Thermionic Culture The Rooster Balanced Dual Mono Mic/Line/DI Preamp

The Rooster from Thermionic Culture is a balanced valve-based design mic/line pre-amp and DI with EQ and a distortion section based around the same 5725 valve used in the Culture Vulture Mastering Plus. The Attitude selector lets you choose how angry your Rooster gets - ranging from gentle character-adding warmth to full-on gain rage.

Check out the Rooster in action below....

The input of the Thermionic Culture The Rooster is balanced, via an attenuator in Line In mode, with a custom Sowter transformer. There is 48v phantom power selected by a locking toggle, and phase reverse. A DI jack input (unbalanced) comes between the transformer and the Input Level control. Gain is provide by a twin triode 12AT7/ECC81 valve which also powers the active boost controls in the EQ section.

The EQ section has all the active boost controls on the left, with our unique “Varislope” bass lift control, peaking at 60 Hz, and a selectable mid/high lift peaking at 2.5k/4k (“bell” shaped) and 7K (“Varislope”). The Cut controls are in the centre. The mid operates at 700Hz, the 6 position Bass Cut is combines a high pass filter with shelving, depending on the setting (see curves in manual). There is also a switchable low pass filter (labelled LPF) to remove unwanted harsh high frequencies.

The same 5725-distortion tube which is employed in the Culture Vulture is used in the Rooster. It offers a subtle distortion characteristic in the triode position, more so than a Culture Vulture due to the higher HT voltage, plus the use of negative feedback, and so has a very low (about 0.01%) distortion when the 'Attitude' control is set to 1. In the pentode mode it generates more 3rd harmonic distortion. Distortion can be pretty radical when the Attitude control is to 'Max' and the input is high.

The output valves are 2 triode/pentode PCF80s which combine high output with low impedance, controlled by the Output Level control. The output is transformer balanced. The Output level is indicated by 3 LEDs.

Thermionic Culture The Rooster Balanced features:

• Available gain (dB) Mic 50 (77 with Attitude at max.), Line 14.5
• Frequency response 14.5Hz to 45kHz
• Distortion (THD @ 1kHz) =0.06%
• Phase shift 21º (5.6%) at 10kHz
• VALVE COMPLEMENT (2ea) - Input: ECC81 / 12AT7, Attitude: 5725 / 6AS6W, Output: PCF80 / 9AQ8
• Bass Cut: 40, 100, 800 Hz
• Bass Lift: @50Hz maximum lift 15dB
• Mid/Hi Lift: @2.5kHz & 4kHz 18dB (broad) & 10kHz 20 dB (Shelving)
• Mid Cut: @700Hz 17dB (‘Q’ dependant on cut setting)
• LPF: (low Pass Filter) 6dB @8kHz
• Attitude Mode: Triode or Pentode
• Attitude: The higher the Attitude number, the higher the gain and distortion
• Output Level: Max +20dB