Radial Engineering picks up a Gold Digger plus 500 series additions

Radial Engineering Ltd has launched the Gold Digger, a four-channel comparison tool enabling studio engineers to more easily select the best microphone to suit an individual performer’s voice.

Having already won a Best of Show award at the 133rd AES convention, the Gold Digger includes four 'radio style' switches to ensure only one microphone will be activated at any one time. 48V phantom power is generated and managed inside the unit for noise-free switching between the models being compared.

According to Radial president Peter Janis, the Gold Digger differs from conventional four-channel mixers in the simplicity of its signal path and operation. ‘Setting up an honest comparison between microphones can be difficult due to the time lapse involved when routing signals and discrepancies between mixer channels,’ he explained. ‘The Gold Digger solves the problem by routing four microphones to a single output via a “straight wire” signal path. In other words, there are no buffers or any form of gain stage in between the microphone and the output, thus assuring a colour-free signal transfer without distortion or artefacts.’

Meanwhile, the company has also added to its range of 500 series modules with the ChainDrive 1x4 distro and line driver, and the Q4 parametric EQ unit.

The ChainDrive is a single-wide audio distribution module that accepts either a balanced or unbalanced source via the 500 series power rack input and distributes the signal to four front-panel TRS outputs. Four front panel level controls are included to optimise signal-to-noise levels, while users equipped with a Radial Workhorse can use the Omniport as an unbalanced to balanced converter for manipulating hi-Z signals. The ChainDrive can also distribute a full stereo program using TRS connectors following the tip-left, ring-right, sleeve-ground convention.

Finally, Radial is introducing its new Q4 as ‘what could very well be the world's first 100 per cent discrete state-variable class-A parametric equaliser’.

It has been designed around the principle of returning to the idea of using discrete electronics – a concept not generally employed in mass-market EQ circuits since the mid-20th century and the popularisation of integrated circuit op-amps. ‘No company has ever gone back to the purity of 100 per cent discrete electronics to produce a true class-A state variable filter design,’ explained Radial senior engineer Dan Fraser. ‘The Q4 is exactly that, and for the more demanding golden-eared engineers, the Q4 will give them an EQ choice that has, up until now, never been commercially available.’

A line-level device designed to interface with balanced recording systems, the Q4 features four EQ bands with fixed low and high frequency shelving at 100Hz and 10kHz, plus two semi-parametric mid-bands that span between 300Hz ~ 2.4kHz and 1kHz ~ 12kHz respectively. Each mid-band is also equipped with choice of wide or narrow Q, while all frequencies are set with up to 12dB of boost or cut. The EQ may be bypassed to compare the pre- and post-effect.

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