Seventh Cirlcle Audio DIY gear

Does anyone have any input about Seventh Circles Audio DIY gear? Specifically the A12 Microphone Preamp and D11 DI.

My buddy bought 4 of their API style kits but has been on tour and unable to build them yet. I'll let you know what he says about the build process and sound quality next time I see him.

another good option is the Hamptone (I think) stuff that' modified Altec JFet and Tube circuits. Another friend sourced his own parts and made some cicuit tweak for their modified Altec-style JFet preamp and built a bunch of oards up recently. He still needs to source transformers and rakc them all up, but the single prototype he built with whatever transformers he ahd laying around sounded great to me, much better than a real 60s solid state altec (which actually sounds okay).

Thanks man! I'll check that out.

I think the bang for buck factor will really depend on your soldering/electronics skill and how much value you place on your free time versus how much fun you find soldering to PCBs to be. Because of the transformers all of this stuff is still a little pricey. I hate working on PCB so for me the value of my time really outstrips my savings. I could just as easily spring the ectra $200-500 for a pre-made unit. The neve portico range is darned cheap by Neve standards and sounds great. But the pride of building stuff yourself is awesome. If you need a bunch of channels it will be cheaper to source parts yourself. My buddy proved that with his modified Hamptone. But it was only the massive number of units he was willing to solder that made his bulk purchasing through Mauser worthwile versus the kit.