AIRSHOW TAKOMA PARK: MASTERING IN THE MID-ATLANTIC WITH THE LAVRY ENGINEERING AD122-96 MKIII A/D
   
TAKOMA PARK, MD: When a new mastering facility arrives on the scene, the engineers behind it should be aiming to make a big impact. That was exactly the idea when Airshow Takoma Park debuted in 2010, creating a world-class sister facility to the original Airshow Boulder that’s been mastering hits for 25+ years.

Takoma Park’s mastering engineers, Randy LeRoy and Charlie Pilzer, form a formidable mid-Atlantic team working out of the multi-faceted complex designed from the ground up by Sam Berkow of SIA. After the precision acoustics had been built in to Mastering A and Mastering B, the rooms were outfitted with elite gear to match their engineers’ considerable talents, including the AD122-96 MKIII A/D converter from Lavry Engineering.

Working within a stone’s throw of Washington, DC, LeRoy consistently relies on his Lavry converters to master his projects, for recent clients such as The Blind Boys of Alabama, featuring appearances by Vince Gill, Lee Ann Womack, and Jamey Johnson, and the for-vinyl-only remaster of Copper Blue, the classic album from Bob Mould’s post-Hüsker Dü project Sugar.

“Between the talent, the rooms and the gear, this is a dream gig for me,” says LeRoy, who came to Airshow Takoma Park after nearly two decades heading up Nashville’s famed Final Stage Mastering. “The majority of the EQ work here takes place in Mastering A, and that’s where we have our Lavry Gold AD122. It’s a phenomenal piece of gear: The sonic clarity is second-to-none, with an attention to detail that is just unrivaled. When we were outfitting the room, we compared many different converters to see what was best for the suite and the other gear – the Lavry shined above all of them.”

For LeRoy, the extreme accuracy and full-frequency response of the Lavry AD122-96 MKIII A/D are essential for him to master his clients’ projects properly. “I’m looking for accuracy, clarity, definition,” he explains. “I do not want coloration on my A/D stage -- I look to my analog gear before my converter for that. I want the A/D converter to give out what I put into it: the same gain structure, frequencies, and harmonic content. The Lavry Gold AD122 gives me all of that.

“Your A/D converter sits the point where it can make or break your analog processing. If it’s removing some of the harmonic overtones that you’re getting through your gear, you’re not going to get the depth, image and fullness that all your expensive outboard gear is capable of delivering.”

In addition to the sonic performance of the AD122, LeRoy has developed a keen appreciation for the thoughtful ergonomics of the Lavry Engineering unit, starting with the precision reference meter bridge. “Besides its sound, I love the metering,” he notes. “The metering is amazingly accurate, and the AD122 seems to have headroom for days. I also love having calibration pots on the front panel -- it’s such a necessary feature to have on an A/D converter. A lot of other A/D manufacturers have the calibration on the back of the unit, which forces you to pull it from the rack to calibrate it, or else you have to open them up and change dip switches or jumpers. That’s just not the real world. But the Lavry Gold gets it right.”

  
Featuring a -127dB dynamic range, 0.00005% total harmonic distortion + noise, built-in αβC αcoustic βit Correction® noise shaping, and more, the Lavry Engineering AD122-96MKIII provides Airshow Takoma Park’s clients with extreme accuracy and the full frequency response that they require for true 24-bit digital audio. Additional key features include switchable digital soft-knee limiter, +3 or +6dB gain, precision reference meter bridge, fully programmable digital test tones for system alignment, AES and word clock external synchronization 40-51kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, DC removal, absolute polarity inversion, and multi-converter synchronization.

Mastering with his Lavry Engineering AD122-96MKIII at Airshow Takoma Park is the latest, greatest development in Randy LeRoy’s extremely satisfying career. “I feel very fortunate that my hobby became my occupation,” he says. “Mastering today is a service industry, and you’re only as good as your last project. I take pride in delivering great-sounding masters, in all different styles of music.”