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Originally Posted by espasonico I only bought one Central Station and works great. I suppose B-stocks are B-stocks because of something. |
If you're looking for a purist sound and not expensive, but a bit more expensive than the big knob, there's either do-it-yourself or, even better, ASK Fred Forssell.
I've built one of my own that's almost as good as Fred's because it uses Fred's opamps, but it has a coupling cap on its output instead of a DC servo. Then I asked Fred to build one for me with a DC servo and it sounds fabulous---clean clear, transparent, solid. It's basically a line stage preamp in a box with power supply two line inputs, Fred's discrete opamps, and a TKD stereo 1 dB/step attenuator. The TKD attenuator alone cost me $250 new. I've built about 3 custom attenuators with Shalco and other switches in my life and a couple are still sitting in the garage. If you can solder and select 1% resistors you can build one for a lot less than $250, unless you want to count your hourly rate!
If you can go unbalanced I'm sure Fred has a PC board ready and can outfit you a box with a knob and power supply for $1k to $2K. If you need all the features of the Mackie Big Knob they're lacking. This is a basic box with input and output, whose concentration is GOOD SOUND. Should Fred make a "Big knob" replacement? Yeah, in his copious free time. If all you need is a couple of inputs and one stereo output, and equal to the best sounding monitor controller in the world, call Fred.
My personal favorite is the Avocet, and I own one, but that will set you back big bucks. Fred's old controller is still in use here, in Studio B.
BK