Hairball Audio build?

[Lee]

Hey guys I’m considering purchasing 2 x hairball 1176 units to build and I just wanted to if anyone here has got some and what they think of them. Do you have the black or the blue? How do they sound in terms of un wanted noise are they usable? I’ve used different types over the years from urei, UA and warm Audio and I liked them all for their differences. I’m leaning more towards the blue because I want it more aggressive but I’m worried it might not be as versatile and possibly too noisey. How was the build too? I’ve built the JLM MAC opto comp and the BA2 preamps so I’m hoping this will be just as easy? Ha.

[waitup]

I've used both. The blue one is definitely a lot noisier than the black one. I found it slightly annoying on some quiet sound sources and opted for other compressors for those applications.

The black one is quiet and sounds great, but as you say maybe not as characterful as the blue. Gain structure is weird on the blue one as per the original also.

If I was building one, I'd go black personally. I don't actually get the blue stripe thing myself. I reckon they have an unwarranted mythical status, ha!

[Lee]

Thanks for the reply Nick I appreciate it. I was leaning more towards the black too for that reason. Thanks for confirming what I suspected you saved me from disappointment. Cheers.

[Lee]

Soooo I finally finished building 2 hairball audio 1176 rev d, which I’m pretty stoked about. I need some help calibrating them as my multimeter and skills are limited. Is there someone here in Sydney I could drive them too to help me calibrate them? Many thanks.

[walding]

I had someone build me, the blue fully spec'd out, transformers in and out etc etc, I love the thing dearly, noise and all...