The S1100 took the industry-standard S1000 and added onboard effects, SCSI, and a hard-disk option, the sampler that defined pro 16-bit sound at the turn of the 90s. This one...

The TEAC/Tascam M-30 is a proper early-80s all-analog 8-channel console, the kind of warm, characterful little mixer people buy precisely to take the cold edge off digital recordings. It was...

Pro monitoring control for your desktop, and a project-studio staple. The PreSonus Monitor Station V2 lets you switch instantly between up to four stereo sources and three sets of monitor...

Otari built the MX-5050 for radio stations and studios that needed a tape machine to just work, every day, for decades, and that is exactly what it did. Balanced XLR...

Released in the early 1970s, the TEAC AX-300 is a 6:4 analog mixer built for the golden age of home multitrack. Conceived as the mixing companion to TEAC's legendary 4-channel...

When the synth collection outgrows the desk, the MM-200 is the answer: sixteen channels of line mixing with EQ, effect sends and stereo returns, all in a tidy rack. Built...

When the S1000 landed in 1988, it did to the studio what the S900 had only hinted at: proper 16-bit, 44.1kHz stereo sampling that instantly became the professional benchmark. For...

The MU-R201 is Sony's twin-engine answer to the pro reverb market: two independent reverb processors in one box, so you can run two spaces at once or chain them for...

Millennia's Origin is what happens when a boutique builder refuses to compromise. One 2U chassis hides two complete signal paths, one all-tube, one all-discrete solid state, switchable at the touch...

Before reverb came in a plugin, it came in a heavy rack box that cost as much as a car, and URSA Major built one of the finest of the...

The Nakamichi 630 is a rare tuner-preamplifier from Nakamichi's celebrated era: superb engineering, an understated black fascia and the clean, musical sound the brand is famous for.A handsome and unusual...

The Focusrite Liquid Channel is what happens when a British console legend decides to bottle every classic preamp and compressor ever made and pour them into one 2U box. Using...

The Roland RE-501 Chorus Echo is the final, fullest evolution of the Space Echo line, and if you only ever own one tape echo, the faithful agree this is the...

FATSO stands for Full Analog Tape Simulator and Optimizer, which is a lot of acronym for a box whose actual job is making digital recordings sound like they went through...

Some studio boxes are famous; the Dimension D is famous for being invisible. Roland's SDD-320 does not warble or swirl like an ordinary chorus; it uses two synced bucket-brigade delay...

Ask a roomful of engineers to name one compressor they cannot live without and a scary number will say the Distressor. Since 1995, Dave Derr's EL8 has been the go-to...

A genuine rarity. The REVAC NM-88 is a professional 8-channel microphone preamplifier from Japan's pro-audio world, the kind of obscure, well-built workhorse that surfaces only occasionally on Japanese auction sites...

The 1604-VLZ Pro is the mixer that earned Mackie its reputation: sixteen channels of clean, high-headroom analog with the famous XDR mic preamps, flexible four-bus routing, musical 3-band EQ and...

The 1176 is the other most-famous compressor in the world (the FET one), and this is Universal Audio's hand-built reissue of the blackface 1176LN, true to Bill Putnam's D/E-rev design....

The Ensoniq DP/4+ is really four effects processors in a single rack, units A, B, C and D, each a complete 24-bit stereo multi-FX in its own right, with four...

The S1100EX is Akai's expansion unit for the legendary S1100 sampler. Linked to the host over MIDI and SCSI, it adds a second full set of voices and outputs, so...

Don't let the modest price fool you, the 18Xs MkII is a seriously good single-channel front end. A transformer-coupled, Class-A microphone preamp with up to 65dB of gain, a high-impedance...

Studer built the tape machines that defined recording, then turned the same Swiss obsession to mixing. The 169 landed in 1978 as a compact broadcast desk for European radio and...

The Watkins (WEM) Copicat is the original British tape echo: warm, characterful slapback and repeats from real moving tape, beloved since the late 50s by everyone from rockabilly guitarists to...