BEHIND THE D108

A little history behind this “new” product, for those who are curious…

Is the D108 a direct UA 2108 clone?

In short, no. The D108 is certainly inspired by the UA 2108 preamp, but it follows our own design conventions in a few ways.

Most importantly, the JFET input stage - while designed like a vintage circuit, with vintage parts - is our own design. It fulfills the same purpose, built according to a similar philosophy, but is very much an AudioScape original.

So where does the name come from?

If you’ve read up on the D108, or our earlier V108, you’ll know the common element with the 2108 is our extremely vintage-accurate recreation of the 1108 line amp already featured in our 76A.

The 1108 is the classic line amp circuit used by UREI (later Universal Audio®) in the incomparable OG 1176 Rev A. A lot of the character you hear in that piece comes from the 1108 line amp. UA also sold these as standalone modules that you could run as dedicated line amps (along with the 1109 later on).

So D108 = Dual 1108?

While “D108” does follow our naming convention for dual preamps, in our view the “D” actually stands for “Deluxe 1108.” The goal with the D108 was to bring all the vintage character and life in that 40db 1108 line amp into the preamp arena, with a super premium mic input stage, to have all that vibe and more on tap when driven with your favorite microphones.

To that end, we designed our own custom JFET input stage using ultra low noise linear systems LSK170 FETs, and combined it with all the original parts for the classic 1108 line amp - NOS 1970s transistors, period-correct carbon composition resistors, and so on. This is a board we’ve perfected since launching our 76A back in 2018, and it truly comes to life in the D108.

Why buy a D108?

This is one of the more mysterious products we offer. Our first go round, the V108, was a little confusing to some people. This is not a Neve/API/RCA or any other of the classic preamp styles.

What it is, is a very special cred piece that can be most simply described as an “1176 preamp on steroids.” Now available with two channels in a 1RU enclosure. Twice the juice, with a sleek new design and custom (painstakingly perfected!) power supply section.

It is also, we should say, an incredible saturation and “color” box. Think 1960s solid state harmonic drive of the “decapitating” variety. ;)

We couldn’t be more proud of how these turned out, and we think you’ll love them too!

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