WNAMM02:USB Mini-Me Apogee Mic-Pre

Mini-Me... admit it, you were thinking of a small bald micro-villain, weren't you. But it's also the name of a rather desirable

Top-end converter company Apogee are releasing a rather desirable little portable mic-pre/converter gizmo that packs quite a few features into a misleadingly small package. It's a two channel mic/instrument pre-amp, with 24-bit, 96kHz A/D conversion. OK, fair enough, I hear you say, so what else? Well, how about an ultra low latency Plug-and-Play USB I/O interface; AES/EBU and S/PDIF digi outputs; a headphone output with a mix control for Direct/USB; phantom power... oh, and a built-in compresser/limiter too.

The Mini-Me converters output a 24-bit signal at any of the standard rates: 44.1, 48, 88.2 and 96kHz sampling, but you can also select 16 or 20-bit outputs at 44.1 or 48kHz.

Looks good too!

It's going to be available in around 90 days and the target price is $1,395 USD. So, it's like an updated, portable, low-power successor to the AD-1000, at around a third of the price.

I want one.