UA Volt 2 With and Without the "Vintage" preamp

**Jim Soloway** · 02-21-2022, 10:47 AM

For people considering the UA Volt interfaces, I thought it might be worthwhile to try to isolate the impact of the 'Vintage" control (basically an on/off preamp switch). This is as close as I can get playing the same passage twice. The first pass is with it engaged and the second is with it off. All the other settings are identical.

And for anyone considering a Volt, I'm very happy with mine.

**0zoro** · 03-07-2022, 11:30 AM

Jim, I have always enjoyed your playing. That said, I can not hear a difference in the two recordings. I don´t know whether it is due to my aged hearing, set up here, or some compression of other formula used in making the tracks listenable over here. How would you describe the difference? Is there a noticeable difference using the UA as compared with your previous audio interface?

**Jim Soloway** · 03-07-2022, 02:15 PM

With the "Vintage" preamp engaged there's a little less clean headroom. As the signal gets hotter, there's a bit of breakup (supposedly like you'd have gotten from an old analog mixing console).

And yes there is a very noticeable difference between the Scarlett and the Volt. It's not so much a tonal but rather noise difference (or more accurately differences, plural). There is less noise at virtually every input level and more importantly, there is way less random noise from outside sources. The Scarlett drove me crazy with the amount of random noises that would show up in recordings. That just doesn't happen with the Volt. That alone is enough for me to feel good about the upgrade.

**srs** · 03-07-2022, 03:55 PM

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

.

And yes there is a very noticeable difference between the Scarlett and the Volt. It's not so much a tonal but rather noise difference (or more accurately differences, plural). .

Do you believe the Scarlet introduced these noises from the start or did they arise as it aged?

**Jim Soloway** · 03-07-2022, 04:37 PM

Originally Posted by srs

Do you believe the Scarlet introduced these noises from the start or did they arise as it aged?

I don't think it's that it introduced them as much as it did a poor job of preventing them. If the power was less than perfect it was always a problem ... and the power was often less than perfect. It was also susceptible to electronic noise and in a non-studio setting that sort of interference is inevitable.