms (tube, transistor, etc). NO OTHER PREAMP EVEN COMES CLOSE to this beast. And i'm not even going to talk about the eq, because for the price, this is simply ridiculous. Do yourself a favor and buy this. The only problem with this is, now I want 10 units.
WAY BETTER THAN EXPECTED!!
Was trying to find a new preamp with a 73 style. I was looking at warm audio but decide to take a chance on this heritage which at the time didn't have any reviews, but It looked like a beast and now im glad I did. once you hook up your mic you'll hear how incredible this pre is. This thing is smooth, clean, and clear. When you up the gain its stays pretty transparent and gives you a nice solid sound also sounds very modern. Eq is also a plus can really help tighten up the source. I'll be happily using my Heritage for the next couple years as I see no need to change it out, it gives me that sound I wanted. No more stressing over finding a professional grade pre that can keep up with the big boys. Also Love the red glow the phantom power gives off when you turn it on, reminds me of a really heated up nail, very cool! Also shout out to my sales engineer Ryan!!
This Mic Pre is too good...
I've had this two channel pre amp for about 3 months now and I gotta say it's awesome!
I have it plugged into my Apollo twin's line inputs and I run absolutely everything through it with a patch bay connecting to the line inputs on the back of the HA73.... It's like I have a vintage British console in my bedroom! I have UAD's 1073 w/ EQ and the Waves version too. I've been using them for quite a while, however when I got this, I was surprised at the new territories I was discovering that I didn't with plugins. For example, boosting the 3.2kHz band almost all the way brought out a super classic vintage sound that I never found with the plugins. I was super surprised. The EQ compare to the plugin when I was A/Bing to the UAD, but I wasn't able to get the same kind of drive and grit that I got on this unit with the plugins, so I felt happy that I purchased this. Felt like I could do everything the plugins could do plus more. Plus I was saving CPU power going analog. The line inputs on the front made it easy for me to plug in bass and get super fat DI tones when boosting the bass EQ. Even DI guitar can sound cool on it.
It just sounds great and it is sturdy. When researching before I bought this, on YouTube, I read comments where people were concerned that the knobs looked like they're moving and that it'd be cheap, which worried me initially. Now that I have the unit, I can say it doesn't feel cheap and the knobs feel fine to me. This compelled me to write a review to set that straight and since no one had yet.
I think there is no substitute for getting your hands on real knobs so that you can make quick adjustments to hear a sweet spot instantly. In my opinion it is much more inspiring and the experience is way more fun than clicking and dragging a mouse on a little digital knob on your screen, but that's just me. Plus it looks sweet in the studio! I love the idea of running through as much "real" analog things as possible. I think this unit is also one of the better looking clones next to the BAE ones. I highly recommend this.
More value than I expected!
The HA73EQx2 is an exceptional investment for anyone needing entry into a standalone mic pre combined with a superlative eq. The feel of the interface is NOT cheap. It certainly captures the essence of the historical platform. The noise floor is so low I was confused if it was turned on. The DI is way better than average, comparing to those that cost $ or more. Trying to describe the sound eq is problematic. I don't like getting sucked into subjective descriptions, as this often gets silly sounding. But to keep it simple, the tonal shaping is quick and easy to get to.
If you've got well calibrated monitors, this is a handsome addition to getting the recording right the first time!
Preamp is nice, EQ is unwieldly
The preamp section is quite nice. Recording vocals and acoustic guitars, it removed a veil and a sterility from my Apogee Ensemble interface's internal preamps that I never realized was there.
There is a design issue with the EQ section. The EQ amplitude knobs cover an absolutely MASSIVE range, making subtle EQ level adjustments frustrating because even the smallest of knob-turns makes a dramatic EQ difference. That sensitivity also makes recall REALLY difficult (where you want to use the EQ section as an insert on a track and go back to a previous setting in order to make further adjustments from there). And, the sound of the EQ was just so-so; I was able to get better-sounding EQ from Logic's built-in tube equalizer (that mimic Pultec's EQP and MEQ equalizers).
Build quality seemed good, especially for the price. Some of the push-buttons are a little misaligned, but not a big deal. The feel of rotating the detented and continuously-variable knobs was good.
If this unit had a better EQ section, I would have given it 4.5 or 5 stars.
