Hairball REV A and WA76 vs Vintage 1176's 

The Rev A 2 sound the best all around for me but the hairball held its own. Great video

Best shoutout in the biz. Thanks.

Nice to have someone actually do this. It's seems anyone with a real, vintage Rev A doesn't have the time.

I just built a couple of the Hairball Rev As, and this was very helpful. Personally the difference between the Hairball and Rev As did sound fairly noticeable to me, the Hairball on drums seemed to be a bit brighter (in a clean, not harsh way) and the vintage units seemed to add more oomph to the kick (which the phase nulling seemed to confirm). On the guitar I felt like the vintage units brought out more of the mids in a pleasant way but were a bit too fuzzy on the highs for my personal preference. And given that acoustic guitar often needs to have that clear top end so the bottom can be reduced in a busy mix, it seems like the Hairball would be the more practical choice. The biggest thing missing from this comparison for me was comparing with the dry signal. It's like an experiment with 3 variables but no control! Regardless, thank you so much for taking the time to make this comparison.

Those drums had such a crazy cool vibe !! I appreciate this very much and know this took some time to do so thank you !!, I just got a hairball rev a myself and It sounds amazing. Great video

Good comparisons, but I was another person who thought something was wrong with the audio when I believed I kept hearing skips. The skips turned out to be the clicking between the solos of different tracks. When explained that there would be labels onscreen, it's implied that the labels will change in correlation with the different unit/track comparisons, and the mouse clicking the solo button was very small so I totally missed it at first. I was staring at the label Rev A for quite some time wondering what was going on lol. All good now, and the comparisons are much appreciated.

The lows the vintage has!! Massive. What was the mic and the pre used

I'm looking at preorder D on reverb, but will there be an H? I noticed your comment. Also are you do wa76?

Great shootout dude. The vintage Rev D wins it all for me.

The Hairball sounds great.

Good stuff, man. Making me want to pull the trigger on a WA

The A is supposed to be noisier than the D, so any thoughts about it sounding clearer : the effect of distortion: like an exciter?

i find my rev A doesnt smash like the LN units. its just different. the newer units the wa76 and hairball def have more top end. i liked rev a number one the most

Wow the hairball sounds great!!! Was it hard to build? I have some decent soldering knowledge but I definitely ain't no professional gear man!

During the guitar part there was def a difference between the clone and the original Rev A and a difference between both Rev A. I closed my eyes and tried to guess after each switch and was able to tell. All sound good tho.

Great shoutout!

With the phased nulled clip, what are we actually listening to: the difference between the two to indicate their actual difference as nulled frequency would be silent ?

Damn... u got 2 RevA? Weren’t there only less than 100 of those made ?

warm no punch

there's something wrong with the audio

The audio is bad. Goes and comes. Several solo tracks in the same time... a bit disaster.

