Heavily modified Rare 50’s Collins modular Lunchbox - 212y + 60H mixer w preamp - Serviced boutique mic pre! 3 input, 90db of gain w/ added 48v power!

Check out this unit in the rack in the CBS Studios control room scene of the 2025 Bob Dylan, Academy Award Winning Film "A Complete Unknown" biopic starring Timothee Chalamet. On screen prop!

The ultimate hotrod studio gem.

One of a kind listing you’ll never see again.

A massive amount of work went into this unique unit over the last two years restoring and modifying this unique unit and it’s finally ready for sale. This colorful, high gain mic preamp mixer has been fully recapped and modified to do some pretty amazing stuff. Arguably one of the very best sounding mic pre’s available anywhere in the world, post modifications and restoration.

Unbeknownst to 99% of engineers out there, Collins may have been first to pioneer the modular “lunchbox” style gear in the 1950’s with this ultra rare chassis. This box has sockets that accept Collins sled modules which included optional preamps, EQ’s, mixers and other types sold back in the day. Few still exist but a handful of the 212Y Preamps are floating around and known to be astounding pre’s when serviced properly, but you’ll most certainly never see one again with 48v phantom supply!

I’ve seen these in single housings being sold as stand alone units but it’s incredibly rare to find the larger box intact and working, let alone recapped and hotrodded with a mixer section! This one has a mixer and preamp installed, both of which have been fully restored and the preamp section modified. This provides you with 2 inputs on the left and one on the right with three separate volume controls on three separate pots. The one on the right can power a condenser mic and any of the three can power ribbons or dynamics.

WORK COMPLETED:

We‘ve added 48v phantom power to the preamp unit, rebuilt the PSU, recapped it where needed and added a dedicated 48v LED with locking toggle switch for condenser mic usage. The unit features 2 XLR balanced inputs on the rear with seperate volume control on 2 large Bakelite knobs (original Daven potentiometers!). The “gain” knob doubles as the power switch as it clicks on and applies a massive 92db+ of balanced gain! Signal to noise ratio is incredibly low and the unit does not oscillate at high gain settings. You’ll never need more gain than this, no matter how gain hungry the mic. RCA44’s and Coles ribbons, eat your heart out. You can have up to 3 dynamics or ribbons going at the SAME time and still have plenty of gain left over! A feat no modern preamps can pull off. Note the unit has a single direct XLR-M output which sums all ins.

OPERATION NOTES:

*** Note that you cannot use dynamic mics and phantom powered condenser mics at the same time (no different than any other preamp). The 2 input mixer works but spoils the SNR and shorts out the phantom power so the preamp works best when unplugged from the chassis as shown in the last pic (look at last pic for details). Please take a second to reread that instruction and acknowledge this unique operation. You need to pull the 212Y forward a half inch and break the socket connection to use this unit with phantom power as shown in the provided image above. We were lucky to get it to work with phantom in the first place and it was NOT designed to do so and proved extremely difficult to achieve. This is the best workaround possible.

* UPDATE:

Labels have been added to front panel as seen in 2nd to last pic to denote 48v power and balanced output. We also added phantom power instructions to rear panel as well as shown so you don’t forget how to use a condenser in this unique manner.

SPECS:

1KHz THD+noise

< .05% @+10dBv out

10Hz to 21KHz bandwidth

92+ db of overall gain

Rebuilt PSU & new custom grounded cable

Some cloth wiring was replaced

modified for quieter noise floor

Calibrated VU

Balanced output

NOS Vintage hand selected military spec audio tubes (almost a grand in glass alone)

Chassis deep cleaned and units burned in

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Thanks for looking.
Any questions please ask. All sales final with fragile vintage gear, no returns on any vintage delicate gear. Come try it out in person at our commercial studio (15 min from NYC) or FaceTime/request recordings prior to purchase if needed. Open to other ideas if you have anything cool laying around your studio that you’re not using.

Open to any ideas if you have some cool gear you're not using. shoot me ideas, I’m open to it.

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