The Focusrite Red Range is hand-made, crafted to the highest standards. All the Red Processors are manufactured solely in the UK using machine-tooled, half-inch thick claret red anodised aluminium. The chassis features recessed section grooves and styling motifs, (sculpted with diamond-tip cutters,) porthole windows, anoprinted silver control text, and firm-response illuminated switches. All potentiometers are manufactured to Focusrite’s own specification by French company ‘Sfernice’, and are made from conductive plastic which gives more sensitivity and no mechanical resistance (easy to make very fine adjustments). All Red products feature sealed relays, (gold-plated silver in an inert gas,) situated in the middle of the circuits in which they switch. The precious metals mean that all contacts are low resistance, and the gas prevents any kind of corrosion of the surface of the contacts, meaning the most perfect audio switching device ever designed - utterly passive, zero distortion caused and no FET’s required. Red Range processors with mic pre’s feature solid-state-amplified audio transformers, which help to give the characteristic “warm, organic sound” loved by studios world-wide. Transformers are the only way of giving a truly floating and earth-free system, because there’s no galvanic connection between the input and output circuitry. Transformers are not new in audio; they were there at the outset, but whilst others were trying to design them out to cut costs, Focusrite went after the best transformer possible, a philosophy which resulted in the transformers you find in the Red series today. Low frequency second order distortion created by transformer saturation provides the character that many perceive as ‘warmth’. Meanwhile, a high frequency emphasis generated by the reactance of the coil resonance with the terminating impedance of the microphone or receiving device, provides the engineer with open, spacious high frequencies. The Red Range mic transformer in particular gets its legendary “transparent yet warm” label from this process, an apparent contradiction in terms, yet a genuine characteristic – audition a unit and hear for yourself.