It may not seem obvious that I'm constantly designing and building new gear unless you have the inside scoop.  FWIW, that inside scoop is pretty simple to acquire if you follow along to my alternate blog at www.lbastudios.com.   LBA Studios is the place where new Lightning Boy ideas are developed.  There's a vast array of one-offs at LBA Studios that get pretty regular use at the studio, but will probably never see the light of production due to their over complexity or other factors.  There are a few things that exist as prototypes that will certainly be future LBA products.  Of those marvelous trinkets is an upcoming EQ, but there's something even bigger coming very soon and I promise not to spill the beans.  This one's going to be very special :)

Available today only.  There will be just 10 pedals made (first 2 already sold). Each of the LE Opti-Mu Prime pedals will have a new feature... an LED that indicates how much compression is going on.  The LED will be off if no compression is occurring and will glow brighter with more compression.  To further differentiate the LE Opti-Mu Prime from the original version, the LE version will be painted black.  

Now, to make things more interesting... if all 10 Opti-Mu Prime pedals sell today it'll convince me there's enough reason for me to consider building pedals again.  If I do decide to build pedals again I will not build any of the previous designs, such as Soul Drive, The Lightning Boy, Opti-Mu Prime, Bolt Bender, Olympus, etc.  I have something very special in mind instead, but lets first see how things go today.  Stay tuned on Facebook or Twitter for updates :)

Back from the grave!  The much revered, Opti-Mu Prime compressor pedal is back for just one day only.  Its a very limited edition run of just 10 pedals.  First come first serve.  Only 1 per customer.  I put building pedals to the side back in March, but there has been a significant number of people asking if I would build this pedal again.  Well, if you missed out before hopefully you won't miss out this time!  Hurry while they last:  http://www.lightningboyaudio.com/opti-mu-prime.html

On Black Friday, November 28th, Lightning Boy Audio will be offering an insane deal on the new Flux Bender equalizer.  Regular price is $5000 USD, but for 24hrs (EST) on Black Friday the price will be a startlingly low $3700!  A whopping 25% off for one day only... and believe me this will not happen again. Please remember, to keep our prices low we sell direct, with no middle man or expensive advertising.  To order your Flux Bender stereo EQ on Black Friday, visit the Flux Bender page by clicking this link.  Please share with your friends to help us get the word out!

Recently we had trouble directly accessing our twitter account and our email system was down.  Yesterday was a long day spent on the phone mostly, but we got it all under control now.  Back in business!

I couldn't be more happy to finally announce the availability of the Flux Bender EQ today.  Stop by and check out more Flux Bender content on the Flux Bender page, as well as direct ordering and product details.

About 6 years ago I had some NOS vacuum tubes cryo-treated as an experiment to determine if the cryogenic process had any effect on the performance of audio tubes.  I was very scientific about the experiment, which spanned 5 years.  Initially, I passed a pre-recorded bit of audio through the originally, untreated tubes (installed in an amplifier) and recorded that passage directly out of the preamp back into the computer.  I sent the tubes off and when they came back a couple weeks later I ran the exact same passage through the same preamp with the same settings.  The audio would sound identical if the treatment process did nothing.  The passages actually sounded quite different.  The tubes exhibited a lower noise floor, crisper high frequencies and a cleaner sound.   None of these audible differences were huge, but they were enough to justify the $5 per tube price of cryogenic processing.  BTW, thats what the price works out to be when I send 30 tubes out for treatment.     


Fast forward 5 years.  Vacuum tubes definitely don't last forever.  Modern tubes really don't last very long at all when compared to the good old vintage tubes, but even those awesome old school tubes don't last forever.  Biggest problem is the dwindling world-wide supply of quality NOS vacuum tubes.  With my tube tester I'm able to see if a tube has been used via the "life test."  Typically, after about 1 year of regular use a tube will show signs of usage or in the case of modern tubes it could be on its way out.  I tested the cryo-treated tubes from 5 years earlier, which had seen daily use (30-40hrs per week) for that 5 year period.  One would expect the tubes to show some signs of usage on the tester, but the cryo-treated tubes actually tested the same as brand new tubes.  

Fast forward to today.  I have finally decided its worth cryo-treating ALL tubes used by Lightning Boy Audio.  This week I'm sending out the first batch of Lightning Boy tested and approved premium NOS vacuum tubes for cryogenic processing.  All equipment manufactured by Lightning Boy Audio will not only feature NOS vacuum tubes, but those tubes will also be cryo-treated to ensure they last the rest of your life.

