Microphone Preamplifier

A microphone preamplifier is a sound engineering device that prepares a microphone signal to be processed by other equipment. Microphone signals are often too weak to be transmitted to units such as mixing consoles and recording devices with adequate quality. Preamplifiers increase a microphone signal to line-level (i.e. the level of signal strength required by such devices) by providing stable gain while preventing induced noise that would otherwise distort the signal.

A microphone preamplifier is colloquially called a microphone preamp, mic preamp, preamp (not to be confused with a control amplifier in high-fidelity reproduction equipment), mic pre and pre.