The Rooster is a valve based design mic/line & DI pre-amp with EQ and a distortion section based around the same 5725 valve used in the ever-popular Culture Vulture. www.thermionicculture.com

INPUT STAGE
The input stage uses a custom 1200-ohm input Sowter transformer and an ECC81/12AT7 valve.

EQ SECTION
The neatly laid out EQ section has all the Boost or Lift controls on the left, with a broad bass lift control, peaking at 60Hz, and a selectable mid/high lift at 2.5k, 4k ("bell" shaped) and 7k (shelving) respectively. All the Cut controls are on the left hand side, the mid cut is 700Hz, the 6 position bass cut is straight off the Earlybird 2 pre-amp. There is also a switchable LPF ( low pass filter ).

'ATTITUDE' DISTORTION SECTION
The same 5725-distortion tube which is employed in the Culture Vulture is used in the new Rooster. It offers a subtle distortion characteristic in the triode position, more so than a Culture Vulture due to the higher HT voltage, and so has a very low (about 0.01%) distortion when the 'Attitude' control is set to 1. In the pentode mode it generates more 3rd harmonic distortion. Distortion can be pretty radical when the Attitude control is to 'Max' and the input is high.

OUTPUT SECTION
The output valve is ECF80 which combines high output with low impedance (less than 100 ohms). There is +48v phantom power, and phase reverse. The output is unbalanced as standard but a balancing transformer option that is used in the Culture Vulture Mastering will be available.