Electrodyne Project at VOCOMOTION

Racking Electrodyne LA-602 Modules
By Freddie Feldman
My friend Bill Hare recently went into his "barn" and found some interesting stuff. The console at his old studio, Astral Studios, was originally custom built for Studio B at Capitol Records Studios in Hollywood. The QuadEight/Electrodyne hybrid custom console was built in Studio B in 1971, by Norm D'Lugatch, and resided there until 1977. Consoles like that were modular, and this one had been disassembled 17 years ago. The various pieces were boxed up and stashed away in Bill's barn.	Astral Studios in mid-1980's (click for larger)

Bill just sent me four of the LA-602 line-amp modules to see what I could do with them. I'll be racking them up in pairs, making them into some nice mic preamps. Once racked, they have been described, by Larry DeVivo of Silvertone Mastering, as rivaling "any Neve or API" preamps. I'll post my project progress on this page...	Freddie & Bill in 2005 at the CD Release Party for Dark Side of the Moon A Cappella CD (click for larger)

These are two of the LA-602 modules. I opened one up to see the condition internally and it looks beautiful! Totally shiny and clean. As you can see, the modules have both input and output transformers, which will make them fairly easy to rack. According to the pinout diagram I found, these will put out 55dB of gain (you can see the two Motorola transistors: 2N4910 and 2N4898), and only requires a +24V power supply (I'll be adding +48V for phantom power as well). I don't have the schematic just yet, but from looking at the pinout... the transformer on the right is the input transformer and the one on the left is for output. The large, 1000uF cap is made by Ducati (seems unusual). We'll see how it sounds when it's powered up. Maybe I'll recap the modules, since it looks like each module only has one electrolytic cap in it.	Inside one of the LA-602's (click for larger) Two of the modules (click for larger)

I've been making some progress, just no pics to show just yet. I've got a pile of parts on order from various vendors. Just a preview of how these modules will be racked...I'll be using only teflon-coated silver-plated wire, Mogami balanced console wire, Neutrik gold XLR connectors, etc. The power supply will be externally mounted, to keep hum to a minimum (thanks: Doug Williams at ElectroMagnetic Radiation Recorders). I'd like to thank Ken Hirsch at Orphan Audio and Joe Malone of JLM Audio for all of their help in getting information about these modules. Ken is providing me with schematics and is looking for the original manuals for the modules. He's been working with Electrodyne/Quad8 consoles for 30 years and he really knows this stuff.

This project is dedicated to the memory of Charlie Sporck.