Chandler Limited Germanium Preamp/DI

Description

The Germanium pre-amp design by Chandler Limited designer Wade Goeke uses classic germanium transistors in all class A, transformer-balanced circuits. The use of germanium devices opens a whole new sound palate not found in any pro audio equipment currently manufactured.These incredibly smooth-sounding transistors were the basis of the earliest transistor designs by Neve, EMI, Telefunken, and Fairchild. Those familiar with these units can attest to the special sound of the germanium transistor. The Germanium series runs on +40 volt power, high current, and has a huge +34 output before clipping. The sound is warm and smooth, as with many vintage style circuits, but you'll find a whole new world of smooth audio here as well as a sound that settles in perfectly to your tracks without fighting. Add these new circuits to Chandler's new transformer line that combines the best parts of Chandler's favorite trannies, St Ives and Gardners, into new great-sounding input and output transformers.Gain/Germainium DriveThis is your standard input gain control. It is a 10-position Elma switch with 3dB step increments. The full range of the unit is -5dB, with the pad, to +65dB, without the pad and Germanium Drive and Feeback at full. The actual amount of overall gain, however, is affected by feedback control. When the gain is at 0 and the feedback is at 0, the overall gain is +10dB. Increasing the feedback to 10 changes the overall gain to +40dB, with all the tonal changes described under the feedback control. Using different combinations of feedback and input gain is essential if you want to take advantage of all the tones available from the Germanium pre-amp.FeedbackThe Feedback control is essential to the sound and function of this pre-amp. Audio amplifiers incorporate some amount of negative feedback, which is where the output signal of the amplifier is fed back to its input. This affects the sound and func