03/08/2007
Audient is known for making crystal-clear, uncolored audio equipment. Combine this with the variety of tonal colors that can be achieved by pairing a discrete Class A circuit with a transformer, designed for this purpose by the experienced David Dearden, and you get the "Black Series."
This system consists of several modules housed in a special rack that allow different combinations, depending on your needs. The "Black Series" currently comprises five modules: Black Pre, Black EQ, Black Comp, Black ADC and Black Time Machine.
The Black Pre is a preamp whose main feature is a variable "HMX" control. It also includes a variable high-pass filter, phase invert and an accurate input meter.
The distinctive features of the Black EQ four-band equalizer are its high-pass filter and its "Overtone" control, which adds harmonics at the chosen frequency, as well as its
"Glo" control, which works as a dynamic equalizer, compressing everything that exceeds a certain amplitude at the selected frequency. This equalizer is especially musical and adds a "Tilt" control for tonal balance that keeps the amount of energy constant, allowing very fast tonal changes.
The Black Comp is a Class A opto compressor/limiter with a transformer-balanced circuit, offering two types of circuits: "Overcomp" and "Smooth." "Overcomp" allows a huge amount of pre-compression to be added to the signal, as used to be done with the talkback signal on old Neve consoles. The "Smooth" circuit has two compression chains, one that works as a peak limiter and another that focuses on compressing the signal more gently.
The Black ADC is used to route the signal into the digital world; it's a two-channel 24-bit/192kHz analog-to-digital converter. On its front panel it has AES/EBU, S/PDIF and Toslink outputs and an output meter with 0 dBFS and a clip LED. It can be used both with Black modules and with external sources. There's also an AES/EBU XLR output on the rear panel and a word clock input.
The so-called Black Time Machine is a digital clock that helps when working with several Black ADC modules or other external digital devices. It uses the BNC and AES/EBU outputs installed in the BR-10 rack and another AES output on the front. It distributes word clock to the Black ADC units via an optimized clock bus.
Finally, the Black Rack BR-10 is the housing that holds the modules. This four-unit-high rack, which can hold up to ten Black modules, has an XLR input and output for each module, although the first eight channels can also be routed in and out via a SubD25 connector. And most importantly: a two-rack-unit external power supply.