Thermionic Culture Snow Petrel

Dual Channel all Valve Mic Preamp

CAP2: 0 £3,390.00
£2,825.00 ex VAT
Call or email for availability.

Dual-channel all-valve mic preamp with distortion and EQ

At a glance

  • Extra-low noise valves with no solid state impurities in the audio path
  • Sowter's VERY special balancing transformers for the inputs and outputs
  • Higher than usual input impedance to preserve clarity
  • Hi/Lo Pad switches to tailor the input impedance to suit individual mics
  • +48 V Phantom power available
  • All valve Class A amplification
  • Controls include Switched Gain, from 40 to 75 dB; HPF to reduce 'proximity effect' and 'Air' to add that extra clarity
  • Housed in a 2U 19" rack-mounted unit

The Thermionic Snow Petrel is a dual-channel high-gain valve mic preamp specifically designed with low-output microphones such as ribbon microphones in mind.

The Thermionic Snow Petrel boasts two Radio Technique RTC5654 pentode valve and high-gain Svetlana EF86 pentode both made to operate as triodes to drive the gain stage and Tung-Sol 6189 double triodes to drive the Sowter output transformer. This combination of these valves and a step-up input transformer allows the Snow Petrel to deliver up to 75dB of clean gain with very low noise floor and distortion.

Originally designed with the Coles 4038 in mind the Snow Petrel features higher input impedance to preserve clarity. It can be modified with the Hi/Lo and Pad switches to suit individual microphones. 

The Snow Petrel is extremely musical and offers progressive saturation that will please users looking for obvious colouration. An Air switch brings out clarity and sheen that will complement ribbon microphones particularly well while the high-pass filter will bring proximity effect under control.

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