Great job! My only critique would've been to not talk as you were turning up the sat and a/b a time or two more, but it was excellent regardless–eloquent explanation of 2nd and 3rd order harm. as well.

I subscribed, but I may have to unsubscribe as I don't need to be lusting for any more outboard

2cents-

Finding the HG-2 a very handy tool when needed in the mastering chain.

Looks like I'll have one in the desk tomorrow. Thanks Holger, Taylor, and Dietrich, for the reviews and thoughts on this unit. Looking forward to playing around with one!

Shawn,

I look forward to your thoughts about the unit. If you have any questions or concerns then hit up myself or Eric. We'll be glad to talk you down off the ledge.

Much appreciated, Robert.

I've had a fun day with it so far. It took me a while, and will likely take a few more days, to figure out the proper gain structure and placement for this particular unit in my chain. Calibration was dead simple thanks to your trimmers inside and I've got the air band attenuated as far as it will go. Admittedly, it's still a bit high for my tastes and I find it tends to overhype most mixes that are already in the realm of balanced. So I probably won't use it very much, but I can hear why it would be great outside of mastering.

The interactivity of the saturation, pentode, and triode stages is wonderful and the possibilities for various aesthetics are wide. As a first day user I haven't really formulated any strong opinion about the unit, but I really like what I'm hearing so far, and the build quality is excellent. More to come!

Sweet! I'm just glad it arrived and is working properly. Eric and I almost stopped doing this because we worry so much about the units arriving in perfect working order. What the shipping companies do is an abomination.

I'd love to throw a bunch of tips at you but I never thought in a million years that Mastering Engineers would take to the HG-2. I'm a tracking/mix engineer myself (I prefer tracking most days) and your world of mastering has always looked like sonic voodoo to me.

Finally, I look forward to your strong opinions and, as I said previously, if you have any questions or concerns then do not hesitate to hit us up.

Thank you so very much

Can anyone please provide details on the tubes used in the HG-2 like type/brand. Are they JJ's?

My question really is can we replace the tubes with vintage NOS if we want? Its something I do regularly with new tube equipment and always yields a further enhancement.

Hi Dave,

There are two sets of tubes in the HG-2. The main tubes are a set of NOS JANPhilips 6U8A tubes. You can swap them out for other 6U8As but there aren't "boutique" versions like you find for 12AX7s and we've gone through every 6U8A we could get our hands on with these being our favorites. Different brands will give you slightly different top end but nothing drastic and these sound the best to us.

The other set of tubes are 12AX7s in the parallel saturation circuit. Again, we have gone through an incredible number of different tubes and the Tungsol's have just the right gain and breakup for the circuit.

It's tempting to switch out the 12AX7s since there are so many awesome sounding versions available but this is a circuit meant to distort in a very specific way and higher gain, boutique tubes actually give you LESS gain and less desirable performance.

In short, I wouldn't bother swapping out the tubes. We really did choose the tubes based on what worked and sounded best, not price point.

If you want to try a mod, we've heard of customers replacing the op amps with discrete op amps. We haven't tried it ourselves yet but the few people who have done it have liked the results. That said, the op amps are simply buffers and splitters rather than gain stages so we can't vouch for how much improvement (if any) you would get.

Let us know if you have any other questions and definitely let us know if you do any mods that you like!

Many thanks for the quick response and also for being so transparent with the details on the HG-2. Its very helpful in trying to get the best results possible and much appreciated.

Understood on the 6U8A's, but for the 12AX7's, would you recommend against replacing with Vintage telefunkens?

Thanks Dave

No problem! We are always happy to answer questions.

We have tried using Telefunkens and other "boutique" NOS tubes and the results were surprising. In the best cases, there was no real improvement and in the worst cases the circuit didn't perform well. I'll explain...

The parallel saturation circuit is a starved plate design that is intended to saturate. Specifically, it is designed to saturate/clip asymmetrically so that the swing of one side is limited. The result is that you get really nice saturation without destroying the integrity of the signal too early. For this to work properly, the tube has to have the correct amount of gain but also saturate/clip at the right place. We are looking for a very specific response/shape.

