Here's a curious little thing I picked up recently off of eBay.
It was described as a "pre pre," designed to bring ribbons up to where they could be fed into a desk without issues. The story I was told -- apocryphal or not -- is that it was designed and made about 20 years ago by the house tech at the Record Plant. There were supposedly about six of them made.
It's a tube unit, gives about 25db of gain
and has UTC transformers in and out.
The sound is very groovy to my ears, darkish on low output dynamics, less so on modern condensers, but very 3d in any case. Chaining it before my V78m, it gives the V78m an interestingly more open sound, as I don't have to drive it so hard, an effect that the seller suggested would occur.
Anyhoo, it's an amusing little color piece. It's presented here for your amusement.
Cheers.
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