1176 Peak Limiter

In the middle of the 20th century the industry of manufacturing equipment for pro audio was not what it is today. If a recording studio needed a certain tool to fulfil a particular job, they would often have to build their own.

In the UK both large conglomerates like EMI and independent studios such as Olympic or Trident all made recording tools which are still in use and sought-after today.

In America Bill Putnam’s multiple-studio United Recording Corporation also had its own technical arm United Recording Electronics Industries or UREI.

In 1967 UREI designed the solid-state successor to one of Universal/United’s first compressors the UA176.

At this time the development in technology was progressing quickly and the new 1176 peak limiter went through many different iterations within a short period of time with each revision being assigned a letter.

Rev. A only existed for a few months in 1967, and was swiftly followed by Rev. AB and Rev. B. These models had the distinctive blue stripe on their faceplates.

Rev. C arrived in January 1970 and was the first edition to sport the black faceplate. At this point the model number became #1176LN with LN standing for “low noise”.

The Rev. D revision had no circuit changes but the low-noise circuitry was incorporated into the main circuit board instead of being on a separate board. "UREI" branding was added to the original "Universal Audio" branding for the first time. The Rev. E was much same but with the addition of a switchable power transformer, allowing us Europeans to easily enjoy the 1176.

Revisions were continued until Rev. H with changes including going from a class A to a push-pull design and losing the input transformer.

Revision A is quite different from the later iterations. It is a bit noisier but it also has a unique tonal character which brings the mid frequencies of a voice to the front in a very special way.

Only 24 units of the Rev. A were ever made making them incredibly rare and basically unobtainable but thankfully reproductions are easy to make, affordable and sound excellent. Here we have two recreations made by Stam Audio.

Swipe to see the Warm Audio version, which despite claiming to be a copy of the Rev. D is actually probably closer to the Rev. E due to the switchable power supply. It is quieter, has less distortion and more low end than the Rev A, making it sound great on bass.