For that reason, the benefits you would normally get from swapping out a 12AX7 in a high voltage circuit just don't come into play. This is both because we are starving the tubes of power but also because we are looking for something other than transparent, euphonic results.

Even more interesting is that tubes with more gain, actually result in less output in this circuit so any replacement tube needs to have the correct gain factor and saturation point.

That isn't to say you couldn't swap them out if you really wanted to experiment, the circuit will just function differently (likely won't saturate much).

One last note... Although both 12AX7s in the unit are the same, the "ALT Tube" (left tube when looking at the face plate) is voiced more aggressively so it saturates earlier and has more output. This gives you different and really useful saturation options but also means that you could swap one of the 12AX7s and then compare it to the original, then try it in the other position to see if one works better.

I'm very interested in having one centerpiece "analog magic" piece in my setup, and the black box seems to tick all my boxes.

Question: is this designed to mix into it, or to be added when the mix is (almost) done?

You can definitely mix into it. In fact it's perfect for that.

PS. I can also add that here about a year on from my video review I'm still in love with the HG-2 and it's not collecting dust. <3
I recently used it on a track that was certified platinum in both Denmark and Sweden (Martin Jensen - All I Wanna Do) as well as hundreds of other tracks. That includes more than a handful of gold or platinum tracks this year, not that the HG-2 is responsible of course, but it can definitely add a signature sound when you need it. Anything from very subtle settings to OTT crunching.

Thanks for all the info! I just watched your review again today... after placing my order for one!!!

I like what I've heard and I can feel myself getting seduced. Just when I decided I didn't need any more gear. I'd like to hear one but KMR have them on order....

Any volunteers to please run a rough track of mine through one? I'm 70% sold.

It seems like this unit actually does what I first hoped my Culture Vulture would do when I bought my first one many years ago (+a more). Very, very tempting..

Thanks for the info, reviews, video and sounds!

Paul_G, msg sent. :-)

Thanks nOiz! I think I've made my mind up.....

Here is a link to some drum samples using a few different techniques including the HG-2 Thanks to Eric! I'd love to get some quality feedback and guesses on the blind test 1 -5 : https://soundcloud.com/paulcheeba/se...-drums/s-fmi8I

Ordered and paid for. Thanks to Eric and Simon for their valuable time and the demonstrations!

Congrats, Paul_G. I'm sure you're gonna have fun with this one. :-)

i use the creamliner (in pentode mode) and the michelangelo (triode, later in the chain, mostly used parallel) in my chain for saturation effect - would be really interesting to compare this combo once with the HG-2!

Funny enough, the Michelangelo is next on my list. Anything I should know Teebaum? I have Amtecs, Soma, Avalon 2055, NTI EQ3D and lots of classic modules.

Anyone using this with an SSL comp?
I'm considering this chain:
Pultec eq - SSL comp - HG2

I've read a few people who say the HG2 reduces the need for compression,but I'm wondering about using it with the SSL comp on drum mixes,and the master.

best thing would be first to contact chris from handyamp - he's a very nice person and it's was a pleasure to check out the options with him to make "your personal michelangelo"

Has anyone compared the HG2 against the Vertigo VSM and the (much cheaper) elysia karacter?

would be interesting to hear the karacter on the mix - but when i see the demos i think it's more creative sound-design-tool that for mastering

Yes it's not so great for whole mixes but it works great on solo instruments and sub mixes I've found so far.

Here are some drum comparisons I did:

https://soundcloud.com/paulcheeba/sets/drum-saturation

There are temporary WAVS in this thread:

Best saturation/distortion/destruction hardware

It's a great quality box, I've just bought a 500 one too.

I own one and I'm trying to sell it.
Not really made for mastering purpose.
The qualty is great but the set of control is more mix or production oriented and the sweet spot for mastering is way to narrow (if you find one)

I dont think I would recommend the Karakter for mastering. My inital impression is that it is not able to really focus on specific bands, the colour pot is more of an overall sound/character control, and not really a frequency emphasis. I do think it sounds excellent though, but I would be worried about headroom in a mastering chain. Besides, I must say the HG-2 from Black Box Analog is definitely my go to HW unit for Mastering saturation!!