Recording - October 2014 - 52

R E V I E W S B Y PA U L V N U K J R .

Chandler Limited
TG2-500 Preamp
(with a special guest appearance
from the original TG2 rackmount mic preamp!)
According to its Wikipedia entry, Shell Rock is a city in Butler
County, Iowa, located along the Shell Rock River with a population (as of 2010) of 1,296. In fact, if you head on over to
said Wikipedia page, you will see a quaint picture of the
town's main drag... and on that little street, behind a trio of
adjoining storefronts, is none other than one of the world's finest
audio processing companies.
Celebrating their 15th year in business, Wade Goeke and
his company Chandler Limited are known and respected worldwide for compressors, equalizers, microphone preamps, and
more. The company boasts four full product lines of studio
audio processors (not even including its forays into boutique
guitar amps and footpedals!), including the Neve-inspired LTD
series, the vintage-flavored Germanium line, and the 500
Series Little Devils. The last of the four, and certainly the one that
commands the most attention, is their EMI Series-gear based
on vintage consoles and processors found inside of the hallowed walls of the Abbey Road studio complex in England.
Chandler's TG Series
At the heart of the EMI-based designs is the TG Series,
launched in 2001 with designs based on the circuits found in the
original TG-12345 recording desk which was delivered to
Abbey Road in 1968 and then used on the Beatles' final album
Abbey Road as well as many Pink Floyd albums including Dark
Side Of The Moon. This series includes the TG-Channel, the TG1 Compressor, and the TG2 dual microphone preamp.
This month we will be looking at the first new TG product in
over a decade, not counting the similarly EMI-inspired Zener
Limiter and Curve Bender. This new item is the TG2-500, and
as its numeration implies, it is a single-channel TG Preamp in
a 500 Series module enclosure.
Where it all began: the TG2
Before diving into the TG2-500, let's take a look back at the original TG2 microphone preamp, now in its third incarnation. We didn't review it when it first came on
the scene, so a refresher course on what makes this preamp circuit so special will go
a long way toward explaining why the TG2-500 is such a big deal!
The TG2 is a 2-channel microphone preamp in a 19" rack enclosure. It's built like a
battleship in a nickel-plated steel chassis, with a thick heavy faceplate finished in EMI's
classic battleship gray.
Each channel is equipped with a pair of vintage chickenhead knobs that are exact reproductions of those found on the original TG-12345 console. The first knob is a stepped input
switch with a range of +5 to +75 dB of gain, and the second is a variable Output pot that is
functionally akin to an output fader; it trims the signal from unity gain down to silence.
Each channel offers buttons for phase reverse, phantom power (+48V), and impedance switching (1200 or 300 ohm). The DI button mutes the microphone preamp and
engages one of the two unbalanced 1/4" instrument inputs, also located on the front
panel. The last front-panel control is a Summing switch that, when active, combines both
52

RECORDING October 2014

inputs and sends them to output 2. This is
handy for blending dual-miked sources like
snare drum, kick drum, or guitar cabinet to
a single input of your recording device.
On the rear of the unit is each channel's
XLR I/O as well as the power socket
which connects to one of Chandler's PSU1 MKII power supplies. Sold separately,
each power supply has enough juice to
power a pair of TG2s or any other of the
company's 19" rackmount boxes.
Internally the TG2 is a Class A design with
all discrete components and balanced
Carnhill (St. Ives) input and output transformers. As I mentioned above, there have been
multiple variations of the TG2 since its
release. According to Wade Goeke, "The
changes in the TG2 have been basically cosmetic, except for some switching changes.
Initially the TG2 didn't have 300 ohm switching, so we added that, and later the
Summing switch." Also note that the original
units made use of locking 1/4" jacks.
The new baby: the TG2-500
The new TG2-500 is essentially a single
channel of TG2 goodness in a 500 Series
module enclosure with a few slight changes.
I was curious as to what (if any) circuit
changes were required when cramming all
of that circuitry into a 500 Series enclosure,
and why it took so long. Wade replied, "The
biggest thing that needed to be done, and
why I didn't rush into doing the TG2 in 500
Series, is that some rebiasing of the circuit
was needed to make it work. Over the last
few years, I experimented with a number of
different ways to approach that, until I got
what I thought sounded as accurate as possible. It's not hard to make it work, but it's challenging to make it sound correct. The TG2500 uses the exact same parts as the TG2-
transformers, etc.. The only parts differences
are that I used some capacitors that stand on
end, instead of lay down, to free up space."
While the sound remains the same, real
estate is at a premium on any 500 Series
device. This necessitated some changes:
changing push buttons to toggle switches,
as well as a handful of functional alterations. First, the throw of the input gain
switch only goes from +20 dB to +50 dB vs
+5 to +75 as on the TG2. While it retains
the Output control, there is now a third
small variable pot labeled Fine Gain with a
throw of -10 to +10 dB. This gives the
TG2-500 a maximum total gain of 60 dB.
This is less than the original, but still quite

Recording - October 2014

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