Don't write off your mid 90's Fishman Prefix Blender with the big barn door just yet.
I have 2 Taylors with the large barn door electronics purchased direct from Taylor - a 1995 614ce and 1997 655ce. They benefit from 20 years of age, sound wonderful and play effortlessly. I record with them and perform with them. I have gone to great measure to maximize their performance voice, as most of those with the blenders can identify. This has led me down a long path that I'm sure many of you have shared - I ripped out the Prefix and installed an Expression system retrofit, then an LR Baggs Lyric, a K&K pure mini using a Mi-Si Align XT preamp that mounted where my barn door vacated. There are pro's and con's to each. The early expression system sounded better than the prefix, but still sounded artificial and lacked tone-shaping with the 3 knob expression control. The Lyric was good, but the footprint is physically smaller than the Prefix, so it looked like a retrofit. The K&K with the Mi-Si suffered from the same tone-shaping issues plaguing the 3 knob preamps. It left me wondering if I needed to get another performance guitar or figure out how to make the Prefix work.
Enter Mikhail Ioffe. He is the owner and designer of Mi-Si products. As I was discussing tone-shaping and preamps with him, he let me know that he is the one who designed the Prefix Blender. He told me that the Prefix preamp design is very good - and would respond well with quality sources. Coincidentally, I had just received my 655ce back from Taylor with the ES2 upgrade. My assessment was that the ES2 was a great upgrade, but my maple Jumbo was still lacking in midrange. I mentioned this to Mikhail and asked him if he thought the ES2 would work with the Prefix and he gave it an 80% chance of success. That gave me enough confidence to give it a go. I took apart the prefix blender and measured the voltage powering the mic side of the preamp. It was 5V. Perfect for a K&K silver bullet internal condenser mic. You can buy these on line for around $XX.
Bottom line is that this is a great combination - I would rank it up there with the K&K trinity pro system. Unfortunately I had to remove the ES2 preamp I just paid money for. But the quality of the ES2 with the prefix and the internal mic is awesome. Plus, you get great tone-shaping, phase, notch filter, and a sweepable mid (contour) control. This is just what the 655 needed. I really don't miss the ES2 preamp. Plus, I now have the added benefit of the ES2 end pin jack which now has the Taylorsense sensor in it. After all these years I have achieved my goal of a great sounding performance guitar that doesn't suffer from lack of midrange and the combination of the ES2 with the microphone gives it a wonderful acoustic (read in as "non piezo") quality.
All in all it is a fairly simple upgrade. The ES2 sensor uses the same jack type as the Prefix Piezo input... simple. Once you remove the battery box off of the Prefix (4 screws) you can easily unsolder the battery and the mic leads from the Prefix preamp circuit board. You can easily resolder the internal mic of your choice (needs to be 5v, my preference is the silver bullet). If you are changing like I did from an ES2 install, you can use the battery signal from that end pin jack and solder to the spots vacated on the Prefix. Or you can reassemble the battery box on the back of the Prefix blender.
To adjust levels between the ES2 and the internal mic, I did the following:
1. Prefix set to pickup only: While monitoring the output of the ES2 through headphones (I used a little mixer), I very carefully backed off the ES2 set screw adjustment on the bridge just a little until the string volume (the strings just above the adjustment set screw) no longer changed in volume... no more than 1/2 a turn. Repeat for each screw.
2. Slowly turned them back (clockwise), again very little at a time until they reached a good volume, but didn't sound piezo like, or compressed. Repeat for all 3. This is basically done to taste.
3. Prefix set to Mic only: Adjust the potentiometer on the Prefix circuit card (mine was blue) until the gain of the mic is close to that of the ES2 when Prefix was set to pickup. Again, adjust to taste... you are setting the relative levels between the mic and pickup, so you will need to test at each extreme of the blend control. My final adjustment was a little under halfway... more towards the pickup side.
I am very happy with the results. It is the best these guitars have ever sounded live.
stevied
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