Boss AD-2 Acoustic Preamp Review

Posted by glbpro

Released in late 2016, the AD-2 is one of the more compact acoustic guitar preamps available. It follows the familiar Boss form factor, being 73mm wide, 129mm deep and 59mm tall. This means that it will fit on standard pedal boards alongside your other floor wizardry, and gives it an advantage over its numerical big brother the AD-3, which takes up significantly more space. The pedal features a notch filter, ambience and acoustic resonance effects and a balanced line out in addition to the standard unbalanced output, making it the simplest pedal of this type available from Boss.

Input impedance is 10 M ohms which means that the pedal can accept passive piezo pickups directly with no need for an additional buffer in the signal chain. This would also allow the pedal to act as a backup in the event that your onboard preamp were to go down. Of course magnetic soundhole pickups will work fine too. The pedal features a buffered bypass which means that it will not pass signal if the batteries fail completely, but in my experience the pedal knows when the juice is about to run out and stitches off the effects in order to keep the buffer alive. Nevertheless an external power supply is to be preferred if at all possible. Battery life is stated to be 6 hours of continuous use.  Continue reading →

Replacing the earpads on my Beyerdynamic DT770s

Posted by glbpro

When doing live sound my headphones of choice have long been the Beyerdynamic DT770s. These closed-back built-like-a-tank cans have a brutally honest sound that hides nothing and flatters nobody. If there a problem, you’ll hear it on these! The earcups are big and comfy and the headband pressure is just perfect for all-day wear and the constant on-off convenience that live sound engineers require. And these cans are built to LAST – my first pair is now well over ten years old and has shown only cosmetic wear and tear – the drivers have been rock solid, as have all the connections and internal wiring. These headphones are a great example of old-world craftsmanship and are very rare in today’s world of throw-away plastic electronics. In keeping with this they are designed to be fully serviceable, with all parts able to be replaced as they wear out. My 770s have gone through two pairs of earpads and one headband pad in their long life.

Replacing the earpads is a relatively straight forward process and Beyer provide comprehensive instructions with every set of replacement pads. The pads themselves are thick velour with a perforated vinyl backing and are available in either the original silver or stealth black.

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