Okay Mr. know it all. The reason why your meters between the old units and the new units are responding differently. It's not because the old meters are old. It's because. While the meters pretty much physically look the same. They are from 2 different meter manufacturers. DUH. And so just like the difference between a fender and a Gibson. And I'm not a guitarist. But just like that difference. There are differences in the ballistics by these different meter manufacturers. Even though, actual specified, VU meter ballistics. Must coincide with VU meter ballistics specifications of their rise and fall time. There's going to be minute differences in how they each respond. Because they are made by different manufacturers. And spread between about forty-five or so years. Magnets do lose their fluxcivity over time. The meter winding wire specifications and manufacturing may also be somewhat different. It's a balancing act. It's a milliamp meter. That likes to have its needle pointer made with their own thickness and materials. DUH Overall though I agree with you. I've had 4 Rev-D's and 2 Rev-H's have used my friends 1178's. And now really dig my Hairball Rev-F. A basturd child. With a Rev-D input and a Rev-G which is also the H, output. And what do you know? It sounds and works just like an, 1176 is supposed to. When you want that peak detected, FET limiter, sound. And we do. We most definitely, do. And love the FUCKER's. And each one sounds different from the next. And there's a reason for that more than you realize. And here's the reason. I know the reason. I'm a technician for the past 50+ years. And it's a simple reason. These lovely transistorized limiters. That have to have the transistor FET bias voltage carefully adjusted. By following the manual directives. Everybody knows how to do it right. But everybody doesn't know how to do it right. Because there is usually a problem. It's called stupidity. And here's what's happening. While we all know that tube equipment has to warm up. And takes about, 20 minutes, to do so. Before you want to be adjusting your tube bias voltage.. Hey, a twenty minute wait means a cup of coffee and a joint. While you're waiting for the amplifier to come up to operating temperature. Goo Boy! What about your transistorized limiter? What most folks don't know. And particularly about these 1176 FET original and clone limiters. They take a little longer than twenty minutes to come up to full operating temperature. They usually take about, 4-5 hours of on time. Before, you want to be adjusting anything, within the limiter. And nobody fucking does that! They take a limiter that has been taken out of the rack. Which has cooled off. They put it on the bench. Plug it in for ten minutes. And adjust it. Then they put it back in the rack. And 4 hours later. It's going to look fine. But it's not going to track perfectly with all of the others in the rack. I wonder why? DUH. What's different about these? THE FUCKING WARM-UP TIME! THAT'S WHAT! Before they were properly bench adjusted. They have to be nice and warm. Really warm. Stick them on your kitchen table. With the sun shining through the window upon them. And you might not have to wait 4 hours long. You might be up to temperature in 1 hour. And then you're ready to follow the manual about tweaking the bias voltage on the gain reduction FET and the meter FET. And then zero your meter out via the front panel adjustment hole. And after you put it back in your rack in your little bedroom control room. Leave it on for, 4 hours. Before you start to use it. To make certain. It is up to proper operating temperature within its chassis. And that takes a while longer. Since transistors give off a much lower heat load. DUH Sonny boy. And so you have been working with these limiters your entire career lifelong. Which has been what, three years? No, five years. And so when you did your shootout between the old and new units. You of course also put a new set of brand-new electrolytic capacitors, in the old units, first, right? No? Why not? Because they weren't yours? That's no excuse. Because in your nulling test. It was easy to hear. Likely the older units with the older capacitors. Were slightly rolling off the extreme high-end and the extreme low-end. And some units had the LN, low noise modification. Where the others didn't. And that was audible. As a fuzzy distortion. Your hearing the distortion that was eliminated in the LN versions. DUH. And because you hadn't recapped the old units with new electrolytic capacitors. Like the new units all had. So while it was a good demonstration. That was fraught with errors and variables. Largely based upon, aging electrolytic capacitors. But you did prove your point! I do want to stress that. This was an excellent demonstration in that respect. In that... When you want that, super aggressive, peak detected, attack and release manually controlled. Within their type parameters. With only one ratio button in. Or more. At the same time. And where some have on the back panel. An insert Jack with a switch. To allow for an insert of an equalizer. Into the detector circuitry. To have the limiter respond more to the frequencies you want it to be responding to. And filtering out the ones that could be interfering with the response of the gain reduction. On the instrument or vocal. That you want. To make the limiter more responsive. In your chosen, bandpass frequencies. Which I find an incredible, game changer. With these FET limiters of these types. So for many vocals and instruments. I will know. If I want an FET or optical or VCA type limiter. With either peak detection, averaging detection or RMS detection. Simply because. Real engineers like ourselves. Actually precisely know what we want. On precisely what we want it upon. My numerous multi-major music award nominations for best engineered and twenty years as one of the best Audio Engineers/Maintenance Engineers, NBC Radio & TV ever had for twenty of my years. Kind of proves we are both right and definitely correct. Bravo Sir. I commend you. Very well done. While I like mine quite rare and bloody sounding. RemyRAD