Simply Sound Company SS1 PreAmp Review While I've never used any preamps like the Triton Audio Fethead Microphone Preamp or the Cloudlifter CL-1, I was really impressed with the amazing amount of boost to the sound. The large dose of extra gain can make help a budget microphone/preamp combination sound clean and more professional. Some microphones such as the Heil Pr-40 and the Sure SM7B are known for really low outputs. This creates a situation where you have to turn the gain up on your mixer or recording device. This can leave the door open for added hiss depending on your mixer or recording device. The Simply Sound SS1 is designed for dynamic microphones only. More Clean Gain Triton Audio Fethead provides 27 db of clean gain with a price for $89 Cloudlifter CL-1 provides 25 db of clean gain for $149 The Simply Sound SS1 - provide 27 db of gain for $99 The Simply Sound website shows the Fethead at a $149 price tag, but at BNH, I show a price of $89 My Opinion As I had said, never using any preamp (besides the one in my mixer, and I've also used the DBX 286,  and the Aphex 230) even without a preamp, I never thought I sounded bad. With that said, the concept makes sense. I know that when I turn the gain up on any mixer there comes a point where noise is introduced. Using the SS1, I basically turned my gain all the way down. The construction is super rugged and resembles the Cloudlifeter all-metal casing (but cooler looking in black) you're not going to break this. You do need some phantom power (so a typical route might be to plug your microphone into the SS1. Then plug the ss1 into your mixer. The mixer would need to have the Phantom Power Turned on. For my recording today I had my EV Re320 going into the SS1 and that went directly into the Zoom H5. It was an amazing amount of boost. How I did the test. I set my levels using the H5 recorded some audio, removed the SS1 from the chain, and plugged it back into my Zoom H5 without touching any knobs. Do you NEED this? As with all things podcasting, it depends. If you're happy with your audio, no. If you struggle to get enough signal into your recorder, or the sound has a fair amount of noise, then this is well worth the money. Check it out at simplysound.co Second Line Podcasting WordPress Theme I no longer recommend Appendipity themes. This is a theme I loved and have on most of my websites. The face of the company Joey Kissimmee was last seen online in late 2016, and they are no longer replying to any support emails that I send. Unfortunately, this is not the first time I've done this. Semiologic was a cool theme until Thesis came out. Then they went from needing no knowledge of code to having to know a ton of code. I really like Appendipity themes as there was a lot of flexibility (and no need for knowledge of code). I love the Divi theme, but they come close to having too much flexibility and people can get overwhelmed because it does everything (and the learning curve can be a bit large). Divi is a well-managed theme, with a huge community and awesome support. You can join Elegant Themes (the creators of Divi) for $89 a year. I did the one time fee of $249 for lifetime access. In addition to their themes, they have some cool plugins. One thing I just discovered is when you purchase a Second Line Theme, you can only use it on one website. This puts it int the "Depends" situation. The good news there is a one time fee. On the Evanto market, it shows six months of support with extended support for $17.63 a year. If you have multiple sites (for me I have at least four) that can add up ($59 X 4 = $236). Second Line Theme Support So far Second Line support has been great answering all my questions. The theme I'm using (Dixie) is skewing my featured image. When I informed this of the problem, they told me exactly what to do if I wanted to edit some files. The means you're going to need to understand FTP, and not be afraid to edit some code (always make a backup of any files you ar