With many years experience working as recording engineers and producers, our review team of George Shilling and Russell Cottier know the good from the bad. In many cases it's a matter of taste, some prefer one EQ over another but we try to provide unbiased and objective reviews of the equipment tested.
Warm Audio WA73-EQ
Warm Audio was founded in 2011 by Bryce Young and has come a long way, now offering accessible incarnations of classic studio pieces at reasonable prices. What’s more, you won’t have to expect huge repair costs with these all new ‘vintage’ racks.
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Miktek MPA-201
The Miktek MPA-201 is a dual-channel Class-A microphone preamplifier providing a certain amount of character from its multiple transformer stages.
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Roger Mayer 456 Microphone Pre-Amplifier
1964 he started building effect pedals for Jimmy Page. Mayer also designed and built pedals used by Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and session guitar legend Big Jim Sullivan.
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AMS Neve 1073 OPX
AMS Neve have recycled the 1073 mic preamp countless times, and adding digital connectivity is not new for Neve.
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Thermionic Culture The Snow Petrel
Thermionic Culture have long developed products which include a valve-based microphone preamplifier section, like the Rooster, and dedicated mic preamps like the Earlybird.
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Phoenix Audio DRS-Q4M
Phoenix Audio’s DRS-2 and DRS-1 microphone and instrument preamplifiers have been delighting audio professionals for a number of years, and I have been a regular user since reviewing the DRS-2 in 2002. From May 2009 Phoenix units have been built in California.
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Prism MMA-4XR
This four channel mic preamp is part of the Maselec Master Series, an all-analogue unit designed by Swedish audio wizard Leif Masses.
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Daking 52270 Mic Pre/EQ and 91579 Compressor/Limiter
I suspect that many readers outside the US have never heard of Geoffrey Daking. I hadn't. The man himself is a studio owner and 'audio tinkerer'.
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Neve 8801
This is a product that now seems obvious, and although there have been board room and financial shenanigans, one might wonder why it has taken Neve so long to produce it.
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Presonus ADL 600
The story of Italian-American designer of boutique outboard Antony DeMaria meeting up with PreSonus president Jim Odom at the New York AES Show will be familiar to some readers from press releases.
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SSL Alpha Channel
SSL seems an increasingly go-ahead and dynamic company, especially since the last change of ownership.
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SSL X-Rack Mixer
I took a look at the SSL X-Rack a while back but back then the only module available was a Dynamics processor.
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TFPro P10 the Mighty Twin
‘You ain’t seen nothing like the Mighty Quinn’ sang Manfred Mann. George Shilling ain’t seen nothing like the Mighty Twin… Ted Fletcher, the original Joemeek founder and designer, now develops products under his own name.
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Thermionic Culture The Rooster
Subtitled “Valve pre-amp with EQ & attitude”, The Rooster continues the series of bold, mildly eccentric, all valve, proudly English outboard from the workshop of the legendary Vic Keary, with partner Jonathan Bailes looking after front panel design, manual writing and so on.
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Thermionic Culture The Earlybird 2.2 & The Pullet
Whilst Crane Song lovingly craft transistor-based birds, Thermionic have been building an increasing reputation for bird-based quality valve gear over the last few years.
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Drawmer Front End One MX60
In the high-end 'voice channel' market, one can easily forget that Drawmer were an early entrant with the Vacuum Tube 1960. They now enter the crowded budget end of this market with the feature packed 'Front End One' MX60.
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