To piggyback on John Baccigaluppi's End Rant musings "Give Me a Hammer" [Tape Op #102 and #115], I have been looking for a particular hammer that might serve as my aspiration to get back to what fired...
I’m gonna come clean right out of the gate: I’m a big believer in Empirical Labs [Tape Op #33]. I have owned at least one EL8 Distressor [#32] in my personal studio since 2009, and it...
My expectations were high going into reviewing the Avedis Audio MA5 – several engineers I trust had been talking them up for years. This preamp blew my expectations out of the water. Within...
A bass amp is not a typical product often seen on the review pages of Tape Op. Reviews usually center on mainstream recording equipment as opposed to performance amps, but I was really curious about...
Peterson Goodwyn and his crew at DIY Recording Equipment (DIYRE) won’t be strangers to many long-term Tape Op readers. Their Colour 500 Palette [Tape Op #107] has been reviewed, along with...
If you’re an audio professional, it’s likely you know the simple number “73” means only one of two things: It’s either a reference to the revered Neve 1073 mic pre/EQ, or...
Most ribbon microphones contain simply a thin aluminum ribbon, a magnet, and a transformer. This elegant design contributes much to what we love about the technology, but there are a few drawbacks:...
Electric & Company, operated by Mattie Smith and crew out of Austin, Texas, hand-build a small lineup of tube microphone preamplifiers and refurbish vintage units. My first experience with this...
In 2011 Black Lion audio released the B12A, their take on API’s well-known 312A preamp. Not marketed as a clone of the 312A, the B12A represented Black Lion’s re-engineered take to deliver...
These days, it’s pretty rare to see a piece of audio equipment with an innovative feature set, but the Cranborne Audio Camden EC2 is indeed one of those rarities. It is a combination two-channel...
Four years ago, Black Lion Audio introduced the B173 [Tape Op #100], their single-channel take on a British-style preamp at a wallet-friendly price. Last year, their B173 Quad improved on the design...
I’ve always been a big fan of Chameleon Labs’ gear. They were one of the first companies to bring classic audio designs into the realm of affordability. I’ve owned a pair of their...
Coming up in audio in the early 2000s, I was present for what was maybe not the most universally trustworthy or well-informed era of the online audio forum, but definitely the funnest. There were...
