This year's trip out to Joshua Tree and the 'second workshop' location has been a success, and with no time to decompress I'm already back in the shop wrapping up one of the last WA-47's sent here to the Baton Rouge location, and getting ready to get the last few units here out the door. All Warm Audio mods from this point forward will ship out to the Joshua Tree location and be handled expertly by Antonio, allowing me to focus more on the other company I am involved in, as well as developing a few more things for Signal Art. I will also still be handcrafting the Signal Art Tube 47 and 48 from the Baton Rouge location.
Though I have moved Signal Art away from the upgrade/modification space and more towards fully handcrafted products, I still intend to do one more upgrade, that being the for the much-requested and much-needed WA-8000. Especially as it has come to light recently that some individuals have been selling a highly marked up mod of this mic where it appears that only one thing has really been changed... which I find kind of ridiculous and almost wrong to charge shipping and labor and to waste energy doing something so minimal... As people know, our mods are almost holistic in nature as we go through the entire products from end to end, changing out dozens of things and reworking or reflowing literally everything, even rebuilding the cable. Considering the cost of shipping and the committment to be without a studio workhorse mic for some time, to do anything less, to me, is criminal. So we are going to wrap up our Warm mods series with the 8000 and I intend for it to be no less than utterly thorough and appreciable. We hope to have that available later this year.
We are finally done with the reamp and direct box that has been made in some form by Signal Art for over 2 decades now. It was time, and this also will allow me to focus on our handcrafted mics and developing more mods, and developing more original products. Thanks again to everyone who purchased the reamp and direct box over the years, particularly all those who got in on the final production run. Speaking of which, due to an order cancellation, it does look like we have one extra direct box and one extra (transparent) reamp still available if anyone is interested please contact me now or forever hold your peace. this is absolutely the last one of each made.
I've been mum on what future handcrafted mics are coming out under Signal Art, and while the answer to that is still a bit nebulous, I'll tell you what I do know. The M49 is absolutely the next completely new offering I want to make, and I have been itching to do the M49 (rev B particularly) for a very long time. I'm hoping to do that in 2025. Before that happens, I plan to do a few other variations of the U47/U48. As many may know, the NOS tube pair used in the SAE Tube 47 is getting more expensive and its getting harder to procure a perfect matched pair to build this version of our mic. We are exploring both an EF800 version and a solid state pentode tube replacement (think Phaedrus Audio or similar) version to bolster the existing design. We will not be discontinuing the dual-tube version as it is still something we very much love and prefer; but we are going to try to have at least 2 alternate circuits available to help supplement the original design, in preparation for when these tubes really become unobtainium. Later this year or next, we hope to see a selection option on the webstore where you can choose the circuit you desire and it will adjust the cost accordingly.
Probably with the next order, the Heiserman K47 capsule option will go away as we exhaust the last of those we have available, and we will focus on just the OPR K47 and the stock K47 we are currently developing. It has long been our desire to just have our own custom made 'house capsule' and we are getting closer and closer to this, working with a US designer and source that will remain confidential. When this capsule is done, it will replace what we used to call our 'Baseline Edition' capsule, which is still available now, and then the 2 options will just be the house brand or the historic OPR.
Thanks it for now, we have plenty of other exciting news and irons in the fire; but this is a good place to leave it for now and we should have more news in the coming weeks!
Best,
Chad
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