Delta Lab: ADM 465 Triple Tap Digital Delay

I am a HUGE fan of the Delta Lab Effectrons of yesteryear. I remember growing up in North Carolina, then moving to Florida, and it seemed like everywhere I went, there was one of those blue 1U delays in every control room. The reasons make plenty of sense, too: great- sounding, easy to use, straightforward boxes that do what they do well. So when I started engineering, I began collecting. I recently ran across a Delta Lab ADM 465 Triple Tap Digital Delay. I believe this box was built for delaying speaker arrays. Oh, the possibilities...

On the back of the dark grey, single rackspace unit, there is an XLR input jack and three XLR outputs. Balanced outputs are a nice step up and this unit seems to be much quieter than the other Effectrons I've used. The front panel has a familiar pair of red and green input indicator LEDs and an input level knob, along with a yellow power indicator LED. Each of the three delay sections has an output level control and push-button selectors for delay times (5, 10, 20, 40, and 80 ms). Unlike Delta Lab's other Effectron units, when you push a button, it stays down so you can push additional buttons and the delay times add up. For example, 5 ms plus 40 ms gives you 45 ms of delay. Interesting. When you get to the set of controls for the second output, the delay time becomes additive. For example, press the 10 + 20 ms buttons, and you get 75 ms (30 ms plus the initial 45 ms) available at the second output. The third section is the first two delay times combined, plus the settings for the third section. Set these up however you want, bring them back on separate faders and have a delay-panning fiesta. (I cannot believe I just wrote "delay-panning fiesta.") This is certainly an esoteric-type of box. There's not really fine control of the delay times and there's no feedback section, but I've got my other Effectrons for that stuff. I'm having great fun with it, no less.