Fire-Eye Red-Eye Acoustic Preamp with Boost and DI Out

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An Austin, TX Original!

The Red-Eye Instrument Preamp offers a simple, one-box, direct-connect solution to musicians playing instruments with high-impedance piezoelectric pickups…for example, the L.R. Baggs violin bridge pickup. Any passive instrument pickup is supported.

The Red-Eye Instrument Preamp offers a simple direct-connect solution for musicians playing instruments with high-impedance piezoelectric pickups. The Red-Eye Preamp works well with instruments having passive or active piezo pickups or those with magnetic pickups such as electric guitars and electric basses.

The Red-Eye Preamp’s impedance-matching field-effect transistor input circuit is designed especially to match and track the impedance of passive piezoelectric pickups. That results in a smooth, natural, balanced, acoustic instrument tone. Low distortion, low noise, and generous headroom mean that clear tone comes through even when an instrument is played percussively and loudly.

 

 

Features:

• Input: Impedance-matching, accepts up to 2 volt peak-to-peak level without distortion.
• Low-impedance, balanced, XLR output, 600 ohms with ground-lift switch.
• Boost button with volume control for amplifying solos.
• Treble control to boost or reduce treble. Response is flat when control is centered.
• Usually powered by 48-volt XLR phantom power but has an internal 9-volt battery and a 9 to 18-volt center-negative, center-ground, power jack as alternatives.
• Long 9-volt battery life (~200 hours). Battery is not used if other power is present.
• Plugging an instrument in or connecting external power turns the Red-Eye on.
• Pwr Chk Light illuminates for about a second if power is good when the preamp is powered up. When powered up on the battery, the light will appear if the battery is in thefirst 3⁄4 of its life.
• 1⁄4 inch output and input for effects accessory loop, suitable for stomp-tuners or effects pedals or for output to on-stage guitar amps or PAs.
• Internal filtering to reject radio-frequency interference from neon lights and cell phones.

 

Signal Specifications:

• Instrument Input Impedance
• Varies with frequency and pickup type.
• Effects Output Impedance
• 2,000 to 4,000 ohms depending on Boost settings.
• Effects Input impedance
• 4,000 ohms.
• XLR Output impedance
• 600 ohms.
• Frequency response
• Flat from 10 Hz to 20 KHz when Treble Control is centered.
• Boost level
• Minimum Boost: +2 db, Maximum Boost: +7 db
• Noise Floor (hiss)
• 130 db below 1V peak-peak input level.
• Total Harmonic Distortion
• Less than 0.05% at 1V peak-peak input level.

 

Passive Function:

The Red-Eye can also be used as a high-quality passive direct box using the effect-loop in as the instrument input. The isolation transformer used in the Red-Eye Preamp has a nearly linear response from 18 Hz to over 30 KHz – Power is not required for passive functionality.

• 4,000 ohm input-impedance, single-ended input
• 600 ohm output-impedance, balanced output

 

Size and Weight:

• Size:
• 1.25 x 2.25 x 4.25 inches.
• Weight:
• 10 ounces.

Model:	REDEYE
Manufacturer:	Fire-Eye