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Thermionic Culture

Thermionic Culture The Phoenix SB

Standard-production stereo valve compressor

Compressor / Limiter

Price not published

Specifications

Type
Compressor / Limiter
Description
Standard-production stereo valve compressor
Topology
all-valve/tube, Class-A
Signal path
Analog
Channels
2
Channel format
stereo with link switch
Form factor
19-inch rack
Powered
yes (mains powered)
Frequency response
<1dB variation, 12Hz–56kHz
Impedance (Ω)
Input 15kΩ / Output 600Ω
Country of manufacture
United Kingdom

Details

Controls: Continuously variable Attack, Release, Threshold; Stereo Link; Side Chain (bass) filters (150Hz/300Hz); Standby switch; Bypass per channel; front-panel meter-zero trims

I/O: Balanced ins/outs via custom Sowter transformers

Notes: 'Now the standard production version of the Phoenix compressor.' MOL +19dB into 600Ω / +24dB into 10kΩ; Max gain 36dB; THD (no compression) better than 0.06%; Attack 0.004s–0.12s, Release 0.04s–2.4s. Valve complement identical to Mastering Plus: 2x PCC85, 2x ECC81, 2x EB91. Country confirmed via feature text 'point to point hand wired in England.' Official site thermionicculture.com is currently unreachable/broken (root returns an empty Apache directory listing, product URLs 404) as of research date 2026-07-19; all data below sourced from Wayback Machine snapshot dated 2025-05-16 (and linked official spec-sheet PDFs) of the live Joomla/VirtueMart catalog, cross-checked against the current Independent Audio (US distributor) product listing, which also shows no USD pricing.

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