Cranborne Audio Camden 500

500 series mic preamp with “Mojo” saturation circuit

The Very Best Of Both Worlds

Camden 500 is the most astoundingly clean, linear, transparent preamp you’ve ever heard. But it also has “Mojo” – 2 discrete custom analogue saturation circuits that can be applied, exaggerated, and perhaps best of all – bypassed.

Clean, Precise, and Natural

Camden 500 provides the utmost clarity and detail when it is most required. Its custom ‘Camden’ topology achieves stunning low-noise and low-distortion performance: -129.8dB EIN (150ohm, unweighted) and THD+N as low as 0.0002%. It also sets a new standard for frequency and phase linearity: ±0.7dB frequency response from 5Hz to 200kHz at max gain and <2° phase shift @ 50Hz – 20kHz. The sum result is the most natural sounding preamp you’ve ever heard.

Vintage, Warm, and Coloured

Camden 500 features “Mojo” – a custom analogue saturation circuit that transforms Camden 500 into the fattest, warmest, most colourful mic preamp in your arsenal. Designed to introduce harmonics and saturation effects that our favourite vintage gear produces, Mojo can be subtle, it can be exaggerated, but best of all it can be bypassed…

Custom Topology

Featuring a custom *transformerless front-end topology with 68.5dB of gain, Camden 500 achieves groundbreaking performance in noise, distortion, frequency response, and phase shift throughout all 12 gain positions.

3-Way Input Type Switch

Tailored input impedance and headroom for Mic, Line, and Hi-Z sources means punchy and full-range line recording with +26.5dBu of input headroom as well as alive and natural sounding DI’d instruments with it’s unique BJT design and 1.5M Ohm input impedance.

Manufactured In The UK

To ensure that every product that bears our name lives up to the extraordinary performance that we quote, all of our products are carefully manufactured and tested in the UK under our watchful eyes.

Camden 500 By The Numbers

By our calculations and measurements, Camden 500 is the cleanest and most transparent preamp on the market. In this video Elliott dives into the tech specs and explains how we’ve come to this conclusion by comparing some technical data and performance specs against some undisclosed competitors preamp’s as well as showing off some audio examples of Camden 500 in action. This video is not for the faint-hearted…

Performance Graphs

Numbers on a spec sheet is one thing, however those numbers can change drastically depending on the frequency measured and preamp gain. Camden 500’s technical performance excels not only at key gain positions, but also when the gain control is increased to its maximum. Many preamps can boast excellent performance at one gain setting but that performance can often fall apart once the gain is increased. Camden 500 retains minimal phase shift, frequency roll-off, and THD at all gain positions enabling you to get the best results out of ribbon and low-output dynamic mics without fear of losing performance as the gain is increased.

Specifications

Put simply, Camden 500 is one of the cleanest, most linear, and transparent preamps on the market. Our new ‘Camden’ preamp topology allows us to push the boundaries of Frequency response, phase shift, noise, and THD performance; and we have all the specs to back that up.

EIN: <-129.5dBu, 150 ohm source, unweighted
<-135.5dBu, Inputs common, unweighted

THD+N: <0.0004%, 1kHz, 35dB gain, 24dBu out

Phase Shift: <2.25°, 40dB gain, 20Hz to 20kHz
<4°, Max gain, 20Hz to 20kHz

Freq. Response: <±1dB, <5 Hz to >200 kHz, all gain settings

CMRR: >70dB, typ >85dB, 35dB Gain, 10-20kHz, 100mV Common mode

For a comprehensive and detailed look at Camden 500’s technical specifications, you can view the Camden 500 technical specifications [PDF]