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When Manley introduced the Slam! (a stereo limiter/two channel tube pre combo) a few years back, many raved about how amazing it sounded: It had tons of gain, yet offered a very smooth sound. Unfortunately, the price tag kept the piece out of many a salivating studio hound's hands, and many of us were left crying out to the gods, "why can't Manley iust come with a single Slami pre minus the compressor so we can actually afford one?" And while those poor chaps sat lusting ouï of their price range, those of us that had been so blessed also wanted some extra features out of the Slami - namely, variable impedance control and a composite channel, British console-inspired pre for added flexibility.
So Hutch, Manley's chief designer, hid away in his laboratory, slaving over what would soon become Manley's newest outboard offering. Although EQ normally doesn't review prototypes, when something is a product is this close to production and of such interest to our readership, we couldn't resist. This two-channel, half-tube/half-solid state TNT mie pre marries the celebrated Slam! sound with the classic discrete character of the "No Tubes" design - at under half the price of the aforementioned product.
OVERVIEW
The TNT is a heavy-duty 1U rackmount, split into two very different channels with the left side being the Slam! tube pre and the right being a brand new solid-state pre. A toggle switch does power on/off, while input/output overload levels are clearly represented by two sets of LEDS (green for normal, red for overload). The Tube Channel includes a phantom power toggle switch that enables a full +48V, phase button that reverses the polarity 180°, low cut filter switch (flat or 80Hz), three-position toggle that chooses the input impedance (600 Ohm, 240Ok, and 1Ok), unbalanced instrument jack that disables the XLR when in use, gain knob that peaks at 7OdB (perfect for ribbons or other mies that need a lot of gain), and a trim control that runs from 10 to +10.
The solid-state...