Modell 2160
Multichannel Mastering Console

Details Description
The goal of the MMC1 development was to create a stereo and multi-channel console which is superior in audio quality to all known and foreseeable audio formats, whether analogue or digital.

The MMC 1 operates in the centre of a mastering environment fulfilling the tasks of speaker management, source connectivity, audio metering, track assignment, master and monitor level setting and automated insert routing of external processors.

Excerpt from an interview by Fernando Curiel in RECORDING Magazine, September 2006 ("Bob Ludwig, the master of mastering shares his thoughts"):

Recording: "What gear do you use and how is it different from the gear that a recording facility might have?"

Bob Ludwig: "The SPL MMC1 8-channel analog console that I use has electronics that spec out far superior to a recording console that must jam 48 channels into a package that is still somewhat affordable. Plus the heat from pure Class A circuits would probably make a multitrack console like that melt!"

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Digital audio formats are subject to further development and change. The degree of incompatibility enforced by the "format war" between PCM and DSD has persuaded us to decide for a technology that is superior in dynamic range, headroom and sound quality – and that is discrete analogue technology in its most advanced implementation.

And there are further requirements speaking for the employment of high-performance analogue technology:

• The number of necessary AD/DA conversions should be reduced to a minimum. Digital sources can be connected to a digital router (i.e. of Z-Systems), which outputs the selected source through the preferred DA converter to the MMC 1. Thus it is ensured that the sound quality remains comparable and is not affected by converter differences.
• From a sound-aesthetical view, high-quality analogue outboard processing is superior to digital processing. The analogue concept allows for problem-free integration of those processors.
• Monitors and power amplifiers are mostly analogue designs. Why have another converter in that chain?