What’s so special about the Alice 501 mic amp? Well, quite a lot! Designed for use with 500 Series Lunchbox Racks.

Yes, it does the job of matching a whole range of studio microphones to your mixer or digital work-station, but it does it in brilliant ways without any compromise; no corners cut to get the right sound.
 
First, it has a proper transformer input. I don’t have the time to give a lecture on transient signal handling and how transformers are so useful as not only a voltage barrier, but also for out-of-band signal protection. It’s enough to say that the transformer gives a match to the microphone that’s superior to regular mic amps.

Next the mic amplifier itself. This is a discrete specially designed amplifier produced by Alice. It’s brilliantly stable and has excellent gain range, it’s almost impossible to overload so it does not need an overload indicator. The gain control gives plenty of range to use all mic types from ribbon mics up to studio condenser types.

To retain best possible quality of the audio, the output goes through another transformer, this gives you isolated balanced output and perfect matching to any line level input.
The front panel has switching for phantom power, a rotary gain control and a phase switch which changes the polarity of the audio from positive to negative.

There’s an ‘HPF’ (High Pass Filter) switch which lets you reduce the low frequency content of the output to minimise floor rumble, and an LED meter array to give accurate indication of the peaks of audio.

How does it sound? Smooth, clean, and easy to listen to, in short, it’s a lovely little mic amp