Low noise mic preamp

After preforming an on street recording of a classical busker with my Cowon mp3 in Florence I decided I wanted to do more recording. The Sony ECM-MS957 stereo mic (not made any more) had too low output to drive my mp3 player line-in or laptop digitizer so I made this low noise, two stage transistor (BC549) preamp (red lid). Because I used large 10uf polypropylene capacitors to ensure high quality sound recordings the preamp, though portable with internal batteries (12V), is quite large. Now I can use my mp3 player (128kps) to make quality recordings anywhere. There is no hiss or processing noise at all. The preamp is dead quiet. The preamp from the ESP site and is extremely easy to build. I use silver wire and silver solder throughout and gold connectors where possible. You can use 10uF electrolytic capacitors where I used polies but for the very best sound use the polyester capacitors. The designer suggests this in his text.