When my Altec 1567a mixer came to me at a ridiculously affordable rate, it was DOA. I’m never in the habit of buying completely broken gear, but all the transformers were there and their value alone exceeded my price of admission, so I knew if I couldn’t fix it, I would not lose any money.

The fix was simple and affordable according to my tech that only charged me one hour of bench time and zero parts charges.

I find the sound of this unit to be exceptionally wonderful on guitars cabinets where I blend two microphones, and also certain snare drums on certain styles of music especially when I blend a top and bottom mic. My favorite use is on high hats especially when using one of my Beyer M500 microphones, which are hyper cardioid ribbon mics. This combination really keeps the hats silky no matter how bright, but also keeps the hats as isolated as possible from snare bleed when I find the perfect sweet spot.

The biggest bonus of this crusty old gear purchase is the simple program EQ in the signal path, which is quite useful for subtly shaping tones going to tape and also as a poor mans tube EQ when inserted on a position utilizing the line input and main output on the Unit.