Sphere Electronics Inc. was founded by Electrodyne owner and chief engineer Don McLaughlin in 1973.  Many of the designs that were invented at Electrodyne were improved and perfected in the Sphere consoles.  In a 2005 interview with Larry Devivo, when asked about some of the differences, Don states:

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"The Sphere preamp and EQ were actually an improvement to the ones used in the Electrodyne consoles. The original equalizer inductors would saturate when pushed all the way and start ringing. Sphere used bigger inductors to stop this and added more frequency points, switchable frequency points."

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There were numerous other improvements on the design ranging from using designer John Halls newer SPA 62 op amp, isolation amplifiers on each VU meter (to prevent them from adding distortion to the audio circuit), and bipolar power supplies, (+/-24v DC), for 6 dB more headroom than the Electrodyne consoles, which had been unipolar, +24v DC only.

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Working with Wally Wilson, Don and Wally sold Sphere consoles as a line of custom and semi-custom recording consoles.  Don hired Ed Reichenbach to design and build the transformers for the Sphere consoles.  Reichenbach transformers had previously been installed in Electrodyne consoles as well as other top equipment manufacturers of the time such as Altec, Langevin and later Quad Eight. 

 

It is estimated that a total of 53 Sphere consoles were ever built with 42 of them being either the Eclipse Type A or Type B design.  Artists such as Ronny Milsap, The Judds and Hank Snow purchased Sphere consoles and Spheres were installed at some of the most famous studios at the time such as Sigma Sound, Columbia Recording in Nashville, Kendun Recorders in Burbank, and Creative Workshop in Nashville.  Creative Workshop is still using their custom Sphere Eclipse A built in 1975 to this day.  

 

The history of our Sphere Eclipse starts at 1922 Piedmont Circle in Atlanta GA were it was first installed in Doppler Recording Studios in 1978.  Many legendary artists were recorded and mixed with this very console during its long tenure at Doppler. 

 

Interestingly, studio designer George Augspurger designed the main monitor speakers in Studios A & E at Doppler and also redesigned several other rooms as Doppler expanded in the 1980's.  Upon tuning the control room for the mobile in 2023, George was reunited with the same Eclipse Type A console originally installed at Doppler almost 50 years past. 

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From Doppler, the console was purchased by John Kelton and went into the Nashville studio of producer Mark Nevers.  It was featured in the November 2004 Sound on Sound article interviewing Mark on his work with Lambchop, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Calexico and Silver Jews.  In the interview Mark comments on the Sphere saying:

 

"...It's got the top, it's got the bottom — a Neve to me is mushy on the bottom and an API doesn't have any bottom, but a Sphere is like both of them combined, with a hard bottom and a good top."

-Mark Nevers, SOS, November 2004           

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After leaving Nashville the console traveled to Arizona and was briefly installed in a private studio owned by the Redemption Church of Arizona overseen by engineer Ben Maughan.

 

Ben performed some modifications to the console with input from Ken Hirsch of Orphan Audio (who may have had the console in his shop at one time) and Gary Barnett of Barnett Industries.  This is when the desk had Gary's receiver modification added, a common modification for Sphere consoles which operate unbalanced internally.  Additionally, the console was modded adding direct outs to feed channels 17-24 of a multitrack from the respective channel out since it was originally commissioned as a 16 bus configuration (channels 17-24 retain their ability to assign to all busses).

 

Despite Ben's interest in purchasing the console from the Church, reseller Duncan Rowe (who had purchased the Sphere name from Don shortly before his passing) was able to buy the console from the Church after receiving a deposit from an interested buyer who intended to purchase the console for his private production studio back in Nashville. 

 

After paying to ship the console back to Nashville, the buyer backed out due to a disagreement with Duncan on the terms of the sale.  The condition of the console at this point was not known and Duncan was unable to demonstrate the console was working.  Duncan then contacted other people who had initially inquired about the console when it was briefly advertised on Reverb.com several months earlier. 

 

At this point ABD mobile purchased the desk outright and sight unseen after confirming almost all the EQs were present, the mic pre cards, transformers and amplifiers were original, and there was original documentation specific to this exact desk.  It was advertised by Duncan as "everything works!", but anyone who has owned or worked on a classic desk will know, this was not likely to be the case...

 

Sure enough several hundred hours of tech work were required to correct signal flow issues, sort undocumented modifications, clean switches and pots, repair solder bridges and broken solder joints, completely disassemble to clean and lube each fader (twice actually), rebuild the power cable which had been lengthened by splicing another cable onto it, and on and on the list goes...  All this was done in house, and now the desk is once again fully functioning, making records again and sounding better than ever.

 

So what's so special about a recording console you ask? 

 

Well, it comes down to the fact that there's a pretty small window in the history of electronically recorded sound when recording consoles were equipped for modern day multitrack recording but at the same time did not sacrifice quality of sound for the sake of added features that today can be redundant in the era of DAW based recording and mixing. 

 

As long as there's a microphone, you need a way to amplify the signal, maybe eq it or invert its polarity and send it to a recorder at a desired level.  When you have a lot of inputs, a console is very well suited to these tasks.  However, recording consoles of the 80's and 90's, in the search for more bells and whistles, increasingly cluttered and complicated the signal path putting more stuff between the artist and the listener.... (and if you've ever worked on a VR or SSL 9k, you might as well be sitting in front of a pizza oven).

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If you're a producer, a Sphere console offers the finished "sounds like a record" component that very few consoles will impart on a recording.  Microphones sound better, tracks stack in the mix and you walk away with a recording that oozes size, directness and musicality.

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If you're an engineer, you recognize the Sphere name as standing alongside a handful of classic desks whether its an 80 series, an old DeMedio or Bushnell API, an A-Range, or some very niche builds... Flickinger anyone?  The Eclipse A circuit path boarders on a straight wire with gain.  +/- 24v rails equate to huge headroom and it has a layout that is simple and direct to work on.  Its a fully discrete design with massive transformers made by the best in the business and designed specifically for the circuit.

 

The cost today to build a recording console to this standard would be unworkable.  Hence, why the handful of consoles from this era are so sought after.

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Over time, Sphere consoles became known for an unparalleled sonic excellence.  A Sphere console has a quality engineers and producers strive to impart on their recordings and a sound musicians love.  That sound is why the remaining Sphere consoles are still making records almost 50 years later.