Submitted by DonnyThompson on Thu, 10/19/2017 - 12:29

audiokid, Kurt Foster, Boswell, dvdhawk Davedog, pcrecord, @Makzimia kmetal John S Dyson, et al ...

Have any of you guys ever worked with the Blue-Stripe 1176 (revision D, I think?).
I've only ever worked with various Black-faced and Silver-faced 76's; I'm trying to remember if I even ever actually saw the Blue Strip in the various studios I worked at over the years...
So, My question is, it seems that the Blue Stripe is fairly-well sought after, and highly regarded. Was there something about it in particular that gave it the rep it has developed over the years?
Some sort of sonic character it had that made it different from the black '76's? Or the Silver faced models?
Just curious if any one could shed light on this.
:)
-d.

Comments

I did some mixing in a small studio a while back where there was a Blue 1176. The studio owner said it was a financial thing for him. He wanted to end up with two of them, but could only afford one now and one sometime in the future. He believed that the blue stripe models were not only lower noise but also more repeatable, so getting a second one that sounded close to his present unit should be easier. That may well be true, but I don't have enough experience with matching them to be sure.

Hey Donny, with all your recent interest in classic hardware compressors, clones, and even building a DIY model, have you read any reviews on Klark Teknik's rendition of the 1176? The reviews I've read were pretty promising. At the risk of being called a heretic, it's actually something under the Music-Group banner I wouldn't mind owning. As far as I know, they haven't ruined Klark or Midas yet.

They're making a Pultec EQ too, so can an LA2A be far behind?

Oh, and to answer your actual question... no, I have no light to shed on the differences between the vintage models.

REV A= Blue Stripe. Rev C started the blackface era and Rev D & E were considered the quietest and best sounding .....also known as 1176LN.

What the blue stripe did was be aggressive and noisy. Also a higher distortion figure was present. But it was the kind of distortion that sounded GREAT with everything. It was this one that people began simply running signal through for the "vibe".

I’ve only used the silver face LN. loved its distortion, but think maybe it needed new caps or something cause it wasn’t super punchy like 1176’s seem to have a rep for. Either way the distortion was perfect.

dvdhawk, post: 453622, member: 36047 wrote: Hey Donny, with all your recent interest in classic hardware compressors, clones, and even building a DIY model, have you read any reviews on Klark Teknik's rendition of the 1176? The reviews I've read were pretty promising. At the risk of being called a heretic, it's actually something under the Music-Group banner I wouldn't mind owning. As far as I know, they haven't ruined Klark or Midas yet.

They're making a Pultec EQ too, so can an LA2A be far behind?

Oh, and to answer your actual question... no, I have no light to shed on the differences between the vintage models.

The Klark just dropped their price from 500 to 300 on the pultec I believe too. It got decent reviews. With very few choices on EQ under a grand, it had me interested.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EQPKT

It got generally good reviews with some negatives being some noises / defects in some units, and generally an inability to use them in stereo due to the knobs / pots not matching up.

Those are the type of things to be expected in this range. But overall people who had them seemed to like them.

You could always try your handy work at modifying a unit. There’s probably some relatively simple things that could be done. Maybe swapping chips and caps? Maybe a tube swap, or mod to the PSU.