440 Mic Preamp
The ultimate mic pre for recording guitar. Designed and Manufactured in Los Angeles, California U.S.A.
Get Big Studio Console Sound on your Tracks
Install a 440 mic pre into any 500 series compatible chassis. Have legendary tone and integrate post effects pedals into your signal chain with ease.
Angelo Mazzocco
Starting 25 years ago, recording to multitrack in frigid Detroit area basements, I’ve been constantly searching for the perfect guitar tone. The 440 is really a swiss army knife for recording guitars. I couldn’t live without the 440’s pedal level send and return.
Classic American Console Sound
From the legendary Cinemag input and output transformers to the high performance hybrid-discrete opamps, our engineers carefully made every design decision with the highest sonic performance in mind.
Johnny Marr stands by his 440s "Class and classic, the Meris 440 is the one"
SOUND CLIPS Make Your Everyday Recording Life Easier
Sound Clips
Designed as the ultimate mic preamp for recording guitar. Install into your 500 series lunchbox and connect your post effects pedals to the loop. Your guitar & amp will love it.
- Legendary Cinemag Input and Output transformers for classic American mic pre tone
- Hybrid-Discrete opamps receiving and driving each respective transformer section
- Pedal friendly post effects loop. Interface with pedals at levels that won’t clip
- High Pass Filter selectable between 80Hz and 200Hz
- Custom 7kHz or 4kHz High Shelf filter optimized for achieving a finished tone when recording guitar
- 20dB Pad, Phase Reverse and Phantom Power toggles
- Premium components throughout the all Analog signal path
- Designed and built in Los Angeles, California U.S.A
- Up to 60dB of gain at the input section
- Output trim -27dB to +12dB (occurs pre-output transformer to preserve output transformer secondary impedance)
- 12dB / octave High-Pass: 80Hz or 200Hz corner frequency
- High-Shelf boost: + 3dB at 4kHz or 7kHz corner frequency
- 20Hz to 20kHz flat frequency response (+/-.3 dB) with all filters disengaged
- -130dBu EIN (A-weighted)
- 1Meg Ohm input impedance at Return/D.I. input
Reviews
Well-designed, and even at high volume levels the noise just isn’t there.
The 440 is primarily designed to help you get great guitar tones right out of the box, although there are a lot of versatile features that make it great for other sources.
Well built, great design, filters and shelf EQ are quite usable and do what they should, great price.
What really sets the Meris 440 apart from the countless other 500-series mic preamps is the send/return pair of 1/4″ jacks on its front panel for use as an effects-pedal loop, post amplifier and mic.
The Meris 440 is marketed as a go-to guitar preamp, but I found that it also sounded great on everything else I threw at it, including vocals, drums and keys. The sound was way closer to “done” and had a nice midrange quality that was well balanced.
Undeniable—immediate purchase recommended!
The Meris 440 is a good buy for a nice and clean transformer coupled preamp. Throw in its effects loop and you have an intriguingly artsy device for only a small cash outlay. Throw in those filters and shelves and you have a mic amp so versatile that it is undeniable—immediate purchase recommended!
The 440 acquits itself supremely well, boasting – unsurprisingly enough -API-like qualities of weight, definition and mid-range clarity.
My Fender bass sounded spectacular, with plenty of low-end punch and every tonal variation between its pickups revealed in detail.
…vocals were rendered clearly, and a transient-rich percussion session went flawlessly.
The 440 is a guitarist’s dream pre, allowing you to either re-amp with effects or a nice boost before your guitar hits the amp.
I love the almost finished texture the 440 gives straight out of the box. It really takes the work out of tracking and lightens the workload of mixing. Tracks just sit well in the mix with the 440 no matter what you’re recording. You will soon be using guitar delays on vocals, trust me it’s really fun. Versatility is definitely a strong suit in this preamp, working stellar on vocals, acoustic guitar, and especially bass drum.
