Sourcing the Gyraf G9
Soo .. ..you’re looking for where to get your hands on the G9 Mic Preamp, now you’ve seen her over at ATK..
This page is here to help you locate the best place near you to get your hands on it.. Our distribution and trusted retailers can be found in this list, at the other end of the following links:
USA – One F Sound – www.onefsound.com < This is official North American distribution, if your local retailer wants to carry it
USA retailers are:
Vintage King – https://vintageking.com/
Front End Audio – https://www.frontendaudio.com/
Sonic Circus – https://soniccircus.com/
Canada – Studio Economik, Canada – http://www.economik.com/
Mexico – Audio Gate International – Audiogate.mx
Germany – Audiokontor/Von Brönner Gmbh, Frankfurt – vonbroenner.de
Netherlands – Lobbe’s Pro audio, Opende – www.lobbesproaudio.nl
United Kingdoms – KMR audio, Whetstone, London – kmraudio.com
China & Hong Kong – Osc-audio, Beijing – osc-pro.com
Spain/Portugal – Mastering Mansion, Madrid – masteringmansion.com
A bit of background on the unit
The G9 was a project we developed for in-house use in our studios around the turn of the century. It was originally specified (by local recording engineers) to have a very-long transition from clean into tube-gritty – making it easier to set-and-forget in “tube warming” scenarios without the somewhat sensitive (hysteric) overload behavior of the DISA and Pultecs traditionally used for this.
We based the circuit loosely on the Revox G36 tube tape recorder that I had immense fun with as a kid, and that had the required characteristics regarding calm behavior.
We added the front instrument input, almost as an afterthought – but this turned out to be almost magical on some passive bass guitars and low-level synths. To a degree that I still often wish I could intentionally have designed something like that.
It turned out as a dual microphone preamp – made like our mother did it. It’s a simple, yet powerful unit, based on a variable-gain input tube stage driving a tube SRPP output stage. No silicon or other nonsense in signal path, tubes only.
The controls on the G9 are as follows:
The input level switch – in eleven steps – sets the raw gain of the first stage, thus allowing you to control the input level, the “drive” for the preamp.
The output level pot attenuates signal to the output stage, allowing you to fine-trim the output level going to the next stage in your signal chain
The input switch is used to select either Line, Mic, or Mic-with-P48 as input for the unit. If you insert a jack at the front panel socket marked “Inst.”, this will break the signal selected on the input switch, and in stead have a very-high impedance instrument input – perfect for DI of e.g. bass guitar.
A gentle highpass filter of either 80 or 160Hz is activated by the “Low-cut” switch, and the unit’s absolute phase can be reversed using the “Phase” switch.
The G9 is floating, transformer balanced at line and mic inputs, as well as on output. Input impedance for the mic input is some 1KOhm, line is some 10KOhm, Inst. >2MOhm, and output impedance is <1K Ohm.
Although semiconductors are used in this unit, they’re confined to power supply functions. At no time will your audio pass through anything but transformers, tubes and passives. So we’re talking REAL tube audio here..
G9 is as standard available as a 115 or 230V mains unit – please specify when ordering!