Lightning Boy Audio (LBA) has announced its return to building quality studio gear with the impending release of the new vacuum tube optical compressor named the Rectified Leveler.
The Rectified Leveler is based on the electro-optical technology of the LA2A optical compressor. Through the use of paper in oil capacitors, low noise resistors, NOS tubes, and the addition of a selectable vacuum tube or solid state rectifier stage, this compressor takes this technology to a new level of fidelity and tonal flexibility.
The Rectified Leveler front panel features all of the familiar controls of an LA2A and adds two new features. The first is a Vintage/Modern toggle that allows the user to choose between the compression characteristics of a traditional LA2A, or the Modern setting that introduces a low cut side-chain. When the Modern setting is selected, the compressor ignores low frequency information when compressing the audio, resulting in a bigger low end and cleaner highs.
The second switch, Tube/Silicon, allows the user to select either the smaller, more up front sound of LA2A-style silicon diodes or the bigger, more open sound of a 6×4 rectifier tube.
At the heart of this new compressor is the Kenetek T4B optical cell, which delivers extremely musical compression curves. Simply said, it offers transparent compression.
Paper in oil caps are utilized for ultra-transparent sound and smooth tone, and the Rectified Leveler is wired point to point with silver plated Teflon insulated wire. To prevent any unnecessary resistor noise, all Lightning Boy equipment is made with low noise Vishay/Dale metalized film resistors.
The Rectified Leveler has a release date of April 21 and can be pre-ordered at the company website (link below). The pre-order is a limited edition run of five that feature NOS UTC transformers. The production builds will use Sowter input and output transformers. Builder direct price is $2599.99.
