AEA Limited Edition Ulti-Mic Stereo Kit with R88 mk2 Stereo Ribbon Microphone

To celebrate Wes Dooley’s 80th birthday AEA are offering Limited Edition Ulti-Mic Stereo Kits.

This version includes:

• AEA’s iconic R88 stereo mic featured in John Cuniberti’s OneMic series
• The original Ribbon Preamp, the TRP2, designed and optimized for ribbon microphones
• A rugged SKB road case with custom foam inserts
• An autographed hardback edition of Ron Streicher’s New Stereo Soundbook (third edition)
• A 15-minute personal zoom call with Wes Dooley, founder of AEA (time to be set up at the customer’s convenience)

R88 STEREO RIBBON MICROPHONE

R88 Series ribbon mics capture sound as your ears hear it, with an honest and open tonality. The R88 and R88A effortlessly record complex sources like drums, strings, piano, and other instruments that produce intricate transients, harsher highs, and bellowing lows.

The stereo R88 captures a space as it sounds live and in person, with all the present subtlety and nuance. Its expansive frequency response and balanced low end make it superbly effective when capturing the full breadth of sound from the back of a room or above a drum set.

Alongside the mono AEA N8, it boasts the widest frequency range of any mic in the AEA lineup and effortlessly manages more complex source audio like drums, strings, piano, and other instruments that produce intricate transients, harsher highs, and bellowing lows. The Blumlein configuration of the ribbons allows for a sweeping range of perspective, so an entire ensemble and room can be captured by the R88 alone.

THE ENGINEER’S SECRET WEAPON

R88 Series mics are an engineer’s secret weapon, offering a level of detail and balance in recording like no other microphone available. Packaged in a sleek, five-pound black shell designed for quick setup, it’s an excellent choice for remote recording.

Particularly well suited for the rock, roots, classical, Americana and jazz genres, R88 Series microphones have such versatility that engineers like John Cuniberti use it as their one mic to capture an entire band performing live in the same room. There is a reason that legendary Blackbird Studios in Nashville owns five R88s.

A RICH HISTORY

The design of the R88 Series borrows from serious stereo recording tradition. In 1931, EMI engineer Alan Blumlein invented stereo recording by demonstrating the natural reproduction of the soundstage in one of the Abbey Road studios in London.

Today, Blumlein’s XY coincident recording technique lives on in the AEA R88 Series, which uses two figure-of-8 ribbons for producing an authentic representation of a performance. The pair of elements are angled in perfect phase at 90 degrees and mounted in close proximity to each other along the vertical axis of the microphone.

As an alternative to Blumlein’s technique, the microphone can also be used for mid-side (MS) stereo, providing excellent mono compatibility and full control over the width of the stereo image.

Either way, the R88 Series is so easy to use that any recording novice can do it. Simply choose where to place the mic and hit record. It’s that easy.

TRP2 PREAMP

The AEA TRP2 preamp provides two channels of high-output, high-impedance, and low-noise gain in a half-rack package with a rich and natural sound that brings out the full potential of your microphones.

• Two channels with 85 dB of sweet and quiet JFET gain
• Switchable phantom-power, polarity reverse, and high-pass filter
• 63k ohm high-impedance circuitry providing better overall transients, frequency response, and higher output sensitivity
• Optimized for ribbon mics, condensers, and dynamics
• Switching power supply for easy use in any country
• 1U half-rack with optional hardware for mounting one or two units together

ENHANCE YOUR RIBBONS

The AEA TRP2 Ribbon Preamp provides two channels of high-output, high-impedance, and low-noise gain with a rich and natural sound that brings out the full potential of your microphones.

Specifically designed for ribbon microphones, the TRP2 excels at drawing out the warmth and lush sound that ribbons are uniquely known for.

A GAIN POWERHOUSE

The TRP2 is a powerhouse that provides unparalleled high gain with low-noise. With 85db of JFET output, the TRP2 gives you enough juice to record soft sources without ever having to worry about noise.

With the TRP2, you will never consider a source too quiet to record with a ribbon mic ever again. Passive ribbons with low output levels require preamps that supply a high level of output. If the preamp you use doesn’t have enough clean gain, the mic signal may seem too soft or noisy which may be apparent when recording quiet acoustic guitars or strings, especially at a distance or with long cable runs. The TRP2 eliminates this concern.

HIGH IMPEDANCE MAKES A HUGE DIFFERENCE

The sound and tonality of dynamic microphones like ribbons and moving-coils are directly affected by the impedance of a preamp. The higher the impedance, the better the sound. The RPQ2 boasts an extra high input impedance of 63K Ohms.

Preamps with an impedance of under 10k ohms will limit the lows, highs, and transients of your passive microphones. The RPQ2’s high impedance will reveal your microphone’s true nature– a thick low-end, open top-end, and articulate transient response that you will need to hear to believe. Both condensers and active microphones will also benefit from the RPQ2’s impedance.