New La3a from Universal Audio

[Jimprewitt1954]

I read on some website where universal audio has brought back the vintage tube optical type compression la3a. It goes for a whopping 2900.00!!! This was a stereo (pair) They also have brought back the 1176 stereo limiter and the Volumax.

They claim it sounds just like the old units sounded in the 60's and 70's.

When i was programming a station in Birmingham back in the late 80's i tested at least 5 mic compressors and none came as close to sounding as good as the la-4 from urei i bought for 500 NEW. Really held the levels. The closest thing that comes close to the la3 la 4's is the old valley people 401 mic processor, Air Corp Pro Announcer and the original symetrix 528 and some of the dbx stuff, as well as some built in mic processor/eq card in certain consoles.

Any thoughts on how this new vintage stuff sounds?<P ID="signature">______________
Lead, follow or get out of the way...

And remember, the early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

</P>

 

[oldiesstation]

> I read on some website where universal audio has brought
> back the vintage tube optical type compression la3a. It goes
> for a whopping 2900.00!!! This was a stereo (pair) They also
> have brought back the 1176 stereo limiter and the Volumax.
>
> They claim it sounds just like the old units sounded in the
> 60's and 70's.
>
> When i was programming a station in Birmingham back in the
> late 80's i tested at least 5 mic compressors and none came
> as close to sounding as good as the la-4 from urei i bought
> for 500 NEW. Really held the levels. The closest thing that
> comes close to the la3 la 4's is the old valley people 401
> mic processor, Air Corp Pro Announcer and the original
> symetrix 528 and some of the dbx stuff, as well as some
> built in mic processor/eq card in certain consoles.
>
> Any thoughts on how this new vintage stuff sounds?
> BET it sounds great, but that price is a little steep.just got my valley 401 back from galaxy audio, they replaced opt amp chip and tweaked it.sounds brand new and just awesome, even better that the aircorp 500 ph i have.i hear good things about the focusrite voice pro platium, great deal at 599.00 but the power supply runs warm which may be typical in some class A preamps.the older urei la3 and 4's were great stuff..

 

[fm_engineer]

> > I read on some website where universal audio has brought
> > back the vintage tube optical type compression la3a. It
> goes
> > for a whopping 2900.00!!! This was a stereo (pair) They
> also
> > have brought back the 1176 stereo limiter and the Volumax.
>
> >
> > They claim it sounds just like the old units sounded in
> the
> > 60's and 70's.
> >
> > When i was programming a station in Birmingham back in the
>
> > late 80's i tested at least 5 mic compressors and none
> came
> > as close to sounding as good as the la-4 from urei i
> bought
> > for 500 NEW. Really held the levels. The closest thing
> that
> > comes close to the la3 la 4's is the old valley people 401
>
> > mic processor, Air Corp Pro Announcer and the original
> > symetrix 528 and some of the dbx stuff, as well as some
> > built in mic processor/eq card in certain consoles.
> >
> > Any thoughts on how this new vintage stuff sounds?
> > BET it sounds great, but that price is a little steep.just
> got my valley 401 back from galaxy audio, they replaced opt
> amp chip and tweaked it.sounds brand new and just awesome,
> even better that the aircorp 500 ph i have.i hear good
> things about the focusrite voice pro platium, great deal at
> 599.00 but the power supply runs warm which may be typical
> in some class A preamps.the older urei la3 and 4's were
> great stuff..
>

Way to expensive compared to what you can get with DSP! DSP has passed the threshold of sounding analog (tube)! With base rates of 64 and 96 kHz, and clipping rates of 256-512 kHz (with algorithms that emulate 10 mHz clipping) DSP is far superior!

 

[mr_elbows]

> I read on some website where universal audio has brought
> back the vintage tube optical type compression la3a. It goes
> for a whopping 2900.00!!! This was a stereo (pair) They also
> have brought back the 1176 stereo limiter and the Volumax.
>
> They claim it sounds just like the old units sounded in the
> 60's and 70's.
>
> When i was programming a station in Birmingham back in the
> late 80's i tested at least 5 mic compressors and none came
> as close to sounding as good as the la-4 from urei i bought
> for 500 NEW. Really held the levels. The closest thing that
> comes close to the la3 la 4's is the old valley people 401
> mic processor, Air Corp Pro Announcer and the original
> symetrix 528 and some of the dbx stuff, as well as some
> built in mic processor/eq card in certain consoles.
>
> Any thoughts on how this new vintage stuff sounds?

it couldn't sound any worse that the 'high-tech sound squwishers' that most stations use these days

over-processed crap, 99.99 % of it
>

 

[ironbear]

> Way to expensive compared to what you can get with DSP! DSP
> has passed the threshold of sounding analog (tube)! With
> base rates of 64 and 96 kHz, and clipping rates of 256-512
> kHz (with algorithms that emulate 10 mHz clipping) DSP is
> far superior!

There's something magic about analog RMS opto-based limiting which ears like very much. Too bad UA's re-released units are so over priced. Who's got the best DSP simulation?

 

[fm_engineer]

> > Way to expensive compared to what you can get with DSP!
> DSP
> > has passed the threshold of sounding analog (tube)! With
> > base rates of 64 and 96 kHz, and clipping rates of 256-512
>
> > kHz (with algorithms that emulate 10 mHz clipping) DSP is
> > far superior!
>
> There's something magic about analog RMS opto-based limiting
> which ears like very much. Too bad UA's re-released units
> are so over priced. Who's got the best DSP simulation?
>

DBX has some nice dsp stuff! For broadcast processing Omnia and Optimod pretty much own the DSP market!