V72S Stereo Tube Mic Pre-amplifier
It's been over two decades since we first made our first V series product under the TAB Funkenwerk brand name. What started off as an experimental project for fun, grew into a full fledged business. After repairing, modifying and even resurrecting hundreds of historic V series units, Oliver decided to see what would happen if he built one from scratch.
Armed with the schematics of the historic V72s made by Siemens, transformer winders purchased from Boeing Surplus, and a box of NOS Telefunken tubes, Oliver started down the path. During the development stage, Oliver sent the unit back to Hannover, Germany twice to be auditioned by former TFK engineers to make sure that he had successfully captured the sound of the historic V72s. At the same time, Oliver was able to add some modern touches to the unit without compromising the sound. Silver plated Teflon and magnetic wire were new inventions since the historic pieces were originally built and greatly helps keep the phantom power supply from burning up the input transformer which was common back in the day. Additionally, he added in some of the modern controls that today's studios are looking for; direct input, phase reverse, 120 Hz shelf, 100 Ohm ground resistive buffer, etc. Once he was satisfied with the results, he set about producing more of these units.
The first thing that he discovered was that many of the components were difficult to come by. Many of the companies that had supplied the sub-components for the historic versions were no longer in business. That meant that new tooling would have to be built. Fortunately, we were able to obtain some of the original machinery from former employees who had acquired the equipment as the various factories were being closed. We were also able to get detailed descriptions of the various tools that would need to be made from the former employees still living in Hannover, Germany. To get the transformers accurate to the originals, Oliver called up several of the original engineers to understand not only how they manufactured the specific transformers needed for this unit, but how they went about designing and building new transformers for new applications. As a result, AMI supplies transformers to several engineers who repair and recondition historic V series units because they are so carefully matched to the original design and production.
Once he had all of these pieces in place (1997), Oliver was able to start making the units in Burien, WA; winding his own transformers, building custom lamination, searching the world for lost supplies of NOS tubes, hand acid etching his own circuit boards, etc. The units are so highly regarded and so hard to come by that they rarely ever come up for sale. Currently, this unit is only built through custom ordering directly from TAB.
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