Recording - March 2021 - 55

Mojo, baby!

I'm here to confirm that the Camden EC1 has indeed not lost
its mojo! While the preamp in standard operation mode is exceptionally clean and transparent, the continuously variable
mojo knob on the front panel imparts some distinctive character. Turning the knob clockwise from the detented 'off' position increases the amount of change. There are two different
voicings to choose from: 'cream' and 'thump'; cream emulates
a tube preamp while thump emulates the sound of a transformer-based preamp. In practice, thump adds a pleasant low-end
emphasis paired with a slightly more open-sounding top end.
Cream adds a bit more upper-midrange thrust with a more
pronounced, edgy character. Dialed around halfway up, the
mojo circuits produce most accurately the tonalities of actual
tube or transformer-based preamps; more exaggerated character levels can be achieved beyond the midpoint.
I found the cream circuit best suited for rock vocals or anything
that needs a bit of edge. The harmonic saturation adds some
bite, with a warm top end that sounds great in a mix. I gravitated
towards thump more often than cream though, as it thickens the
signal and adds weight. It works well on spoken word, guitars,
and percussion. I also enjoyed the Camden EC1 as an outboard
processor, sending line-level signals through it to apply some extra mojo. Thump sounds fantastic on a front-of-kit mono drum mic.

FX50

Headphone amp

The EC1 headphone amplifier offers equally impressive
specs. It's an interesting inclusion on a preamp, as the lack
of digital converters is a bit curious. If EC1 already has the
preamp, flexible I/O, and monitoring section, why not add
some A/D and call it an interface? It likely wasn't feasible to
maintain the Cranborne standard of excellence at this price
point, but I hope it could be in the works for a future model.
The headphone amp offers zero-latency monitoring of the
preamp input, with individual level controls for the stereo aux
input (feed from the interface), as well as one mono external
input in the form of a 1/4 " jack on the front panel. It's armed
with a significant amount of power, which should drive highimpedance headphones up to 600 ohms with ease. It has an
output impedance of 0.33 ohms, which is significant to ensure
frequency linearity for lower impedance headphones. It's good
practice for the output amp to have 1/10 the impedance of the
connected headphones, so even 32 ohm headphones will
remain linear and balanced with the EC1.

" The FX50 monitor is now the speaker
to beat in this price class
(and the price class one or two stops above it,
to be frank). "
Matt Vanacoro - AskAudio

Final thoughts

The Cranborne Camden EC1 is impressive and versatile.
Its ultra-linear response sounds transparent and clean on its
own, but the ability to alter its response with mojo coloration
expands its possibilities. I love having the ability to add some
life to a DI guitar while still sending a clean feed to an amp,
as well as running line-level signals out of the DAW for adding mojo to pre-recorded material. The headphone amp is
equally impressive, with top-notch sound quality and flexibility
to balance sources. Simply put, the Camden EC1 is a perfect
companion and front-end for any interface!

Pro Studio * Home Recording * Post Production

www.fluidaudio.com

Price: $599
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