passive audio component & make-up gain

Tweakers' Asylum

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My studio consists of mostly obsolete analog equipment, including many passive audio gear items. (MS stereo matrix, stereo width control, Hi/Lo filters, etc.) Usually, the oversized 50's and 60's era equipment in my studio has enough gain that a few dBs of insertion loss from a passive component does not cause any problems. But occasionally, I need to crank the level back up a few dB and I'm looking for something to serve as a "make-up gain" amp that can be inserted after the passive device.
All of the passive units are 600 ohm, transformer balanced and their insertion loss is typically around 6dB, but several of them include attenuators that can increase their insertion loss to over 20dB. So I'm looking for a make-up gain amp that can provide something like 0 to 20dB in 1dB steps. The amp needs to handle balanced I/O (on XLRs) and I need two channels of gain, so I need a two channel device or two single channel units.
Is there a commercially available device that would work in this application? (whether or not it was designed for this purpose)
Are there any commonly available old console line amps that might work well? (Hopefully the kind of module that gets tossed aside by guys stealing mic preamps from old consoles.)
Or, 3rd choice, is this an easy project that can be assembled from a couple of parts from OpAmp in a few hours. If yes, please point me towards a design.
Thanks.
Steve
Lex125@pacbell.net

digital? I'm still not sure about transistors....

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Topic - passive audio component & make-up gain - hollywood_steve 17:25:02 04/12/02 (0)

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