Tomorrow marks one year since we announced the MK-609, our painstakingly recreated replica of the original Neve metal knob 33609.

The 33609 has long been near the top of the list of most requested units, so we knew if we were going to take it on, we were going to do it right. In the end, it took nearly four years of meticulous R&D to bring this British classic to life. Much of that time was spent tracking down rare, obsolete, and in some cases nearly unobtainium NOS parts to build the most authentic 33609 circuit possible in the 21st century.

In fact, in addition to being one of the most complicated builds to design, build, and calibrate in QC, the MK-609 may have the most rare NOS parts of any of our units. It took literally years of scouring the US and UK surplus market to find all of these. However, this step was absolutely essential to building a truly authentic 33609. Here are a few examples:

- U410 silver can Dual FET. This is a decades-old obsolete dual FET used in the original. Some “clones” just pop a pair of J109’s in place of them and call it a day. But this is a crucial component in the compression section. It took some time, but we’ve secured and built up a good stock of them. One could even argue that it’s not truly a “Metal Knob” version without this part.

- Original issue BC184C NPN transistors. This is the most used transistor in the old school 33609’s and old Neve preamp designs. This is why we use these BC184C’s exclusively in our MK-609 and the V1290 preamps. If you want that vintage sound, you have to get the right parts. Plain and simple. Most manufacturers don’t, and that’s why their recreations don’t quite match up.

- BC214C PNP transistors, as well as BC441 and BC461 silver-can transistors. Used in the original. We searched them out and found NOS ones for the main amp cards and BA440C discrete amps in each channel. The amp cards we built are so close to the originals in both component selection and sound that they can be swapped into a vintage unit no problem.

- Original JAN blue 1n4153 diodes. These were in our vintage Metal Knob unit, so we searched them out and found a healthy stock in the UK.

Building this unit was truly a labor of love, and we couldn’t be happier with the outcome or the response from all of you. Here’s to many more years of the MK-609!