WATSON AUDIO : custom high end mastering gear
 

Some of you know my custom builds I have posted about a few time.

Mark's not one for self publicizing but he has two new designs he's allowed me to share so here they are

(FYI I don't financially gain from this in any way!)

Watson Audio Mastering Equipment

Tilt EQ

A stereo linked 1U 19” rack mount Tilt EQ for tweaking the overall balance of light and dark centered on a “sweet spot” or crossover frequency, nominally 650Hz.

As the Tilt is engaged, an HPF and LPF mirrored pair work in opposition to each other to add top end while removing bottom end or vice versa.

The unit is essentially a stripped down MEP250, using the entire structure of this legendary EQ, including the I/O section and EQ gain handling using centre-tapped pots, giving the Tilt it’s impeccable sound quality and very low THD+N and phase distortion characteristics.

Specifications:

Gain: -1.25dB to +1.25dB cut/boost in 0.25dB increments

Crossover: 460, 550, 650, 770, 920Hz

(spans 2 octaves in musical increments)

THD+N: 0.0007% (1000Hz +4dBu input)

Phase distortion: <6 deg. At maximum cut/boost

Features:

* Takamisawi bypass relays

* Hard bypass routing ins to outs bypassing the entire unit

* Individual hard bypass on LPF and HPF allowing independent use of the filters, meaning you can just use the low pass or the high pass separately

* Top quality Wima polypropylene and Panasonic low ESR electrolytic capacitors

* Silver mica bypass capacitors

* Styroflex filter tuning capacitors

* Gotham Audio hookup cable

* Neutrik XLRs

* LM317/337 adjustable low noise, filtered, hum-free psu

* Star ground – all grounds have their own separate pathway back to the main chassis ground making it impossible for hum to be injected into the audio path

£750 including shipping

---------------

179-400 Dual Limiter

A dual channel mastering limiter made from two NTP 179-400 cards mounted in a 1U 19” rack mount case with all the onboard controls brought out to the front of the case. No fiddly trim pots for setting the gain, limit level or release times, this is all done with full size potentiometers making it faster and more intuitive to use.

The 179-400 design uses RMS peak detection making it far less jumpy than standard peak detection limiters giving a smoother, virtually invisible limiting action at higher gain reductions.

Specifications:

Gain

16 position rotary switch in 1.5dB increments:

0, 1.5, 3.0, 4.5, 6.0, 7.5, 9.0, 10.5,

12.0, 13.5, 15.0, 16.5, 18.0, 19.5, 21.0, 22.5dB

Limit Level

9 position rotary switch in 1.5dB increments.

Sets the level the limiter will not allow audio to go beyond:

1.5, 3.0, 4.5, 6.0, 7.5, 9.0, 10.5, 12.0, 13.5dB

Release Times

7 position rotary switches.

T1 and T2 form a composite release curve that can be adjusted to fit any material.

T1 F1, F2, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 1.0, 2.0 seconds

T2 F1, F2, 0, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0, 10.0 seconds

T2 can be set to zero and switched off entirely leaving the release down to T1 only.

THD+N

<0.006% No limiting

<0.02% Limiting engaged

(1000Hz +4dBu input)

£850 including shipping

For further info or to make an order, please contact:

Mark Watson

Watson Audio

07544 674083

m.a.watson at hotmail dot co dot uk

I have not tried the Tilt yet but I own his fully racked NTP Limiters!

Thinking of asking him to put my NTPs in his box. Mine are racked but only have a bypass switch.

I'd recommend it. He's also adding a few little bits to what he made me to make it even easier to implement into a hot mastering chain. Say I sent ya!

I thought this forum forbid sales pitches and self promotion? I am tying to be understanding but how is this different from all the mastering engineers on here starting to put up ads for their studios? Not a flame just wondering.

Cheers Joe, should save a bit of cash if I supply the limiters too. I really like the idea of having some gain controls with it. Will probably put last in chain before ADC.

Glad to have the thread back!

It seems to me it is fine -- evidently Mark Watson does not do the "internet thang", and a happy client is merely posting info about some of Mark's new products.

I also don't see any "advertising" on the part of the OP except his sig... which is common to see on other posts.

i missed this the first time. glad to see it's back up.

you need to try a lot harder.

Well, this is in the new product alert forum. Or was it somewhere else previously and moved by a mod?

Kindly show me one other post in the mastering forum, where this is originally posted, that goes in to as much detail as this posting. It belongs in the new product forum and not, IMHO, on the mastering forum. Try posting some piece of used equipment for sale on the mastering forum and see how long it stays up This is EXACTLY the same thing only this is NEW equipment.

It was NOT an appropriate post for the mastering forum IMHO.

If you disagree then we have to agree to disagree.

FWIW

I did not see it in the Mastering forum -- I saw it in the New Product Alerts forum.

Perhaps it _was_ inappropriate... maybe it is appropriate now.

btw... I was not really trying to dis you, personally.

Photos?

No offense taken.

Here is the mastering forum rules:

3) Spamming is not tolerated in ANY form. As a consequence "OVER POSTING" either to generate visibility for yourself or your business or to stubbornly reiterate an opinion across multiple threads will result in infractions, partial or total bans.

Joe was not generating visibility for himself but for another person. If he wanted to do this properly he should have posted the lengthy posting about the equipment on the New Product Alert page and then posted a link to it on the mastering page. I know I have gotten a lot heat for this but if Joe, who is a long time member, would have done this as I suggested this never would have been a problem. I really don't enjoy getting jumped for simply stating the rules that are already in place because it "inconvenienced" some people.

FWIW