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Article Preview - Thermionic Culture Rooster

Valve Microphone Preamp & EQ

Published in SOS December 2008

Reviews : Preamp


Is this latest addition to the Thermionic Culture flock something for the company to crow about?
Paul White
Photos: Mike Cameron
To appreciate anything built by UK company Thermionic Culture, you need to know something about the philosophy of their founder, Vic Keary, a larger-than-life character who relishes building larger-than-life tube-based audio gear. Vic set up the all-tube Chiswick Reach studio in West London and then moved into small-scale manufacturing with engineer and co-founder Jon Bailes, who oversees the mechanical engineering and visual aspects of the products — all of which seem to have curiously bird-related names — before being joined by studio engineer Nick Terry. They have a philosophy of not using any solid-state circuitry in the signal path, although, of course, they may use it elsewhere, such as in power supplies. The team confess to being obsessed with tube-based audio equipment and they all seem to dislike the sound of modern solid-state circuitry. I'm not sure anyone has dared to ask them what they think about digital audio!
Although many Thermionic Culture circuit designs hark back to the pre-vintage days of the mid 20th century, they've done whatever they can to reduce noise and distortion to meet the needs of today's user, through the use of high-quality resistors and capacitors where appropriate, selected tubes and carefully laid-out PCBs and hand wiring.
Ruling The Roost
The Rooster, which I'm reviewing here, is a hefty 2U, twin-channel, tube-based 'mic/line plus DI' preamp with EQ. It also borrows heavily from the distortion section of the company's Vulture.
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Published in SOS December 2008
Thursday 8th January 2009
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