Sonic Farm Releases Silkworm Series 500 Preamp
Since the beginning of the company’s roots, Vancouver-based Sonic Farm has made it their mission to create products that the market isn’t already over-saturated with.
As they put it, if someone wants to get that Neve or API sound in a preamp, they have a lot of options to choose from. So the company has announced their first ever series 500 product with Silkworm – housing a unique design and sound that Sonic Farm stands by.
Silkworm is available now for $700. See more of what Sonic Farm has to say:
Craving a unique tonal quality from a solid state pre? Look no further!
Silkworm is our first series 500 product, and it took a long time to develop it. That’s because series 500, with its inherent limitations, like available space, low supply voltage, low available current draw, etc, requires a meticulous design.
If you are looking for a superior performance solid state preamp in series 500 format that covers all applications in a professional recording studio, look no further. This is your ticket. We are very proud of Silkworm’s tone, versatility and reliability. It is amongst the finest this series has to offer, and that it does in truckloads.
Of course, we wanted to pack this baby with as much tonal variation as possible:
Mic input has a 3-position character (or vibe) switch, and output has a split personality, solid state or transformer driven.
We have done a lot of testing in local studios and everybody loves this preamp. Engineers compared it to everything else they had and it held it’s own next to much costlier units! In fact, some testers decided to keep theirs, although those were prototypes!
When in transformer mode, Silkworm sounds just like Neve 1073LB. This was not intended, it just happened; it has a completely different design approach. In solid state mode, it sounds cleaner. Input transformer assures that the tone is never sterile even at cleanest settings.
Sound samples coming soon!
Short Specs:
Fully discrete gain stage
Full DC path, no coupling capacitors
Servo control for minimal DC offset
Maximum gain 66dB (mic) and 42dB (instrument)
Maximum output level: 28.7dBu
Cinemag input mic transformer
Cinemag 100% Fe output transformer
Switchable transformer or solid state balanced output
3-way character (vibe) switch
Gain regulation twofold: 3-pos range switch and trim control
Mic input impedance: variable (see manual)
Instrument input impedance: 2.2MOhm