I’ll start this with a story: I remember years ago being on the road with my bandmates somewhere in the midwest. We were super young and had a shoestring budget. (At one point i saw our singer eating what i thought was a sandwich, nope, it was just a folded up piece of bread) Anyways, we literally spent 30 minutes arguing in a grocery store on whether to buy peanut butter and jelly in the same jar or both in separate jars. Little did I know this would be a life defining moment for me. I argued on the merits of buying the best peanut butter in its own jar and the best jelly in its respective jar so I will do the following now:

Here at Audioscape we’d never want to do anything that would ‘water down’ what a classic design truly is, so let’s address the concessions made by throwing multiple 76 revisions in together in one build:

1) Each revision of the classic 1176 has different resistors values on its respective ratio push bank. They are ‘unique’ to that revision and perfectly tailored to deliver the perfect ratio setting for that respective revision. 3 main circuit boards homogenized into one ratio bank is not a smart approach. This waters down what each revision is intended to be. It’s not a smart or clever approach if you’re trying to do an accurate 1176. We could stop there but let’s go on…

2) The interaction of that many different circuit boards would be an RF nightmare, especially for the higher gain Rev A circuit. We strive to make these revisions as low noise as possible, so that is highly counterintuitive to our mission. Who wants a noise pile in their product? Not you and not us. We’ve had the experience over the years and know how to approach building for a quality, low noise product. Simply put, in our humble opinion, an approach like this is building your castle on sand, not rock…

3) Three times the circuits equals three times the HEAT. Each of these 1176 revs can kick off some serious heat. Having each rev in its own vented case allowing that heat to dissipate properly might not be the sexiest thing to talk about, but it is extremely important. I can expand on this but anyone who’s read this far knows what’s up here.    

So in closing, we will not offer peanut butter and jelly in the same jar ;) We will continue to pack the best parts in each individual 76 revision that is accurate and makes them sound and perform like the original classics.

But how about THIS? We will add a new 76 bundle to the website that will allow you to get the trio of 76 revisions for a killer deal, and if you want, you can add its cousin, the AS78 as well.

Cheers and continue making the best music with the best gear,

- Chris