New Gear Alert: Reference-Grade Cans from Avantone Pro, Legendary Audio’s Gold Channel, Stereo Looper by EHX & More

Avantone Pro releases the reference-grade Planar headphones.

Avantone Pro’s new reference-grade headphones are built upon their ultra-pristine Planar driver technology.

Featuring Planar drivers for extreme detail, and supreme comfort for long sessions, Avantone’s Planars are a perfect solution for mix engineers, musicians, podcasters, live-streamers, and hi-fi enthusiasts. The Planar cans are perfectly weighted for long listening sessions, and provide additional comfort with their soft and spacious ear pads.

Avantone Planars also include a high-grade, removable 3.5mm cable that can be plugged into either side. Maybe you’re working with a large instrument, or a specific rig that makes the typical “left side cable output” feel awkward; just plug into the right side! Planar also ships in an eco-friendly shoulder bag with room for your accessories, and even a pouch for its included cable.

The Planar headphones are available now, in both black and red versions, priced at $399.

Legendary Audio releases the Gold Channel.

Legendary Audio’s Gold Channel is poised to help live vocalists elevate their performance to the next level.

The Gold Channel is the combined R&D effort of veteran mastering engineer Billy Stull—referred to by Rupert Neve as a man with “golden ears”—and respected circuit designer Kevin Burgin, who spent a decade working for Rupert Neve Designs and was instrumental in the creation of the celebrated 5088 console.

Designed to rest on the stage floor in front of the singer and work with any standard dynamic or condenser mic, the Gold Channel’s extensive feature set starts with a super-high-quality preamp that sets new benchmarks in analog circuit design, including its ultra-low THD plus noise spec of 0.0007% (measured at 1kHz, -20dBu input, +30dB gain). No transformers are utilized in the preamp stage in order to deliver the clearest sound reproduction, and every circuit has been designed from the ground up, using a carefully chosen combination of the latest state-of-the-art semiconductors along with traditional ones, to create an incredibly pristine and versatile mic preamp.

The first production run of the Gold Channel is now complete and has been limited to 30 pieces, which are sold directly from Legendary Audio for $4,395.

Electro-Harmonix releases the 1440 Stereo Looper.

EHX delivers a comprehensive and compact looping solution with the 1440 Stereo Looper.

The 1440 Stereo Looper is the next step in compact loopers from EHX. Building on the footprint and simple yet powerful feature set of the 720 Looper, the 1440 doubles the loop time to 24 minutes, adds extra capabilities to the second footswitch, and employs MIDI functionality, all while being super easy to use. EHX has also added some popular performance features like 1-Shot Playback and Loop Retrigger to make it even more useful for creating special moments on the fly.

The 1440 Stereo Looper also has a companion Loop Manager App to allow for easy upload and download of loop audio to and from a Mac or PC.

Check out an introductory video of the 1440 Stereo Looper here.

The 1440 is available now, priced at $221.30.

Steinberg launches the Polarities sound expansion pack for Padshop 2.

Steinberg teams up with Simon Stockhausen to deliver the Polarities sound expansion pack.

Polarities is the latest sound expansion pack by composer and sound designer Simon Stockhausen, exclusively available for Steinberg’s granular and spectral synthesizer, Padshop 2. It contains a blend of electronic and acoustic sounds that bounce off each other in many different ways.

With a sufficient 3.4 GB of content, Simon Stockhausen has not only created a wide range of unique electronic and acoustic sounds but has also designed more than 250 presets that immediately harness the full potential of Padshop 2.

Simon Stockhausen’s multi-faceted, wide-ranging career has embraced all manner of projects and styles, including jazz and improvisational collaborations, countless compositions for ensembles and chamber groups, as well as work for major European theater companies and orchestras.

Polarities is exclusively available through the Steinberg Online Shop for $39.99.

Dawner Prince Electronics reveals the Pulse revolving speaker emulator pedal.

Dawner Prince offers their take on rotary emulation with the Pulse pedal.

Pulse is an open cabinet revolving speaker emulator, inspired by Pink Floyd’s legendary rotary speaker Doppola and Gibson’s Maestro Rover RO-1. Pulse required spending countless hours on R&D, measuring every detail on a real physical model and using advanced math to emulate its complex sound image along with all the physics and mechanics behind it.

And it’s all in there—a realistic three-dimensional sound that swirls as the speaker
accelerates, exact spatial modulation and the feel of the air moving with every spin.
Pulse was modeled upon classics to become a classic.

The first run of Pulse is available exclusively at the Dawner Prince Electronics web store, and will be available worldwide in mid-September. It is priced at $339.95.

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