"All in all, this little device could be just what you are looking for. It’s compact enough that it will fit in a pocket, powerful enough to be used with most if not all microphones and headphones, while being an affordable solution to getting quality audio while on the move."

Making Music has been giving iRig Pre HD a thorough testing, courtesy of musician and sound engineer Gareth Patch. He was impressed by its ease-of-use, audio quality and the power of the pre-amp. Here are some of his key comments:

"A well thought out design with all the major requirements available on the hardware, rather than being reliant on software control."

"The unit itself is class-compliant and is certified as a ‘Made for’ device so is guaranteed to work straight out of the box with Apple iOS devices with Lightning connections."

"The unit has bags of power in the preamp and so it shouldn’t really be any trouble getting the majority of microphones to give you a suitable recording."

"Testing with a large diaphragm condenser yielded good results. The on-board phantom power didn’t struggle with the mic and I didn’t need to add any gain at all to get a good signal."

"How did it sound? Well, it sounded clean and uncoloured."

"Recordings proved themselves clean and clear and it would appear that the Class-A Preamp in the iRig Pre HD does exactly what it’s supposed to, with no colouration in the sound recorded."

Gareth's final verdict was:

"All in all, this little device could be just what you are looking for. It’s compact enough that it will fit in a pocket, powerful enough to be used with most if not all microphones and headphones, while being an affordable solution to getting quality audio while on the move."

Read the full review on Making Music
Learn more about iRig Pre HD