Quick Start Guide

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FMR Audio, [phone] www.fmraudio.com
2) It allows us to call the RNC/RNLA by names that are as distinct as the sounds
they produce. The RNC was designed to be somewhat neutral while the RNLA
was designed to deliberately color the sound.
What’s cool about the RNLA?
Before you run off to work on your next hit record, I want to point out to you some of the salient points
about the Really Nice Levelling Amplifier that may not be overtly obvious and, yet, may be important for
you to know:
• Wide Dynamic Range — Despite the unbalanced input/output connections, the
RNLA has a dynamic range of 117dB, minimum, which is appropriate for today’s
digital systems and exceeds that which is attainable with many older, “vintage”
levelling amplifiers. The RNLA offers a clip point (<3% THD) of 22.5dBu.
• Fidelity — Although the RNLA is designed to dynamically “color” the sound
passing through it, the channel electronics are fairly neutral and designed so that
the output signal (statically measured) closely resembles the input signal (
fidelity
defined ...though slightly paraphrased). Each channel is hand-trimmed to typically
less than 0.005% Total Harmonic Distortion plus Noise (THD+N). Even this low-
level distortion is predominantly second-order...a much less heinous form of dis-
tortion and agreed by many to impart a slight “sweetness” to a signal.
• Ugly and Cheesy Box — Like its FMR brethren, the RNC and RNP, we use a
third-rack cabinet (still a hearty combination of extruded aluminum and steel) to
allow us to throw the money we save in cosmetics into the quality of the audio
electronics. Although we did decide to splurge a little by putting very red knobs on
it along with a brushed-aluminum Lexan™ overlay for that more impressively
cheesy, “homegrown” look!
• Easy-to-read Panel Graphics — This may seem like an arbitrary and trivial
point, but we think it’s important: easily assessing the settings on a rack-mounted
processor is important when you’ve got a lot of stuff going on during a recording
session. In our experience, dark lettering on a light background works better than
the other way around.
• Inputs and Inserts — As with the RNC, the RNLA has unbalanced inputs that
also double as Tip-Ring-Sleeve (TRS) inserts to mate with popular mixer and
equipment inserts. This allows you to connect an RNLA’s channel (in & out) to a
mixer or other compatible device (such as our own Really Nice Preamp, Great
River Electronics MP-NV preamp, etc.) using only a single TRS-to-TRS cable per
channel.