Post by matt@IAA on Mar 5, 2019 16:12:05 GMT -6
Hey y'all. I wanted to post real quick to introduce myself and Iron Age Audioworks. This is a sneak peek for RGO types only.
IAA is a boutique audio shop that produces discrete solid state designs. It's me (Matt), my best bud and partner in crime Fernando, and our sherpa da kine Chris (who runs Barbaric Amplification). We are fans of good design, passionate about music, and we love making things. Fernando and I are both mechanical engineers who come from a background designing, servicing, and repairing turbomachinery. We've been making all kinds of stuff together for about ten years -- everything from furniture to guitar pedals to audio gear. Last year Chris really encouraged us to step out there, brand it, and start offering products. IAA is the result.
All of our products are designed by us from one end to the other, and made here in Texas. IAA isn't about clones but cool, useful, musical designs that are inspired by vintage gear from the past.
Our basic tonal building block is an in-house discrete operational amplifier coupled with a carefully selected output transformer. The M2 op amp is an eleven transistor design that produces a very low THD, even-order dominant sound – warm and clear. We couple that with a steel-core Cinemag transformer for some warmth that extends up into the mids. We also did a pretty thorough input transformer search and landed on a Jensen for our mic pres. This combo results in what a few of our test listener engineers have described as a clear, focused, and tight, sound.
We also have other proven op amp designs available, and we tested a ton of op amp, input, and output transformer combinations before settling on our stock configuration. If there’s something you want, let us know – we’d love to modify something to meet your specific needs. Custom work is comfortable for us.
We've got a couple of products really close to completion, but the one I'm excited to announce today is our Summing Mixer - the 1222. The 1222 is designed to replicate the summing bus and part of the routing matrix of a large format console. It uses 12 M2s for the balanced inputs, each with individual pan control onto a switchable stereo bus. In addition to the stereo bus, the 1222 has a second pair of switchable mono busses for mono duty or as a stereo bus with LCR assignment.
Each bus is summed using M2 as an active virtual earth amplifier and a transformer balanced output. The stereo bus also has a nominal -2 dBu (6 dB below the output level at full fader) unbalanced insert point. This is followed by a master fader level control and an output line amplifier. The stereo bus and mono busses feature slightly different gain staging, a signal could be sent to both – in some applications you may prefer one or the other.
18 op amps, six transformers in 1RU – lots of possibilities. The 1222 is $2000 and can be ordered directly from us - starting today.
Edit: I forgot the pics! We're getting legit photographer glamor shots done Friday, so you'll have to suffer through my build photos for now.
IAA is a boutique audio shop that produces discrete solid state designs. It's me (Matt), my best bud and partner in crime Fernando, and our sherpa da kine Chris (who runs Barbaric Amplification). We are fans of good design, passionate about music, and we love making things. Fernando and I are both mechanical engineers who come from a background designing, servicing, and repairing turbomachinery. We've been making all kinds of stuff together for about ten years -- everything from furniture to guitar pedals to audio gear. Last year Chris really encouraged us to step out there, brand it, and start offering products. IAA is the result.
All of our products are designed by us from one end to the other, and made here in Texas. IAA isn't about clones but cool, useful, musical designs that are inspired by vintage gear from the past.
Our basic tonal building block is an in-house discrete operational amplifier coupled with a carefully selected output transformer. The M2 op amp is an eleven transistor design that produces a very low THD, even-order dominant sound – warm and clear. We couple that with a steel-core Cinemag transformer for some warmth that extends up into the mids. We also did a pretty thorough input transformer search and landed on a Jensen for our mic pres. This combo results in what a few of our test listener engineers have described as a clear, focused, and tight, sound.
We also have other proven op amp designs available, and we tested a ton of op amp, input, and output transformer combinations before settling on our stock configuration. If there’s something you want, let us know – we’d love to modify something to meet your specific needs. Custom work is comfortable for us.
We've got a couple of products really close to completion, but the one I'm excited to announce today is our Summing Mixer - the 1222. The 1222 is designed to replicate the summing bus and part of the routing matrix of a large format console. It uses 12 M2s for the balanced inputs, each with individual pan control onto a switchable stereo bus. In addition to the stereo bus, the 1222 has a second pair of switchable mono busses for mono duty or as a stereo bus with LCR assignment.
Each bus is summed using M2 as an active virtual earth amplifier and a transformer balanced output. The stereo bus also has a nominal -2 dBu (6 dB below the output level at full fader) unbalanced insert point. This is followed by a master fader level control and an output line amplifier. The stereo bus and mono busses feature slightly different gain staging, a signal could be sent to both – in some applications you may prefer one or the other.
18 op amps, six transformers in 1RU – lots of possibilities. The 1222 is $2000 and can be ordered directly from us - starting today.
Edit: I forgot the pics! We're getting legit photographer glamor shots done Friday, so you'll have to suffer through my build photos for now.