Vintech 1272 Reviews

[brandondrury]

Vintech 1272 Description
The Vintech Audio "Dual 72" is a two channel class A, all discrete, transformer balanced microphone preamp. Faithful to the original, it is built with the same basic circuit design and components as the classic Neve 1272 module delivering that vintage thick, **** and fat tone! This unit features input attenuator, output level adjustment and the same famous St. Ives input and output transformers. Convenient on board power supply with custom low-noise power transformers add to the overall quality construction. Phase and phantom power switches with LED output level display for each channel deliver precise control.

[brandondrury]

Quality: 8
There is a sick asshole who reviewed the Vintech 1272 on the Sweetwater website who states that he “accidently got the Back In Black” drum sound with a Vintech 1272. This reminds me of that part on The Last Boyscout where Bruce Willis, when referring to his best friend banging his wife calling it an accident says “Oh, I see. You slipped, tripped, and stuck your dick in my wife!”.

If someone implies that a frog will turn into a prince by “accidently” plugging the 1272 in instead of something else, they are out of their mind. The Back In Black drum sound is classic and it is classic for a reason. There are about 1,000 elements that came together on that album to make it what it is and the damn preamps are just 1 of them. Whatever preamps that were used on that record did impart that character, but so did the amount of sleep each musician got each day of tracking and their calorie intake for breakfast.

I don't know. Maybe he's right and my unit is broken. When I plug mine in on drums all I hear is the slightest hair more harmonic content on that channel than when I A/B with some cleaner preamp. I don't hear an objective difference in quality between this thing and my stock Presonus Firestudio preamps. Am I deaf? Maybe, but I don't think so. I think people want to sensationalize the gear they've poured their hard earned money into so they don't feel stupid for spending $2,000 on a volume knob.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's talk about the Vintech 1272.

I bought the Vintech 1272 in 2001. I was told I had to have a high end preamp if I was going to come close to every sounding remotely decent so I ordered the Vintech 1272 the same day I ordered my first audio interface. Yeah, a 21 year old kid recording in his bedroom dumped $1k (used) on high end pres. My situation was terribly unideal! Oh well, those assholes who tricked me probably have cancer by now. If they don't, they should.

Vintech 1272 vs Trident S20
For all I know, these units are both crap but they are most expensive pres I've got and other pres I've tried didn't excite me any more than these two do. The day I bought the Trident S20 I tossed an AT4050 in front of a speaker and recorded the sound of DFH drums in front of it with both the Trident S20 and the Vintech 1272. The sound of the two appeared indentical to me. When I flipped the phase on one, it appears that one has a bit more saturation in the upper midrange than the other, but after hours of listening to those recordings, I can't tell which one is which. When I tracked electric guitars recently, I A/Bd them. The Vintech 1272 has more harmonic content and more bite to it. The Trident S20 was thicker. Which one is better? Hell, I don't know!

I could talk about the 1272 all day long and it wouldn't do you or anyone else any good. That's why this high end gear situation online is such a damn mess. There is a whole lot of reading and not nearly enough listening.

So listen to recordings I've made with the 1272:

Recording Gear Quiz - Vintech, Trident, Mytek, Royer, Shure, and Presonus
Guitar / Bass Preamp Shootout Results
Presonus M80 vs Vintech 1272 Metal Guitars Preamp Shootout

Reliability: 10
I've had the Vintech 1272 for 8 years now. It has never failed me once or even show signs of any problems. The blue LED light went out like 2 years ago. I'm too busy to care.

Overall Rating: 8
This thing does appear to add harmonic content. That's always good in my opinion. To say that it adds chunk seems a bit of a stretch in my opinion. I've considered selling it a few hundred times, but I never do. My gut says this thing is a pretty good preamp, but I just need to adjust my expectations of preamps to the “devastatingly subtle” setting.

I've made way too many crappy sounding recordings through this thing to hype it up like all the assholes all over the internet do.