Iron Age IA-1222: A flexibility-first analog summing mixer
Up and coming manufacturer Iron Age Audioworks has announced an interesting piece of studio gear: the IA-1222 analog summing mixer. Made in the US by a team of musicians and engineers with a passion for solid-state circuitry, the unit replicates the summing bus of a famous – although unspecified – large-format recording console.
This is Iron Age Audio’s first release, so the company obviously wants to make a good impression! It says the IA-1222 has a clear, focused sound by virtue of its in-house designed M2 discrete op-amp matched with a low inductance Cinemag output transformer. The M2 op amp is an eleven transistor design with a very low THD figure and even-order dominant sound, Iron Audio says.
Shipping in April, the USD 2000 summing mixer has 12 input channels, each with a switchable stereo bus and individual pan controls. In addition to the stereo bus, the 1222 has a second pair of switchable mono busses. The stereo bus has an insert point followed by a master fader level control. For extra flexibility, the unit offers dual stereo or stereo and dual mono outputs, enabling parallel processing and stem creation/routing.
Despite the vintage console emulation plug-in craze, the analog summing mixer market seems to be going well. This year’s NAMM saw the debut of another USD 2000 summing box, the Dangerous Music D-BOX+ which comes complete with AD/DA and Bluetooth, among other bits of technology. With most units of this type starting at USD 1500 for a reasonably basic model, I’d say the 1222 is comfortably priced for what it claims to be and ought to do a respectable job at warming up and glueing together digitally recorded and processed sounds.
Of course, there are plenty of other options out now, including ones by renowned brands like SPL. But the 1222 claims to have something unique, which is the dual stereo / stereo – dual mono outputs. That and the 12-channel count make it a worthy contender in this very niche, yet quite competitive market.
More information is available at the manufacturer’s website.
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