Last night I put the finishing touches on the Flux Bender prototype.  For those unfamiliar with the name, The Flux Bender is a stereo, passive, 100% vacuum tube powered equalizer (that means no DC powered heater filaments, no silicon rectifiers, no IC's, no solid state voltage regulators, no silicon bullshit period).  The EQ filter topology is based somewhat on the Pultec EQP-1A, but its definitely not the same.  The amplifier design is a Lightning Boy original.

My goals for the Flux Bender were to create a stereo EQ that offered a higher degree of sonic fidelity and a lower noise floor than Manley's Massive Passive. I wanted to create an equalizer that not only out performs the MP in terms of technical specs, but also in terms of sound quality.  I wanted to do all this without the modern solid state trickery used by my competitors... just to prove to the world that solid state components are not needed for great performance, but rather the greatest sound quality and performance can come from a carefully crafted all-tube design.  While the Flux Bender won't offer quite as many controls as the Massive Passive, it will offer a lower price tag along with superior specs.  On Monday the Flux Bender prototype will undergo extensive testing, but initial tests this morning showed a noise floor of -90.1 dB, which completely blew my mind.  First of all, I've only recently broken the -80dB noise floor barrier with revision A of the 1401 stereo preamp.  My goal was to match Manley's -85dB noise floor, which seemed to be a serious challenge.  I was extremely surprised and overjoyed to see such great S/N performance from the prototype, because the production model will be more carefully constructed to reduce the noise floor even further.  This morning I only confirmed the controls and operation of the Flux Bender to be in order.  More extensive testing and results on Monday, followed by a complete disassembly in preparation for the first production build of the Flux Bender.  

But alas, you can't because there's just too much top secret stuff on it. Upcoming products that are under construction, prototypes under development and most importantly... inventions.  Before this year's out, LBA will be unveiling a series of new and innovative analog tools for the Mix Engineer.  One of these tools is revolutionary and very affordable, but that's super hush hush for now, so lets talk about the other goodies.

The Flux Bender Equalizer is unfortunately delayed at the moment, while Cinemag hastily works to build new output transformers for the production prototype.  There was a mistake with the last batch, and I admit it was my error for ordering the wrong transformers... the part numbers were one digit off.  The EQ is completely wired up and just awaiting its output transformers.  This production prototype will be tested and studied to verify technical information such as frequency points, S:N performance, and any potential issues will be hunted down.  Following the test phase, the prototype will be disassembled. The components from the production prototype will be used to build the first production model.  I would like to point out that the current production prototype is not the first prototype.  There have been a number of prototypes leading up to this one, which is the first stereo version.  

Analog Plate Reverb...  I'm about to start working on the plate reverb at LBA Studios.  It was the very first plate reverb I ever built and its long overdue for some massive updates.  The electronics its running are the most up to date amplifiers offered by Lightning Boy Audio, but the mechanics are out dated.  The 1401 plate reverb design differs in a number of ways, so I will be stripping down the old reverb and the only thing I'm keeping from it is the frame.  New sheet of steel (slightly different dimensions), new driver, new motorized panel with remote, new isolation case.  I'll be documenting the rebuild with lots of youtube video footage, so make sure you subscribe to my youtube channel to stay up on the updates at:     
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHdNuL4cqMvvf_5fkD-ZMfw

The new version of the preamp will be available in about a week.  Meanwhile we're going to put together some promo photos and audio samples.  I spent a good amount of time yesterday working with it in the studio, taking notes of things I would want different with the sound and then bringing it back to the shop for modifications to the circuitry.  I'm essentially working to balance the frequency response so that its as close to flat as I can possibly get it.  I never went through this effort with the previous version.  The original version sounded great to my ears, so I never spent the time tweaking each component to extreme perfection... till now.  The Rev A has some interesting sonic differences from its predecessor.  Most noticeably is the "air" in the top end that didn't exist with the original.  Also, Rev A has punch!  I can't recall ever hearing a vacuum tube mic preamp that I thought was punchy, but low and behold... the 1401 Rev A is definitely punchy.  I've been doing a lot of A/B comparisons with the original and the Rev A is significantly richer sounding and far more tonally balanced.  Just in terms of the frequency response - the original 1401 preamp had noticeably reduced highs, pronounced mids and round lows that weren't as pronounced as the mids.  Rev A is almost perfectly flat in its response.  The lows in the range of 75Hz-200hZ seem very slightly reduced... although it doesn't sound bad or off to me. I will be working to level out that range before the release, but overall I have to say this thing is a total monster.   Rev A doesn't sound overly round, wooly or dull in any way, unlike the original.  It sounds big, articulate, and punchy.  People are going to be drooling over this thing once they hear it.  Its a lot more sophisticated than its predecessor, the result of significant R&D.  The 1401 Mic Preamp Rev A will be selling for just $100 more than its predecessor.  $1899.99.