Quote:
Originally Posted by tekbench  |
Great sounding desks. I've done tech work on a handful of them over the last 15 years. Bulletproof. Sound great. Jensen transformers on most of them, crappy op amps on some, good ones on others. PR&E (Pacific Recorders & Engineering) was out of Carlsbad, CA. They were bought by Harris Broadcast back in the early 2000's. I own 5 of the last ABX consoles produced out of Carlsbad. Mr. Bob Moore at
www.moretronix.com is the guy that you want to be nice to. He's a great guy, and is uber helpful for parts, tools and even some calibration gear. They're not Ward Beck, nor are they API. They sit, IMHO, somewhere in between API, Ward Beck and older Auditronics desks. The main focus of these desks were to control a radio broadcast. They've got more contact closures and relays than you'll ever need. They also don't have many bells or whistles audio wise. Two inputs per channel (A or B), clean mic pre, nice fader, couple of aux sends, and a big red ON/OFF button. The power supplies are massive. Like boat anchor massive. This was to dissipate heat without using fans, and the supply is usually located fairly close to the console, witch meant fairly close to the operator talking on the air. The volume pots alone on the monitor section run a couple hundred bucks to replace from P&G. In fact, most of the signal path runs through P&G faders or pots. The output amps would occasionally blow up, but they're easy to fix. The consoles are also easy to align, but you need to have the manual, a decent tone generator and a good meter. Back panel is all molex. ALL molex. get to know that method of wiring. It's easy once you master the basic crimp connectors. Don't touch the power input rails. They're exposed screw terminals and will shock the bejezus out of you if you're not careful. The safety covers almost ALWAYS got torn off. They are designed to fit into a cut-out table top counter of some kind. I don't know if I've ever seen one on a PR&E made stand. All the meters were Sifam, I believe the exact same meter as used in SSL G and E series desks. This is all top of mind, so feel free to correct me if you need to. I've got a pile of ABX parts, and some other odds and ends if you need them. I've also got a couple of manuals, but, only for the AMX and ABX desk. Not the production desks or some of the new fangled 'pre digital' desks they did. Those were of questionable quality. ABX, AMX, BMX and RMX are the bulletproof ones. The rest are serviceable, but were intended for lower budget operations. Not bad, but not what people generally mean when they refer to "PR&E" or "Pacific Recorders" consoles.
New Reply 
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
