Tubular Audio

Vintage audio repair and resale

10/30/2024

Another day at the shop! 📸:

11/21/2022

I love doing little bespoke pcb projects especially for old gear. The mashup of old and new feels cyborg-y 🦾. These are going in .evian’s MCI JH-416 console which pairs nicely with a JH-16 tape machine. Both these machines live up at in the Catskills 🍂

07/20/2022

Assembling the first pcb revision of the new fuzz pedal. A couple of tweaks later… and REV2 will be the production version!

12/14/2021

Recently I completed a pedal-design commission for ! I’m super proud of how it turned out, so check out their page if you want to get in a preorder. The pedal is a two-in-one with a overdrive front end followed by a soft clipping boost that can be engaged with a secondary footswitch.

10/05/2021

MRL Calibrated to +5 operating level, aligned the tape path, head azimuth, record bias…. This thing sounds amazing! I love tape #32

10/05/2021

Racked up these ADM1500 EQ’s for yesterday! Funky things have no publicly available pin-out so had to use some good ole fashioned intuition (op amp data sheets and PCB tracing) to figure out that these run off +/- 18V and need a two-row EDAC connector to make the proper I/O connections, as well as where to make those connections. These have some super gentle EQ positions, less audible Q-factor than a 33115 for sure though I didn’t run any sweeps. And of course most importantly they look sick as hell 😉

08/31/2021

Any haters out there?

08/25/2021

Finally finished another Ampex 60(1) dual channel mic pre built to my specs. The design is based on the OG 601, but utilizes a White cathode follower to drive the output trafo. When making these dual-channel, a gut renovation is a must, in my opinion. Now it has 80dB gain, +22dBu output (before clipping), line pads, phantom power, Hi-Z input, and selectable metering. While I’m not usually a component snob, the input and output transformers really make this 601 what it is, and I’m not sure if or when I’ll ever have the parts to make another!

07/10/2021

There’s something so satisfying about re-coning a 60-something-year-old speaker. While speakers seemed mysterious to me for so long, they’re really not bad once you get the hang of them! This one’s an Oxford 8EV-29, common in tweed-era champs. Keep on rockin lil dude 🥲 (Owner: )

07/08/2021

Beautifully minty Gibson GA-6 with a poodle wrap on the bench at today for a capacitor update and health checkup! Seems like it’s been in the box since it left the factory floor in ‘56

11/02/2020

Bonus pics from my last post showing some of the prototyping and building process. I ended up scrapping the homemade switchboards due to difficulty in soldering switches reliably to both sides without plated-through holes. But my prototype op-amp board works great! It takes in 5-12VDC and spits out +/-15VDC for a fancy special op amp. This allows the op amp to push out +22dBu (very ). Last pic is of the newest version which will sport 4 channels and is currently being produced over in China by . thanks for reading!

11/02/2020

I have to say I’m really proud of this one. It feels like the culmination of 3+ years of honing my craft! I installed two hifi OpAmp-buffered direct-outs with dedicated +/-15V supply to this Ampex MX-10 tube mixer which effectively expands its functionality to a 4-channel mic pre. In addition, I installed four custom-designed switchboard PCB’s to select phase, pad, and 48V phantom power (with indicator LED!). The +/-15V supply and 48V phantom supply are independently generated by super efficient switched-mode PSU’s that boost/buck the 12VDC heater supply, which I upgraded using a state of the art LDO regulator and fancy low-Vf Schottky diodes. The high voltage supply was also improved with long-life electrolytic caps and a much tighter layout, resulting in a vanishingly low noise floor. I know modifications can sometimes lower the value of vintage gear, but my goal here was to so seamlessly integrate these mods as to do no harm or even increase the value of this MX-10. All I know is the owner is very happy (so I am too)!

09/25/2020

3m follower face reveal

09/22/2020

Made some not-so-small investments for working on 1/4” reel-to-reel decks so hit me up if you’ve got one that needs some TLC!

09/15/2020

Very well behaved amp conversion! I like to add a bass cut switch since the overdrive can be a bit woofy without it. Also DC preamp filaments and new filter caps!

09/10/2020

Cute lil drawing of the Tandberg factory at the back of the manual

07/30/2020

Out w the old, in w the new! Replaced bad 2520 discreet op amps in a customer’s API 550b with two RED-25’s and they work, look, and sound phenomenal.

05/21/2020

Some details for the nerds!!

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Williamsburg, OH

Website

http://tubularaudiobk.com/

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Videos

Adding a resonance control to a Pultec HLF-3C Sometimes I work in silence. On music equipment…. How about that. Because the filters in these units are unloaded by default, they are very sensitive to load (and source) impedance. A higher than nominal load impedance will allow the LC filters to resonate and thus gives a peaky response to the second order filter, indicating an underdamped system. The resonance control is accomplished by loading the filter output with a potentiometer plus a minimum load resistance in series. 10k audio taper for the potentiometer, 510R for the resistor work well to provide a nice, consistent range with useable extremes.