New Gear Review: CP5 Preamp Kit from DIY Recording Equipment

January 12th, 2016 by Paul “Willie Green” Womack

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A completed CP5 preamp for 500-series racks from DIY Recording Equipment.

DIY Recording Equipment (DIYRE) has quickly become one of my favorite audio companies. Their open source “Colour” format, created by founder Peterson Goodwyn, has created a wide range of sonic possibilities in a particularly affordable DIY manner.

With the Colour system, DIYRE offers something like a “lunchbox-within-a-lunchbox”, taking care of all the hard and expensive stuff (power supply, front panel machining, knobs and the like) so that the DIY engineer can just focus on the fun and important stuff: audio circuits and tone.

With the addition of the CP5 preamp, Goodwyn and DIY Recording Equipment have recently brought that concept to the preamp world. The CP5 is a 500 series unit, and along with its standard preamp functions, it features a Colour slot and Drive control so you can add any additional sonic flavor you want, and in what ever amount you crave. With the ever–growing selection of Colours available, this is an incredibly versatile piece of equipment.

The CP5 kit arrives with all the electronic components and mounting hardware you’ll need for assembly. You only need to provide a few simple tools of your own: A soldering iron, some solder, wire cutters, a Phillips head screwdriver, an allen wrench and a little bit of time.

There are printable assembly instructions, and an incredibly handy Component Sorting Sheet that you can print as well if desired. I was fine reading the instructions off my tablet, but having a printed copy of the Component Sorting Sheet allows you to lay your resistors and various parts right on top of it, helping to keep you completely organized.

A handy, printable color-code chart makes organizing the parts for assembly a breeze.

The build was straightforward and simple like all of DIYRE’s kits, and I was assembled and powered up in just a couple of hours. It’s not a difficult build, but definitely intermediate in level. If you’ve never done a DIY build before, you’d be well try out a simpler project, like one of DIYRE’s beginner bundle kits.

A nearly-completed CP5, built by Paul “Willie Green” Womack.

Feature-wise, the CP5 starts off as a pretty standard preamp. It features buttons for phantom power, a -20 dB pad, and polarity reversal and adds on a stepped gain knob for accurate positioning and recall.

The real fork in the road comes with the Colour control. There is one Colour slot built into the CP5, and you can dial in as much of it as you like without changing the overall gain at all. You can also conveniently switch the Colour circuit in and out if you just need some clean gain or want to make quick comparisons to the original tone.

On the raw preamp side, “Clean Gain” is certainly the name of the game here. The CP5 boasts up to 66dB of gain with very low noise. Right out of the gate, this isn’t a character pre (that’s what the Colour is for) and it does a great job at not being that. It turns up your microphone and source in a clear and detailed way, and that’s it. In addition to being a useful feature on its own, this is especially important so you know your added Colour circuits will react how you expect.

With the Colour circuits bypassed, DIYRE’s goal for the CP5 is to be the “clean wire with gain” and I’d have to say they succeeded. Every source I put through this preamp sounded clear and pristine. For many engineers, this alone is worth the price of admission. With the Colour socket however, you can dial in tones from Cinemag transformers to Level Loc circuits to tube saturation and everything in between.

Expect 500-Series preamps of a similar quality to run around the $400-$600 range. This makes the kit for a single channel of the CP5 is dirt cheap at $150. With Colour modules being so affordable as well and in so many different variations (you can even design your own) this really is one of the most versatile and useful preamps on the market. If you like getting your hands on a soldering iron, it can be one of the most satisfying to own as well.

Paul “Willie Green” Womack is a Producer/Engineer based in Brooklyn, NY. Working primarily in Hip-Hop, R&B and Gospel, his credits feature artists like Donnie McClurkin, Wiz Khalifa, Open Mike Eagle, Billy Woods and many more.