Written by John Truba on . Posted in Musical Blog.

Valve Pre-Amps

A famous actor who we all know and love in his parts in films/TV  once said "Notta a lotta people know dat' "  . The same could be said for one of my products , namely Valve Pre's for recording Mic's/ Instruments  and  in sound tailoring in post production in studios etc  .   About 20 years ago  I was asked to design and build a stereo valve pre-amp. for an associate musician  who had switched from his Reel to Reel tape recorder to a newer digital system , and  of course we all know how clinically clean these can be ( excepting when overloaded with input signal when they turn nasty and unusable  ,  as opposed to tape overload  which can be nice and warm  when driven quite hard )   so he wanted to "warm up"  the signal before recording (digitising) it .  That's where my newly designed / built  unit came to his aid

 Subsequently  I've built many different types of valve pre-amps.  from single channel up to 6 ch. units in a variety of  cases / "Black boxes" , 1U , 2U  & 3U rack formats .  Once when talking to a friend (who was about to audition a unit in his lavish studio  , and being no stranger to Audio electronics )  we quipped the line of  " A piece of copper wire with gain in it "  would be the ideal characteristic  for these valve pre's  . I don't know if I can boast such an accolade for my  pre's  ,  but the people that use my units have said only complimentary things about them  , even I use my stereo pre. to enhance my attempted vocals  ( or should that be Croakles ) .

They are designed and built in 2 formats these days  ,  there's a basic / lo cost  1 U high unit and  a Deluxe full facility 2 U unit . Generally these are customer ordered only , but at present  ( Aug 18 )  I do have a 1U unit  & 2  2U Deluxe  units in stock  ready to be sold  , prices upon application please , thankyou  ,   As most customers know  I offer  "Boutique"  quality at normal cost .