Shadow Sonic Nanoflex

146 JULY 2007
Shadow Sonic preamps with
Nanofl ex & NanoMAG pickups
from £119-£199
A bevy of new products from Shadow – but which one do you choose? by Dave Burrluck
S
hadow needs little introduction as
one of the leading manufacturers
of pickups and preamps for
acoustic instruments. It has certainly
been at it for longer than most, and in
the past few years has added Chinese
manufacturing to augment its state-of-
the-art headquarters in Germany. Aside
from retro-fi t systems, Shadow pickups
and preamps are factory fi tted to
numerous brands from small ‘boutique’
makes such as Lakewood to massive
mainstream brands such as Epiphone.
At this year’s Frankfurt MusikMesse,
Shadow introduced four new Sonic
preamps that come with the company’s
latest Nanofl ex undersaddle pickup
and/or the innovative new NanoMAG
magnetic pickup. It creates a pickup/
preamp system for virtually any fl at-top
acoustic guitar (steel or nylon). The
dual pickups are used in combination
with the Sonic Doubleplay preamp,
individually with the Sonic Nanofl ex
and Sonic NanoMAG preamps, while
the Sonic Basic preamp allows a fast
and easy way of providing basic control
for the Nanofl ex-only undersaddle
pickup. Firstly, let’s look at the pickups.
Nanofl ex
The Nanofl ex pickup, according to
Shadow, “does not only take the
vibrations of the strings like common
undersaddle pickups. Nanofl ex senses
the vibrations of the strings and the
body of the instrument simultaneously.
This gives the equivalent of having a
condenser-microphone mixed with an
undersaddle pickup.” The supplied
NFX 2.3-A (different sizes will be
available) is very fl exible, under a
millimetre in thickness and 2.3mm in
width. It’s covered in a black rubber
material, and before this turns into
silver fl ex screening there is another
unique part of the design: an ultra-small
preamp that, “amplifi es and protects
the sound signal directly on the pickup.
Unlike other pickups, the Nanofl ex
pickup signal is not passing through
even a single millimetre of the wire and
therefore eliminates environmental
disturbances before the connection
cable.” At the end of the cable is a mini
jack plug that plugs directly into the
relevant Sonic preamp.
NanoMAG
Designed to stick on to the end of your
fi ngerboard, the NanoMAG is around
57mm wide, 5.7mm thick and will add
around 8.5mm to the end of your
fi ngerboard. The top face is lightly
curved and again there’s a mini jack
attached to the end of the cable to fi t
directly into the relevant sonic preamp.
“The NanoMAG is a magnetic pickup
with an air coil and a composition of
different samarium cobalt magnets
SONIC DOUBLEPLAY TEST RESULTS
Build quality
Fitting
Sound
Value for money
■ WE LIKED Relatively easy to fi t; an
impressive sounding blend preamp
■ WE DISLIKED Tone control only affects
bass; blend function limited by higher
output of NanoMAG pickup
SHADOW SONIC
DOUBLEPLAY PREAMP
PRICE: £199 (inc both
Nanofl ex and NanoMAG
pickups)
ORIGIN: China
TYPE: Under-
soundboard preamp with
under-saddle and
magnetic pickups
DIMENSIONS: 76 x 49
x 27mm deep
CONTROLS: Volume,
blend, tone, phase
switch
CONNECTIONS: Inputs
for Nanofl ex and
NanoMAG pickups,
output
POWER: 2 x 3V lithium
cell (type CR2032)
BATTERY USAGE:
1.2mA, 180 hours
JHS
01132 865381
www.shadow-
electronics.com
PHOTOGRAPHY JESSE WILD
GIT291.rev_shadow 146 18/5/07 08:26:33