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A new beauty in the studio! Bozak CMA 10-2DLC ground up rebuild by Buzzy Beck himself.

The Bozak DLC mixer itself is the rarest and most sought after unit ever produced by the original company. A total of less than 20 are known to exist world wide with most being built by the original designer Buzzy Beck. The unit we have now in the studio is the rarest of the DLC mixers ever offered that is a complete, ground up rebuild. This mixer incorporates a smudge proof style chassis that was never produced and was only used in the mixer line on prototypes and show items. This chassis is the same material used on the HB-1-8A prototype mixing units that were never put into production. This style chassis was designed to last a life time without marking the way all prior model mixers did from finger prints, moister, etc. This process was used on some of the very late produced consumer electronics offered by Bozak. Time ran out for the company and so did the chance to offer this upgraded chassis quality in the mixer line. This mixer has another rare feature with the addition of a set of matching front end cards and tone controls. The Phono, Microphone, Tone Control, and Summing Amp cards are all from the same series unit and insure the complete audio reproduced sound that people come to expect from the earlier mixers. This feature along with the addition of the latter style 28db audio line cards produces a mixer with unsurpassed sound quality.

From everything I’ve played so far, this mixer is, together with the Urei 1620, my absolute favorite. I fall in love with the Urei because of its punch, then later on I added external preamps to my setup to get a better sound definition. With this bozak: no need to add anything, just play!

I have been asked a couple of times what a ground up rebuild consists of and how they are done. Because of this question I have created a flickr set including several extra pictures to let you see what is involved with the DLC rebuilds…

Most people reading this will know that Mr. Beck was the key influence and main input designer of the Prototype HB-1-8A cross fade unit and responsible for several designs used by other mixer manufactures. The number of DLC units produced was less than 20 between 1985 and 1989. This custom designed chassis was never produced or built for anyone due to its late arrival at the company closing. At that time Mr. Beck purchased a large quantity of original parts that he retained for his own personal use that included a few of these chassis. This complete rebuild was done using as many original factory parts as possible as you can see from the photos. Currently an average of 2 of the DLC units are made available by him a year. Only 3 of these are known to exist that were built by Mr. Beck for close friends. Excluding the rarity of this style chassis, today’s labor cost alone would be more than the DLC mixers sold for originally in the 1980s. An average of 60 + hours goes into each of these custom rebuilt mixers with total dedication to the unit being produced. The completed unit is then bench tested for 6-8 more hours and once again re-checked to ensure proper operation. This unit is equipped with 3 phono, 5 auxiliary and 2 microphone inputs. The booth output is what people refer to as “True Booth” which means the extra audio output card is installed in the mixer so the booth output matches the main gains. This feature alone is very rare and hard to find in units set up with the booth output option.

Here is a partial parts list of what is incorporated in this unit.
1 Original Mother Board Modified for DLC use,
8 Original New Alps Black Beauty Potentiometers,
5 Original Central Lab. Balance Controls,
2 Original New Allen Bradley Microphone Controls,
4 Original New Late Style Alps Tone Controls,
1 Original New Que Selector 5 Position Switch,
1 Original Power Supply Card with all Updates,
2 Original Late Style Line Cards with 28db Output,
1 Mint Booth Level Control Card with 28 db Output,
1 Original Refurbished Power Transformer,
24 New Gold GTX/Switchcraft RCA Phone Jacks,
2 Original Switchcraft Microphone and Output Jacks,
1 Original Special Chassis with Special Face Plate Lettering and Rear Power Switch,
1 Set of Mint Original Knobs,
1 Matched Card Set including: 1 Original Summing Amp Card, 1 Original Tone Control Card, 2 Original Microphone Cards, 3 Original Matched Set of Phono Cards, 2 Original Tone Control Boards with New Pots.