Warm Audio WA12 500 MkII Microphone Preamp

A lot of preamps on the market do a good job of raising the volume of mics and instruments. Unfortunately, many only do that—simply boosting volume without adding much character. The “super clean” designs of today often leave your signal sounding nearly identical to how it entered the preamp.

The WA12 500 MkII is different. Designed to bring life, depth, and excitement to your recordings, it transforms plain instruments and vocals into rich, professional-sounding tones. If your mixes feel flat or lack that elusive polish, this preamp could be exactly what you need.

Features:

• Fully discrete design with 71 dB of gain.
• 6-pin socketed 1731-style op-amp.
• 20 dB Pad.
• External 24V AC power plug.
• Tone button: switches input impedance from 600 Ω to 150 Ω.
• XLR mic level balanced input.
• XLR and 1/4″ TRS balanced outputs.
• 48V Phantom Power.
• LED meter gain indication.
• 2 MΩ Hi-Z input on front panel: sends instrument signal through the entire circuit, including Cinemag transformers and discrete op-amp.
• Output attenuation control: drive the preamp and transformers into natural saturation.