If there’s one style of preampthat professional engineers would unanimously agree has defined the tone of pop/rock records for decades, it would most definitely be the venerable '73-style of mic pre. '73-style preamps havebeen massively used in recording and live applications for many years and arestill considered to be the “Holy Grail” of preamp choicestoday. The Warm Audio “WA73 Family” consists of single and dual channel '73-style preamps (with & w/out EQ), that each paycareful homage toBritish audio history.
When we at Warm Audiodecided to release the WA73-EQ it was imperative that it metvintage expectation in both design and performance. The tone and sweet character that vintage '73- style mic preampsimpart is so unique and familiar, that we had only the pure desire to release sonicallyaccurate reproductions. After years of R&D, careful reverse-engineering, and countless hours of auditioning, the WA73-EQ has been born!
The WA73-EQ is a “Desert Island” boutique preamp, but it can also be classified as a studio and live work-horse. Classic '73-style preampsare known for beingversatiletools that workwith all kinds of microphones from Condenser, to Dynamic, to Ribbon. The WA73-EQ equally shines on all types of microphones and sources including; vocals, acoustic/electric guitars, bass, drums, percussion, orchestras, keyboards, and even as a tone shaping tool to run partial or complete mixes through. With 80dB of gain and a fully discrete Carnhill Transformer balanced signal path, there’s no recording, mixing or engineering task that the WA73-EQ can’t handle.
- Two Channel, Class A, 1073-style British Microphone Preamp with EQ
- UK made Carnhill Transformers
- UK made – Blore Edwards EQ dual-concentric switch potentiometers
- Hand Wired, hand assembled
- 80dB of gain – resistor stepped gain switch
- Fully discrete
- TONE button – Changes input transformer impedance for varying tone
- Polarity switch
- 48v phantom power
- Inductor based 3-band EQ
- Low Band Boost/Cut – 35, 60, 110, 220 Hz
- Mid Band Boost/Cut – 360, 700, 1600, 3200, 4800, 7200 Hz
- High Band Boost/Cut – 10, 12, 16 kHz
- Additional high band frequency EQ points added (compared to vintage 1073)
- 4 position inductor based hipass filter – 50, 80, 160, 300 Hz
- XLR mic inputs (front & back)
- Line level TRS input
- TS Send/Receive insert jacks
- XLR & TRS line level outputs
- Direct In, instrument input
- Freq response 20Hz – 20kHz +/-.5 dB
- 19″ rackable
- Internal IEC 115v/230v power inlet