Neve 80 series Console Build

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Hey there,

A little update! Everything is moving really fast at the moment, the console should be ready to move in by January!
I finally had some new fader top plates made. The old ones were just too mismatched and I did not have enough anyway. They were made using the correct "aluprint" process, which is essentially printing before the anodising takes place, so the ink is "in" the aluminium. They look great:
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The left and right side of the console are finished, so I'm moving on to the center section. Here's the pre-wiring of the 10 1272s back connectors. Those will mate with the 10 main busses of the console and will sit right in the middle of the center section (2 plain 1272s for groups 1 and 2, 6 for groups 3>8 with post-insert routing functions and 2 for groups 9 and 10, the left hand tape return busses with routing functions as well):
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5 more 1272s (for Auxes, cues and Solo buses) will sit behind the meters, with access under the top lid:
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Here are the two center meter panels. I’ll have to recut them, there were little drawing and cutting mistakes. Say hi to HAL9000 :) :
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The main update is that I picked up the routing modules from my friend Sasarist. They look gorgeous, as expected:
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I still need to put the right pushcaps on those:
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And now, the whole thing:
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I really need to fin 16 Sifam 22AF meters to put in the channel meter panels, but other than that, I think it looks pretty darn good, don’t you think?
 
Quick question: I read that Neve used 1K6 attenuators after the 10K:600 transformers for monitor attenuation. Is 1K6 the right value? I'm having a hard time locating exact sub-ohm values for a 47 step 1K6 attenuator..
Ian?
 
Ok, I found out that the Neve Volume attenuator was a 1K6 series one. I scored a nice ELMA A47 jumbo shunt attenuator for a very good price. I'm not buying the audiophoolistic claim that shunt attenuators are better, but hey! I have it and it was cheap! It being a shunt attenuator won't hurt, right?
 
remsouille said:
Ok, I found out that the Neve Volume attenuator was a 1K6 series one. I scored a nice ELMA A47 jumbo shunt attenuator for a very good price. I'm not buying the audiophoolistic claim that shunt attenuators are better, but hey! I have it and it was cheap! It being a shunt attenuator won't hurt, right?
Please explain what you mean by "shunt attenuator"? All attenuators rely on a combination of series and shunt elements. Shunt only does not make much sense to me.
 
remsouille said:
Quick question: I read that Neve used 1K6 attenuators after the 10K:600 transformers for monitor attenuation. Is 1K6 the right value? I'm having a hard time locating exact sub-ohm values for a 47 step 1K6 attenuator..
Ian?
I am not sure where you got this information but when I was at Neve back in the 70s, simple monitor level controls on a 600 ohm outputs used a 2K LIN pot slugged with a 1K resistor from wiper to cold. This gives 10dB down at the pot mid point. You can still get the pots from Blore Edwards in the UK.

Cheers

Ian
 
ruffrecords said:
I am not sure where you got this information but when I was at Neve back in the 70s, simple monitor level controls on a 600 ohm outputs used a 2K LIN pot slugged with a 1K resistor from wiper to cold. This gives 10dB down at the pot mid point. You can still get the pots from Blore Edwards in the UK.

Cheers

Ian
Hi Ian,
I'm actually talking about the main 28 (or is it 29?) stepped attenuators for the main monitor volume (all the consoles that I know from that era have them).
 
remsouille said:
Hi Ian,
I'm actually talking about the main 28 (or is it 29?) stepped attenuators for the main monitor volume (all the consoles that I know from that era have them).

Ah, they were different. They may well be 1K6.

Cheers

Ian
 
remsouille said:
Quick question: I read that Neve used 1K6 attenuators after the 10K:600 transformers for monitor attenuation. Is 1K6 the right value?
1k
 

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abbey road d enfer said:
Please explain what you mean by "shunt attenuator"? All attenuators rely on a combination of series and shunt elements. Shunt only does not make much sense to me.
This is the attenuator I'm referring tohttps://www.don-audio.com/Elma-A47-Jumbo-Shunt-Audio-Attenuator-Switch
gridcurrent said:
Yes, I have this picture as well, but for some reason, every console of that era (early 70's) that I've asked about has a 1K6 attenuator, and both Blake Devitt in England and James Rowell in Canada confirmed that.. What would effectively be the difference between a 1K, a 1K6 or a 10K attenuator in that position (meaning right between a 10K:600 31267 transformer and the speaker output)?
 
remsouille said:
What would effectively be the difference between a 1K, a 1K6 or a 10K attenuator in that position (meaning right between a 10K:600 31267 transformer and the speaker output)?
There are two or three considerations in deciding this value.

You want the effective source impedance at the pot output to be as low as possible so that cable capacitance does not affect the HF response (in big studios in the70s, cable runs of 100 feet were not uncommon). For this factor, the lower the pot value the better. At the same time you don't want to load the output driving the pot too much so you can still drive several 10K destinations and you don't want to over tax the output stage driving the pot so it causes less distortion. For this factor you want the pot value as high as possible.

10K definitely runs the risk of HF loss over long runs. 1K is clearly a harder load than 1K6 to drive but both are comfortably within what a decent 1970s output stage could handle. I mentioned before that on some more cost conscious consoles Neve used a 2K lin pot slugged with 1K from wiper to cold. With this pot at max the load is 660 ohms but with this pot fully up the monitor speakers are probably detaching themselves from the studio walls. The more typical position would be half way which drops the level by 10dB. Funnily enough, at this point the load presented by the pot is 1K5.

Cheers

ian
 
I have a monitor rotary switch that was pulled from an 80 series vinyl mastering console. It looks the same as the monitor switches I've seen in 8048/8058's. I could measure it.
 
abbey road d enfer said:
I see where you got it from, but it's utterly silly. It's just a standard voltage divider.
It still acts as a voltage divider but the way it does it is different. The usual way to arrange a switched pot is to wire a string or resistors between successive switch positions. It looks and acts like a standard potentiometer.

The ELMA Jumbo is wired differently. It has a single series resistor wired from input to output. The switch then selects a different individual resistor from output to ground at each position. (see ELMA catalogue for details). This topology is for some reason favoured by audiophiles.

Edit: ELMA also supply PCBs for this switch that implement a conventional switched pot.

Cheers

Ian
 
abbey road d enfer said:
I see where you got it from, but it's utterly silly. It's just a standard voltage divider.
I'm not qualified to say wether this design is better than an other, like I said, it was just super cheap! And it'll work, I finally found all my resistor values!
 
Hey all, long time no post.. For a good reason: I've been super busy working on that beast since it moved in the studio in late december and it's, well, "almost" finished... I'll try to give you all a massive update on everything tomorrow!
Cheers! R.
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